Personal Care Plans Tied to Better Follow-Up in Breast Cancer Survivors

FRIDAY, Jan. 15, 2016 (HealthDay News) — For low-income breast cancer survivors, personalized care plans may lead to better health outcomes, a new study finds.

Follow-up care for cancer survivors includes managing the long-term side effects of treatment and monitoring for tumor recurrence, among other things. An individualized care plan can help breast cancer survivors follow those recommendations, the researchers said.

The study included 212 low-income breast cancer survivors. The women were randomly assigned to receive either usual care or a personalized care plan.

The women in the personalized care group were given a treatment summary, an individual continued-care plan, a list of patient support groups and other resources. In addition, they also attended a counseling session to learn how to get their doctors to implement their care plan.

After 12 months, 61 percent of the women in the personalized care group had followed survivor care recommendations, compared with 51 percent of those in the usual care group, the study showed.

The findings were to be presented Friday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in San Francisco. Findings from meetings are generally viewed as preliminary until they’ve been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

“Low-income women tend to have less access to high-quality health care, along with unique needs and concerns,” study author Dr. Rose Maly, an associate professor of family medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in an ASCO news release.

“This personalized intervention would be of greatest benefit to this vulnerable group, and it could be adapted for use with other types of cancer,” she added.

The Institute of Medicine recommends that all cancer survivors receive an individualized treatment summary and survivorship care plan, but this isn’t done for all patients, according to the news release.

ASCO spokesperson Dr. Merry-Jennifer Markham said that it’s important to come up with new ways to deal with this gap in care.

“Cancer care does not end when treatment stops. Survivorship care plans are an important tool for keeping patients healthy in the long run, in terms of screening for second cancers and long-term side effects. Low-income patients face unique challenges in accessing this care,” Markham said in the news release.

“This study is an important step forward, demonstrating that personalized care plans in conjunction with one-on-one counseling on survivorship care planning can make a real difference for patients,” Markham said.

More information

The Breast Cancer Survivors Foundation offers resources for breast cancer survivors.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1J7iJ6A

Marijuana May Help Treat, Prevent Migraines, Study Says

FRIDAY, Jan. 15, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Marijuana may give relief to migraine sufferers, a new study suggests.

The research included 121 people diagnosed with migraines and treated with medical marijuana between January 2010 and September 2014. Overall, the patients’ number of migraines fell from just over 10 to less than five per month, which is statistically and clinically significant, the researchers said.

“There was a substantial improvement for patients in their ability to function and feel better,” senior author Laura Borgelt, a professor in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, said in a university news release.

“Like any drug, marijuana has potential benefits and potential risks. It’s important for people to be aware that using medical marijuana can also have adverse effects,” she added.

While the results were “quite remarkable,” much more research is needed, Borgelt said. But given current federal laws, designing a randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial is not likely to happen, she said.

Patients in the study used both inhaled marijuana and edible marijuana. The researchers said inhaled marijuana seemed to be preferred for treating current headaches, and edibles seemed to be favored for headache prevention.

Just over 100 study patients said they had a decrease in their monthly migraines. Fifteen people said they had the same number of migraines, and three reported an increase in headaches, the findings showed.

“If patients are considering medical marijuana they should speak to their health care provider and then follow up so we can track the impact of their overall treatment,” Borgelt said. “Open communication is necessary because we need to know how all of these treatments work together.”

It’s not clear exactly how marijuana might help headaches. Marijuana contains chemicals called cannabinoids, and cannabinoid receptors are located throughout the body, including the brain. Cannabinoids may also affect neurotransmitters, such as serotonin. Neurotransmitters are brain chemicals that help the brain and body communicate.

“We believe serotonin plays a role in migraine headaches, but we are still working to discover the exact role of cannabinoids in this condition,” Borgelt said.

The study was published online recently in the journal Pharmacotherapy.

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about migraines.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1J7iKrp

CDC May Advise Pregnant Women to Avoid Brazil

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, Jan. 15, 2016 (HealthDay News) — A rash of birth defects in Brazil, likely linked to the mosquito-borne Zika virus, has the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention poised to issue a travel warning for pregnant women.

