From Stress to Bliss

An Interview with The Slim, Calm, Sexy Diet Author Keri Glassman – & New Video!

Keri Glassman says she was born to do exactly what she is doing today. Even in seventh grade, the author and founder of Nutritious Life™ had nutrition on her mind. “My childhood friend tells me she remembers me being in science class and saying, ‘My body is craving vitamin E, I am going to eat almonds!’” recalls Glassman. “Barf! Was I that dorky?” It was a youthful dorkiness that turned into a life passion – not for dieting, but for being good to her body. And it led her down a path of helping others do the same.

Today, in her private practice in New York City, she works with five other Registered Dietitians to preach the Nutritious Life™ mantra, an approach to diet and wellness that considers the whole body. She is also a recognizable face on TV, a contributing editor for Women’s Health magazine, and the author of three books. The latest is The Slim Calm Sexy Diet (Rodale 2012) a whole body diet strategy with a three-prong focus – losing weight, feeling good, and conquering stress, a feat that in Glassman’s hands seems remarkably achievable.

A New Role for Weight Loss

One of the messages of The Slim Calm Sexy Diet is that weight loss doesn’t have to be a diet’s central focus. Instead, it is a “side effect” of other good choices such as reduced stress, balanced hormones, and increased activity. It’s a message Glassman says people are just beginning to receive. “Most people focus on diet, diet, and diet to lose unwanted pounds. And, sometimes, diet and exercise,” she says. “But, often they don’t put enough emphasis on the importance of sleep, managing stress, or simply being properly hydrated.”

For example, Glassman says the most common reason people are sluggish in the afternoon is due to dehydration, and she recommends starting each day with a drink of water with lemon. She is strong in her conviction that simple changes in things like water intake and sleep habits can make a significant difference in our health. “When you sleep well, your hormones are in a better place to help you lose weight,” she says. “The same goes for when you manage stress. By focusing on these other life factors, a person begins to feel a whole lot better and lose weight.”

Author Keri Glassman

“I Can Eat Blueberries!”

While fruits and veggies are crucial to living the slim, calm, sexy life, limitations are not. In a recent Nutritious Life newsletter, Glassman writes that her number one chill-out indulgence is a margarita with guacamole and chips. It may not sound like the musings of the author of a popular diet book, but it fits perfectly with Glassman’s philosophy of what she calls “eating empowered, not deprived”. She strives for stress-free living, including plenty of time for pampering (treats provide emotional and physical benefits) and for eating things she loves. Recipes like Raspberry Ricotta French Toast, which shows up in The Slim Calm Sexy Diet, sound indulgent, and they are. But as with all the recipes in the book, the ingredients are nutrient dense, so they are also flavorful, satisfying, and functional. The French Toast is made with multigrain bread, chopped pecans, honey, eggs, and cinnamon – all foods that provide body benefits.

An important principle of eating to be slim, calm, and sexy is changing our relationship with food: ending the on-and-off dieting and making eating a conscious, harmonious, enjoyable experience. Glassman knows first-hand about the starving/overeating roller coaster. Her struggle was with just 15 pounds, but it was enough to blow up into a war. “It made me mental,” she says. But gaining control of yo-yo dieting created a calm that in turn empowered her to remain in control of all her eating. Her own epiphany was a moment in which her negative mantra of “I can’t eat the cake,” turned into the more affirming, “I can eat blueberries!” and her quest to eat plenty of delicious, indulgent foods while maintaining health turned into a mission.

One of the ideas that threads through The Slim Calm Sexy Diet is that being hungry only contributes daily stress, which increases stress hormones responsible for weight gain, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, among other health problems. The book includes healthy tips, weekly workout plans and easy-to-prepare recipes that use nutrient-dense foods that help steer the reader toward mind and body bliss and keep us calm, slim, and inspired to turn on the sexy. Calm foods include berries, for example, because they are rich in vitamin C and combat stress by lowering blood pressure levels and cortisol levels. Slim foods include those that deliver fiber for few calories, such as artichokes, or that increase “burn” like chilis, and sexy foods include those that increase fertility (peaches) and boost libido (watermelon).

Accessible Science 

Glassman, a certified nutritionist, has always supported her diet recommendations with solid scientific evidence. “When you understand the science behind why blueberries are good for your heart health, your mind, and your skin, you are more motivated to want to eat blueberries and guess what? Weight loss also follows,” she says. The O2 Diet, (Rodale Books 2010) her previous book, an antioxidant-based diet that turns research into something accessible and easy to implement.

