Teaching you how to achieve superior health, leanness and performance.
July 6th, 2009 Milan
Studies have linked high fiber intake with lower occurrence of some serious medical problems including: heart disease, diabetes, obesity, intestinal disorders, hypertension, and several types of cancer, including colorectal cancer, prostate cancer, and breast cancer.
Here are the top 10 sources of fiber:
1. Beans (legumes) cooked, 1 cup – 12 grams of fiber
2. Peas, green, cooked 1 cup – 9 grams of fiber
3. Raspberries, 1 cup – 8 grams of fiber
4. Bulgur, cooked, 1 cup - 8 grams of fiber
5. Rye wafers, 3 pieces – 7 grams of fiber
6. Wheat bran, 1/4 cup – 6 grams of fiber
7. Pasta, whole wheat, cooked, 1 cup – 6 grams of fiber
8. Oat bran, cooked, 1 cup – 6 grams of fiber
9. Squash, 1 piece 4 oz. – 5 grams of fiber
10. Potato, baked with skin, 1 medium – 5 grams of fiber
Benefits of fiber:
- removes cholesterol from the body
- it moves waste through your intestines more quickly, lessening the chances of bad things remaining in you system too long
- makes your bowel movements softer and more regular, reducing the chances of developing hemorrhoids
- it slows down the rate at which carbohydrates are digested, resulting in slower and steadier glucose release
- it contains micro nutrients, particularly magnesium, which may help prevent diabetes
- it helps you feel full longer
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June 15th, 2009 Milan
Protein builds, maintains and repairs tissue. It does not like to be used as fuel.
If you are inactive, you should consume 1.0 gram of protein per kg of body weight per day.
If you are active, your protein requirement will range from 1.2 grams to 1.7 grams per kg of body weight.
Athletes who compete in endurance sports should eat around 1.2 grams of protein per kg. Body builders should consume around 1.8 grams per kg.
Your weight in kg = Your weight in pounds : 2.2
If you eat properly, the maximum amount of energy from protein that your body will use is 5 %. If you don’t eat enough carbohydrates and your exercise is long in duration, or you are very active person, your body will use up to 10 % protein for energy. And you don’t want that.
If your intake of calories on daily basis is low, well below the energy you need for maintenance, your body will use even more protein. While this is more common between athletes, it can happen to very active people too.
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April 28th, 2009 Milan
Eating dark chocolate boosts the blood’s antioxidant power by 20%, according to research published in Nature magazine. The antioxidant in chocolate is called epicatechin. Milk chocolate is much less effective.
A study of older men in the Netherlands found eating the equivalent of a third of a dark chocolate bar (about 40g) a day may lower blood pressure and the risk of death.
Dark chocolate (but not milk chocolate or white chocolate) also appears to inhibit the aggregation of platelets, an early step in the formation of blood clots that can cause heart attack or stroke.
However, chocolate also contains sugar and fat, so while a little chocolate may be a good thing, a lot of chocolate may be too much of a good thing.
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April 19th, 2009 Milan
Salt is essential to human life. Our bodies cannot function without salt:
- Salt assists in nerve transmission and muscle contraction.
- It is vital to maintaining electrolyte balance by controlling the passage of fluids in and out of the cells
- It helps move nutrients into cells and transport waste away from them
- Salt assists with regulating blood pressure
The recommended daily amount of sodium for a normally active person is 2400 mg or less.
1 teaspoon of table salt = 2300 mg of sodium.
Most Americans consume 3500 – 6000 mg of sodium a day. This higher consumption is not due to the intake of salt that occurs naturally in food, nor is it because of salt added during cooking or at the table. It is salt added by the food industry to processed foods.
Only athletes and other people who are very active physically need more than 2400 mg a day.
High sodium intake may precipitate high blood pressure in genetically predisposed salt-sensitive people. But it is very unhealthy to exclude salt entirely from your diet. The key is moderation.
High-sodium foods:
Processed foods, especially canned soups, beans, tomato sauce, vegetables, and other canned foods; soy sauce; table salt; pickled foods; olives; sauerkraut; processed meats such as salamis, sausages, bologna, hot dogs, hamburgers, ham, anchovies; caviar; canned tuna; sardines; herring; smoked salmon; bouillon; barbecue sauce; catchup; mustard. But, this is just a fraction of high sodium foods.
Strategies for cutting your sodium intake
- Drain cans of meats, vegetables, beans out offluids
- Wash canned beans, peas, vegetables in warm water
- Use salt-free spices, fruits such as lemon, lime and orange, and fresh or dried herbs
- Use moderate amounts of salt in cooking, or use none at all whenever possible
- Try low salt and salt-free products
- Choose fresh over processed foods whenever possible
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April 16th, 2009 Milan
Part of our genetic heritage is an inborn taste for sweet foods. Honey was the primary sweetener in Europe, until about 1500, when refined sugar cane came into greater use.
Moderate amounts of both naturally occurring and added sugars are part of any healthy diet.
Simple sugars are all the same, whether naturally occurring or added. But it is important to eat more of the healthy foods containing naturally occurring sugars.
Naturally occurring sugars are in many of the foods we eat: fruits, vegetables, grains, milk, fermented alcoholic beverages.
