A quick/simple, yet fascinating view on what 200 calories really looks like with different foods and drink....
Showing posts with label healthy weight. Show all posts
Showing posts with label healthy weight. Show all posts
Wednesday, 14 June 2017
Friday, 12 May 2017
The 50 Best Low-Carb Foods, Plus Recipe Ideas & Tips - Part 2
The Low-Carb Diet: Overview of Benefits and How It Works
(Part 1 of this article featured on Weds 10th May).A large body of research shows that for those who make good candidates, following a low-carb diet has many health benefits. While it’s not always necessary to give up all unprocessed, whole-food sources of carbs (like fruit and starchier veggies mentioned above), cutting down on processed foods, added sugar and even grains can help many experience benefits like:
Faster weight loss, and usually a easier time maintaining a healthy weight. Once glucose from carbohydrate foods are no longer available for energy, the body will use stored body fat instead, or fat and protein consumed from foods.
Enhanced satiety from meals, reduced hunger and decreased cravings (especially for carb-heavy foods and sweets)
Normalized blood sugar levels. This is due to better control over insulin and blood sugar (glucose) spikes. For those who are pre-diabetics or have diabetes, this is often crucial for preventing symptoms from worsening or complications.
Neuroprotective effects and enhanced cognitive performance, including less “brain fog” or dips in energy, improved memory in the elderly and reduced symptoms of epilepsy
Sometimes improvements in hormonal balance. This often results in better sleep, less fatigue, reduced pain or muscle weakness, and more energy overall.
Reduced bone loss or osteoporosis
In athletes, possible favorable changes in body mass and body composition, along with increase in the relative values of maximal oxygen uptake (VO2 max) and oxygen uptake at lactate threshold (VO2 LT)
In some cases, lower risk for cardiovascular disease or metabolic syndrome, including normalizing factors like blood sugar or unhealthy cholesterol levels
Wondering what types of foods you really shouldn’t have when on a low-carb diet? Because they’re higher in things like added sugar and carbs from flour or thickeners, limiting the foods below will keep your carb intake on the lower end:
If you’re intending to eat very low carb, avoid all grains (including wheat, barley, oats, rice and other whole grains). This also includes all foods made with grain flour such as bread, cakes, biscuits, chips, cereal, muffins, pasta, etc.
Sugar and foods that contain artificial or added sweeteners (honey, cane sugar, coconut sugar, etc.)
Most commercial fruits and fruit juices (juice is high in sugar, with the exception of lime or lemon juice)
Most pre-made condiments, sauces or packet mixes, which tend to be high in sugar
Alcohol, soda and other sweetened drinks
If you’re looking to drastically reduce carbs (such as following a ketogenic diet), you’ll also want to avoid most dairy products that contain milk, yogurt, ricotta or cottage cheese. Higher fat, low-carb cheeses are often included even on very low-carb diets because they have very few carbs.
Remember that regardless of what number of carbs you aim to eat everyday, the real goal is to consistently consume more real, whole foods and reduce intake of processed ingredients.
It can be wise to experiment with a very low-carb diet for a period of time, but once you’re working on maintenance (the way you intend to basically continue eating forever), aim to eat a variety of foods, including lots of different plants that will contain at least some carbs.
To sustain a healing diet long-term, develop a solid understanding of how many carbs daily from a well-rounded diet you can tolerate without gaining weight or suffering from other health problems. You use this information about your unique biochemistry to sustain a “normal eating pattern” – complete with things like healthy proteins and fats, along with fresh veggies, fruits and even some whole starchy veggies, legumes or grains if they work well for you.
Final Thoughts on Low-Carb Foods
Low-carb diets can help people lose weight quickly and potentially improve certain health conditions like sugar dependence, brain fog, fatigue, and risk factors for metabolic syndrome or diabetes.
Low-carb foods include non-starchy veggies (like leafy greens or cruciferous veggies), healthy fats like coconut or olive oil, butter and hard cheeses, meat, seafood and eggs. Moderate sources of carbs are nuts, seeds, beans, legumes and some starchier veggies.
Depending on your overall health and goals, it’s not usually necessarily to completely avoid healthy sources of carbs in moderation, like fruit or starchy veggies. In some cases, sprouted or soaked grains and legumes (higher in carbs) can also be included in an otherwise balanced diet that includes lots of low-carb foods.
What can you do with low-carb foods? Low-carb recipes include that can be made without things like added sugars, refined grains or artificial sweeteners include protein shakes, smoothies, salads, crockpot recipes, fajitas, burgers or meatballs, and much more.
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Click here for Part 1 of this article featured on Weds 10th May.
Please click to see the full article.
by Dr Josh Axe
Friday, 14 April 2017
Is Your Metabolism Keeping You From Losing Weight?
Secrets of Metabolism
If you’re trying to manage your weight, you’ll need to mind your metabolism.
