Figuring out serving size the easy way...with your own hands!

As a weight loss specialist, I've identified many reasons why my patients aren't losing weight. One of the most common issues I've seen is underestimating serving size.

The serving size is so important because it helps you determine how many calories you are consuming.

It's important to read nutritional labels and determine calories based on serving size.Often people assume the calories reported in a label are for the entire package/meal/drink, but the calories reported are based on serving size....so be careful!

At home, it's easy to figure out serving sizes as you can just use your measuring cups/spoons.

Outside the home it can be tough so here's some easy tips to figure it out...just use your hand! 

These tips are based on an average women's hand size. To be precise you can measure out portions with a measuring cup/spoon and compare it with your own hand!

Palm (excluding fingers and thumb) = 3 ounces of meat

Fist = 1 cup

Thumb = 1 tablespoon

Thumb tip = 1 teaspoon

This actually works very well with my hand, and you should try it out too!

I hope this information helps make it easier on your healthy journey!

Please feel free to ask any questions & ask/follow me on Twitter @Doctor_Deena or Instagram at live.laugh.love.be_healthy!

**PLEASE REMEMBER IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS ABOUT YOUR HEALTH AND/OR BEFORE STARTING OR STOPPING ANY TREATMENT OR ACTING UPON INFORMATION CONTAINED ON THE SITE, YOU SHOULD CONTACT YOUR OWN PHYSICIAN OR HEALTH-CARE PROVIDER*

Be smart and true when it comes to your athletic performance and say no to doping!

Tennis is one of my favorite sports to play and watch.
I was so sad to hear that Maria Sharapova admitted to doping. She was definitely one of my favorite tennis players and a role model to so many people. 

Many people wonder what doping is...so I thought I would break it down for you.

Doping is when an athlete uses a certain drug/substance to boost their performance/activity level. Think of it as a product that provides an energy rush or high.
There are many forms of doping, but I will specifically talk about blood doping today since Sharapova used a medication that works by way of enhancing muscle performance by way of red blood cells.

Sharapova was using a drug called Meldonium. Meldonium helps to increase blood flow to muscles which improves exercise capacity.

Blood doping involves increasing the number of red blood cells in your body. Red blood cells are important in carrying oxygen. The more red blood cells that you have the more oxygen your body can deliver to muscles. 
When you exercise your muscles need oxygen for energy.

The more oxygen that can be delivered to your muscles during strenuous exercise, the less likely the muscles get tired. Blood doping helps to improve oxygenation to muscles so that your muscles are ready to win tournaments (literally).

Other blood doping agents include:
-Eythropoetin (aka EPO)
EPO is actually a hormone made by the kidney that stimulates red blood cell production. This drug causes an increase in red blood cells. The more red blood cells you have, the more oxygen your muscles can receive.

-Synthetic oxygen carriers
These are very creative chemicals that were made to carry oxygen. They were created for emergency situations -- mainly to deliver oxygen to patients who are having a massive bleed and human blood is not available. Its meant to hold patients over until a human blood transfusion is available.

-Blood transfusions
This involves receiving a large amount of blood into the veins to help increase one's red blood cell count.

There are serious side effects to doping agents which include:
-Blood clots anywhere in the body
-Heart problems (like a heart attack)
-Strokes (blood clots in the brain)

I hope this information helps you understand why some athletes do the things they do....sadly.
Please feel free to ask any questions & ask/follow me on Twitter @Doctor_Deena or Instagram at live.laugh.love.be_healthy!


**PLEASE REMEMBER IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS ABOUT YOUR HEALTH AND/OR BEFORE STARTING OR STOPPING ANY TREATMENT OR ACTING UPON INFORMATION CONTAINED ON THE SITE, YOU SHOULD CONTACT YOUR OWN PHYSICIAN OR HEALTH-CARE PROVIDER*

Everything you need to know about the HCG Diet

I was recently interviewed by SELF on the HCG diet.

Check out my interview below:
http://www.self.com/trending/2016/03/laura-prepon-once-injected-herself-with-hormones-to-try-and-lose-weight-heres-why-thats-dangerous/

Special thanks to Haley Goldberg for covering such an important topic & a great interview! 

