Happy Feet, Healthy Body

Shake that groove thang. Bust a move. Twist and shout. Get jiggy with it. Walk like an Egyptian. It doesn't matter which dance gets you moving—the important thing is that you get moving. That's the whole point of National Dance Day, a grassroots movement that encourages Americans to get up and move. The big day is tomorrow: Saturday, July 31, and it's being recognized as a national holiday.

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), who has been an advocate for healthy lifestyle and is responsible for getting Congress to recognize the day, will speak about the importance of dance and physical education, and then will host her own flash mob on the National Mall in D.C. (Not familiar with flash mobs? Check out the 20,000-strong flash mob that invaded Michigan Avenue during Oprah's 24th season premiere.)

Although many programs, such as the Dizzy Feet Foundation and Angelina Ballerina, are focusing on getting children involved, there are plenty of ways for adults to get in on the action, too. Check out the So You Think You Can Dance blog or Examiner.com to find events (many of them offered free of charge) by city.

If there are no special events in your area or you're looking for other ideas, you can:

• Check out the phone book or your local community guide, or even do a Google search in your area for dance lessons for adults. Just make sure to confirm the class is for adults—you don't want to be surrounded by pint-size, pink-tutu-wearing princesses. If you find a class but you're still unsure whether you'll enjoy it, ask to watch a session before joining.

• Hit your local gym and take an aerobic-based dance class, such as cardio dance, Zumba, salsa aerobics or even pole dancing (our rookie diaries blogger gave this class a spin and loved it). Or, look into renting or buying a video or DVD version of one of these classes so you can do it at home.

• Head to a nightclub that offers free dance lessons—this is very popular in Latin and Country dance clubs. Generally an hour before the club gets really busy, teachers from nearby dance studios come and provide a free tutorial so that new patrons can keep up when the club gets crowded.

• Log on and learn to dance. Many online sites offer lessons for free. Check out LearntoDance.com or simply go to YouTube and search "dance lessons" for some great video demonstrations.

The beauty of dance is that it's a personal expression. Unless you're competing in a "So You Think You Can Dance" style competition, there is really no right way or wrong way to dance—no judge will be critiquing you for failing to point your toes or you won't lose points for not having beautiful lines. If you let yourself get wrapped up in the motions and the music, you'll get a good workout (a 150-pound woman can burn about 200 calories during a 30-minute modern dance class) and even have some fun. Now that's what I call happy feet!

Our Healthy Must-Have of the Week: Fruit Puree

During a recent trip to New Mexico to visit my parents, I was excited to discover that their apricot trees were packed with fruit. (They only produce larger amounts of fruit every few years, because it uses up so much of their energy). I enjoy fresh apricots—they're absolutely delicious picked right off the tree—but it was my mom's apricot puree that I was really looking forward to. The ingredients in her puree, or apricot sauce as we call it, are simply fresh apricots and lemon juice (to help keep the fruit fresh and colorful). The simplicity of this apricot puree is its greatest asset; you get true, potent apricot flavor in each bite. That's probably why it has been showing up in almost every one of my meals and snacks for the past couple weeks. My mom also sent my friend/business partner a few jars and she has been eating it daily, too.

No apricot trees in your backyard? No worries! You can puree almost any fruit (whether you grow it yourself, get it at a farmers market or buy it at a grocery store). All you have to do is cook it with a bit of water and a squeeze of lemon juice and then run it through a food mill (a gadget sold at home stores that squeezes the fruit through a fine mesh) or toss it in the blender. Or, if you don't want to make your own, consider buying 100-percent-fruit baby food. It might sound odd, but if you choose a brand that uses only fruit in their product, then you're actually buying pureed fruit. In fact, some of the baby food brands that offer frozen pureed fruit are especially delicious because their flash freezing process helps retain the fruit's flavor!

It's this flavor that makes it such a healthy choice—because it offers a sweetness and powerful fruity flavor, you can use it in place of sugar in some of your favorite foods. Yes, fruit and fruit puree have sugar in it, but it's naturally occurring, and this sugar usually comes with other healthful nutrients and fiber that are found in the fruit. Not to mention, fruit puree packs in a lot of flavor, so a little bit goes a long way. All you usually need is a tablespoon or two, depending on what you're using it for. A single tablespoon of most fruit purees contains around 10 calories (this varies slightly depending on what fruit you're using).

