Diet Guru – Healthy Weight Loss

Scientists will not rest until they’ve sucked the fun out of even your tamest vices, and now they’ve set their sights on diet sodas.

Two new studies found that diet drinks and artificial sweeteners increase people’s waistlines and increase their risk of diabetes. The new research was presented last week at an American Diabetes Association conference. The first study by doctors at the University of Texas – San Antonio analyzed data from 474 subjects in the San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging, or SALSA. The two-decade study includes elderly Mexican Americans and European Americas. From ScienceDaily:

Measures of height, weight, waist circumference and diet soda intake were recorded at SALSA enrollment and at three follow-up exams that took place over the next decade. The average follow-up time was 9.5 years. The researchers compared long-term change in waist circumference for diet soda users versus non-users in all follow-up periods. The results were adjusted for waist circumference, diabetes status, leisure-time physical activity level, neighborhood of residence, age and smoking status at the beginning of each interval, as well as sex, ethnicity and years of education.

Diet soft drink users, as a group, experienced 70 percent greater increases in waist circumference compared with non-users. Frequent users, who said they consumed two or more diet sodas a day, experienced waist circumference increases that were 500 percent greater than those of non-users.

Abdominal fat is a risk factor for several conditions, including diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. The researchers say this finding shows that national campaigns against sugary drinks should emphasize that replacing them with diet soft drinks won’t necessarily make you healthier.

The report doesn’t weigh in on whether a raging Diet Coke addition is preferable to a regular Coke addiction, but it goes on to note that the artificial sweetener aspartame is also bad news if you’re concerned about diabetes. In a related study, a group of mice were fed a high-fat diet including the chemical for three moths. Compared to the control group, the aspartame-consuming mice had elevated fasting glucose levels and equal or diminished insulin levels. Co-author Dr. Gabriel Fernandes explains:

“These results suggest that heavy aspartame exposure might potentially directly contribute to increased blood glucose levels, and thus contribute to the associations observed between diet soda consumption and the risk of diabetes in humans.”

This certainly isn’t the first study to warn that there are risks associated with foods containing artificial sweeteners, but many of us still see diet beverages as neutral when it comes to health because they contain no calories and fat. The truth is the fizzy chemical cocktail can still do a number on your health, and it may be time to rethink your commitment to being comprised of 70% Diet Coke.

I won’t leave you high and dry here – you know, just talking about benefits of eating healthy diet and don’t give you a clue as to how to cook one such diet…….

I don’t blame you if you kind of thinking that healthy diet is B-O-R-I-N-G and blend and complicated. That’s because you haven’t got the hang yet – the smart way to “mix and match” your food……..

I want to say this – learn to prepare healthy meals in simple ways. Don’t complicate the whole thing by stressing so much on the “calories”. You won’t enjoy and savor the food anymore, that is.

Hey, eating food is a pleasure to enjoy, not a hard, complicated chore to suffer…….

Let’s talk first about food that you can eat raw and fresh.

What comes to your mind?

Of course, fruits, right? And some types of vegetables like tomatoes, carrots, celeries, salad greens…….

I eat raw and fresh fruits and vegetables because this is the only way to eat them in as close to their natural state as possible, to get the maximum goodness.

I eat 2 apples, 1 banana and 1 sweet potato for breakfast in the morning.

I call this a “wake up” menu as it provides vitamins, minerals, potassium, complex carbohydrates and fiber. A wonderful “feel-full” meal that can last me until lunch time, I rarely need to snack in between.

If I’ve the hunger pang, I dig into my tomatoes, carrots and wholemeal bread.

Fruits are naturally low in fat, sodium, and calories. They don’t have cholesterol.

Next, vegetables are fantastic in controlling body weight. They’re rich in fiber, don’t have too many calories and are pretty filling.

5 portions of vegetables in various colors give me sufficient nutrients and a wide range of nutrients. They’re also high in phytochemicals.

If you’re innovative enough, you can cook vegetables in so many ways (boil, stir fry, steam….) that can turn the most unpalatable greens to some tempting dishes.

I love to just easy-boil the vegetables, with a pinch of salt…….Whoa, I get to taste the real juicy original flavor.

Sometimes, I stir-fry them lightly in sunflower oil or steam them for 3 minutes. Mmmmm….delicious!

