Daily Diet Blog

November 27, 2007

Finish That Meal!?

Filed under: Weight Loss — EatingToLive @ 11:19 pm

All of us, as children, heard the phrases from our parents about finishing dinner.   Our parents would say  don’t waste the food, eat every bite and think of all the starving children in the world.  Then, as a reward for finishing our entire dinner, we would be served dessert. 

Transfer this psychology to adult life and think how the aversion to wasting food may be adding inches to your waistline.  How many of us sit down to very large dinner portions as they serve in most restaurants and feel obligated to finish every bite that is in front of us?  The same philosophy applies when you are a guest at a friend or relatives for dinner. 

When dining out in a restaurant, don’t hesitate to ask for a container to take home what you can’t comfortably finish eating.  The food will heat up nicely for lunch or dinner in the next day or two.  You can still be a gracious guest for dinner at a friend’s or relative’s house and just request smaller portions of the items being served.   You can easily offer to serve up your own portions.  If you are on a calorie restricted diet, you can tactfully say “No, thank you” to dessert or just take a very small piece. 

Keep plenty of small freezer containers on hand for handling the leftovers in the refrigerator at home.  Most food items freeze well in airtight small plastic containers.  If your schedule is busy, you’ll appreciate having ready to serve dinners, easily microwaveable at a later date. 

For the deluge of leftovers and goodies received over the holidays, some of these can be offered to neighbors and friends.  Many neighbors appreciate the food offered to them, particularly those with large families.  So, you don’t have to feel obligated and compelled to consume personally every bite of food in front of you.  You can freeze it for later or be a good friend or neighbor and share the excess.  This way, you’ll be a healthier, trimmer person and you still won’t be wasteful.
 

November 24, 2007

Mesotherapy for Fat Loss and Cellulite?

Filed under: Fat Reduction — EatingToLive @ 11:11 am

Mesotherapy is a fat loss method that is catching on here a little more in the US and has been used in France for quite a while now as a nonsurgical, noninvasive spot fat loss treatment that uses natural ingredients, injected at key points below the skin to target the fat (adipose) below the skin and “melt” it away, making it get swept up in the body’s natural elimination process and eliminate from the body via natural expulsion through the urine, sweat and other natural body secretions. 

Yuck, right, but wouldn’t that be pretty awesome if you saw a a lot of fat loss in local areas becuase of this?  Cellulite reduction creams and treatments today are largely in cream form, and many of them do provide some benefit, but they really only are beneficial if you use them regularly and with somewhat vigorous massage, the real machine behind cellulite reduction since massage helps break apart the fat deposits so the body can then smooth them out, creating a smoother look instead of the pocketed look of cellulite. 

Mesotherapy is a shot that is inserted slightly below the skin, where the fat layer forms, and it supposedly actually breaks the fat cells apart and essentially kills them off, allowing them to die and then be harmlessly evacuated from the body via evacuation through excretions that the body normally emits, such as the urine and sweat. 

Some women have reported excellent effects with mesotherapy, while others aren’t as thrilled.  I’m not sure if this method has officially been accepted to be performed over here in the US, but a similar thing called Lipolysis is available that uses essentially the same principle as mesotherapy, but just uses a different solution to kill the fat cells.  Because it gets rid of fat it may also help reduce the appearance of cellulite by reducing the amount of tissue that can bunch up and pucker, creating the spongy look we all can’t stand. 

 

 

November 23, 2007

Acomplia Now Also Linked to Anxiety, Depression

Filed under: Prescription Diet Aids — EatingToLive @ 1:44 pm

One of the newer weight loss drugs has some more bad news unfortunately for those that are overweight and hopeful that this diet product would be the answer to their weight and diet woes.  Before we reported that word on the “street” was that Acomplia was linked to it’s patients having suicidal thoughts, although in a statistically rather small portion of the patients. 

Now, new evidence is showing that patients taking the Acomplia diet drug are showing a doubling in the tendency toward anxiety and depression, which is not good news, especially considering that anxiety and depression are just as bad if not worse than having excess weight, so now patients must decide if the risk is worth the payoff (hopefully substantial weight loss).  Makes natural appetite suppressants pretty appealing, huh?

The study focused on patients taking the drug, and found that patients that were taking 20 milligrams or more of the diet and weightloss product were more than two times likely to stop treatment on the drug due to depression and anxiety cropping up to the point that it seemed unbearable.  This follows an advisory by a panel to not approve the diet drug after findings that it increased suicidal thoughts. 