Here are my favorite ways to use fruit puree:

1. Spread 1 tablespoon onto toast or a peanut butter sandwich instead of jam.

2. Stir 2 tablespoons into nonfat plain yogurt.

3. Pour into popsicle molds and freeze for a fruity summertime treat.

4. Mix with vinegar and olive oil to make a fruit-infused salad dressing.

5. Spoon on top of salmon or chicken, along with any herbs and spices you like, before baking.

6. Serve as a sauce with lean red meat.

7. Stir ¼ cup (4 tablespoons) into oatmeal.

8. Baked into certain goodies to replace some of the fat and sugar. You'll have to experiment to see which recipes you'll be able to make this substitution; I've found it works well in banana bread, muffins, and brownies. A good guideline to start with is to use 3/4 as much puree as oil (if a recipe calls for a cup of oil, use 3/4 cup fruit puree instead) or 1/2 as much butter (if a recipe calls for 1/2 cup butter, use 1/4 cup fruit puree). If the batter or dough looks dry, add a bit more puree.You can also  cut the sugar by 1/4 (in some recipes, I've cut sugar by 1/2 with very good results).

Facebook Profile: Watermelon

Hometown: Originally from Southern Africa, I'm now grown all over the world, including 44 of the 50 states.

Birthday: I was first harvested about 5,000 years ago in Egypt.

Family Members: There are more than 1,200 varieties of me. And as a member of the gourd family, I'm also closely related to squash, zucchini, pumpkins and cucumbers.

Favorite Activities: Being enjoyed on my own, in smoothies, made into frozen pops, added to traditionally savory salads (an especially good combination is lettuce, watermelon, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, red onions, salt and pepper). I also love having my flesh scooped out with a watermelon baller and being enjoyed by eaters of all ages as part of a fruit salad.

Favorite Facts: Low in calories and fat, I'm a good source of lycopene (a powerful antioxidant), and I contain vitamins C, A, B6 and potassium. You can eat every part of me—obviously, the flesh and white seeds are edible, but even the rind can be pickled and the black (or mature) seeds can be roasted. And here's a fun piece of cocktail party trivia: The world record for watermelon seed-spitting is held by Jack Dietz of Chicago, who achieved a distance of 66 feet, 11 inches in March 1989.

Favorite quotation: "When one has tasted watermelon, he knows what the angels eat." —Mark Twain

The Rookie Diaries: Burn More Calories during Your Workouts

When you finally manage to take the time out of your crazy schedule to get to the gym, don't you want to make the most of those precious minutes? I thought I was doing just that with my three-mile, 40-minute run on the treadmill three times a week. And then I took ShedTread, a fitness class offered at The Sports Club/LA at Rockefeller Center in New York City with Julie Bobek (pictured at right). Julie, a private trainer/fitness instructor at the club, runs the popular class designed to help you crank up your burn on the most basic of gym cardio machines: the treadmill.

Julie's class revolves around interval training, so you are moving in ways that get your heart in and out of different cardio zones. "You want a workout that pushes your heart and other muscles in a way they don't expect. You harness and use more energy when you're mixing it up and forcing your body to adapt to different speeds, resistance and endurance." Here are the valuable lessons I learned from the hour-long class, and how you, too, can maximize the time you clock on that moving belt. If you can, take a similar class at your gym—it's harder to crack the whip for yourself, and having other members who are sweating and heaving along with you is the perfect combo of camaraderie and motivation.

1. Start slowly. Julie didn't have us running fast right out of the gate. Instead, we jogged slowly for a couple of minutes so that we could get our "tread-legs" and gradually bring up our heart rate. Kind of like having your morning coffee before you start sprinting out the door in the morning. My slow jog was a 4.3. (The girl next to me was slow jogging at 5, but as competitive as I am, I had to listen to my body and get through the class, so I stayed put.)

2. Find your comfortable jog. After 5 minutes or so, Julie told us to find our "comfortable jog." Don't be fooled by the word "comfortable"—this is not a synonym for "effortless." Julie says this pace should be faster and harder than your slow jog, but not so fast or hard that you're huffing and puffing and counting the seconds until you can get off the treadmill. For me, this was about 5 mph. I was pushing myself, but I was still able to have a conversation. (I know this, because Julie was asking us questions during this segment: "Tula, have you seen the movie Inception?" Me, in a nearly breathless response: "No."). Again, I peeked at the girls to my right and left, just to torture myself. Their "comfortable jogs" were well over a 6. I toggled my speed up to 5.3 in an effort to not be the tortoise to their hares. We ran at our comfortable jog pace for about 5 minutes.