In a nutshell...here's everything you need to know about this HCG diet:

1. HCG is Human Chorionic Gonadotropin aka the "pregnancy hormone"

2. The HCG diet includes receiving HCG injections plus following a very low calorie diet

3. HCG injections alone for weight loss are NOT effective. In fact the FDA has banned HCG to be taken for weight loss because it does not work and the side effects can be fatal!

4. The HCG diet only works because it involves a calorie restriction of 500-1000 calories daily. Most normal people will lose weight with just this calorie restriction alone!

5. The HCG diet is unsafe, and should be avoided especially in those with heart disease (as it has been associated with worsening heart failure) 

6. Other side effects of HCG include blood clots and in some cases ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (abdominal pain, fluid in the abdomen, nausea, vomiting, etc.)

7. Please consult with your doctor before considering the HCG diet!

8. These extremely low calorie diets never have lasting results on weight loss. 

9. The best way to lose weight is to exercise and diet in a healthy way (talk to your doctor or dietitian about the amount of calories that you need to lose weight!)

I hope this information helps all of you. Don't follow fads, and be as healthy and balanced with your diet as you can be!

Please feel free to ask any questions & ask/follow me on Twitter @Doctor_Deena or Instagram at live.laugh.love.be_healthy!


**PLEASE REMEMBER IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS ABOUT YOUR HEALTH AND/OR BEFORE STARTING OR STOPPING ANY TREATMENT OR ACTING UPON INFORMATION CONTAINED ON THE SITE, YOU SHOULD CONTACT YOUR OWN PHYSICIAN OR HEALTH-CARE PROVIDER*

Nutrition information on wild caught versus farm-raised salmon...is it worth it?

Yesterday I blogged on why farm-raised and wild salmon might look different. Today I'll answer a 2nd question about the other differences between these 2 types of salmon.

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Hi Dr. Deena. 

Thanks for your post and healthy eating and cooking tips on Instgram. Can you clarify the difference between wild and farm raised salmon? Is there a difference between levels of fats and healthy omega 3? 


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Another great question, though somewhat more controversial than the first...but I will try my best to answer.

The differences between wild and farm-raised salmon is dependent on its environment:
-what it eats 
-what's in its environment (pollution, hormones, medications (like antibiotics), etc.)
-the water supply in which they live

I mentioned that wild salmon eat krill (small crustaceans), plankton, shrimp, etc. 

Farm-raised salmon eat whatever is fed to them which usually consists of fish meal (ground and dried up smaller fish like anchovies, herring, sardines, and mackerel), fish oils from these smaller fish and plant proteins.
The FDA has tight restrictions on what farm-raised salmon can and cannot be fed. 

Here's an interesting fact -- it takes 4.5 kg of prey to make 0.45 kg of wild salmon; but it takes 1 kg of prey to make 1 kg of farm-raised salmon. Farm-raised salmon require less feed because they aren't burning as many calories as wild salmon--who are working hard to stay alive! Since the farm-raised salmon aren't as active, they end up being slightly more fatty than wild salmon. Therefore; farm-raised salmon have a slightly higher concentration of saturated fats than wild salmon.

When it comes to hormones in farm-raised salmon -- don't be fooled by labels that say "hormone-free". All salmon should be hormone-free because it is illegal to use growth hormones in salmon as per the FDA!

Salmon are occasionally given antibiotics on farms, thus there is a potential to be eating salmon that was treated with antibiotics. Again the FDA regulates antibiotic use in salmon, but to be safe look for labels that say "antibiotic-free." 

Both wild and farm-raised salmon live in water that can be contaminated by pollution or chemicals like mercury or polychlorinated (PCBs).
Some research suggests that these chemicals and contaminants are higher in farm-raised salmon versus wild salmon in the USA; however, they are higher in only trace amounts (very small) and may not be clinically significant overall.

Keep in mind that ocean water is not 100% free of chemicals either because ultimately the human race has tainted this too...and different parts of the ocean have different amounts of chemicals/contaminants!

It seems that salmon farms have to meet very tight regulations to ensure that the water and feed is as clean and pure as possible, so that the salmon can develop in a healthy environment.

Studies vary when it comes to omega-3-fatty acids, but majority show that farm-raised salmon have more omega-3-fatty acids than wild salmon. Farmers ensure that the farm-raised salmon eat enough oils (mainly provided from its fish meal).

