BEST DIET : LOSE WEIGHT WITH BEST TRICK

Every office has at least one: a giant bowl of bite-size candy bars, peppermints, chocolate Kisses and other high-sugar treats. It’s hard to resist its gravitational pull, especially when you’re suffering from a post-lunch blood-sugar dip in the late afternoon.

Some say the bowls of free sweets help lift office spirits. Problem is, they also hike the needle on the scale. Research confirms that office snacking is a measurable phenomenon. According to Sue Shellenbarger at the Wall Street Journal:

A four-week study of 40 secretaries found that when candy was visible in a clear, covered dish, participants ate 2.5 pieces of chocolate on top of the 3.1 candies they would have eaten had the chocolates been in an opaque container, according to the 2006 study in the International Journal of Obesity. Moving the dish closer, so the subjects could reach the candy while seated at their desks, added another 2.1 candies a day to their intake.

“The proximity and visibility of a food can consistently increase an adult’s consumption,” says the study, led by Brian Wansink, a professor of marketing and human behavior at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and author of “Mindless Eating.” He adds, “Even for a person with the greatest resolve, every time they look at a candy dish they say, ‘Do I want that Hershey’s Kiss, or don’t I?’ At the 24th time, maybe I’m kind of hungry, and I just got this terrible email, and my boss is complaining — and gradually my resolve is worn down.”

And while a tiny morsel of chocolate might seem harmless, consider the cumulative effects of habitual snacking. Eating just two pieces of candy a day at work adds about 480 calories to your weekly total intake, the WSJ calculates — that’s a whopping 1,920 extra calories per month. So is it any wonder that you’ve gained 5 or 7 lbs. in the last year?

What can you do to keep yourself out of the candy bowl, and away from the pastries, cakes, doughnuts and other fattening foods in the break room? One strategy is always to have your own snacks on hand. If you’ve got fruit, nuts or sugar-free gum within easy reach, that doughnut will seem far less alluring. Or you can try to get the whole office to participate in a diet makeover: encourage coworkers to bring fresh fruit and salads to meetings and potlucks, instead of high-fat foods like brownies and mac-and-cheese.

Maybe someday, the workplace candy culture will go the way of the three-martini lunch and Mad Men-era office smoke breaks. But until then, you may have to take it upon yourself to watch your diet. As Shellenbarger reports, Melanie Meek, an employee of a Canton, Ohio, real-estate firm, has lost 80 lbs. since 2009, in part by asking her co-workers keep their unhealthy snacks out of sight. She told them: “If I have to smell it, I will move it.”

Every office has at least one: a giant bowl of bite-size candy bars, peppermints, chocolate Kisses and other high-sugar treats. It’s hard to resist its gravitational pull, especially when you’re suffering from a post-lunch blood-sugar dip in the late afternoon.

Some say the bowls of free sweets help lift office spirits. Problem is, they also hike the needle on the scale. Research confirms that office snacking is a measurable phenomenon. According to Sue Shellenbarger at the Wall Street Journal:

A four-week study of 40 secretaries found that when candy was visible in a clear, covered dish, participants ate 2.5 pieces of chocolate on top of the 3.1 candies they would have eaten had the chocolates been in an opaque container, according to the 2006 study in the International Journal of Obesity. Moving the dish closer, so the subjects could reach the candy while seated at their desks, added another 2.1 candies a day to their intake.

“The proximity and visibility of a food can consistently increase an adult’s consumption,” says the study, led by Brian Wansink, a professor of marketing and human behavior at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and author of “Mindless Eating.” He adds, “Even for a person with the greatest resolve, every time they look at a candy dish they say, ‘Do I want that Hershey’s Kiss, or don’t I?’ At the 24th time, maybe I’m kind of hungry, and I just got this terrible email, and my boss is complaining — and gradually my resolve is worn down.”

And while a tiny morsel of chocolate might seem harmless, consider the cumulative effects of habitual snacking. Eating just two pieces of candy a day at work adds about 480 calories to your weekly total intake, the WSJ calculates — that’s a whopping 1,920 extra calories per month. So is it any wonder that you’ve gained 5 or 7 lbs. in the last year?

What can you do to keep yourself out of the candy bowl, and away from the pastries, cakes, doughnuts and other fattening foods in the break room? One strategy is always to have your own snacks on hand. If you’ve got fruit, nuts or sugar-free gum within easy reach, that doughnut will seem far less alluring. Or you can try to get the whole office to participate in a diet makeover: encourage coworkers to bring fresh fruit and salads to meetings and potlucks, instead of high-fat foods like brownies and mac-and-cheese.