3. Find your "recovery jog." Ah, yes! Recovery! (Little did I know this was the calm before the storm.) This is the pace where you're still jogging but you're doing it slowly enough that you bring your heart rate down and allow your body to "recover." Recover from what? I wondered, as I toggled my speed down to 4.4, where we stayed for a few minutes. Then I got the answer to my recovery question…

4. Perform sprint intervals. I knew it was coming. There was no way that a class called ShedTread wouldn't include sprint intervals. I wasn't wrong. "OK, we're going to do five sprint intervals starting now! Everybody toggle your speed up to where you're pushing yourself, and we'll stay there for a minute, then toggle back to your recovery!" Julie announced in an encouraging but firm tone. I toggled up to a 6.3 (which, I should note, was the comfortable jog for the girl to my right, who was now at a 7.5) and ran hard. Julie gave us a 10-second countdown just before the minute was up and had us go back to our recovery jog. Whew, I survived sprint number one. Julie had us do four more sprints in this fashion, which was really. Really. Hard. The kind of hard I hadn't felt since I ran track in junior high or was racing to Macy's last fall for their one-day mega sale. It was becoming evident to me why my current treadmill routine was not helping me lose weight; I wasn't really pushing myself! [Note: If you're a treadmill beginner, Julie recommends not doing more than two or three sprints at once (each followed by a minute of recovery).]

5. Play with incline. Once sprints were over, and we were back to a recovery jog, Julie gave us a few minutes to chill before she chirped "OK, everyone meet me at an incline of 5 at a brisk walk!" OK, I can do this, I thought. Walking briskly (I was at a 4) at an incline is hard, but I much prefer it to sprinting at an incline of 0. After a few minutes, Julie upped the ante. "Meet me at an incline of 7! Same pace!" I reluctantly followed orders. After another couple of minutes, I heard the words I prayed and hoped weren't going to come out of her mouth. "10! Meet me at an incline of 10! Keep your pace!" Reader, I cannot tell a lie, I cheated—I went up to an incline of 10, but I brought the pace down a bit to a 3.5. I was, thankfully, encouraged to do this by Julie, who pays close attention to everyone in class and could probably see I'd hit a wall. She told me to stay at that pace for the remainder of the incline portion, which lasted a few more minutes before she gradually brought us back down to a flat incline. (I was a little embarrassed, but I was more exhausted than embarrassed. Plus, because it was my first class, I was OK with going slower.)

6. Go "off ramp." Next, Julie had us pause our machines, wait until the belt stopped moving completely, then hop off to do…squats! Oh no! We did 10 squats with our feet apart, 10 together, and repeated the whole cycle again. Then back onto the treadmill at a steep incline and a brisk walk for another minute. Then off again for another series of squats, then back on. There was a method to her madness: Squats—along with all that incline work we were doing—builds your hamstrings and your glutes and balances the strong quads that running naturally works.

7. Go to the mat. After 45 minutes of serious treadmill work, Julie released us to the mat and had us do planks, crunches and bridges to work our core and, again, to focus on the hamstrings and glutes to ensure that those muscles were getting just as good a workout as the quads.

Class was over and I was exhausted, but also elated. I had that feeling you get of accomplishing something you didn't think you could, and I had a wonderful model from which to fashion my own, successive treadmill sessions. No more relaxing on the treadmill reading a magazine while I amble. From now on, I plan to work hard. That's why they call it a "workout!"

Our Healthy Must-Have of the Week: Peanut Butter

Although the popular saying goes 'as American as apple pie,' it could just as easily have been 'as American as peanut butter.' In fact, peanut butter is one of the most widely eaten foods in America, whether you're a kid enjoying a PB&J sandwich for lunch or an adult spreading it on a slice of whole grain toast with sliced banana and a drizzle of honey.

Of course, its creamy, nutty taste is a huge selling point, but perhaps even more appetizing is the fact that it offers loads of health benefits. For starters, peanuts contain heart-healthy monounsaturated fats—this is one reason why numerous studies have shown that diets rich in peanuts or peanut butter may protect against cardiovascular diseases. (Monounsaturated fats help lower LDL "bad" cholesterol when they replace saturated fats in the diet.) Peanut butter is also rich in other heart-protective vitamins and minerals like manganese, folate, niacin, and vitamin E. (Just be sure to choose one that is free of heart-harming trans fats or partially hydrogenated oils, such as Smart Balance.)