Hope this gives you a good understanding of why each salmon type is so different.

My take: 

• Eat wild salmon when you can and choose Pacific salmon when available. Pacific salmon are mostly wild though some small farms exist.
• Pacific salmon includes the following types: Chinook, Sockeye,Coho,Chum
• Avoid Atlantic salmon if you are looking for wild salmon, since these will mostly be farmed
• Be careful when choosing salmon since not all "wild" salmon are really wild: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/29/science/though-labeled-wild-that-serving-of-salmon-may-be-farmed-or-faux.html
• I have even heard of people dying the salmon fillets to make it look more red and "wild-like".  Its very,very difficult to tell the difference with wild versus farm raised simply by color, fat, etc. esp. because there are so many varieties out there! Just be smart when you can.
• If you are lucky and live in an area with salmon farms - get to know and visit the local farms to see how the salmon pens appear & if the fish look healthy

I hope this information helps! 

Please feel free to ask any questions ask/follow me on Twitter @Doctor_Deena or Instagram at live.laugh.love.be_healthy!

**PLEASE REMEMBER IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS ABOUT YOUR HEALTH AND/OR BEFORE STARTING OR STOPPING ANY TREATMENT OR ACTING UPON INFORMATION CONTAINED ON THE SITE, YOU SHOULD CONTACT YOUR OWN PHYSICIAN OR HEALTH-CARE PROVIDER*

Why the salmon you buy can look different -- wild caught versus farm-raised salmon

The next 2 interesting questions and answers on salmon come from my dearest friend, Mina, and I will answer this in 2 parts:

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Hi Dr. Deena. 

Thanks for your post and healthy eating and cooking tips. I enjoyed the recent recipe on salmon that you posted on Instagram. I was wondering why there is a difference between the color and appearance of wild and farm raised salmon?

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Thanks for the excellent question, Meens! 

Firstly - its important to understand the life cycle of wild salmon..which is pretty amazing! I learned a lot about this when visiting the salmon hatcheries in Alaska. Salmon are so strong and resilient -- in their lifetime some have traveled thousands of miles to complete their life cycle!!

The life of a wild salmon is a tough one -- most are born in fresh water and swim their way to the ocean where they mature. Only 2% of salmon hatched will live to adulthood! The mature salmon spend 1-8 years in the ocean. Those not eaten in the ocean by predators will then migrate upstream (imagine how tiring that is!) back to the SAME exact body of fresh water where they were born to spawn (lay eggs)...only for the majority to die a few weeks later.

I tell this story for a few reasons:

1. It explains why wild salmon are so rare in the supermarkets -- there aren't enough resilient wild salmon out there to meet the hungry needs of our world population which is why salmon farms came to exist

2. It explains why both types of salmon look different: 
wild salmon burn excess calories and are leaner than farm-raised salmon which is why their fat lines (the white stripes you see in the meat) are very thin. In farm-raised salmon the white stripes are thick.

3. Certain species of wild salmon have flesh that is bright red due its natural astaxanthin content. Astaxanthin is a type of carotenoid (an organic pigment) that comes from what wild salmon eat in the ocean: krill, plankton, shrimp, etc. Astaxanthin has anti-oxidant-like properties.

4. Wild salmon meat is also likely to be brighter due to its increased blood supply and need for more oxygen to sustain its energy demands during adulthood

See image below for demonstration of fat lines and color differences between farm-raised and wild salmon:

5. Its also important to realize that there are many different species of salmon - which is another reason they all look different. Most farmed salmon are Atlantic salmon. Most wild salmon are Pacific salmon. White king salmon is rare but the steaks are pure white. Check out the variety of color in salmon below:

I hope this information helps! Tomorrow I will discuss more on the differences between both types of salmon!

Please feel free to ask any questions ask/follow me on Twitter @Doctor_Deena or Instagram at live.laugh.love.be_healthy!

**PLEASE REMEMBER IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS ABOUT YOUR HEALTH AND/OR BEFORE STARTING OR STOPPING ANY TREATMENT OR ACTING UPON INFORMATION CONTAINED ON THE SITE, YOU SHOULD CONTACT YOUR OWN PHYSICIAN OR HEALTH-CARE PROVIDER*