I eat these vegetables raw and fresh: carrots, tomatoes, celeries…. In raw and fresh forms, they’re loaded with vitamins and minerals.

Fruits, vegetables and whole grains contain anti-oxidants and fibre.

That’s why the more colorful your diet is, the more phytochemicals your body gets. When you eat sizeable portions of these regularly, you delay aging and also reduce your tendency to develop cancer.

I love whole grains and you should too. These foods (oat, barley, wheat, brown rice…..) are supreb sources of fiber.

Instead of going for high carb foods like white bread, pasta and pastries/biscuits, I choose wholemeal bread, multi-grain bread, wheat bread……They’re so good to eat!

Whoa! Benefits of eating healthy diet get better and better!

I go for lean protein (i.e. lean meat) wherever I can. And I always take away the skin and fat before I eat meat – chicken, beef, lamb, fish…….I also eat meat baked, grilled and boiled rather than fried.

I cut back on these extra fats, such as butter or margarine on bread, sour cream on baked potatoes, rich, creamy salad dressings and gravies.

These are famous sources of “hidden fats” which you think aren’t “there” and not a lot. Hey, you’d be surprised at the amount of fat thrown in to make these stuffs.

I drink more than 8 glasses of water daily, to help cleanse my internal sytem, to flush out toxins and waste.

And mind you, I rarely touch alcoholic drinks, sugary beverages and juices and sodas. These’re rich in sugar and high in calories as well.

I’m careful with my salt intake as well since high doses of salt increase risk of high blood pressure, which in turn can affect my brain…eyes and…..heart…

I also cut down on unnecessary sugar. If I feel the pang for sweetness, I go for fruits, veggies or a high protein snack rather than sweets, which actually rob my body of energy.

You might think I’m crazy to be so careful with food but I think I can’t afford not to, simply because my health’s at stake and benefits of eating healthy diet far, far outweigh the unhealthy one……

Do you want to eat more and still lose weight? Well, there may be a trick to this particular piece of advice for weight loss. Many diet gurus advocate eating smaller meals more frequently in place of the usual three square meals a day, the practice of consuming smaller amounts of food at regular intervals throughout the day has been seen to help with weight loss by changing the body’s metabolism, or by taking advantage of it.

The digestive system and hunger center in our brain are connected, so how we eat affects how long we feel hungry or sated.The human body evolved for survival, so it has many mechanisms to ensure survivability. For example, the brain signals hunger when your stomach is empty, and will cause you to want as much food as you can stuff into your belly. This mechanism evolved over times when food was scarce, and eating a lot was the only way to store energy for lean times. Now times have changed, and food is readily available at most any time of the day, but we still have these outdated survival instincts. Luckily though, by understanding why we eat what we eat, we can work against these urges, and even alter them to some extent.

More frequent, but smaller meals can also mean better control over the food. When you are very hungry, you might feel that you do not care about the portion size or caloric content, as long as you get full! Alaso when we feel extremely hungry we tend to overeat. While this is a natural mechanism, it can prove to be a problem when you are trying to control your portions. Eating more often changes how your body seeks food, and you will always have something in your stomach, making you feel less hungry. Thus, the next time you eat, you can keep your portions controlled. Keeping portions small allows us to shrink our stomach and feel full on smaller meals.

The human metabolism rises and falls throughout the day, in accordance with how you eat. When food enters your stomach, the digestive system revs up to a higher state in order to deal with what is coming in. After a few hours, the food will have moved on and your digestive system goes into a low state. The highs and lows affect your energy levels, so you feel energetic a short while after eating, and tired in the couple of hours before the next meal.

The concept of eating more frequently takes advantage of the system by keeping the digestive component of metabolism from going into a low state. By periodically injecting fuel into the system, you can keep metabolism in medium-to-high cycles instead of the usual low-to-high cycles. This means that in the times between your small meals, your body can keep burning calories at a reasonable rate, some of which will come from fat deposits. Keeping your metabolism running full speed also gives you more energy throughout the day. This practice of eat-often-eat-less keeps our energy levels at more-or-less constant levels, so we feel more energetic and thus can do more. By adding exercise into the mix, the amount of energy taken from fat deposits increases even more, and weight loss becomes a serious reality.