Plus, it's packed with protein—the combination of protein plus the healthy fat makes it super-satisfying, which can help curb hunger and lower your total calories for the day. And remember, a little goes a long way. Which brings me to the next important point: Portion control! Even though peanut butter is filling, it's easy to overdo it if you're not careful. Because peanut butter is comprised mostly of fat (even though it's the good kind), it has more calories. One tablespoon contains 95 calories and 8 grams of fat. To keep calories and fat in check, try to stick to no more than 1 tablespoon at a time.

Of the thousands of ways to use a tablespoon of peanut butter, here are my top 10:

1. Spread on top of a whole-grain waffle.

2. Mixed into a smoothie.

3. On whole-wheat bread with banana slices and a drizzle of honey

4. With sliced apple in a whole-wheat wrap.

5. Mixed into low-fat plain yogurt with a touch of honey for a creamy fruit dip.

6. Mixed with low-sodium soy sauce, lime juice, hot water, and chili paste to make a peanut butter dipping sauce or dressing for chicken, tofu or shrimp dishes.

7. Spread on celery sticks and topped with dried fruits, such as blueberries, cranberries, golden raisins, and purple raisins to create rainbow ants on a log.

8. Spread on a Granny Smith apple and sprinkled with cinnamon.

9. Melted and poured over low-fat vanilla ice cream topped with mini chocolate chips.

10. On whole-wheat crackers to create mini sandwiches.

In the Kitchen with Sidra: Healthy Frozen Treats

I love to cool down with a frozen treat on a hot summer day, but not all frozen desserts are created equal, especially when it comes to calories. And of course, stopping at the local ice cream shop or buying packaged frozen treats, whether you choose the healthful sorbets or the heavy cream-based ice creams, can easily lighten your wallet!

The fix for both problems: Make your own healthy frozen desserts. I do this all summer long, sometimes using pure frozen fruit and other times, creating more elaborate treats using yogurt, fat-free milk or even fat-free pudding. It's surprisingly simple to make your own frozen desserts. All you need:

• A blender. This is recommended, but not absolutely essential.

• A container to make popsicles. You can use a popsicle mold or even a paper cup. You'll also need a popsicle stick or you can use a chopstick.

• Ripe fruit. Fruit that's picked at its peak or left to ripen offers a more intense flavor and is sweeter than unripened fruit. Plus, the texture of ripe fruit makes it ideal for creating frozen fruit pops or for blending into a smoothie. In fact, sometimes the fruit alone can make a good popsicle.

This week, I made two different types of pops—a minty strawberry frozen yogurt pop and a blueberry frozen pop; the blueberries were a bit tart so I added a tiny bit of honey to make the popsicles a little sweeter. Feel fry to try either or both recipes, and let me know what you think!

Frozen Strawberry Mint Yogurt Pops
Makes 4 Servings

Prep time: 5 minutes
Total time: 3 hours, 5 minutes (including freezing time)

Ingredients
½ cup sliced fresh strawberries
1 cup non-fat plain yogurt
1 tablespoon fresh mint leaves
2 tablespoons honey

Directions
1. Combine all ingredients in a blender. Process until smooth, about 1 minute.

2. Pour mixture into 4 popsicle molds or paper cups. Place a popsicle stick or chopstick in the middle of each and freeze for 3 hours or until solid.

3. To serve, remove from molds or peel away the paper cup.

Nutritional Information
1 serving
Calories: 73
Protein: 4 g
Carbohydrate: 15 g
Dietary Fiber: 0.5 g
Sugars: 10 g
Total Fat: 0 g
Saturated Fat: 0 g
Cholesterol: 1  mg
Calcium: 129 mg
Sodium: 48 mg

Fruit Popsicles
Makes 4 servings
Prep time: 5 minutes
Total time: 3 hours, 5 minutes (including freezing time)

Ingredients
1 1/3 cups fresh fruit (I used blueberries, but any fruit will work)
2 tablespoons honey (optional; your fruit might be sweet enough without additional sweetener. If you do add, do so gradually.)

Directions
1. Combine all ingredients in a blender. Process until smooth, about 1 minute.

