Scientists randomized 144 obese people, ages 20 to 65, to two low-carbohydrate diets providing 1,400 daily calories for women and 1,600 for men. The diets were identical except that one included a high-carbohydrate, protein-enriched breakfast with a choice of cookies, chocolate, cake or ice cream for dessert.

Throughout the study, which appears in the March 10 issue of the journal Steroids, participants were tested periodically for blood levels of insulin, glucose, lipid and ghrelin, a hormone that stimulates appetite.

During an initial 16-week period, the average weight loss in each group was identical — about 32 pounds. But over a 16-week follow-up, people on the dessert-with-breakfast diet lost an additional 13 pounds on average, while the others gained back all but 3.5 of the pounds they had lost.

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Finicky eaters, rejoice! We're here to provide nutrition alternatives to certain oft-avoided foods.No more feeling guilty about leaving lima beans, eggplant or Brussels sprouts on your plate–at least not when you choose from some of the substitutions below.The alternatives we suggest aren't an exact nutrition match with the less-loved foods we list, but in most cases they provide a reasonable or better source for the nutrients you're missing by barring certain veggies from your diet.

With children, research suggests that parents need to be persistent in introducing new veggies before junior palates adjust.But it's also true that trying to force certain food choices, regardless of nutrient benefit, may be fruitless, or worse, counterproductive.Fortunately, Mother Nature yields alternatives that provide similar nutrition benefits, still allowing you to eat a wide variety of healthy fruit and vegetables.

If you don't like lima beans: Load up on bananas. Limas are the top bean source of potassium (1 cup cooked supplying 20% of your daily value) a mineral needed for blood pressure regulation.Given that 90% of men and nearly 100% of women don't get enough potassium, you may want to experiment sneaking limas into your diet by adding some to recipes that call for beans.Otherwise, you'll find the same amount of potassium (and fiber) in two bananas, which also provide more of vitamins C and B6.

If you don't like eggplant: Eat more potatoes. Both eggplant and potatoes contain similar levels of  phytochemicals, earning both polyphenol content in the same range as figs, red grapes and beets.Russet, red and white potatoes are all fairly high in polyphenols and nutrients–just don't drown out their health benefits by deep-frying or burying potatoes in saturated fat.

If you don't like Brussels sprouts: Try cabbage. Or broccoli, or cauliflower–all belong to the family of cruciferous vegetables that boast a class of phytochemicals called glucosinolates.Unlike apples, cruciferous veggies are compounds that participate the body's own enzymedefense systems.

If your distaste for Brussels sprouts dates back to the over-boiled, under-seasoned veggies of distant childhood, consider trying Marie Oser's "Curried Brussels Sprouts and Baby Carrots," which could make a fan of even the most dedicated Brussels sprouts foe.

If you don't like mushrooms: Go fish.Most mushrooms are mineral marvels, supplying iron, selenium and copper in abundance–as well as a bevy of B vitamins.The only other food having such a profile is fish.Salmon, for example, provides plenty of minerals and B vitamins plus brain-healthy omega-3 fatty acids and lean protein to boot.

If you don't like raw tomatoes: Slice up watermelon. Both are excellent sources of vitamins A and C–plus top sources of lycopene, a carotenoid with potential to support heart health (may prevent LDL "bad" cholesterol oxidation and reduce inflammation) and possible activity against various cancers, such as ovarian, cervical, colorectal, lung, and most famously, prostate cancer.If you don't have a taste for raw tomatoes, but like cooked tomatoes in sauces, soups, etc., you're in luck: Cooking concentrates the lycopene and makes it more available to the body by breaking down the plant cell walls to liberate the carotenoid.

If you don't like spinach: Toss Romaine and other green leafies. Fortunately, spinach is making a comeback to many produce sections, a cause for celebration among consumers who love this leafy green's taste–and enjoy its healthy nutrients.In fact, spinach is quite likely the most nutrient-dense vegetable that exists.Another tender salad green that comes somewhat close is Romaine lettuce, which may support eyes, skin and immunity.Romaine contains 100% vitamin A (as beta-carotene), as well as other eye-healthy carotenoids, lutein and zeaxanthin.Just like spinach, Romaine is also an excellent source of folic acid and vitamins C and K–making it as good a substitute as you can get.Otherwise, try arugula, a serving of which provides 15% of your daily calcium needs, supporting your bones.

If you don't like broccoli: Try broccoli sprouts. Similar in looks and taste to alfalfa sprouts, broccoli sprouts are actually the baby shoots of the broccoli plant.