Maybe someday, the workplace candy culture will go the way of the three-martini lunch and Mad Men-era office smoke breaks. But until then, you may have to take it upon yourself to watch your diet. As Shellenbarger reports, Melanie Meek, an employee of a Canton, Ohio, real-estate firm, has lost 80 lbs. since 2009, in part by asking her co-workers keep their unhealthy snacks out of sight. She told them: “If I have to smell it, I will move it.”

Olive oil, which has long been associated with a heart-healthy diet, has now also been linked with a lower risk of stroke.

Researchers surveyed 7,625 people age 65 or older in three French cities to determine their levels of olive oil consumption. Then, they examined the participants’ medical records for occurrence of stroke, over about five years of follow-up.

About 40% of participants said they were moderate users of olive oil (using it for cooking or in dressings or with bread) and 37% were heavy users (using it for all three purposes); 23% of participants said they never used olive oil.

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Heavy consumers of olive oil were 41% less likely to have a stroke during the follow-up period than people who never used olive oil, researchers found. Further, the top third of heavy consumers were 73% less likely to have stroke than those in the bottom third of the group.

Overall, 148 strokes occurred in the study population. None of the participants had a history of stroke or heart attack prior to joining the study. The researchers found that the results were statistically significant for ischemic stroke (caused by the clogging of an artery to the brain), but not for hemorrhagic stroke (caused by the bursting of a blood vessel in the brain).

Olive oil, rich in cholesterol-lowering monounsaturated fats, is oft touted for its health benefits. But while the stroke-risk reduction found in the new study persisted even after researchers adjusted for other stroke risk factors like weight, diet, exercise and income, it’s important to note that such factors still play a powerful role in overall health.

For instance, olive oil is typically part of a larger Mediterranean-style diet, which includes many other healthful food sources. “Olive oil is usually added to other foods (i.e., fruits and vegetables, legumes, cereals and fish) and may contribute indirect benefits by increasing the palatability and consumption of foods that may have health-promoting potential,” the authors of the study, led by Cécilia Samieri of the Université Bordeaux, wrote in Neurology.

(MORE: The USDA Ditches the Food Pyramid for a Plate)

In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Nikolaos Scarmeas of Columbia University Medical Center noted that the study was observational and that the association between olive oil and reduced stroke risk should be “claimed with confidence only if the observations … withstand the trial of randomized interventions.”

In the meantime, it can’t hurt to include more olive oil in your diet — especially if you use it instead of saturated fat sources like butter. The current study didn’t specify what types of olive oil were used, but it did note that French stores carry extra virgin olive oil almost exclusively.

Potatoes may be getting a bum rap, according to a small new study that finds that people who ate potatoes daily saw a drop in blood pressure after a month.

The key is that study participants ate potatoes cooked in the microwave, which preserves the tuber’s nutrients — unlike frying them into French fries or chips — the authors said. “Mention ‘potato’ and people think ‘fattening, high-carbs, empty calories,'” said lead researcher Joe Vinson in a statement. “In reality, when prepared without frying and served without butter, margarine or sour cream, one potato has only 110 calories and dozens of healthful phytochemicals and vitamins.”

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The research involved a tiny sample size — just 18 people. All were hypertensive, and 14 of the participants were already taking blood-pressure lowering medication and most were overweight or obese. Half the participants ate six to eight microwaved purple potatoes (each roughly the size of a golf ball), with the skins on, twice daily. The other half made no change to their daily diets. After a month, the two groups switched regimens.

Researchers found at the end of the study that potato eating was associated with reductions in systolic (the top number) and diastolic (the bottom number) blood pressure readings of 3.5% and 4.3%, respectively. People taking blood pressure medication also saw reductions. And eating potatoes didn’t result in weight gain or a rise in cholesterol level.

The researchers said that purple potatoes in particular have high amounts of antioxidants and other nutrients, especially in the skin.

Of course, the study was small and short-term and included hypertensive people with weight problems, so it’s difficult to extrapolate anything to a wider population. And the findings, which were presented at the National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) this week, are not yet peer-reviewed and must be considered preliminary. It’s also worth noting that the study was funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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Nevertheless, the report is a good reminder that even the most healthful foods can be turned into junk with the wrong preparation.

Meredith Melnick is a reporter at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @MeredithCM. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

It’s Week 4 of boot camp, and I’m hooked.

That’s right; the ersatz anti-exerciser actually looks forward to her early morning workouts so much that she’s reupped for another month.

True, I haven’t lost much weight — 1 lb. after the first three weeks — and I don’t know if the final week was any kinder since I decided to heed readers’ advice and stop weighing myself. Body fat measurements can be a more accurate indication of progress than weight loss. So I measured my body fat composition by grasping a handheld device that apparently sent electrical pulses through me and reported the grim details back digitally: 27.2%. That sounded like a lot of blubber, but Nate, one of the guys who puts us boot-campers through our paces, said women average between 23% to 28% fat. Guess that means the baby weight I gained and never lost around my hips and belly is A-okay. Or not.