2. Pour the mixture into 4 popsicle molds or paper cups. Place a popsicle stick or chopstick in the middle of each and freeze for 3 hours or until solid.

3. To serve, remove from molds or peel away the paper cup.

Nutritional Information
1 serving
Calories: 59
Protein: 0 g
Carbohydrate: 16 g
Dietary Fiber: 1 g
Sugars: 13  g
Total Fat: 0 g
Saturated Fat: 0 g
Cholesterol: 0 mg
Calcium: 4 mg
Sodium: 1 mg

Our Healthy Must-Have of the Week: Cucumber-Lemon Water

If the thought of gulping down your recommended 48 ounces of water each day is as exciting a prospect as standing in line at the DMV, then I've got the perfect trick for you: Add cucumber and lemon to your water. I guarantee that you'll smile with every sip of this spa-worthy water infusion, which makes hitting your daily H20 goal a snap. Here's why you should give it a try:

You'll get a great return on your investment. It couldn't be simpler to make lemon-cucumber water (see the recipe below), yet the final product tastes so special you'd never guess. In other words, invest three minutes of time to prepare this beverage and then you (and your guests, if you're entertaining) will be rewarded with hours of tasty sipping. You can make it one glass (or water bottle) at a time, or whip up an entire pitcher.  

It does double duty. As you hydrate yourself with this delicious sip, take the opportunity to grab a quick mental break, too. Try to take a 10-minute breather two or three times a day to sip some water and just clear your head. (You can also use the water to hydrate before a workout, or rehydrate during or after a workout.)

It will impress friends. Having people over and want to serve something that makes guests feel special, is healthful, and doesn't add much time to your total prep work? Whip up a pitcher of cucumber-lemon water to serve to guests while they wait for food, during their meal, or as something to sip throughout the day. A pitcher of cucumber-lemon water takes a simple barbecue spread to the next level. It fits in just as well at a fancier dinner table, too. In fact, it offers a sophisticated option to guests who don't want to drink alcoholic beverages.

It offers lots of flavor for zero calories and sugar. For some people, it's difficult to stay motivated to drink plain water throughout the day. But unfortunately, many flavored waters available have added sweeteners (natural and artificial). Cucumber-lemon water is the perfect calorie-free and sweetener-free solution. Bottoms up!

Cucumber-Lemon Water

Ingredients
1 large pitcher of water (around 48 ounces)
1/4 organic cucumber, washed well and skin intact, cut into 1/8-inch-thick slices
1/2 organic lemon, washed well and skin intact, cut into 1/8-inch-thick slices

Directions
Put all ingredients together in a pitcher and let sit, either refrigerated or unrefrigerated, for at least 15 minutes. If you're not using the water right away, keep it refrigerated for up to 8 hours.

Facebook Profile: Wild Alaskan Salmon

Hometown: Alaska—they don't call me Wild Alaskan Salmon for nothing!

Birthday: The first Alaskan salmon cannery (or processing plant) opened in 1878 and has been a significant industry and part of the economy in Alaska ever since. (Alaska seriously regulates the salmon industry to protect the species.)

Family Members: I'm actually related to trout, chars and fresh-water whitefishes.

Bio: There are five different species of wild Alaskan salmon: Chinook (or King), Chum (or Keta), Coho (or Silver), Pink (or Humpy), and Sockeye (or Red). Although we salmon spend most of our lives at sea, we return to our birthplace of fresh water to lay our eggs. This trip can sometimes be hundreds of miles and often requires us to swim against the current. After our eggs hatch and the young salmon fully develop—which can take anywhere from days to over a year—they swim downstream to open waters. It's a mystery how we are able to find our way back to the exact spot where we were born when we're ready to reproduce.

Fans: Anyone looking to increase their intake of omega-3 fatty acids, including people with depression or mood disorders and those with heart disease. That's because I'm one of the best sources of this mood-boosting, heart-protective fat. I'm also popular with those watching their weight because I;m low in calories and saturated fat, and high in protein. And people who typically don't like other varieties of fish often like me because I don't have a strong fishy taste and I have a pleasant meaty texture.

Favorite Activities: Keeping it simple. I taste great without a lot of effort or extras. Try brushing me with a little olive oil and grilling, pan roasting or broiling me. Take care not to overcook me to preserve my delicate texture and flavor. I pair will with many summer vegetables including, corn, tomatoes and summer squashes.