In Brazil last year, thousands of babies were born with microcephaly, a brain disorder experts associate with Zika exposure. Babies with the condition have abnormally small heads, resulting in developmental issues and in some cases death.

A CDC travel advisory was expected Friday. But it wasn’t known if it would include Latin American and Caribbean countries other than Brazil where mosquitoes can also transmit the virus.

“”We now have an accumulating number of cases in babies from miscarriage or who were born with microcephaly with evidence of Zika,” Dr. Lyle Petersen, director of vector-borne diseases at the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, told CNN.

Dr. Marc Siegel, an associate professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City, thinks a travel warning is wise, but said people shouldn’t assume they will get infected if they visit Brazil.

“It’s extremely rare, but it’s not impossible for a pregnant woman to get Zika on a trip to Brazil,” he said.

At least 14 cases of Zika have appeared in the United States in people who traveled out of the country, according to news reports. The CDC is testing specimens from other returning travelers, so that number might increase.

The CDC does not, however, expect major outbreaks of Zika in the United States. Outbreaks of other mosquito-borne diseases in the United States “suggest that Zika outbreaks in the U.S. mainland may be likely limited in size,” Petersen said, according to CNN.

Siegel, however, is more pessimistic. When people bring the virus into the country and are then bitten by a mosquito, then the mosquito is infected and can infect other people it bites, he said. “I think that’s extremely likely,” he added.

In late November, Brazil warned women not to get pregnant after a surge in microcephaly was linked to the virus.

More than 2,400 cases of microcephaly were seen in 20 Brazilian states in 2015, compared with only 147 in 2014, news agencies reported. Petersen told CNN the number has since risen to 3,700.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) is reportedly conducting research to determine how Zika affects fetuses. Brazilian health officials think the greatest risk of microcephaly and malformations happens during the first trimester of pregnancy.

The Zika virus is spread by the Aedes mosquito — the same one that carries other diseases that infect humans, including yellow fever, West Nile, chikungunya and dengue.

The virus causes relatively mild symptoms — fever, headache, skin rash, red eyes and muscle aches, according to the CDC. Symptoms usually clear within a few days. There is no vaccine or specific drug to treat this virus.

Besides South America, Zika virus has been found in Puerto Rico, Africa and Southeast Asia.

More information

For more information on Zika virus, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1J7iKrl

How to Stop a Nosebleed Fast

Photo: Getty Images

Getting a nosebleed (or even just blowing your nose and finding blood) can be scary, embarrassing, and a little gross. But the truth is, this unfortunate body phenomenon is common during the winter time, and (thankfully) it is rarely a sign of something serious.

Nosebleed can be caused by a number of different things, explains Joseph K. Han, MD, the director of Divisions of Rhinology and Endoscopic Sinus-Skull Base Surgery and Allergy at Eastern Virginia Medical School.

The most common is dryness in your mucosa, the lining inside your nose. “The mucosa, especially your septum is full of blood vessels and what prevents it from bleeding is that you have liquid kind of keeping it moist,” Dr. Han says. “What happens is if you have a lot of dry air all that moisture evaporates and dries out, and then you can get bleeding.”

RELATED: 20 Habits That Make You Miserable Every Winter

Other common causes include scratching the same part of skin over and over (aka picking your nose; this is often a problem for children) and prolonged, daily use of nasal spray, which can cause erosion of the mucosa. (This becomes a problem if you’re using Afrin or another nasal spray on a daily basis to help your allergies. But it’s fine to use these sprays for short-term symptoms of the common cold or a sinus infection.)

The best advice for stopping a nosebleed

Dr. Han says that the best way to stop a nosebleed is to prevent it by keeping the lining of your nose hydrated as the air gets drier during the winter months. He recommends using a humidifier in your home and a nasal moisturizer, like Ayr Saline Nasal Gel ($3; amazon.com) to soothe dry skin around the nose.

And if a nosebleed comes on, don’t panic. These are much more common in the colder winter months when there is lower humidity in the air.

Dr. Han recommends pinching the bridge of your nose right below the bone when a bleed comes on. “That’s where most of the blood flow is at so that’s one way to stop it,” he says.

You should also sit and lean your head slightly forward, using a tissue to catch the blood. Leaning your head back can cause the blood to drain down your throat, causing upset stomach.

