Weight Debate

Carbohydrates are one of the macronutrients. There are two main types of carbohydrates, complex carbohydrates and simple carbohydrates. Carbohydrates include sugars, starches, and dietary fiber:

Sugars (Simple carbohydrates)
A simple carbohydrate composed of one unit – a monosaccharide, such as glucose or fructose – or two joined units – a disaccharide, such as lactose or sucrose. Sugars include: read more »

Dr. Mehmet Oz on the Dr. Oz show says eating a super high carbohydrate diet increases Neuropeptide Y (NPY). NPY is a brain chemical that decreases metabolism and increases appetite.

You should make sure that less than 50 percent of your diet comes from carbohydrates, and that most of your carbohydrates are complex, such as whole grains and vegetables. read more »

Myth: A high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet, such as the Atkins diet, is a healthy way to lose weight.

The fact is:
A high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet is based on the idea that carbohydrates are “bad” for you, and that people who eat them gain weight. The truth is, people are gaining weight because they eat more total calories, and they get less physical activity.

Because your food choices are strictly limited, a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet is often low in calories. This is why the diet may cause short-term weight loss. But keep in mind that getting most of your daily calories from high-protein foods such as eggs, meat, and cheese is not a balanced eating plan.

High-protein, low-carbohydrate diets tend to be low in B vitamins, calcium, fiber, and healthy phytochemicals – plant chemicals. When you eliminate food groups, you simply decrease variety and nutrition in your diet, not weight.

As a matter of fact, a reduced-calorie eating plan that includes recommended amounts of carbohydrate, protein, and fat will allow you to lose weight. By following a balanced eating plan, you don’t have to stop eating whole classes of foods, such as whole grains, vegetables, and fruits, which allows you to get all the key nutrients these foods contain. You may also find it easier to stick with a diet or eating plan that includes a greater variety of foods.

Carbohydrates are sugars and starches that provide glucose to your body. Glucose is a major source of energy for your brain, heart, red blood cells, and central nervous system.

Potential long-term side effects of extreme high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets may:

• Make you eat too much fat and cholesterol, which may raise your risk of heart disease.
• Make you eat less fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, which can lead to constipation due to the lack of dietary fiber in your diet.
• Make you feel nauseous, tired, and weak.
• Cause bone loss.
• Damage your kidneys.

Important:
Eating fewer than 130 grams of carbohydrates a day can lead to the buildup of ketones in your blood. Ketones are partially broken-down fats. A buildup of these in your blood (called ketosis) can cause your body to produce high levels of uric acid, which is a risk factor for gout (a painful swelling of the joints) and kidney stones. Ketosis may be especially risky for people with diabetes, people with kidney disease, and pregnant women.

Be sure to discuss any changes in your diet with your doctor, especially if you have health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, or kidney disease.

There are two types of carbohydrates: simple carbohydrates and complex carbohydrates. We will be discussing simple carbohydrates in this post.

Simple carbohydrates are sugars composed of a single sugar molecule (monosaccharide) or two joined sugar molecules (a disaccharide), such as glucose, fructose, lactose, and sucrose.

Simple carbohydrates include sugars found naturally in foods such as fruits, vegetables milk, and milk products.

Simple carbohydrates also include sugars added during food processing and refining. Sugars have been added to foods such as cake, cookies, pastry, candies, sweetened gum, sweetened sodas, and muffins. In general, foods with added sugars have fewer nutrients than foods with naturally-occurring sugars.

You should limit foods with added sugars. You can tell if a food has added sugars by looking at the ingredients list on the package. Look for terms such as:

• Brown sugar
• Confectioner’s sugar (powdered sugar)
• Corn sweetener
• Corn syrup
• Dextrose
• Fructose
• Fruit juice concentrate
• Glucose
• High-fructose corn syrup
• Honey
• Invert sugar
• Lactose
• Maltose
• Maple syrup
• Molasses
• Malt syrup
• Raw sugar
• Sucrose
• Sugar
• Syrup

Healthy carbohydrates include:

• Natural sugars in fruits, vegetables, milk, and milk products.
• Dietary fiber.
• Starches in whole-grain foods, beans, peas, and corn.