Favorite Facts: Wild salmon gets its pink/orange color from the krill they eat. (Farmed salmon gets its pink hue from pigment added to their diet.)

Favorite Quotation: "When you feel neglected, think of the female salmon, who lays 3,000,000 eggs but no one remembers her on Mother's Day." —Sam Ewing, Humorist

The Rookie Diaries: Healthy Eating According to the USDA’s Plan

Remember the math portion of the SAT? Recall how stumped you were with the harder questions toward the end, the ones that asked whether the perimeter of the parallelogram multiplied by a negative integer is greater than the sum of Tom's bottle cap collection if his collection was worth half of Mary's? Well, that was easier than figuring out the servings of the MyPyramid food pyramid, the government's eating plan. I know, because I spent a day eating according to the recommendations, and my head nearly exploded trying to figure out their measurement system.

The easiest part is getting your personalized plan by plugging in your stats (height, weight, age, activity level). Click "submit" and up comes a colorful, deceptively simple-looking chart with your personalized quotas. For a 2,000-calorie plan (more than I usually eat, but what the program recommended based on my stats), my targets are:

6 ounces of grains (half of which should be whole grains)
2.5 cups of veggies
3 cups of fruit
3 cups of milk
5.5 ounces of meat or beans
6 teaspoons of oil
No more than 265 "discretionary" calories (fat, sugar)

Seems pretty easy, right? The tricky part comes in trying to match real-world measurements (cups, slices, patties) to the USDA's odd-ball standards of cups and ounces (and even more confusing, 'ounce equivalents'), which don't always equal the amounts of the cups and ounces you use in your own kitchen. For instance, the 2 cups of greens I had for lunch count as 1 cup of veggies in food pyramid-speak. And in trying to meet my 6-ounce grain quota, I learned you need a Ph.D. to figure it all out. The government uses 'ounce equivalent' measurements for grains, which rarely has anything to do with the total weight of the serving of food—rather, it refers to the carbohydrate makeup of said food. So according to the USDA, an ounce equivalent of rice is ½ cup cooked, which is actually 3 ounces of rice if you were to put it on a food scale. Have I lost you yet? (Full disclosure: The Best Life's lead nutritionist, Janis Jibrin, had to help me understand all this!)

And now for the discretionary calories, which seem pretty straight-forward—I get 265 calories to spend on whatever treats my heart desires, right? Not so! In fact, if you had Frosted Flakes for breakfast, the 'frosted' part would use up some of your discretionary calories, while the flakes would count as part of your grains (good luck figuring that out unless you have a nutritionist on call!) Ditto for full-fat cheese: A slice contains about 115 calories; about 50 of those—from the fat—would go toward discretionary calories; the remaining 65 calories would go toward your milk servings. Leave it to the government to take something as simple and basic as feeding ourselves and turn it into a complicated equation.

So, how hard was it to actually consume my recommendations? Once I brushed up on my algebra, not very. Here's what my day looked like (with equivalent MyPyramid measurements in parentheses):

Breakfast
1 cup whole-grain cereal (1 oz grain serving) with ½ cup fat-free milk (1/2 cup milk serving) and ¼ cup blueberries (1/4 cup fruit serving); coffee with ¼ cup fat-free milk (1/4 cup milk serving)

Snack
1 peach (1 cup fruit serving)

Lunch
2 cups salad greens (1 cup veggie serving) topped with ¼ cup cherry tomatoes (1/4 cup fruit serving), ½ cucumber (1/2 cup veggie serving), ½ cup carrots (1/2 cup veggie serving); 1 small can tuna (3 oz meat/beans servings), 2 tsp oil (2 tsp of my 6 oil servings), 2 tsp vinegar.

Snack
1 oz low-fat string cheese (3/4 cup dairy serving and roughly 10 calories from my discretionary calorie allotment); 1 cup baked chips (1 oz grains serving); 2 tbsp hummus (1 oz meat/beans serving and 1 tsp of my 6 oil servings); coffee with ½ cup fat-free milk (1/2 cup milk serving)

I took a tally before dinner to see how I was doing. I was pretty short on grains, halfway on dairy and about ¾ of my way there on veggies, fruit and meat. So my dinner would need to be heavy on carbs and dairy—not a problem, bring on the pasta!—but still include some veggies and fruits and a little meat and/or beans.

