Brandi Koskie is the senior editor at DietsInReview.com, a healthy living resource with more than 500 diet reviews, hundreds of healthy recipes, a daily diet blog featuring articles by a team of a health and fitness professionals, and much more at the newly renovated site.

The holiday season begins in about a month. If your neighborhood stores are anything like mine, the Halloween displays are flanked by Thanksgiving and Christmas displays… already. Bowls full of candy are starting to fill everyone’s homes, and you’ll of course have to sample the trick-or-treating fare delivered by your children. Come Thanksgiving, we’ll eat a week’s worth of calories in one splendid sitting. Inevitably, the Christmas season will force us to do the same. Six days later, we’ll be ringing in the New Year, and as we slide into that party dress, we’ll realize that we need to make a resolution to lose weight.

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Popularity: 20% [?]

That may be because you’ve been eating one or more of the top 20 productive foods!

Lifehack.org compiled a list of the most motivating and energizing foods nature has to offer. And here they are:

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Popularity: 6% [?]

WHO KNEW?

Since cutting down a bit on my desserts and snacks (mainly by restricting myself to homemade stuff as opposed to store-bought junk) and making a conscious effort to eat fruit whenever I crave food between meals, I’ve lost five pounds.

That’s in addition to the five pounds lost via switching to diet soda (creepy as it may feel).

As a bonus, all the fruit I’ve been scarfing–grapes, strawberries, apples–is immensely snackable. Some of it even manages to be high on the Poppability Index, and none of it makes me feel ill the way I do after devouring a plateful of cookies (even if it is a happy kind of ill). All people need to do is make small adjustments where necessary to reap the benefits; keep some apples and peanut butter handy. Make some fruit salad and bring it with to work. Acknowledge that not every sweet thing you eat must involve chocolate or come from a convenient sealed bag.

Can you imagine what it’ll be like once I’m exercising regularly? I’ll give you a hint: Shirtless Christian Bale. Batman/American Psycho Bale, not The Machinist Bale. Minus, you know, the vigilantism and killing sprees.

-Jim predicts a total reversal of fortune following the next Ron of Japan visit

Popularity: 7% [?]

I stumbled across a firestorm of a forum thread about a charming little place called The Heart Attack Grill this afternoon. In addition to the burgers of death pictured above, the Phoenix-based restaurant offers beer, cigarettes, and French Fries cooked in lard. Predictably, the forumites in question were incensed about the Grill’s unapologetically unhealthy chow; the usual “places like this are why we’re getting so obese” line came up, as well as a topic-within-a-topic about the poor dumb souls who eat McDonald’s every day.

Except… when it comes to selling unhealthy, body-punishing cuisine, this place is actually on the right track. Think about it: it’s called The Heart Attack Grill. Every item on the menu, it jokes(?), will kill you. It uses sarcasm and sexy nurse outfits to sell burgers, yeah, but beneath that layer of sleaze there’s a point: this food, eaten in abundance, can be terrible for you. Minimize Me results notwithstanding, that’s pretty true. Places like this are not the reason we’re obese; people coming to these places multiple times per week are the reason we’re obese.

When people start dieting or at the very least paying attention to what they eat, they tend to put food into “good” and “bad” categories. While there are some truly despicable foods out there (transfats, anyone?), for the most part no food is truly bad. You can have that hamburger with bacon occasionally and still live a long, healthy life! The human body is a flexible thing, and as long as you’re–and this is key–treating it right the rest of the time, it’ll take in that extra burger or pizza with minimal fuss.

What’s especially ironic here is, since all of The Grill’s frying is done in lard, it’s actually healthier than the transfat-laden fried junk at most fast food outlets. And most of those outlets are trying to update their image to appeal to more health-conscious Americans, putting forth the image that eating their food regularly is a good idea. I wonder who’s more insidious here: the proud Las Vegases of food joints, or the clean-cut snake-oil salesmen?

Eat what you want to, people, but do so in moderation, and exercise enough to work off whatever indulgences you allow. Sticking to a balanced diet and plenty of physical activity are what keep you healthy–not prohibiting the occasional hamburger.

-Jim will eat these molten cupcakes, for example, and then go running every day to compensate

Popularity: 8% [?]

I am so not ready for the season to change. I am a total summer girl at heart and the cold weather is only beneficial for me if I am at home, curled up on the couch watching a good movie or reading a great book! But it’s life and I am preparing for winter! Well, at least I am but my poor beautiful vegetable garden isn’t.

This is where I need your help! This past summer I decided to plant my very first garden and to be honest I didn’t know what I was doing when it came to planting and taking care of it. I guess I was lucky (or maybe I was a gardener in my past life) but the garden grew and I had all sorts of fresh produce in my back yard! Unfortunately, now my garden is dying because of the cold weather. So, what do I now?

I have basil plants that I would love to save, I have heard that the best way to save herbs is to freeze them but I am not sure what the best “freezer” method is.

Help?

Also, I have tomato, cucumber and green pepper plants, what do I do with them? Am I suppose to dig them up and throw them away or do they stay planted with the chance of growing back next year (is that even possible)?

Help please! Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Sarah- Go Chiefs and Go Bears!

P.S. I still need to try making Fried Green Tomatoes again!

Popularity: 24% [?]

I have Jury Duty on Friday.

On the one hand, I’m a little excited, because Jury Duty is part of being a Real Adult and a Productive Citizen; on the other hand, oh, god, I’m going to listen to people debate traffic law for eight hours. It’s times like these I wish I’d spent my geek money on something a bit more portable than the hulking gaming brick currently sitting at my doorstep (yes, I’ve been checking Amazon Shipping all day).

But something struck me as I pondered my inevitable boredom: what kind of drink can I write about after being in Jury Duty all day? What epitomizes our justice system in a single glass of booze? I’m at a loss. Maybe something interminable, like an unpleasantly strong bitter cocktail that takes a million wincing sips to finish; something somehow flawed but still better than a lot of things, like a really good mixer missing one ingredient; something blind, like, uh, wood alcohol? I can’t decide. I hope one of you has a suggestion.

Oh, and in other news, eating food might kill us. Yes, again. Fortunately for those of you affected by the recall, we’ve got plenty of chicken burger recipes like this one to tide you over until all the germs go away. Bagged salad and spinach lovers are currently on probation.

Lastly: what should I eat to christen my new car? I’m thinking black bean quesadillas, because my car is black and looks delicious.

-Jim is somewhat random today, isn’t he?

Popularity: 6% [?]