Added sugars usually originate in a natural source, such as sugar cane or sugar beats, or maple trees, but they are manufactured for the express purpose of adding sweetness to food.
The dry forms of added sugar are: brown sugar, granulated sugar, cane sugar, raw sugar, confectioner’s sugar and maple sugar.
Syrups are: honey, corn syrup, corn sweeteners, maple syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, dextrose and molasses.
If you are on weight-control or weight-loss diet, you need to keep high-calorie snacks and candy to a minimum. But if you are weight stable, you can enjoy candy in moderation.
Some good news about candy:
- Chocolate, particularly good-quality dark chocolate contains the flavonoid catechin, an antioxidant. Catechin is also found in tea, it is known to have a role in reducing the risk for heart disease and cancer.
- Another study of chocolate showed that cacao powder extract is powerful antioxidant for reducing LDL bad cholesterol.
The great news is that moderate candy consumption – especially dark chocolate will make you healthier.
The drawback of eating too many sweets:
- Sugars contribute to tooth decay.
- By itself, sugar does not cause diabetes. However, the combination of high sugar intake with low dietary fiber does put a person at elevated risk for the development of Type 2 diabetes.
- High intake of refined sugar together with a lack of fiber in the diet can put a person at elevated risk for both diabetes and heart disease.
Here are some high sugar foods: cookies, cakes, pies, candy, soda pop, jelly, fruit drinks, syrups, honey, beer, wine, hard liquor.
How about artificial sweeteners?
Unless you are diabetic, don’t use artificial sweeteners. A teaspoon of sugar has only 15 calories, which is negligible. There is nothing wrong with using a little sugar or honey in your tea or coffee.
Stay away also from artificially sweetened foods. Stick with the natural variety.
A little bit of sugar is not bad at all.
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March 13th, 2009 Milan
Food manufacturers love it, because it enhances their profits, so they add it into number of foods like: cereals, candy bars, ketchup, cookies, sweetened drinks and mainly soda.
HFCS is a man-made sweetener that’s cheaper and sweeter than sugar. It is a true junk food.
HFCS is very, very, really, really, really bad for you. That’s because it’s packed with calories, but your body doesn’t recognize these calories.
HFCS shuts off your body’s natural appetite control system, so you can eat and eat more than your body would normally be able to handle. And that makes people fat.
Unlike glucose, your body does not use fructose as an immediate source of energy, it metabolizes it into fat.
When you eat any carbohydrate, whether it contains glucose or starch, your body releases insulin to regulate your body weight. First, it tries to push the carbs into your muscle cells to be used as energy and also stores it in the liver for later use. Than it suppresses your appetite, telling your body that you’ve had enough. Finally, it stimulates production of leptin. Leptin helps regulate how much fat you store and helps increase your metabolism to keep your weight on check.
High-fructose corn syrup doesn’t stimulate insulin and therefore doesn’t increase production of leptin. And without insulin and leptin, your body has no shut-off mechanism. You can drink 5 liters of Sprite or Coke, or eat a half a gallon of ice cream and you body thinks you haven’t eaten anything at all.
Soft drinks are one of the main sources of HFCS. Even if you aren’t a soda drinker, HFCS could be in other products you use.
Read nutritional label: If label says “sugar” or “cane sugar,” the product contains sucrose, which is a 50/50 blend of glucose and fructose. That’s not such a big problem. But if HFCS is listed first or second, look at the chart on the nutrition label to see how much sugar the food contains. If it’s just 2 or 3 grams, that’s not that bad. But if you see a food that has 9 or more grams of sugar and HFCS is prominent on the list of ingredients, stay away from that stuff.
Your body can deal with a little bit of anything, but when your HFCS intake is big, you are heading for trouble.
Here are some of the foods high in HFCS or fructose:
- Soft drinks (like coke, sprite, pepsi)
- Commercial candy ( like skittles, starburst, jelly beans)
- Sweetened drinks ( like lipton ice tea, kerns juices)
- Some fruit flavored yogurts
More about carbohydrates:
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January 25th, 2009 Milan
To loose weight, you must expand more calories than you take in. It’s that simple.
But you are not that simple. You have a certain frame size, your own specific metabolism, a particular amount of activity that you do each day and a different goals from someone else.
How can you know how much should you eat?
The amount you eat should fallow 2 goals:
Goal 1. You need to satisfy your nutritional needs – you need to take enough carbohydrates, fat, protein, vitamins, minerals to keep you healthy. That’s of number 1. importance.
Goal 2. Do you want to loose weight or not?
- If you want to maintain your weight – you need to eat enough calories to match your body’s energy needs. The calories you take in should equal the calories expended
- If you want to loose weight, you’ll need to eat slightly below your body’s energy needs so that you go into calorie debt
This is not that easy to achieve – getting enough nutrients from your diet, but not quite enough calories. But it can be done! Here is how:
- If you are trying to maintain your weight, you should eat when you’re truly physically hungry and stop before you feel stuffed
- If you want to loose fat, you should stop when you feel as if you’d still like to eat a little at the end of a meal. That will let you know that your body is warning you, it’s going to dip into your fat stores, which is exactly what you want.
Remember, this is not a diet you go into or off of, it’s a way of life, and it should feel very natural for you. To succeed, you need to start with it and stick with it for a long haul.
Articles about healthy diet:
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