November 21, 2007

Ins and Outs of Low Carbohydrate Foods

Filed under: Dieting Trends — EatingToLive @ 7:27 am

It’s amazing to see how many different diet plans there are to win the battle of the bulge.  Just  enter the word “diet” and see the volumes of pages that come up.  One type of diet that seems to be the most effective is the low carbohydrate diet for weight loss.  While there are many variations of low carbohydrate diet plans, they all have one thing in common.   They all exclude white flour, sugars and white rice.
 A low carbohydrate diet is just that.  It is a diet low in carbohydrates and does not eliminate carbohydrates completely.  Low carbohydrate diets stress eating large quantities of fruits and vegetables as well as lean proteins.  If a person really stays on a low carbohydrate diet, it is effective for losing unwanted pounds. 

Besides the obvious benefit of weight loss, there are other valuable benefits to your general health. People who adhere to a low carbohydrate diet enjoy a lowering of blood pressure, a reduction of cholesterol levels, a reduction of blood glucose levels and an increase of HDL cholesterol which is the desirable kind of cholesterol.

The Atkins Diet, Protein Power, Sugar Busters and The Zone are among the variations of the low carbohydrate diet.  Probably the most well known low carbohydrate diet is the Atkins Diet.  Dr. Atkins brought this diet to the public in 1972.  In this diet, Dr. Atkins includes whole foods that are nutrient rich and limits processed foods.
 The diet plan known as The Zone was introduced at a later date, in 1996, and has also gained popularity.  On the Zone low carbohydrate diet, it is recommended to eat a ratio of 40% carbohydrates, 30% protein and 30% fat.  When choosing a diet plan for weight loss, make sure it is a healthy, well balanced and realistic diet for you. 

November 17, 2007

Obesity Requires Societal Changes?

Filed under: Diet and Weightloss News — EatingToLive @ 4:18 pm

There have been so many theories on the increasing obesity epidemic not only in the US, but all around the world where technology has advanced so far that it has made life much different for us, as well as much easier to get obese.  Think about it, we have a lot of sedentary jobs now, where movement is minimal, whereas “desk jobs” were unheard of back in the industrial revolution and prior to that where one of the most sedentary jobs was being on an assembly line, and even that required standing and moving all day long.  Now, with many jobs being computer based, we are all tied to our desks all day and the only part of us that moves is our hands when we type. 

Also, there are elevators, to make going up stairs even obsolete or at the least optional.  Heck, there was even an invention that made it so you don’t have to walk if you don’t want to, called the Segway, which yes, kind of bombed, but still, you get the point. We’ve moved to an era where technology can be our best friend, but also our worst enemy since many times technology simply makes our lives to easy in areas where it really wasn’t meant to be.  Its’ against our physiology to not move all day, and our bodies have naturally responded to this by adding layers of fat.

Also, with controlled temperatures thanks to central air and heating, we don’t ever have to be cold or warm, which burns additional calories, just adding to the fact that we are not burning calories as efficiently as we once were.  Of course the processed and convenient foods and fast food joints doesn’t help the picture either, and adds to the problem by serving us low quality processed foods that are quickly burned off leaving us hungry for more only hours later. 

True, society is trying to correct this trend toward obesity, but it is still outpacing us and threatens to create new diseases and continue to affect the quality of life for those that suffer from it, with increased occurrences of diabetes and other weight related illnesses. 

November 13, 2007

Does Caffeine Boost Exercise and Calorie Burning?

Filed under: Health & Fitness Tips — EatingToLive @ 10:04 am

There have seemed to be a few schools of thought on whether caffeine can help you burn calories or may actually foil your calorie burning capabilities, particularly if you exercise after a caffeine burst.  Well, which does it actually seem to be?  I know I myself prefer to workout without caffeine in my system, although there may be some residual caffeine in my system if I happen to be drinking a little cup of coffee or a caffeinated energy drink like FRS, the one that combines antioxidants with caffeine and vitamins for energy boosts.

The big thing about caffeine before working out, and the reason it was treated as something you should not do before you work out, is because it was thought to rush the dehydration process.  Not to mention the fact that exercising with caffeine in your system could affect your electrolytes balance, and make you feel fatigued before you normally would have without the caffeine during your workout, making your workout less intense as well as shorter, which we all know isn’t what you’re going for when trying to slim down and tone up with your exercise asipirations. 

The recent findings on whether caffeine truly is a detriment to your workout does not confirm what many suspected, that caffeine should be avoided before a workout, and actually proves the opposite.  It proved that caffeine actually boosts one’s performance many times during their workout, and enables people to actually workout longer than they normally could without caffeine in their system.

The people who headed up the study found that there is really no validity to avoiding caffeine prior to a workout and that the concerns of exercise experts that the person may experience increased dehydration and less ability to perform at peak levels during their workouts since most people in the study did not exhibit these characteristics after they had imbibed some sort of caffeinated drink.  Hmm….interesting! 

November 9, 2007

Binge Eating More Common Than Once Thought

Filed under: Diet and Weightloss News — EatingToLive @ 9:08 am

Binge eating is an eating disorder in itself, without the purging cycle that typically goes along with the disease/eating disorder that we all know of as bulimia.  Binge eaters frequently binge, or overeat, foods, and they do not purge themselves of the foods afterwards (throw them up, take laxatives to get rid of it throught the elimination phase, or exercise them off). 