Dinner
1.5 cups whole-grain pasta (3 oz grain serving); pesto made with 1 oz pumpkin seeds (2 meat/beans serving and about 3 tsp of my 6 oil servings), 1.5 oz Parmesan (1 cup milk serving and about 50 of my discretionary calories), 4 tsp olive oil (I'd already used all of my 6 oil servings, so the 180 calories in 4 tsp of oil would have to come from my discretionary calories), ½ cup basil; 1 cup steamed broccoli (1 cup veggie serving) with 1 tsp olive oil (again, the 45 calories in the 1 tsp olive oil would come from discretionary calories) 1 tsp lemon juice; 1 cup OJ (1 fruit serving) mixed with 1 cup seltzer; 1 glass wine (127 calories for five ounces—which puts my total discretionary calories at 412, about 150 more than I was allotted; hence my not-so-sweet dessert below)

Dessert
1.5 cups popcorn (1/2 oz grain serving); ½ cup carrots (1/2 cup veggie serving—I know, not a great dessert, but I was short ½ cup veggies); ½ cup baked chips (1/2 oz grain serving).

So, eating according to the government guidelines isn't difficult in terms of meeting the general criteria—it's your basic healthy diet with sane portions and a bit of sweets thrown in. What's tough is the math and learning what they consider to be a serving. But frankly, if you follow the general rules of eating lots of fruits and veggies and moderate amounts of low-fat dairy and lean protein, and getting a whole grain in at each meal (if you're a member of the Best Life plan, then this should all sound pretty familiar), you're golden. No need to get micro or mathematical, in my opinion. Though you can if you want…you can even follow MyPramid on Twitter!

Our Healthy Must-Have of the Week: Corn on the cob

Nothing screams summer more than a fresh, sweet ear of corn. And while you can technically eat it year-round, it's the locally grown varieties that are available in the summer months the make my taste buds swoon.

I've often heard people say that corn is simply "empty calories," too high in carbs or not very nutritious. Fortunately, none of this is true! Corn actually has quite a few things to brag about when it comes to nutrition. For starters, it's considered a whole grain. So for those of you trying to eat more whole grains, enjoying a delicious piece of corn on the cob at your next barbecue will help you fulfill that goal in a tasty way. Just one cup of corn (1 medium ear of corn is equal to about 3/4 cup kernels) supplies almost 20 percent of your daily fiber needs (5 grams). Fiber is important for healthy digestion as well as helping you feel more satisfied and full, which can keep calories in check. Corn is also packed with important B vitamins, like thiamin and folate, and is a good source of potassium and magnesium.   

Corn's Place on Your Plate
Though corn is a vegetable, it's a starchy one like potatoes and peas, which means that it contains more carbohydrates than non-starchy veggies like broccoli, peppers, spinach, etc. It also contains more calories—about 130 per cup versus around 50 per cup for non-starchy veggies. For these reasons, when you include corn as part of your meal, it should fill the role of a starch, not a veggie. So you could have corn in place of rice, potato, bread, or pasta.

Another wonderful quality of corn on the cob is that its sweetness and crunchy texture allows it to be delicious all on its own, which means you don't need additional calories or fat to enjoy it. But, if you want to add even more flavor, you can season it with fresh herbs and spices, like Cajun seasoning and olive oil or black pepper and Parmesan. And if you must use butter, be conscious of portion size (stick to one to two teaspoons at most) or choose a trans-fat-free margarine spread, such as Bestlife Buttery Spread. Or try the Bestlife Buttery Spray—five sprays contains no calories!

How-To Tips
When buying corn, look for bright green husks (the outer green covering) that fit snugly around the ear of corn. The kernels should be plump and in tight rows right to the tip of the ear of corn. If you stick your fingernail in one, a white milky substance should come out. Corn should be stored in a cool shady place, so choose corn that's in a cooler section of the supermarket (i.e. not plopped next to the rotisserie chicken or bakery). Or, if buying from a farmers market, look for corn in bins in the shade.  

Corn can be cooked in a number of ways. My favorite: Throwing it on the grill. While there are many methods that work well, I've found this one to be easy and yield delicious corn every time: Simply pull back the husk enough to remove the corn silk (the hair-like strands between the corn and the husk) and then re-cover the corn with the husk and dunk in a bath of water to thoroughly soak the entire ear. Place corn, husk and all, directly on a grill over medium heat and cook covered for about 30 minutes. Enjoy!