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Weight Loss Tips

If you want to lose weight, the following references may contain data contrary to some false data you have been given. Yes, surprise, surprise, not everything you hear is the truth! I well recall one client who was told by his personal trainer that you will not lose weight until you exercise for more than 20 minutes at a time. I knew for a fact that was complete balderdash from personal experience. I droppped from 81 to 66 kilos without ever exercising for more than 20 minutes at a time.

So, here is some data with which you may not be familiar. As well as some testimonials from Healthelicious clients there are some excerpts from other sites that you may not have seen.

If this whets your appetite for more workable weight loss tips, there are 75 more in my book on How To Live The Healthiest Life.

While most people wanting to lose weight can eat all my bars and slices with impunity, I have a bar specifically formulated to increase your nutrients, quell your hunger, provide energy and assist your weight loss goals. Check out the Weight Loss Bar.

IS YOUR FOOD SLOWLY KILLING YOU?

Obese and Malnourished?

This is a concept that you may have difficulty in accepting. Nonetheless it is one that I have been ’preaching’ for years and has now been confirmed by studies showing people in the US, Canada and the UK are amongst the most malnourished in the world. This is the case, in spite of obesity reaching epidemic proportions in the US. Malnourishment is without doubt a leading factor in a wide variety of health problems including cancers.

Does this mean that overweight people are eating all the food to the detriment of the rest of the population? Not at all! In fact, obese people figure prominently amongst those people who are malnourished.

I can sense you thinking . “That’s a crazy statement”. After all, when you think of someone being malnourished your mind flashes to pictures which you have seen on TV of starving children in Africa. How can an overweight person be malnourished? Much more easily than you think . please read on and I will explain.

The Problem Is In The Food!

A recent analysis of a range of staple foods in Canada including potatoes, tomatoes, bananas, apples, onion, broccoli etc., was commissioned by The Globe and Mail and CTV news. The results were predictable to some and a shock to others. Let’s use potatoes as an example. This is what the analysis found:

Over the last 50 years the potato has lost:

• 100% of it’s Vitamin A
• 57% of it’s Vitamin C and iron
• 28% of it’s Calcium
• 50% of it’s riboflavin
• 18% of it’s thiamine

Of the seven nutrients analyzed only niacin levels had increased. The results were similar for all the 25 fruits and vegetables tested. One of the worst results was from broccoli in which ALL nutrients had declined measurably, including niacin, with Calcium down 63%!

By: Warren Matthews Of Xtend-Life from http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/maia16.htm

Two Million Brits - Some Obese - Are Malnourished

The above headline is on this article: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,279574,00.html The article states “Most malnourished people have a chronic illness like AIDS, cancer or tuberculosis. In the last five years the number of malnourished patients has risen by more than 40 percent.”

The Glycemic Index

From http://optimalhealth.cia.com.au/gi17.html

The glycemic index (GI) rates carbohydrate foods on how quickly blood sugar / glucose levels increase in the 2 - 3 hours after eating as the carbs are converted into glucose. Generally fat or protein doesn’t increase glucose levels.

Eating higher GI foods produces a rapid increase in blood glucose levels, triggering the pancreas to produce insulin. Insulin causes the body’s muscle and liver cells to attempt to store the excess glucose. Imagine insulin as a shuttle, moving glucose from just digested foods into storage. If the digestive system is pumping glucose into the blood stream quicker than insulin can move it into the muscles/liver or glucose stays high too long, the body will convert the excess glucose into fat.

Eating lower GI foods produces slower glucose raise, little insulin & fat storage, even if you have eaten high fat content foods!

Check out http://www.glycemicindex.com/

High Protein and Low Carb Diets

From a post to Dr Mercola’s site.

A number of diet authors have proposed high protein and low carb diets. Protein Power by Michael Eades, The Zone Diet Books by Barry Sears, and the Atkins Diet Books are all examples of the low glycemic concept. The idea of this diet is keep blood sugar at steady levels, and keep insulin levels low. Low insulin allows weight loss and reduces inflammation. Plentiful protein is OK because it does not raise blood sugar or insulin levels.

Broda Barnes Adds Fat Back

Broda Barnes writes an interesting chapter about obesity and weight loss in his book, “Hypothyroidism the Unsuspected Illness”. He found that by adding fat back into a carbohydrate restricted diet, his obese patients were able to lose weight effortlessly.

From http://www.carbs-information.com/glycemic-index.htm

GI Diets Better Than Low Carb Diets

According to clinical trials, GI diet programs provide an excellent dietary approach for people who want to reduce weight. By advocating the consumption of carbohydrate-rich foods with a low GI-value, and the avoidance of refined carbs, GI diet programs provide dieters with the best of all worlds - better blood glucose control and a highly nutritious eating plan. The health advantages of a low GI diet plan are one reason why it has superceded the low carb diet as the most popular weight loss plan.

You can see more on this at http://www.carbs-information.com/gi-diet.htm.

To find out the glycemic index of many foods go to http://www.carbs-information.com/glycemic-index.htm#gi

Eat More Raw Food

From http://www.jonbarron.org/baseline-health-program/2009-03-16.php

Cooking improves digestibility -- whoops

The Economist recently ran an article on the evolutionary role of cooking. According to Dr. Richard Wrangham, of Harvard University, cooking alters food in three important ways.

• It breaks starch molecules into more digestible fragments
• It “denatures” protein molecules, so that their amino-acid chains unfold and digestive enzymes can attack them more easily
• And heat physically softens food. That makes it easier to digest, so even though the stuff is no more calorific, the body requires fewer calories to break it down

This means that in the stomach and small intestine, where it can be absorbed, cooking increases the share of food digested from 50% to 95%. This is supported by a study in which rats fed on softer pellets (similar to what happens to food after you cook it) weighed 30% more after 26 weeks than rats fed the same weight of standard pellets. The difference was because the rats expended less energy digesting the softer pellets. Think about this for a moment. Making food more digestible (as in cooking) increases the body weight of rats by an astounding 30% in as little as 26 weeks. Can you say whoops?

The bottom line is that Dr Wrangham theorizes that the main cause of the modern epidemic of obesity is not overeating but the rise of processed foods -- which packs on more weight than raw food on a calorie by calorie basis. I would say that it’s a combination of both. Studies have already shown that we’re consuming some 523 calories more per day than we did just 30 years ago. Combine that with 30% more weight gain from the same calories because our diets have shifted overwhelmingly to cooked and processed foods, and you have the makings of an obesity epidemic.

The corollary, of course, is that eating a higher percentage of raw foods will help you lose weight on a calorie by calorie basis.

Testimonial

From someone using the Premium Energy Bar to limit food intake:
“I use your bars to take the edge away when I feel like eating a lot. I noticed that although I can eat a lot of regular food (for example half a chicken and a quarter of a loaf of bread in one sitting) half a bar seems to fill me up.”