Dr. Han also recommends using over the counter nasal spray with oxymetazoline, like Afrin ($6; amazon.com), to put a halt to the blood flow. As mentioned earlier, overusing Afrin or other nasal sprays can bring on nosebleeds, but when you’re actively bleeding they can help because the oxymetazoline works to constrict the blood vessels, he explains.

RELATED: How to Treat 8 Common Injuries at Home

Are nosebleeds ever a sign of something serious?

“The most common cause of nose bleeds is bleeding from the blood vessels in the front part of the nose, which will lead to a small trickle of blood,” Dr. Han says. But if you are experiencing a larger blood flow, your nosebleed could be more serious.

Some common causes of heavy nosebleeds include a nasal fracture (usually from falling or getting hit in the face), tumors or bleeding disorders. People with high blood pressure may also experience a heavier flow if they get a nosebleed.

If pinching your nose and applying an over-the-counter spray does little to squelch your nosebleed after 15 or 20 minutes, Dr. Han says you should head to the local urgent care or emergency room. A doctor will need to examine your nose to determine the cause and possibly prescribe treatment, like medications (especially if you have high blood pressure or another health condition that’s causing the bleed), repairing the nasal fracture, or cauterization to seal the bleeding vessel.

 

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1ZBi6cQ

Some Young Women Aren’t Counseled About Birth Control When They Really Need It: Study

Photo: Getty Images

Medications that can cause birth defects are collectively called teratogens, and new research shows that when young women are prescribed these drugs, they are often not counseled about the potential need for birth control to avoid a risky pregnancy.

In the new study, published in the journal Pediatrics, researchers looked at a group of girls and young women from ages 14 to 25 who visited a large Midwestern academic pediatric medical center between 2008–2012. The researchers wanted to find out how often the women were prescribed medications that carry known risks for birth defects if taken while pregnant. They didn’t look at whether providers spoke with the women about the teratogenic risk of the medication; rather, they wanted to know whether the young women who were prescribed these drugs had conversations with their providers about lowering their risk for getting pregnant, including counseling on choosing birth control or getting a prescription for contraception.

Out of 4,172 clinic visits during the study period, the researchers found nearly 1,700 young women received 4,506 prescriptions for teratogenic medications. However, contraceptive counseling happened less than 30% of the time.

Overall, the medical specialities most likely to prescribe these medications to adolescents were neurology, hematology-oncology, and dermatology. The drugs most commonly prescribed were topiramate (used for seizures and migraines), methotrexate (used for severe psoriasis, severe active rheumatoid arthritis and some cancers), diazepam (used for anxiety, muscle spasms, and seizures), isotretinoin (used for severe acne), and enalapril (used for high blood pressure and heart problems).

The researchers looked for documentation that the young women prescribed these drugs had a conversation with a clinician about the need for birth control, as well as whether they were prescribed a prescription or if they were referred to someone else for that conversation. The researchers found that the number of times such interactions were happening was “alarmingly low.” They argue that their findings, paired with prior research, together suggest that young women who are prescribed known teratogens are no more likely to get birth control counseling than women prescribed medications with a low or no birth defect risk.

Even when young women’s records indicated that they were counseled on birth defect risks associated with teratogens, few reported using contraceptives. Among the young women who were prescribed a teratogen but who were counseled on birth defect risks, the researchers report that only 11% received or were currently using some prescribed method of contraception. “It is safe to assume that this is a more systemic issue,” says study author Stephani Stancil, a nurse practitioner at Children’s Mercy Kansas City. “Our study raises awareness that this issue is mirrored in the adolescent population, and we hope to spur intervention to improve the reproductive health care in these vulnerable teens.”

The study has limitations, including the fact that determining whether these conversations happened relied on whether clinicians physically documented them in their electronic medical records. It is possible that physicians and the young women had conversations that were not recorded in the system.

A possible solution, says Stancil, is focusing on prevention. “One example would be normalizing conversations regarding the sexual health of adolescents, including risk reduction, as part of the health care visit,” she says.

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1QbmU2I

Nerve Damage From Chemo May Affect Cancer Survivors for Years

FRIDAY, Jan. 15, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Many women who survive cancer have symptoms of chemotherapy-related nerve damage in their feet and hands years after treatment, a new study reveals.