Under the assumption that my body is handily losing fat and gaining muscle, which weighs more and may account for my unimpressive weight loss, I’m motivated to keep going with what can feel, at moments, like a pretty punishing routine. On Tuesday, I did more than 100 push-ups, which I find astounding. Granted, they’re the “girlie” kind, done on my knees instead of my toes. But Miles, the other trainer, says it’s better to slightly alter an exercise and maintain good form rather than fail at standard push-ups.

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And, the darned scale aside, I am feeling better. I have much more energy and don’t experience the same midday fade that I usually do. Exercising hard first thing in the morning gives me a sense of accomplishment. Even if I get nothing done for the rest of the day, at least I’ve made my daily contribution to healthy living.

Part of healthy living is healthy eating, of course. For the first three weeks of boot camp, I followed a no-carb diet designed to boost results. This week, I’ve more or less ditched the no-carb diet; not only was it extremely restrictive, but I wasn’t seeing the weight loss I’d anticipated. Yet it hasn’t been a complete wash. I’m now far more aware of the carb content in foods I eat, and I expect that will continue. Not that I won’t ever enjoy a steaming bowl of fettuccine or a crispy baguette, but I don’t think I’m going back to the days of cereal for breakfast, sandwich for lunch and pasta or rice for dinner. Basically, the diet has raised my carb consciousness. Because carbs are everywhere, they’re hard to avoid. But there are good carbs (whole grains) and not-so-good carbs (white bread). Is it my imagination that as I’ve slowly added carbs back in, I’ve felt more sluggish? I’ll be paying attention to that going forward.

MORE: Study: Cutting Carbs Two Days a Week Is Better than Full-Time Dieting

I’ve also learned that I have far more self-restraint than I realized. I’ve always thought of myself as having very little willpower, but I’ve found that’s not entirely true: for the first time ever, I turned down brownie and doughnut samples being passed around at a Starbucks. That was one for the record books.

Meanwhile, I feel like I have a leg up on the new year. My New Year’s resolution, to get in better shape, began at the beginning of December; I’m a month ahead of most people. Now all I have to do is carry on. When I started boot camp, the title of a new book, Working Out Sucks, and its amusing video clip resonated with me. Now I might beg to differ.

Bread and rolls are the No. 1 source of sodium in the American diet, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Salty snacks like chips and pretzels come in at No. 10.

The finding seems unlikely, since bread isn’t actually saltier than chips or many of the other foods on the list. But Americans tend to eat more bread and rolls, compared with other foods.

Overall, the report found, Americans are overconsuming sodium in a big way. The average American’s daily sodium intake was 3,266 mg a day, which far exceeds the government’s recommended daily limit of 2,300 mg. The limit is set lower, at 1,500 mg a day, for risk groups, including blacks, people over 51, and those with high blood pressure, diabetes or chronic kidney disease — that’s about half the U.S. population. Nearly 90% of all Americans eat too much salt, which increases their chances of developing hypertension, a risk factor for heart disease and stroke.

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The study found that 10 foods account for 44% of of all the sodium we eat. Broken down, they are:

1. Bread and rolls, 7.4%
2. Cold cuts/cured meats, 5.1%
3. Pizza, 4.9%
4. Fresh and processed poultry, 4.5%
5. Soups, 4.3%
6. Sandwiches like cheeseburgers, 4%
7. Cheese, 3.8%
8. Pasta dishes like spaghetti with meat sauce, 3.3%
9. Meat dishes like meatloaf with tomato sauce, 3.2%
10. Snacks, including chips, pretzels, popcorn and puffs, 3.1%

For the most part, people are buying these foods premade at the store or eating them in restaurants: 75% of all the sodium we consume in a day comes from food we don’t prepare at home. In contrast, only about 5% to 6% of salt is added during cooking, and an equal amount is added from the shaker at the table. “These results suggest a comprehensive approach is needed that includes reductions in the sodium content in processed foods from stores, restaurants and other food service locations,” the authors of the study write.

It would also help for people to avoid processed, packaged foods, eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, and try to cook more at home. Another tip: eat less overall. The CDC also recommends studying the Nutrition Facts label on food before you buy it. A slice of white bread, for instance, can vary widely in sodium content from 80 mg to 230 mg. The sodium in one cup of canned chicken soup can range from 100 mg to 940 mg, depending on the brand. A cheeseburger from a fast-food joint can contain a whopping 1,690 mg of sodium by itself — never mind the fries and soda that typically come with it — which is nearly three-quarters of your daily max.

MORE: Are We Training Babies to Crave Salt?

The CDC report was based on food surveys conducted among 7,227 Americans, including more than 2,500 children and teens, in 2007-08. Participants were surveyed twice, about 3 to 10 days apart, and asked each time to recall what they had eaten in the previous 24 hours. The researchers then categorized the various foods and tallied their sodium content.