Metabolism, specifically resting metabolism, is the body’s engine. It’s the energy you burn just to keep your heart beating, your lungs breathing, and your other organs running.
Unless you’re an elite athlete, resting metabolism accounts for 60% to 75% of all the calories you burn each day, and it varies a lot from person to person.
Metabolism Myths
Will eating more frequently boost your metabolism? An expert takes on three common beliefs.
People who have a naturally high metabolic rate can eat more, without gaining weight, than people who burn calories at a slower pace.
Sounds great, right? You’ve got this awesome internal combustion engine that burns hundreds of calories a day without you having to do a single sit-up.
Now for the bad news: It’s hard to boost your resting metabolism much beyond its natural set point, though it is possible to slow it down.
Here’s what science has shown can put a dent in your ability to lose weight and keep if off.
Sleep
Researchers have known that short sleep leads to weight gain. People who don’t get at least 6 hours of sleep at night are prone to overeating, and they usually crave starchy, sugary foods.
It turns out that overeating isn’t the only issue when you’re cheating sleep; not getting enough shut-eye also slows metabolism.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania recently brought 36 healthy adults into their sleep lab. Over 5 days, half the group was only allowed to sleep 4 hours a night; the other half got to sleep up to 10 hours at a time.
Even though the sleep-restricted group was active and awake for more hours of the day, their resting metabolisms slowed by about 50-60 calories a day, says senior study author Namni Goel, PhD. Goel studies sleep medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
It’s not a huge amount, but “that can add up across multiple nights of sleep restriction,” she says.
Even more concerning, Goel says, is that metabolism sputters just as appetite goes up. Her sleep-restricted volunteers were eating about 500 more calories each day, so the total calorie imbalance just from not getting enough sleep was substantial -- around 550 calories a day, enough to lead to about a pound of weight gain each week.
Protein
Kevin Hall, PhD, a senior investigator at the National Institutes of Health, has been doing experiments to test the idea that all calories are equal, no matter where they come from. With fats and carbohydrates, that seems to be true. But Hall says protein seems to be a different story.
“It looks like there might be some benefit to increasing the amount of protein that you eat,” he says, though more research is needed before he can say for sure. And he’s not sure why protein might boost metabolism, but he has some theories.
The body spends more energy trying to digest and absorb proteins than it does fats and carbohydrates.
“It also might increase metabolic rate, but very slightly. We’re not talking about huge increases here,” Hall says.
Diets that switch the body’s calorie primary fuel source from sugar or carbohydrates to fats also may help with your metabolism. Diets that do this are called ketogenic diets. They tend to be higher in fats or proteins and lower in carbohydrates.
In a recent study, Hall had 17 overweight or obese men follow two different low-calorie diets. The first was a diet that was higher in carbohydrates and lower in fats. The second was a ketogenic diet that was lower in carbohydrates and higher in fats. Protein was kept the same between the two diets. The men lost weight on both diets, but their metabolisms were slightly higher on the ketogenic diet.
The take-home message for people who are looking to lose weight is that if you’re going to cut calories, don’t cut your protein intake.
Eating more protein may help keep your resting metabolism high, which can help you both lose weight and keep it off after.
Weight Loss
When we lose weight, our bodies fight hard to regain it.
Eric Ravussin, PhD, director of the Nutrition Obesity Research Center at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, likens this resistance to weight loss to what happens when you pull on a spring.
“The more you pull your weight away from your natural settling point, the more your body is going to resist,” he says. One way the body resists weight loss is to slow down its resting metabolism. The more rapid and extreme the weight loss, the more metabolism appears to slow. A recent series of studies has shown exactly how dramatic the metabolic slowdown after weight loss can be.
Hall spent 6 years following contestants from season eight of "The Biggest Loser" reality show. The show takes obese people and pairs them with trainers who push them through extreme exercise -- up to 4 1/2 hours each day -- and strict diets so they quickly lose weight.
At the end of the competition, which lasts for 7 months, some people had lost as much as half their starting weight. The trouble is that their metabolisms slowed even as the pounds flew off.
By the end of the show, when they were at their lowest weight, their resting metabolisms had dropped by more than 600 calories a day, on average.
Researchers had expected some slowing in their daily calorie burn, but the metabolic plunge was even more than scientists had predicted. And contrary to what experts had expected, their metabolisms never adjusted after their extreme weight loss. In some cases, they slowed even more.
Thirteen of the 14 contestants regained some of the weight they lost. Four contestants are heavier now than before they joined the show. Some have said their junk food cravings are still there, though their capacity to burn them off isn’t.
“We took a look at this extreme case of very huge lifestyle changes, huge amounts of weight loss because we wanted to see how strongly the body responds when you intervene to such a large degree. The answer is pretty darn strongly,” Hall says.