Moreover, this nerve damage — called chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy — is associated with an increased risk of falls, the study found.

“We can’t dismiss neuropathy as a treatment side effect that goes away, because symptoms persist for years in nearly half of women,” said lead author Kerri Winters-Stone, a research professor at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland.

The study included 462 women who had survived cancer — including breast, lung, colon, ovarian or blood cancers. At an average of six years after cancer diagnosis, 45 percent of them still had symptoms of nerve damage, such as loss of feeling in their hands and feet.

These symptoms were associated with much poorer physical functioning and difficulty doing daily tasks, such as cooking and shopping. The women with symptoms also had changes in their walking patterns and were nearly twice as likely to fall as those without such symptoms, the researchers discovered.

Falls can cause broken bones and other injuries, and possibly lead to earlier death, the study authors explained.

The study was to be presented Saturday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in San Francisco.

“While there are no effective treatments for this side effect, rehabilitative exercise programs may preserve physical functioning and mobility in the presence of neuropathy to help prevent falls and resulting injuries,” Winters-Stone said in a society news release.

ASCO spokesperson Dr. Merry-Jennifer Markham said chemo-induced peripheral neuropathy is an often under-recognized symptom among cancer survivors.

The findings of studies like this “will allow us to improve and tailor rehabilitation as needed,” Markham said in the news release.

Male cancer survivors are as likely as women to have chemotherapy-induced nerve damage, the researchers said.

Data and conclusions presented at meetings are usually considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has more about peripheral neuropathy.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1JOR8Hr

Teen Weapon Use Varies by Race and Gender: Study

FRIDAY, Jan. 15, 2016 (HealthDay News) — The likelihood of an American teen using or carrying weapons varies according to race and gender, new research contends.

Using data from a national survey conducted during the mid-1990s, when violent crime rates were falling in the United States, researchers found that 13 percent of black students, 10 percent of Hispanic students and 7 percent of white students had been involved with weapons.

The data on students in grades 7 through 12 who were interviewed twice, about a year apart, showed that 17 percent of those who carried weapons had shot or stabbed someone in the previous 12 months.

Along with physical injuries, weapon-related violence can result in long-term mental health problems for teens. In 2011, nearly 13 percent of U.S. high school students were victims of weapon use, according to the study published in the January issue of The Journal of Pediatrics.

The researchers from the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and Johns Hopkins Children’s Center also found that those who initially reported weapon involvement were four to six times more likely to be involved with weapons a year later.

In addition, boys were two to four times more likely than girls to be involved with weapons, the findings showed.

“We used the data to identify risk and protective factors for involvement with weapons in the past year, which we defined as carrying a weapon, pulling a gun or knife on someone, or shooting or stabbing someone,” Rashmi Shetgiri of the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute, said in a journal news release.

Despite the differences between racial/ethnic groups, the risk of weapon involvement might be decreased among all teens by reducing their emotional distress, exposure to violence, and alcohol and drug use, according to the researchers.

“It is important to also promote educational aspirations, minimize the influence of delinquent peer groups, and focus on family connectedness to appropriately tailor programs for different racial/ethnic groups,” Shetgiri said.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about youth violence.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1JOR8r9

Trauma Care Workers at Risk for ‘Compassion Fatigue’

FRIDAY, Jan. 15, 2016 (HealthDay News) — The challenges facing trauma care providers can put them at risk for “compassion fatigue” and burnout, a small new study says.

Previous research has found that compassion fatigue can cause trauma team members to feel emotionally exhausted, depressed and anxious. They also may feel like failures professionally, the researchers said.

For this study, 12 trauma team members at a Level 1 trauma center were enrolled in a discussion group. The workers cited on-the-job stress triggers that included child or elder abuse, trauma involving children, cases involving multiple family members, injuries from avoidable situations and “senseless” deaths.

Other causes of stress included dealing with patients’ family members and difficulties with trauma team coordination.

Even though all participants reported low or mild stress levels, three-quarters had moderate to high scores for secondary trauma stress, which is stress caused by experiencing trauma indirectly and includes compassion fatigue.