The O2 program acknowledges the importance of antioxidants in health and disease prevention. Because antioxidants protect against free radicals, they are crucial in preventing forms of cancer, heart disease, and symptoms of aging. Glassman uses the ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) scale for the basis of the program. ORAC is the measurement of antioxidant protection provided by foods, and it’s an important measurement to keep in mind when it comes to making healthy food decisions. It’s also one that can sometimes elude consumers as they shop for foods at the grocery store. Glassman says the easiest way to start increasing the ORAC scores of the foods in our diet is to start with some simple changes. First, she advises ramping up veggie and fruit intake, focusing on healthy fats, and switching to only whole grains. Next, she advises focusing on the darkest, most colorful veggies and fruits. With these small steps, she says, we’ll automatically be getting more antioxidants, and our ORAC quotient will climb.

Keri on Access Hollywood: Indulge in sweets to slim this summer!

Slim, Calm, Sexy Wild Blueberries

Wild blueberries not only serve as an excellent “calm” food due to their influence on the brain, they are an indispensible part of Glassman’s vision of the balanced life. (See the video of Keri Glassman discussing Slim Calm Sexy with a Fox News affiliate in Michigan.) Wild blueberries provide the high antioxidant content that is the key to health and disease prevention, and Glassman also likes them because they are loaded with fiber, which aids digestive health and keeps us full. “And of course, because they just taste so good!” she says. Her favorite combination is wild blueberries in a kale salad with pine nuts or mixed into a side dish of quinoa, which offers powerful flavor, satisfaction, and nutrition.

As part of a diet plan for achieving slim, calm, sexiness, wild blueberries figure prominently in Glassman’s recommended three meals and two snacks per day. For breakfast she recommends wild blueberries combined with protein-rich cottage cheese. She also recommends revisiting wild blues in the afternoon as a wonderful way to indulge mid-day. There’s no need to limit yourself to just a sprinkle – instead, she recommends eating blues by the spoonful, layered between yogurt in a parfait dish and topped with a bit of chocolate.

If being slimmer, calmer, and sexier sounds like a recipe for a great summer, Glassman offers the incentive of losing up to 20 pounds on her diet the first six weeks. But the promise of a new relationship with food extends to all seasons. After understanding how food can put your life in blissful balance, you may never find that twenty pounds again. Instead, you can look forward to a sexier, calmer, if smaller, you.

You can learn about Keri Glassman’s book, or find out more about her philosophy of healthy eating and living at NutritiousLife.com

Find out More about The Slim Calm Sexy Diet at Women’s Health Magazine.

Your ORAC Questions Answered

Part 2 of Wild About Health’s Made Simple Series 

More than any other topic, ORAC measurements have grabbed the attention of our readers over the last few months. Why the interest in ORAC? As part of our Made Simple Series, we are revisiting this nutritional buzzword to see what makes it worth knowing about by answering your ORAC questions as simply as possible.

What’s in this post:

  1. ORAC Basics
  2. Why High ORAC Scores = Health Benefits
  3. Four Steps to Using ORAC to Better Your Health



1. ORAC Basics 

What: ORAC is the nutritional measurement developed and used to evaluate the antioxidant benefit of food. The acronyms stands for or Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity, which refers to how much radical oxygen a food can absorb – that is, its effect on combating damaging free radicals.

Why: The ORAC scale offers the general public a tool that can be used to choose the most powerful foods for health and disease prevention. It also allows for easy comparison of foods to see which food is best when it comes to antioxidant power.

The Buzz: ORAC isn’t a marketing ploy. It was developed by USDA researchers at Tufts University as a way to for consumers to understand antioxidant capacity of foods more clearly. It replaces vague terms like “high in antioxidants” or “superfood” as a reliable way to ensure that foods making antioxidant claims are telling it like it is.

2. Why High ORAC Scores = Health Benefits

What: ORAC is important because measuring antioxidant benefits helps us eat foods that prevent disease and help us live longer.

Why: Dietary antioxidants protect the body against unstable oxygen molecules by neutralizing free radicals. Free radicals are associated with:

  • cancer
  • heart disease
  • brain health & Alzheimer’s disease
  • inflammation –  the chief offender when it comes to the effects of aging and disease

The Buzz: The effect of antioxidants on our health and wellness cannot be overemphasized. Research in the field of antioxidants continues, and according to Susan Davis, MS, RD, Nutrition Advisor to the Wild Blueberry Association it is “incredibly consequential for members of our community and the public at large.”

3. Four Steps to Using ORAC to Better Your Health 

Step 1: Know the scale: ORAC rated foods range from 82 to nearly 14,000 in ORAC value, and the higher the better. Find a list on the United States Department of Agriculture or by checking OracValues.com.