Hall thinks that hormones -- particularly the hormone leptin, which banishes hunger -- may play a role.
In a different study, "Biggest Loser" contestants had 80% less leptin at the end of their weight loss than a similar group of people who’d lost weight after bariatric surgery.
Scientists are currently testing whether giving leptin injections after weight loss might preserve metabolism and prevent weight regain.
Until there’s a drug to prevent weight regain, the take-home message here, says Ravussin, is that slow and steady is a better way to lose weight if you want to have a better chance of keeping it of
Even better, Hall says, is to try to change the way you think of weight loss. Instead of going on a diet -- dramatically cutting calories and killing yourself at the gym -- to get to a certain weight, he says it’s better to focus on adopting habits you’ll be able to stick with over the long run.
See Source
By Brenda Goodman, MA
If you’re trying to manage your weight, you’ll need to mind your metabolism.
Metabolism, specifically resting metabolism, is the body’s engine. It’s the energy you burn just to keep your heart beating, your lungs breathing, and your other organs running.
Unless you’re an elite athlete, resting metabolism accounts for 60% to 75% of all the calories you burn each day, and it varies a lot from person to person.
Will eating more frequently boost your metabolism? An expert takes on three common beliefs.
People who have a naturally high metabolic rate can eat more, without gaining weight, than people who burn calories at a slower pace.
Sounds great, right? You’ve got this awesome internal combustion engine that burns hundreds of calories a day without you having to do a single sit-up.
Now for the bad news: It’s hard to boost your resting metabolism much beyond its natural set point, though it is possible to slow it down.
Here’s what science has shown can put a dent in your ability to lose weight and keep if off.
Sleep
Researchers have known that short sleep leads to weight gain. People who don’t get at least 6 hours of sleep at night are prone to overeating, and they usually crave starchy, sugary foods.
It turns out that overeating isn’t the only issue when you’re cheating sleep; not getting enough shut-eye also slows metabolism.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania recently brought 36 healthy adults into their sleep lab. Over 5 days, half the group was only allowed to sleep 4 hours a night; the other half got to sleep up to 10 hours at a time.
Even though the sleep-restricted group was active and awake for more hours of the day, their resting metabolisms slowed by about 50-60 calories a day, says senior study author Namni Goel, PhD. Goel studies sleep medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
It’s not a huge amount, but “that can add up across multiple nights of sleep restriction,” she says.
Even more concerning, Goel says, is that metabolism sputters just as appetite goes up. Her sleep-restricted volunteers were eating about 500 more calories each day, so the total calorie imbalance just from not getting enough sleep was substantial -- around 550 calories a day, enough to lead to about a pound of weight gain each week.
Protein
Kevin Hall, PhD, a senior investigator at the National Institutes of Health, has been doing experiments to test the idea that all calories are equal, no matter where they come from. With fats and carbohydrates, that seems to be true. But Hall says protein seems to be a different story.
“It looks like there might be some benefit to increasing the amount of protein that you eat,” he says, though more research is needed before he can say for sure. And he’s not sure why protein might boost metabolism, but he has some theories.
The body spends more energy trying to digest and absorb proteins than it does fats and carbohydrates.
“It also might increase metabolic rate, but very slightly. We’re not talking about huge increases here,” Hall says.
Diets that switch the body’s calorie primary fuel source from sugar or carbohydrates to fats also may help with your metabolism. Diets that do this are called ketogenic diets. They tend to be higher in fats or proteins and lower in carbohydrates.
In a recent study, Hall had 17 overweight or obese men follow two different low-calorie diets. The first was a diet that was higher in carbohydrates and lower in fats. The second was a ketogenic diet that was lower in carbohydrates and higher in fats. Protein was kept the same between the two diets. The men lost weight on both diets, but their metabolisms were slightly higher on the ketogenic diet.
The take-home message for people who are looking to lose weight is that if you’re going to cut calories, don’t cut your protein intake.
Eating more protein may help keep your resting metabolism high, which can help you both lose weight and keep it off after.
Weight Loss
When we lose weight, our bodies fight hard to regain it.
Eric Ravussin, PhD, director of the Nutrition Obesity Research Center at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, likens this resistance to weight loss to what happens when you pull on a spring.
“The more you pull your weight away from your natural settling point, the more your body is going to resist,” he says. One way the body resists weight loss is to slow down its resting metabolism. The more rapid and extreme the weight loss, the more metabolism appears to slow. A recent series of studies has shown exactly how dramatic the metabolic slowdown after weight loss can be.
Hall spent 6 years following contestants from season eight of "The Biggest Loser" reality show. The show takes obese people and pairs them with trainers who push them through extreme exercise -- up to 4 1/2 hours each day -- and strict diets so they quickly lose weight.
At the end of the competition, which lasts for 7 months, some people had lost as much as half their starting weight. The trouble is that their metabolisms slowed even as the pounds flew off.