One-third had a combination of high burnout and low levels of positive experiences helping patients, while another one-quarter had moderate levels of burnout, according to the study in the January issue of the Journal of Trauma Nursing.

“Participants did not feel they experienced compassion fatigue often, and when they did, coping strategies appeared to differ between respondents,” Gina Berg, of the University of Kansas School of Medicine Wichita, and colleagues said in a journal news release.

Even though the participants said compassion fatigue was rare, assessments conducted by the researchers indicated the presence of compassion fatigue and burnout.

“This suggests trauma team members may not be as adept at managing work stressors as well as they perceive,” the researchers wrote.

In order to cope, trauma team members must acknowledge that compassion fatigue occurs and is an expected reality of the profession, Berg and colleagues suggested.

The study participants had no training in managing stress. But they said they felt able to deal with it through methods such as talking with each other and making time for themselves.

More information

The American College of Emergency Physicians offers injury prevention tips.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1JOR7Dp

Flu Season Continues to Be Mild, CDC Says

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, Jan. 15, 2016 (HealthDay News) — The mild flu season continues to be that way, U.S. health officials said Friday, but they expect activity to pick up in coming weeks.

So anyone who hasn’t gotten a flu shot should get one now.

“Flu activity continues to increase, but slowly,” said Lynnette Brammer, an epidemiologist in the influenza division at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Flu infections, which had been reported in Southeastern states in recent weeks, are starting to increase in the West and Northwest, Brammer said. “But the increase is still very small,” she added.

This year’s slow start to the flu season isn’t out of the ordinary — other flu seasons have had the same pattern, Brammer said.

“The last three years’ flu season was earlier than normal, so this one feels late,” she said. “But this is really not unusual for flu season.”

In past similar flu seasons, the peak didn’t come until February, and in one case the flu peaked in March, she said.

Milder weather may be one factor delaying this year’s flu, Brammer said. But it’s only one factor of many that affect how flu spreads. Other factors include how many people are immune because they’ve been vaccinated and the low number of people with flu who could infect others.

In a typical flu season, flu complications — including pneumonia — send more than 200,000 Americans to the hospital. Death rates linked to flu vary annually, but have gone as high as 49,000 deaths in a year, the CDC says.

Virtually everyone older than 6 months of age is advised to get a flu shot. The exceptions are people with life-threatening allergies to the flu vaccine or any ingredient in the vaccine, according to the CDC.

Pregnant women are at high risk and should get vaccinated. Women with newborns also need to get their flu shot to help protect their infants, who can’t be vaccinated until they are at least 6 months old. Also at risk are seniors and people with chronic health problems, such as lung and heart disease, the CDC says.

How effective the vaccine is in preventing the flu depends on how good a match it is to the strains of flu virus circulating that year. Most years, the vaccine is between 40 percent and 60 percent effective, according to the CDC.

Last year, the vaccine offered little protection against the most common flu strain that circulated, an H3N2 virus, Brammer said.

That happened because the virus that experts had predicted to be predominant wasn’t, and the new H3N2 virus was not included in the vaccine, she explained.

This mismatch caused a severe flu season, especially for the very old and very young, and led to a record number of hospitalizations for flu among the elderly, according to the CDC.

This year’s vaccine contains the new H3N2 strain, but it’s too early to tell which strains will dominate, Brammer said.

Plenty of vaccine is still available, but Brammer said supplies may be dwindling in some regions. In some areas of the country you may need to make a couple of calls to find the vaccine, she added.

“It’s not too late to get vaccinated,” she said. “We are expecting a lot more flu coming down the road. So this is still a great time to go get vaccinated.”

More information

For more on flu, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1Pw7VMc

Eating Healthy and Still Not Losing Weight? This Might Be Why

Photo: Getty Images

When I’m counseling clients, one of the major things we work on together is scoping out unknown overeating. Many people struggling to slim down don’t even realize where they’re eating too much: A lot of clients tell me they only eat when they’re hungry, and stop when they’re full, yet they still aren’t seeing results for their waistline—or their health.

I see this pattern frequently, and the culprit is often a skewed sense of what hunger and fullness really feel like. A new study, published recently in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, adds some nuance to my work with clients: In a nutshell, the Cornell University researchers found that the perception of how “healthy” a food is can influence perceived feelings of fullness.