Does your stomach have a mind of its own? With all of those nervous butterflies, stress knots, postprandial flare-ups and other gut-based feelings, it certainly seems like it.

In fact, your digestive system does contain a second brain of sorts, known as the enteric nervous system, which produces every class of neurotransmitter found in the brain in your head. It's a hotbed of activity, too: The number of messages sent by the enteric nervous system to the brain outnumbers the communications traveling in the reverse direction by nearly ninefold.

"The brain in your head doesn't tell the brain in your gut specifics of what to do, but it does tell it to do more or do less," says Michael D. Gershon, M.D., chairman of the department of anatomy and cell biology at Columbia University and author of The Second Brain: A Groundbreaking New Understanding of Nervous Disorders of the Stomach and Small Intestine. "And if, as a result of those signals, the gut acquires excess motility, that leads to pain, cramps, disturbance or diarrhea."

In light of this, researchers are taking a new look at stomach upset. For example, the enteric nervous system reacts promptly to changes in the availability of serotonin; indeed, most of your body's serotonin is produced by the digestive system. That's why mood-altering drugs that change serotonin levels are likely to affect the digestive system at low doses. Also, conditions such as ulcers, once thought to be provoked by anxiety, are now known to have a physiological origin. If you experience symptoms of stomach distress every day or every week, see your doctor. Meanwhile, mild or intermittent conditions may be relieved-or even prevented-by the natural remedies and healthy habits that improve elements of digestive function.

Gas And Bloating
Flatulence is more than just embarrassing-that buildup of air in your abdomen can become uncomfortable or even painful. Gas is caused by the fermentation of carbohydrates broken down by bacteria, a perfectly normal part of digestion. Unfortunately, the fiber-rich vegetables that are a necessary part of your healthful diet can also increase gas production, says Anil Minocha, M.D., professor of medicine at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine and author of Natural Stomach Care.

For natural prevention of excess gas, your best strategy is to reduce the fermentation process. For that, take the following steps:

Cheryl Castro tells about a new study that finds that certain foods are better at lowering your cholesterol than others.

But no matter how one slices it, processed foods have appeal, and people do find them convenient.

The problem is that thanks to tricky food marketing, some of the unhealthiest options appear to be the healthiest. Here are five of the most popular labeling tricks to avoid.

Michael Jones gives us tips on how to reduce our salt intake to help us fight heart disease and stroke.

You don't need to break the bank to get more fruits and vegetables into your diet. CNN's Christine Romans explains how.

That's a very important question. Since I've started my Happiness Project, I've become more and more convinced that sleep is vital to happiness and energy. (Here are 14 tips on getting more sleep.)

If you want to get more sleep, but have a hard time getting yourself to turn out the light, try these strategies:

1. First things first: Give yourself a specific bedtime. Most adults need 7-9 hours of sleep every night, so take a look at your wake-up time and do the math. Even if you don't regularly go to bed at your bedtime, knowing, "Well, it's midnight, so I'm two hours past my bedtime" might help prod you to bed.

Want a simple, cost-effective way to keep weight down? Connect the dots! Get yourself a sheet of graph paper (or download this one), then mark your weight on a daily basis, plotting a line through entries to make a chart. A new study from Cornell University suggests that this self-monitoring tool really works in keeping your diet on the straight and narrow (pun intended).

Researchers set out to see what methods might help female college students avoid the dreaded "Freshman 15." Subjects emailed their daily, morning weight and then received a graph plotting fluctuations and trends–together with calorie-reduction tips. The control group that didn’t receive feedback gained about 7 pounds over a 12-week semester. Those in the "graph" group had NO weight gain during the same time period. The effectiveness of this technique is likely due to the combination of daily accountability and visual feedback.

The National Weight Registry–a database of dieters who've maintained a minimum 30-pound weight loss for more than a year–proves that most successful "losers" do indeed weigh themselves regularly, and also exercise an hour most days of the week. While aerobic exercise is the biggest calorie burner, lifting weights can increase your metabolic rate, and yoga can check middle age spread.

Here are some great visuals to consider when exercising, for motivation and better results.

“Cook: to prepare with heat,” the teacher read from his journal.

I can’t recall any other vocabulary words we learned that school year, but I remember this incident in detail—the paperback dictionary, the name and face of the classmate who moved away that summer, and the disapproving glare the teacher gave him. I remember wondering why dictionary makers would include a word like cook. Everyone knows what it means. Why waste the paper?
That four-word definition has stayed with me for 25 years, though, because there’s value in recognizing the essence of what can become a complicated act. Cooking equals food plus heat. Nothing about food miles or amino acids. No mention of high-carbon knives or a panini press.