There are two types of carbohydrates: complex carbohydrates and simple carbohydrates. We will be discussing complex carbohydrates in this post.

Complex carbohydrates, often referred to as starches or starchy foods, are large chains of sugar units arranged to form starches and fiber.

You use carbohydrates (carbs) to make glucose, which is the fuel that gives you energy and helps keep everything going. Your body can use glucose immediately, or store it in your liver and muscles for when it is needed.

Complex carbohydrates are are foods such as bread, grains, pasta, cereal, and starchy vegetables like potatoes and corn. Whole grain carbohydrates are healthier because they have more vitamins, minerals, and fiber.

You should eat some carbohydrates at each meal. Eating carbohydrates is healthy for everyone, including people with diabetes.

Examples of carbohydrates are:

• Bread
• Pasta
• Corn
• Pretzels
• Potatoes
• Rice
• Crackers
• Cereal
• Tortillas
• Yams
• Whole fruits
• Grains – brown rice, oats, wheat, barley, corn
• Legumes – chick peas, black-eyed peas, lentils, and beans such as lima, kidney, pinto, soy, and black beans

Healthy Ways to Eat Carbohydrates

• Buy whole grain breads and cereals.
• Eat fewer fried and high-fat starches such as regular tortilla chips and potato chips, french fries, pastries, or biscuits. Try pretzels, fat-free popcorn, baked tortilla chips or potato chips, baked potatoes, or low-fat muffins.
• Use low-fat or fat-free plain yogurt or fat-free sour cream instead of regular sour cream on a baked potato.
• Use mustard instead of mayonnaise on a sandwich.
• Use low-fat or fat-free substitutes such as low-fat mayonnaise or light margarine on bread, rolls, or toast.
• Eat cereal with fat-free (skim) or low-fat (1 percent) milk.

Fish is low in fat.
Fish is low in calories.
Fish is high in protein.
Fish is good for your heart and brain.
Fish is a good choice for people with diabetes.

Fish is an excellent source of Omega 3 fatty acids, a fatty acid that your body cannot produce on its own. Omega 3 fatty acids are found in every kind of fish, but Omega 3 fatty acids are especially high in fatty fish like salmon, sardines, mackerel, herring, and anchovies. Good fish choices for Omega 3′s include:

• Salmon
• Sardines
• Mackerel
• Herring
• Anchovies
• Tuna – canned light
• Trout
• Sea bass
• Oysters
• Crab
• Perch
• Shrimp
• Cod

Numerous studies show that Omega-3 fatty acids:

• Decrease heart disease.
• Reduce blood pressure.
• Help prevent arthritis.
• Help prevent abnormal heart rhythms.
• Promote healthy brain function.
• Aids short-term memory – The Rush Institute for Healthy Aging states that people who eat at least one meal of fish per week will be significantly less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than those who never eat fish.

Fish is an excellent source of vitamins and minerals.

• Riboflavin (Vitamin B2) which aids the body in the metabolism of amino acids, fatty acids, and carbohydrates.
• Vitamin D, which aids calcium absorption to help prevent osteoporosis.
• Calcium.
• Phosphorus.
• Iron.
• Zinc.
• Potassium.
• Iodine.
• Magnesium.

When people eat meat instead of fish, they decrease their intake of these essential vitamins, minerals, and Omega-3 fatty acids.

All fish contains some cholesterol and fat, but most fish is lower in cholesterol and saturated fat than beef, turkey, chicken, and pork.

Warning:
Due to high mercury levels certain fish, women of childbearing age and children should not eat

• King macerel
• Shark
• Swordfish
• Tilefish

Broiled fish, baked fish, or grilled fish – instead of fried fish – can be part of a healthy weight-loss plan.

