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Eat Fat before your Meal?

February 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Do you think of dietary fat as being bad? Do you associate going on a diet with eliminating fat? At one time, low fat diets were very popular, but as time wore on, they proved to less effective than once thought, and maybe even unhealthy. Your body needs fat. Granted, it doesn’t need a lot of fat, and it needs the right kind of fat. If you eat “good” fat in the proper amounts, at the right time, they can help you lose weight and stay healthy.

Eating a small amount of fat about 20 minutes before your regular meal may be enough to quell your appetite so you eat less. Fat also slows absorption so you feel full longer. This helps end cravings and the urge to snack between meals. Fat is necessary for healthy body functions, so including good fats in your diet can improve the health of your brain, cardiovascular system, and nervous system. Fat helps in the absorption of omega 3 fatty acids and builds strong cell walls and bones. Good fats can actually help lower cholesterol and reduce inflammation in the body.

So what are good fats? These are found in nuts, olive oil, and even peanut butter. These are healthy fats, but being fat, they are also high in calories so if you need to lose weight, you want to control your portions. A small handful of nuts or celery stick with peanut butter eaten about 20 minutes before your evening meal is plenty.

Remember, not all fat is equal. Bad fats like those found in full fat dairy products, and meat are saturated, and should be strictly limited, because eating these to excess has been linked to an increase in health problems such as cardiovascular disease. So reach for the walnuts before your next meal, and not the ice cream!


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Gain Weight And Increase Your Chances Of Dying?

February 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment

If you are overweight, your main concern may be with your appearance. However, with the release of a new study from Harvard, you may want to forget about how obesity affects your looks, and thinks about how it is affecting your health. This study proved once and for all those being overweight increases your risk of dying, and the more you weigh, the greater your risk.

When you see the results in black and white, it is pretty scary. It is all based on BMI or body mass index. Your body mass index is figured by calculating your weight against your height. An easy way to find yours is to search online for a free calculator where you enter your weight and height, and it returns your BMI. When you know your BMI, you can see how you compare to this study.

A healthy, or normal BMI is between 20 and 25. A BMI between 25 and 29.9 is classified as overweight. A BMI above 30 is considered obese and a BMI of 40 or more is morbidly obese. Now, let’s take a look at the Harvard study. This study used subjects who were otherwise healthy. They didn’t smoke or have known heart disease. The researchers simply looked at their BMI and death rates while adjusting the results to account for exercise and other lifestyle habits.

They found that people with the lowest BMI, in the healthy range, had the lowest death rates. The overweight category had a death rate 13% higher. People in the obese category had death rates as high as 44% to 88% higher than the healthy group. Those in the morbidly obese category had a death rate 150% higher than the people of normal weight.

If that isn’t enough to shock you into losing weight, I don’t know what else would be. Remember, these were otherwise healthy test subjects. We’ve always known that overweight people were at a risk of health problems and early death, and now we have the numbers to prove it.

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Seeing Is Not Believing – Why Calorie Postings Make Us Eat More?

February 1, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Over in New York, the word on the street is that the recent obligations for fast food restaurants to display a calorie count has had surprising results; perhaps not the results that were intended, however. You would think that seeing the calorie count next to your favorite cheeseburger would make you give it up once in a while for a low-count salad – but no! Studies show that quite the opposite is taking place, and that people are now working their way through more fast food (and calories) than ever before – but why?

counting caloriesApparently, the large majority of us makes decisions about what we eat in terms of taste first, followed by cost, convenience and then nutrition. So whether the calorie count is there for us all to see or not, it won’t change our food behavior overnight.

According to top obesity researcher Adam Drewnowski, the reason, the residents of New York are now eating more fast food is that they are not using the calorie count as a guide to nutrition – they use it as a guide for getting more out of their money. “So many calories for such a low price? Might as well take two…”

So in other words, a good percentage of people is not seeing the higher calories as a risk of eating unhealthy – they are seeing more calories as being fuller for longer and this makes sense to those who can’t afford three balanced meals a day. The more calories they can get for their money the better. What are your feelings towards this and have you ever took advantage of higher levels of calories for a favorable cost?


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