Most importantly, nothing about a kitchen. Kitchens are, admittedly, handy places to cook, in the same way that beds are great places for sleeping. But, just as you can sleep wherever you happen to be tired, you can cook anywhere so long as you have the essentials (food, heat). At any given time and place, I’m ready to whip up a stir-fry, a rice pilaf, or a couple of tacos. I call it guerrilla cooking.

Former President Leads Successful Campaign Against Childhood Obesity

Former President Clinton wants today's children to avoid the dietary pitfalls and weight struggles that may have contributed to his quadruple bypass two years ago. Last month, he won a major breakthrough in his campaign to advance healthier choices for children by brokering a ground-breaking agreement with five major food corporations establishing healthy standards to govern school snacks. The Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a joint-initiative of the William J. Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association, worked with Campbell Soup Company, Dannon, Kraft Foods, Mars, and PepsiCo to develop voluntary snack and beverage guidelines promoting nutrient-rich, low-fat, low-sodium foods.

Specifically, foods covered by the guidelines may not derive over 35% of their calories from fat (and no more than 10% from saturated fat), nor can sugar make up for more than 35% of the snack by weight. Notably, the guidelines promote consumption of fruit, vegetables and whole grains–all high in nutrients and relatively lower in calories. The five participating companies plan to expand their healthy offerings and reformulate some existing products in order to meet the new caps on calories, sugar, sodium and fat.

By actually transforming the choices available to children within schools, Clinton's Alliance is one step closer to the goal of halting the rise of childhood obesity, which has doubled among children and tripled among adolescents in the last two decades. During the same time period, soda consumption has increased 70% for boys and 40% for girls, while half of all elementary school-age children, on any given day, consume no fruit at all. No wonder so many children are overfed and undernourished! As discussed in the DNN's "Teen Nutrient Needs Unmet," 97% of adolescents are deficient in terms of fiber, potassium and vitamin E. For more information about childhood obesity, and tips on how to improve your own child's nutrition, download our Health & Wellness brochure #4: Healthy Kids.

The study, to be published in the journal Administrative Science Quarterly, looked at two dozen young investment bankers who worked between 80 to 120 hours a week (going to work around 6 a.m. and leaving work around midnight, according to the Wall Street Journal).

The researchers found that as time went on they had increased risks of health problems like alcoholism, arthritis and Crohn's disease.

Alden Cass, a clinical psychologist based in New York, told the Wall Street Journal that bankers have an increased risk of mental health issues and burnout because their jobs can be so volatile.

The survey found that around 14 percent of U.S. workers have an abusive boss, with abuse defined as engaging in behavior such as humiliating and insulting employees or isolating them from co-workers. While employees frequently deal with abusive situations by trying to avoid their bosses or getting support from co-workers, the study found these tactics actually backfire by making the employees feel more helpless.

"Meditation teaches us to observe rather than get caught up in the strong sensations we are experiencing. We learn to stop labeling and therefore stop reacting. In this way, instead of tightening up against it and resisting, which causes further tension, we start to soften into it. As we do this, the pain can begin to soften and subside."

Recently, the 5000 year old intuitive teachings of meditation were given the backing of science. A  report from the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center states that meditation can be more effective than morphine.

"This is the first study to show that only a little over an hour of meditation training can dramatically reduce both the experience of pain and pain-related brain activation," said Fadel Zeidan, PhD, lead author of the study and post-doctoral research fellow at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. "We found a big effect – about a 40 per cent reduction in pain intensity and a 57 per cent reduction in pain unpleasantness. Meditation produced a greater reduction in pain than even morphine or other pain-relieving drugs, which typically reduce pain ratings by about 25 per cent."

The article did not refer to the hundreds of studies highlighting yoga's therapeutic benefits. For example, medical research shows that yoga promotes heart health and decreases the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for American adults. February has been proclaimed American Heart Month, spotlighting heart disease prevention and resources.

In honor of American Heart Month, here are five ways that yoga promotes a healthier heart.

1. Yoga Meditation Lowers Heart Attack Risk

A small study presented at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in Orlando reports transcendental meditation (TM) could potentially lower the risk of heart attack and death by up to 47 percent in patients with heart disease. Transcendental meditation (TM) is a form of yoga meditation introduced by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the 1960s.

Researchers at the Center for Natural Medicine and Prevention in Fairfield, Iowa and the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee randomly assigned African American patients with heart disease either to a group including TM and high blood pressure drugs or a group with high blood pressure drugs only. TM was practiced for 15 to 20 minutes a day for five to nine years.