The researchers conducted a number of tests with 50 young adult volunteers, and when foods were portrayed as healthy the study participants ordered larger portions, thought of them as less filling, and ate more. And here’s the kicker: this included people who said that they disagree with the idea that better-for-you foods aren’t as filling.

RELATED: 20 Foods You Should Always Have in Your Kitchen

If you’ve ever finished an entire bag of “skinny” popcorn, and thought, “Hmm, I could still keep eating” (despite having just consumed over half of your daily calorie needs) you’ve probably experienced this effect. This is just another example of how the way we think about food, can matter just as much as our food choices.

But you can outsmart it. The one thing that I’ve found really works: keep a hunger/fullness journal. Now I know you’ve heard about the positive impact of keeping a food dairy before, but many food trackers simply log calories, or grams of carbs, protein, and fat. I ask my clients to add another layer and also track how hungry or full they feel before and after meals, based on a 0 to 10 scale.

The key is to really focus in on your body’s sensations, not your mind’s perceptions. For example, a 0 means mild-moderate hunger that has physiological symptoms, like a growling tummy; 5 is the absence of hunger signals and a “just right” level of fullness and energy. And 10 rates as miserably stuffed and sluggish.

RELATED: 11 Reasons You’re Always Hungry

When people aren’t used to tuning into their bodies in this way they’ll often write down a 0 pre-meal, even though they actually had no physical signals that indicated hunger, or a need for fuel and nourishment. In many cases this false sense of hunger is triggered by emotional or social cues, like boredom, seeing someone else eating, or simply feeling like it’s time to eat, even though you may have just polished off a snack an hour ago and aren’t actually hungry yet.

If you have a tough time distinguishing true body hunger from “mind hunger” think about other body sensations you tend to trust, that aren’t generally affected by your thoughts and feelings. For example, take body temperature. If you’re too hot or cold you’ll experience physical symptoms, perspiring on one end of the spectrum, or shivering on the other. Those signals generally prompt you to get back to an ideal temperature, by doing something like turning on a fan, or putting on a sweater.

But it would seem pretty odd to do those things if the temperature already felt “just right,” right? In the same way try to connect with what it feels like for your body to guide your eating thermostat—without being influenced by anything but that.

RELATED: 14 Foods That Fight Inflammation

Once you start keeping track, you’ll learn some pretty amazing things, like what a normal level of hunger really feels like (hint: there are body-driven signals, but it’s not the same as feeling starving, or overly hungry). You’ll also notice which foods and meals help you feel appropriately full, meaning the physical signs of hunger have gone away, and you feel satisfied and energized simultaneously.

If you’re like most of the clients I work on with this, I bet you’ll find that the meals that allow you to feel this way are nutritionally balanced, and not excessive (jackpot!).

One of my clients told me one of her go-to dinner meals was a veggie burrito made with a whole wheat flour tortilla filled with beans, rice, cheese, salsa, and guacamole. Because she perceived it to be “healthy” she felt pretty good about eating it. But when we talked about what her body was telling her after eating this meal, she realized that she actually felt a bit overly full and sleepy. When she ditched the burrito wrap and the cheese (but kept the guac!) and started serving the contents over a bed of leafy greens she ended the meal feeling like a true 5 on the scale.

RELATED: 32 Ways to Reverse Holiday Weight Gain in 1 Week

Not only did her energy shoot up, but she also started losing weight. And best of all, she finally learned how to connect with her hunger and fullness signals accurately and trust them, no matter how a food was labeled, or what anyone else was doing.

What’s your take on this topic? Chat with us on Twitter by mentioning @goodhealth and @CynthiaSass.

Cynthia Sass is a nutritionist and registered dietitian with master’s degrees in both nutrition science and public health. Frequently seen on national TV, she’s Health’s contributing nutrition editor, and privately counsels clients in New York, Los Angeles, and long distance. Cynthia is currently the sports nutrition consultant to the New York Yankees, previously consulted for three other professional sports teams, and is board certified as a specialist in sports dietetics. Sass is a three-time New York Times best-selling author, and her brand new book is Slim Down Now: Shed Pounds and Inches with Real Food, Real Fast. Connect with her on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1JOR7mY