BMI: Between Meal Intrigue Hits the Highway

• Calorie restriction or Caloric restriction (CR) diet - limiting dietary energy intake to improve health and retard aging.
• Food - material, usually of plant or animal origin, that contains or consists of essential body nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals, and is ingested and assimilated by an organism to produce energy, stimulate growth, and maintain life.
• Current dietary fiber recommendations - suggest that adults consume 20-35 grams of dietary fiber per day, but the average American's daily intake of dietary fiber is only 14-15 grams.
• Exercise - performing activities in order to develop or maintain physical fitness and overall health.
• Processed foods are likely to contain trans fats - snack foods, fried foods, baked goods, salad dressings, and vegetable shortenings and margarines.
• Anti-obesity drugs - include all pharmacological treatments intended to reduce or control weight.

If you've been pursuing a lighter, healthier version of yourself, it's likely that you've heard of BMI, as in "Body Mass Index." BMI is a guide by which we can measure where we "are" right now and gauge our improvement over time. Well we're going to explore a different BMI... "Between Meal Intrigue". Doesn't that sound snackilicious?

This article was inspired by a suggestion from Marie Libby from somewhere in the great state of New Jersey. Marie shared her secret weapon in her own battle of the bulge.

Marie, like many of us, is always on the go. When we're out and about, we are vulnerable. Surrounded by temptation and apart from our regular routine, an active person could find his or herself in the Wendy's drive thru line without even remembering how we got there!

Most of us know that starvation is a poor diet choice. Just as when we don't drink enough water and our body hoards H2O, our body hoards fat when we don't eat. Ironically, it is "eating" that fires up our metabolic furnace first thing in the morning.

So, we've established that skipping meals is not a smart idea. Given that, what do we do when we are away from home and unable to keep to our strict eating habits?

Marie provided a few suggestions and I must say that I completely concur. Here's what she had to say:

"Whenever I'm on the go and I know I won't be able to stop and eat a healthy meal, I prepare a cooler with the following items and pack it away in my car:

- an apple

- a baggie filled with a cup of Kashi (Good Friends) cereal with dietary fiber

- blueberries

- strawberries

- cantaloupe

- celery

- carrots

- and, of course, a couple bottles of water...

The Kashi makes a nice snack, I eat it dry right out of the bag. This helps me to avoid the fast-food drive thru or the junk food counter at the mini-mart."

Marie may not have used those EXACT words, but they were pretty darn close.

Keeping to Marie's plan will help you in two very important ways. First, and most obviously, by avoiding high fat, high calorie meals, you avoid gaining weight due to poor meal selection.

Secondly, by snacking on carefully chosen foods now, you will tend to eat less food and choose the right food at the next meal.

Notice the fact that Marie finished with the most important ingredient in her road warrior plot... bringing along water. When you are away from home or work, it is most difficult to drink plenty of water. Bringing along bottles of the life-giving liquid will help your body to continue to metabolize fat and keep you from gaining unnecessary water weight.

Being one who is often on the go doesn't mean that you have to take several steps backward in your steady march toward your final goal. With just a little planning and a bit of will power, you can hit the road without missing a beat!

Michael Callen is the author of the Weekly Weightloss Tips Newsletter (http://www.ccwebgroup.com/tips) and the Chief Technology Officer for WellnessPartners.com, an online retailer of dozens of health and wellness products such as conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), r+ alpha lipoic acid (R+ ALA), and Green Tea Extract.