The researchers found that the TM group experienced a 47 percent reduction in heart attack and death rates, as compared to the other group. The findings also revealed that the TM group had a significant reduction in blood pressure and psychological stress.

Dubai: Diet sodas could make you fat, warn health experts following reports of another case of weight gain and fatigue.

Dubai resident Geordie B., a 33-year-old working professional, had complained of abdominal weight gain, mood swings and chronic fatigue at a Dubai clinic. Her medical history revealed that she drank 8-10 diet cokes per day, and has been doing this for the past 10 years.

The attending doctor, Isabella Tausz, specialist in Family Medicine, Preventive Medicine, Anti Ageing Medicine and Hormone Restoration, at the Eternity Medicine Institute, Dubai, told Gulf News that the patient's blood test revealed deficiency in Vitamins D and B12, protein and serotonin, as well as a hormonal imbalance.

Dr Tausz said her patient is one of several cases who has an unhealthy lifestyle and bad diet, including consumption of diet beverages. Speaking about the adverse effects of such beverages, she said diet soda as a wise alternative to regular soda is a misconception.

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As avid DNN readers know, lycopene is the "L word" your heart truly longs for.Guavas fiber helps lower cholesterol while its potassium helps manage blood pressure.With all of these powerful nutrients, its no wonder that a study from the Heart Research Laboratory in India demonstrated that people who ate 5 to 9 guavas a day for three months reduced their cholesterol levels by 10%, triglycerides by 8% and blood pressure by 9.0/8.0 mm Hg, while boosting their good cholesterol (HDL) by 8%.

Guava consumption might also help reduce oxidative stress and inflammation.Malaysian researchers found increased antioxidant blood values among guava-eating study subjects.The effects were reminiscent of those explored in a previous DNN story, "Anti-Stress Soup: Gazpacho Fights Oxidation, Inflammation."

Get guapa with guava? The pink-fleshed fruit might also qualify as a beauty food.Not only does its low calorie count (37 calories per pink-fleshed fruit) and filling fiber content help with weight management, it also contains nutrients that nourish the skin.

With four times the vitamin C content of oranges, guava can support collagen formation, while its beta-carotene can help enhance sunscreen protection.

Give guava a try – and your tastebuds a treat – with this issues featured recipe: "Guava Smoothie..

In the U.S., there's no set amount of holidays an employer is required to give to workers, but on average, American workers are awarded 15 holidays during the year, according to financial services consulting firm Mercer's Worldwide Benefit & Employment Guidelines report.

When you consider that many of those days off are religious or American holidays — days usually full of family or spiritual obligations — there aren't many days set aside for you to just be.

On President's Day, there aren't any family meals to attend or religious rites to uphold, making it the ideal day off. If you have today off, reclaim it as a day for yourself. Working too much has been linked to depression, heart problems and trouble sleeping, among other concerns, so here are a few of our healthiest suggestions for how to make the most of today.

Extra Pounds Aggravate Reflux Symptoms

What goes up must come down–but when it comes to overeating and acid reflux, what goes down may come up! If too many extra servings lead to even a few extra pounds, you could be setting yourself up for increased risk of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).

This is a syndrome where your stomach regurgitates acids into the esophageal area, causing painful symptoms ranging from heartburn to persistent dry cough and raising your risk of esophageal cancer. GERD symptoms doubled with only a 3.5-point increase in body mass index (BMI) according to one Boston University study that followed 10,000 women between 1984 and 1998. That's the equivalent of a 5'6" 125-pound woman or a 5'10" 160-pound man gaining roughly 20 pounds. To calculate your BMI and find out what kind of gain would put you at risk, click here.

These findings demonstrate that weight gain within "normal" range can cause the kind ofgastrointestinal problems that are commonly associated with obesity. On the brighter side, the study also found that women who lost 3.5 BMI points experienced a 40% drop in GERD symptoms. What's more, by eating high-fiber foods such as beans, berries, green peas, apples and whole grains you'll not only fill up faster while consuming fewer calories, you'll also help maintain a healthy balance of gut microflora in the gastrointestinal tract.

Bonus: See our "Bitter Herbs for Better Health" to learn how chicory can help fight harmful gastrointestinal bacteria.

Carolina Journal's Sara Burrows on furor over NC forcing kids to eat school lunch if bagged lunch doesn't meet USDA rules.

NN's Suzanne Malveaux talks with author John Tierney about the power of self-control and "The Oprah Effect" in dieting.