By the end of the show, when they were at their lowest weight, their resting metabolisms had dropped by more than 600 calories a day, on average.
Researchers had expected some slowing in their daily calorie burn, but the metabolic plunge was even more than scientists had predicted. And contrary to what experts had expected, their metabolisms never adjusted after their extreme weight loss. In some cases, they slowed even more.
Thirteen of the 14 contestants regained some of the weight they lost. Four contestants are heavier now than before they joined the show. Some have said their junk food cravings are still there, though their capacity to burn them off isn’t.
“We took a look at this extreme case of very huge lifestyle changes, huge amounts of weight loss because we wanted to see how strongly the body responds when you intervene to such a large degree. The answer is pretty darn strongly,” Hall says.
Hall thinks that hormones -- particularly the hormone leptin, which banishes hunger -- may play a role.
In a different study, "Biggest Loser" contestants had 80% less leptin at the end of their weight loss than a similar group of people who’d lost weight after bariatric surgery.
Scientists are currently testing whether giving leptin injections after weight loss might preserve metabolism and prevent weight regain.
Until there’s a drug to prevent weight regain, the take-home message here, says Ravussin, is that slow and steady is a better way to lose weight if you want to have a better chance of keeping it of
Even better, Hall says, is to try to change the way you think of weight loss. Instead of going on a diet -- dramatically cutting calories and killing yourself at the gym -- to get to a certain weight, he says it’s better to focus on adopting habits you’ll be able to stick with over the long run.
See Source
By Brenda Goodman, MA
Friday, 10 February 2017
Weight Loss Goals. What Should You Aim For?
Realistic Weight Loss Goals
If you’ve come to the decision that you want to lose some weight, the next step is determining how much weight you should lose. Because so many people begin diets and lose hope quickly, you’ll want to make sure your diet and goals are realistic. Every person is different, and while weighing 100 pounds might be ideal for your friend, it is probably not ideal for you. You don’t want to lose too much weight, you should simply want to be at your ideal weight and aim for realistic weight loss goals.
What Is Your Healthy Weight?
In order to determine your ideal weight, using the Body Mass Index is a good way to start. This looks at a person’s weight in relation to their height. No matter your height, if you’re under 18.5, then you’re underweight. So no one should be aiming for a BMI under 18.5. A healthy weight is known between 18.5-24.9, so any of these is safe for a goal. The taller you are, the higher your BMI can be. But if your BMI is between 25-29.9, you’re considered overweight. If it is 30 or more, then you’re obese. Charts determining your ideal BMI in regards to your weight are available online and in health stores or gyms.
Similarly, you’ll want to make sure you are aiming for a BMI that is realistic to your age. You may have had 18.5 BMI when you were 18, but if you’re 40 and looking to have that again, you might be out of luck. Our metabolisms change as we get older, so you’ll want to always take that into account when realizing weight loss goals. Don’t aim for an 18.5 because that’s what you were when you were a teen. Aim for a BMI that is realistic to your age, and will result in you feeling fit, healthy and slim, rather than stick thin.
Thursday, 2 February 2017
3 Reasons it is Vital for Women to Stay a Healthy Weight
The worst thing you can do for your self-esteem and confidence is to convince yourself that you are just fine to gain a few pounds. While a couple of extra pounds on an already healthy frame will not really make a difference, those few pounds can be the starting point for a downhill slope that you want to run away from and ruin your healthy weight.
To help you understand just why that is, you might want to take a few moments to reflect on the following reasons as to why it is so important to always make sure that you are getting to and staying at a healthy weight.
1. You Will Live Longer
You already know that you have a lot to live for. However, if you start to allow yourself to no longer care about your body, you will find that it is going to be a lot harder to stick around for a long time.
You want to be around for your friends, your family, your pets, your work, and for all of the future adventures that are in store for you.
2. You Will Be an Inspiration
Do you have any young girls in your family? Whether it is your own daughter, your younger cousin, or a niece, you want to be an inspiration to her. Even if you are in a slump and feel as though you could really care less about your own health at the moment – it is likely that you care a lot for the health of your young relative or friend.
By staying a healthy weight, you will be showing her:
- Goals can be achieved
- That you have to love yourself
- That you have to care for your body in order to be healthy
- That is it fun to be at a healthy weight
3. You Will Feel More Attractive
This is not to say that a woman who carries a little more weight on her is not able to feel or be attractive. However, many women find that their self-esteem is automatically affected in some way or another when they start packing on the pounds. If you want to prevent that, you will want to remain a healthy weight for as long as possible. You will look better and you will feel much more comfortable in the clothes that you like to wear.
With all of those reasons in mind, it should be easy to see why you are going to want to do your best in order to make sure that you are always staying a healthy weight.
Friday, 20 January 2017
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