The human body uses food as a source of energy and for raw materials to maintain the body and produce new body tissues. The major nutrients in foods are carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.

Carbohydrates are the major source of energy for the body.

1 gram carbohydrate = 4 calories

Fats are important for energy storage.

1 gram fat = 9 calories

Proteins are used to build new body tissues, but they can also be energy sources.

1 gram protein = 4 calories

Carbohydrate loading is a technique used to increase the amount of glycogen in an athletes muscles. For five to seven days before an event, athletes eat 10 to 12 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram body weight and gradually reduces the intensity of the workouts. The day before the event, athletes rest and eat the same high carbohydrate diet. To find out how much you weigh in kilograms, simply divide your weight in pounds by 2.2.

Although carbohydrate loading may be beneficial for athletes participating in endurance sports which require 90 minutes or more of non-stop effort, most athletes need not worry about carbohydrate loading. Simply eating a diet that derives more than half of its calories from carbohydrates will do.

Carbohydrates
There are two main types of carbohydrates -

• Complex carbohydrates are starches and dietary fiber.
• Simple carbohydrates are sugars found naturally in foods such as fruits, vegetables milk, and milk products, and also include sugars added during food processing and refining. Foods with added sugars have fewer nutrients than foods with naturally occurring sugars.

Your body uses carbohydrates (carbs) to make glucose which is the fuel that gives you energy and helps keep everything going. Your body can use glucose immediately or store it in your liver and muscles for when it is needed.

Carbohydrates are in the following foods:

• Fruits.
• Vegetables.
• Breads, cereals, and other grains.
• Milk and milk products.
• Foods containing added sugars – for example, cakes, cookies, and sugar sweetened beverages.

Healthier foods higher in carbohydrates include ones that provide dietary fiber and whole grains as well as those without added sugars.

You may have read some diet books that use “bad” carbs to talk about foods with refined carbohydrates, for example, meaning they are made from white flour and added sugars. Examples include:

• White bread
• Cake
• Cookies

“Good” carbs is used to describe foods that have more fiber and complex carbohydrates. Complex carbohydrates are carbohydrates that take longer to break down into glucose.

These terms aren’t used in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005. Instead, the guidelines recommend choosing fiber rich carbohydrate choices from the vegetable, fruit, and grain groups and avoid added sugars.

It is also recommended that at least half of your daily grain choices are whole grains.

Sourece: www.cdc.gov/nutrition
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Coffee and Tea
Coffee is a stimulant that contains caffeine. Coffee can help you stay awake but can also boost energy expenditure and speed up your metabolism. Don’t be afraid to drink a cup of Joe.

Green Tea
Green tea has compounds called phenols that have great thermogenic properties beyond that explained by its caffeine content. Drink green tea hot or cold to promote energy expenditure.

Spice it up with Heat
Some plants contain the bioactive ingredient capsaicin, which not only makes them spicy hot, but also doubles energy expenditure for 3 hours after a meal, boosting your metabolism. It may also work to decrease appetite centers in the brain by boosting the release of certain neurotransmitters. Add these to your recipes:

• Red peppers
• Cayenne
• Jalapeños
• Habaneros
• Tabasco
• Ginger

Ginger aids in digestion and increases body temperature and metabolic rates as much as 20 percent after eating. Add fresh ginger to stir-fried vegetables for an energy invigorating meal.

Exercise Less Intensity
Intense exercise requires more energy than resting on the couch. Turns out that when the body needs energy during intense exercise it goes for the more easily metabolized foodstuff first like carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are quickly turned into energy and require less energy to metabolize. To burn fat, you need to perform exercise more often and less intensely. It’s true that intense exercise can burn calories and build muscle mass that will burn energy more efficiently, but it is the steady fire that will help to improve metabolism. The best strategy is to alternate brief intense exercise with slow and steady moderate exercise.

Remember…
You burn more calories digesting good food then eating empty calories in junk food.