If you usually enjoy an appetizer before your main course, you might want to rethink your order.

Consider that most starters at full-service restaurant chains deliver at least 500 calories, and many clock in at over 1,000. Add a main course and a drink and you’ll be lucky to walk out for less than 2,000 calories.

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In addition to shedding unwanted pounds, there is another reason to put healthy eating on your 2011 resolution list: to live longer.

According to a study published in the January issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, eating healthier can increase your life expectancy.

Since the number of adults worldwide aged 65 years and older is expected to climb to 973 million in 2030 from 420 million in 2000, an increasing amount of research is investigating the effect of diet on longevity.

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Think back to last year when a provocative study found that being overweight – but not obese – may help you live longer. It certainly wasn’t the first bit of research to challenge the conventional medical view of the ideal body weight. These reports, which got big play in the contrarian news media, helped fuel the appealing notion you can be fat and fit.

But people who now consider themselves to be pleasantly plump should brace for a reality check.

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Does it really matter how I breathe when I lift weights? — Shannon via Twitter

Breathing is such a ridiculously easy thing to do, even new born babies get the hang of it in seconds. Why would anyone need explicit instructions on how to breathe during any sort of activity? Because in the case of weight lifting good breathing makes a difference. How you suck air into your lungs and push it out again is a matter of safety.

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What does Jennifer ­Aniston really eat? Some claim she curbs carbs on the Atkins diet, others say she ­follows the Zone Diet, which involves eating a 40:30:30 ratio of carbs to fat to protein.

Well, ladies, now her personal chefs, sisters Jewels and Jill Elmore, have released a ­cookbook, which finally lifts the lid on the ­contents of Jennifer’s saucepans.

The introduction to this work has been penned by Aniston herself, who reveals that in a time she refers to as ‘BJ: Before ­Jewels’, she lived on an ­assortment of ­‘prepackaged Zone meals, overcooked takeout and…the ­occasional piece of cheese’.
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It’s well known that cutting saturated fat, found in meat and dairy products, can help lower elevated LDL (bad) cholesterol in the blood, a risk factor for heart disease.

And if your daily diet also includes foods such as oats, almonds, soybeans and plant-sterol enriched margarine you’ll lower your LDL cholesterol even more.

This cholesterol-busting food combo – known as a diet portfolio – has been well studied by David Jenkins, professor and Canada Research Chair in metabolism and nutrition at the University of Toronto and director of the Risk Factor Modification Centre at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.

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Tape measures and scales could soon be replaced in GPs’ surgeries with a 3D body scanner, according to its British designers.

The body volume index (BVI) takes a ‘photocopy’ of a patient’s body in just six seconds.

The seven-foot booth has 16 sensors and 32 cameras and analyses a person’s body fat distribution section by section.

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There have been a lot of reports recently that, contrary to popular belief, exercise does not always help melt away the pounds to reveal the stick-thin super model hiding beneath. Losing weight, the theory goes, almost always involves zipping your mouth and consuming fewer KFC Double Downs.

What? That’s like saying that chocolate can be good for you (it is to a certain extent) or that you will have fewer athletic injuries if you wear cheaper shoes (quite likely). Believe it or not, I support the theory that working out will probably not help you lose weight — if you are not realistic and sensible about both your eating and workout strategies.

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It’s long been suggested that drinking water can help with weight loss, but now a small scientific study lends some credence to the claim.

Researchers presented a paper Monday at the American Chemical Society conference in Boston on a randomized controlled trial involving obese people aged 55 to 75 who were put on a diet.

One group drank two cups of water before their meals, and the other group did not.

Over a 12-week period, the water drinkers lost about 15.5 pounds, while the other group lost about 11 pounds.

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As I write this, I am standing up. In fact, I’ve been answering emails, making phone calls and tapping away at a computer for an hour without sitting. I drank my morning coffee pacing the room.

I own a comfy office chair, but all this standing around – I’ve been doing it on and off for a week – should do me a power of good. Am I losing my marbles? Not according to the latest research. Sitting is seriously bad for you.

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