Most participants reported eating foods from one or more of the top 10 ranked food categories during at least one survey: about 80% had eaten bread or rolls in the previous 24 hours, 56% had eaten cheese, 51% salty snacks, and 48% had had poultry.

If we could reduce the sodium content in the top 10 foods by 25%, the report suggests the average American’s daily sodium intake could drop by 11%, or 360 mg. That in turn could avert up to 28,000 deaths and save $7 billion in health-care costs a year.

See the entire CDC report here, and a consumer-friendly summary here.

The stats on childhood obesity are sobering: 1 in 3 U.S. kids weighs too much. In the April issue of Vogue, we learn about one of them. Her name is Bea, and it’s pretty hard not to imagine her growing up to really, really hate her mother. 

Bea’s mom, Dara-Lynn Weiss, writes about publicly shaming her 7-year-old daughter in her quest for a slimmer, trimmer girl after the pediatrician advised her that Bea was clinically obese at 4 ft. 4 in. and 93 pounds.

The regimen Weiss chose hardly makes sense, to say nothing of the emotional impact on Bea of exploiting her eating habits in the fashion industry’s bible. Lynn Grefe, president of the National Eating Disorders Association, calls Weiss’ handling of Bea’s weight “a recipe for eating disorders.”

“She did everything we recommend people don’t do,” says Grefe. “To us, diet is a four-letter word.” What’s more, it’s pretty clear that Weiss is taking out her own obsessive-compulsiveness about food on her daughter:

Sometimes Bea’s after-school snack was a slice of pizza or a gyro from the snack vendor. Other days I forced her to choose a low-fat vegetable soup or a single hard-boiled egg. Occasionally I’d give in to her pleas for a square of coffee cake, mainly because I wanted to eat half of it. When she was given access to cupcakes at a party, I alternated between saying, “Let’s not eat that, it’s not good for you;” “Okay, fine, go ahead, but just one;” and “Bea, you have to stop eating crap like that, you’re getting too heavy,” depending on my mood. Then I’d secretly eat two when she wasn’t looking.

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Another time, she denied her daughter a salad, prompting Fashionista blog to note this “may have not been the best way to set up the article if she wanted the reader to believe her to be a sane, reasonable person.”

Weiss wrote:

I stepped between my daughter and a bowl of salad nicoise my friend was handing her, raising my palm like a traffic cop. “Thanks,” I said, “but she already ate dinner.” 
“But she said she’s still hungry,” my friend replied, bewildered. 
I forced a smile. “Yeah, but it’s got a lot of dressing on it and we’re trying–”

“Just olive oil!” my friend interrupted. “It’s superhealthy!”
 My smile faded and my voice grew tense. “I know. She can’t.”
 My friend’s eyes moved to my daughter, whose gaze held the dish in the crosshairs: a Frisbee-size bowl bursting with oil, tuna, eggs, potatoes, olives.

In an era when a respected doctor suggested last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association that severely obese kids be put in foster care, the clean-your-plate club is now a relic of the past. Instead, pediatricians urge parents to pay attention to the kinds of foods they make for their kids — salad nicoise, packed with protein, sure seems like a good choice. Replace junk food in kitchen cupboards with fresh fruits and veggies. And encourage your kids to get 60 minutes of exercise a day; they’re more likely to stick with it if you join them.

(MORE: Childhood Obesity: Most U.S. Schools Don’t Require P.E. Class or Recess)

Experts steer clear of putting kids on a diet, which is why last summer’s book for children, Maggie Goes on a Diet, created such a ruckus. It’s about a teen who goes on a diet and suddenly leaves her insecure self behind to embrace her new image of school soccer star. The problem begins with the title, explained Cynthia Bulik, director of the Eating Disorders Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in August.

“We don’t want kids to ‘go on diets,’ we don’t want kids to use diet language,” she says. “You have to think about how the messages will be interpreted by a child’s brain. They will not see any nuance — they will see a causal association between losing weight and becoming popular, pretty and athletic. It emphasizes valuing people for their size and appearance rather than for who they are.”

As bloggers continue to heap scorn upon Weiss, it’s worth remembering that this is just the latest of Vogue’s forays into hot-button issues that involve body image and children. Last summer, the mag’s French edition published some overtly sexy photos of 10-year-old Thylane Loubry Blondeau lying languidly on a tiger skin, decked out in leopard-print stilettos, glittering jewelry and a glamorous updo.

As for Weiss’ essay, don’t bother looking for it online; it’s not there. A Vogue spokesman told me they make only some of each month’s issue available on the Internet. Or perhaps, as Grefe suggested, the magazine had second thoughts about posting such a humiliating article for posterity.