Posts Tagged ‘Christmas’

Do you usually need some last-minute holiday gift ideas? I do.

Two words: Dark chocolate.

Want to know a secret? Dark chocolate is also good for you.

I just high-fived you, because if the health gods tell me I can eat dark chocolate without guilt then I am one happy gal. I bet you are too!

Think how happy your loved one will be to get some tasty dark chocolate this holiday season. A healthy gift is a happy gift. I usually stuff my partner's stocking with dark chocolate, then eat it all myself. I have a dog, so it's really easy to pass the blame. (Don't worry, she actually doesn't eat the chocolate. I do. Chocolate is bad for doggies.)

1 reason why dark chocolate is healthy
Dark chocolate contains powerful antioxidants. And antioxidants are good for us because they help prevent disease and protect the heart.

It's all very scientific. And I don't really get science.

But who cares? Chocolate is good for you, that's all that matters here. So eat it (in moderation, of course).

Do you want to win some chocolate? Green & Blacks Organic Chocolate was thoughtful enough to provide me with 6 of their tasty and healthy dark chocolate bars. This fabulous prize back includes the following bars:
• Ginger
• Maya Gold
• 70 % Dark
• 85 % Dark
• Cherry
• Espresso

(I was tempted to keep them all for myself!)

For a chance to win, simply subscribe to The Health & Wellness Blog and leave a comment below telling us if you are coo coo for chocolate. Well, are you?

I'll announce a winner here on Monday, December 20.

Are the latest weight-loss secrets snoring, breast feeding and drugs? Read all about it, plus a patriotic Christmas dinner to die for, in today's round-up of diet and weight-loss news.

Snore away the calories
A new study published in the Archives of Otolaryngology has found that the more you snore, the more calories you burn.

The study focused on 212 adults who all suffered from sleeping problems such as sleep apnea. While the average person was found to burn about 1,763 calories a night, snorers can burn up to 1,999 calories.

Snoring has been shown to burn calories. Just don't do it at work.

Nursing for weight loss
Kelly Rutherford, the 40-year-old "Gossip Girl" star and pregnant mother, told Us Weekly magazine "I was thinner after my pregnancy than before, and I think a lot of it was the nursing."

This may be why she continues to breast feed her 2-year-old son.

UK doctor thinks weight loss drugs should be prescribed more often
Dr. Nick Finer of the Wellcome Clinical Research Facility in Cambridge, England, says that weight loss medications can help about a third of all patients to lose ten per cent of their overall body weight and 50 per cent of patients to lose five per cent of their body weight.

He says that many doctors were “missing opportunities” to help their obese patients because they did not prescribe them weight loss medication.

Fat? You're not alone
A report from Statistics Canada released yesterday reveled that 53 per cent of women and 65 per cent of men in Canada were overweight.

The findings are based on an analysis of the 2004 Canadian Community Health Survey, a national study that looked at demographics, nutrition, physical activity and other factors to help measure the population's health.

Looking back: the first Christmas dinner in Canada
Not crazy about dieting over the holidays? At least you'll be able to indulge more than Jacques Cartier and the colony of 110 who celebrated the first recorded Christmas in Canada in 1535 on the banks of the Ste. Croix River, not far from what is now Quebec City.

The Kingston Whig-Standard reports that their Christmas feast was made of their usual unappetizing diet — stale, deteriorating vegetables and salt meat from their rapidly diminishing food stores. (All but 10 of those who survived the winter were near death from scurvy come spring.)

Makes the much maligned fruit cake sound mouth-watering, doesn't it?