Step 2: Know the ORAC score of common or favorite foods, fruits, vegetables and juices.  For example, about 23 grapes rates 739 on the ORAC scale; while about 70 blueberries comes in at 2,400.
Step 3: Understand serving size:  While chocolate comes in at 13,120 ORAC, it’s for 100 grams of unsweetened cacao – an unrealistically high amount to be contained in a sweetened bar.
Step 4: Use the scores to make better decisions about the food you eat. Make ORAC scores part making grocery lists, planning meals, and eating snacks.
What Foods Have High ORAC Scores?  Read ORAC: What’s this New Nutritional Buzzword to find out what foods are big winners in ORAC measurement.

Your Health – Made Simple. No more nutritional mumbo jumbo! Got a nutritional knot you want unraveled? Let us know!

Good Guy Noir: Nutrition is the New Black

Whoever said black never goes out of style must have been referring to nutrition. Dark berries are certainly a runway favorite. They are high on the list of foods that provide excellent benefits to our health thanks to that dark color – it’s your tip off that you are in the presence of anthocyanins. Dark skin is a fruit UV protector, and may be the key to our protection as well, as a scavenger of free radicals that cause aging and serious diseases. So grab a bowl and head to the nearest abandoned schoolyard, back lot, or backyard, and go in search of the dark colored berry. You’ll come back with a bowlful of sweetness and nutrition that never fails to turn a serious style maven’s head in pies, in ice cream, as a jam or a vinaigrette.

Blackberry or Black Raspberry?

Both blackberries and black raspberries might be harder to find if you live in the North. While red raspberries are adaptable in colder climates, black berries are not as hardy, and grow more often in southern Maine, or in sheltered areas to the north. But being in the realm of the dark colored berry can be a source of confusion: often we refer to blackberries when we really mean black raspberries.

While they look very similar, blackberries and black raspberries have slightly different growing seasons, and are slightly different when picked. If the little white core is left on the plant at picking time, you’ll know it is part of the raspberry family – raspberries easily pull from the core, leaving the hollow fruit – it’s how we can tell if the fruit is ripe. Blackberries, on the other hand, don’t separate from the core.

While both black-colored berries provide excellent nutritional benefits, black raspberries are purported to have higher antioxidant properties. Tastes differ as well. Black raspberries will be harder to distinguish from a red raspberry whereas blackberries have a taste all their own, and tend to be sweeter and less tangy than black raspberries.

Healthy Berry

Dark berries are strong performers when it comes to antioxidant activity. As we’ve mentioned, fruit with  deeper, darker skin means higher concentrations anthocyanins. Blackberries and black raspberries also have a high skin-to-pulp ratio due to their clumping, or “bramble” fruit, which contributes as well. The result is a high ORAC score. ORAC measures the antioxidant activity in foods by using the cellular antioxidant activity (CAA) assay, which provides information on the uptake, metabolism, distribution and activity of antioxidant compounds in cells.

Black berries also have high fiber content, owing again to their skin. They are high in Vitamin C, manganese and B vitamins, and they have high amounts of phenolic compounds. Phenols are part of the reason we consider wine as being good for our health: they can have wide-ranging benefits, including anti-viral and antioxidant properties.

Studies are currently underway to determine just how beneficial black raspberries will turn out to be. Some preliminary studies suggest they may help to slow breast, cervical, colon and esophageal cancers. You can learn more about berry health benefits.

Foraging Favorite

Blackberry and black raspberries have their challenges. They are fairly fragile, and quick to mold or deteriorate if they are crushed, and while freezing does preserve their glory, when fresh, they stay in shape for only a couple of days. And, as accessible as they are, their thorny branches can act like a barbed wire fence making picking seem more like a prison escape than summer recreation.

But these dark berries are worth the trouble. They are a foraging favorite, found copiously around yards, railroad tracks, and fences, and they grow expansively in the wild, often feeding birds and other creatures attracted to their glowing dark color. But if you prefer to forgo the thorns, these berries can easily be found at supermarkets and farmer’s markets this time of year. They work extremely well with other berries, creating a healthy synergy. Combining black raspberries with wild blueberries in a cobbler or buckle, for example, creates an uniquely surprising palate of yin and yang as well as a powerfully healthful punch.

Blackberries and black raspberries shine on their own, too, enlivening salads and adding flavor and antioxidants to smoothies, jams, muffins, cobblers, pies and wine. They make a sweet snack alone, and their fabulous dark shiny exterior enhances a cheese plate while acting as the perfect tasting accompaniment.

Go to the Dark Side! Try These Black Berry Recipes

Martha Stewart offers up Napoleons with Black Raspberries for a dark indulgence.

Food & Wine’s Marilyn Batali’s Blackberry Pie is a classic from a famous Mom who’d know.

Looking for a crisp with berry synergy? Black rocks Food52.com’s Black Raspberry Wild Blueberry & Marion Blackberry Crisp

Kick back with some homemade Blackberry Wine from the Guardian.