Binge eating can result from several things in the regular world, and we all have probably been guilty of binge eating at one time or another.  If it just happens once in a blue moon for you, you’re most likely just a normal person without an eating disorder, however if you frequently cope with stress, anxiety or other stressful feelings by over eating (bingeing) then you probably do have the eating disorder described as bingeing. 

Binge eating often occurs when one if by themself, so that no one can ridicule or call them out that they are eating too much.  It is often accompanied by feelings of hopelessness, guilt and disgust with ones self, so it rarely accomplishes any sort of therapy that it is meant to seek out by the person who is doing it since many times they don’t even have a true appetite and are eating for no reason at all other than to fill some sort of void. 

It often is a sign of depression and/or severe anxiety, and it is so addictive because it can cause temporary satisfaction, and make the person crave it for the temporary rush of “good” hormones that are inevitably crashed to the grouns afterwards, resulting in a nasty vicious circle because it seems to feed on itself.  It is also often marked by obesity, and hard to treat because those that practice binge eating are often not willing to talk about it or get treatment. 

November 5, 2007

Chewing Gum for Appetite Suppression

Filed under: Weight Loss — EatingToLive @ 10:02 am

I long suspected that many people who overeat simply have a problem with what I like to call an oral fixation.  I myself think that I have somewhat of an oral fixation, meaning that I like to keep my mouth busy a lot of the time by either chewing on something, or drinking something.  Problem enters in when you are chewing on calories all day long, especially calories that go well above and beyong the daily allowance of calories that you need in your daily allowance. 

I’ve often thought that chewing gum may have helped to prevent me to eat more, but I also thought that it might actually act as an appetite increaser in some people, especially if they were chewing on sugary gums all day, which would sort of defeat the purpose.  However, in a recent study, many participants said that if they chewed on gum while preparing a meal, it made them less hungry and therefore less apt to “test taste” the foods over and over as they made them.  This happens to be one of my bigger weaknesses, taste testing a bit too much!  So naturally I took a little interest in that particular story. 

This makes the argument for gum-form appetite suppressants like the hoodia gum breakthrough that we talk about here on this blog.  Gum, I believe is a superior form to put an appetite suppressant in, because it is slow-released into the blood stream, which means it’s more of a constant presence in the blood stream, and keeps the blood sugar stable which in turn keeps the appetite down and lets you feel more full, longer and more satiated. 

Hoodia is causing a sensation on its own, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, but many people are looking for Hoodia gum that works because they like to also chew gum, so in essence they are killing two birds with one stone, if I may use such an ugly ephamism :) .  You are chewing gum, which keeps your mind off eating, and you are also getting a slow release through the saliva in the mouth to the blood stream of appetite - decreasing ingredients. 

November 2, 2007

Healthier Stuffing?

Filed under: Low Cal Ideas — EatingToLive @ 3:12 pm

Stuffing is one of everyone’s (at least one of mine) favorites to eat with the big, gut busting Thanksgiving meal every year.  Only problem is, stuffing is typically very calorie dense, loaded with simple carbs (bad carbs), and also loaded with fat thanks to the butter that needs to be added to give it texture, flavor, and consistency. 

However, I may have some ideas for you to make a better, healthier, lower fat, higher fiber stuffing for your Thanksgiving turkey this year.  I actually have made this and slight variations of this recipe for a couple years now, and it adds the same great flavor to my turkey as the more fattening version of the Thanksgiving fave. 

First of all, if you want to take the super easy way to make it, buy the Stove Top Whole Wheat Chicken flavored stuffing mix.  This is truly made with whole wheat croutons, so it does contain a little more fiber than your traditional white bread crouton stuffing.  This means that less of the potentially fattening carbs is digested and used by your body, because the soluble fiber in effect aborbs the bad stuff and helps expel it from the body quicker.  It’s “slower burning”, in other words.

If you don’t like that, you can buy whole wheat croutons at a health food store and use this same concept.  You could add a chicken or vegetable broth for flavor if this is what you choose.  If you use the Stove top whole mix, then you will want to add some or all of the following spices to really bring out the flavor of the turkey nicely, as well as to add some more healthiness to it, since many of these herbs actually have therapeutic properties when digested by the digestive system. 

Here are the herbs :

Sage, Oregano, basil, garlic, thyme, rosemary, and savory.  I also like to add a little (just a squirt) of olive oil to add a healthy shot of omega 3 fats to the mix and help to fill us up and keep us feeling fuller, longer.

Instead of using regular butter, you can use Land O’ Lakes light butter spread.  Tastes pretty good, just like a lighter, fluffier version of their regular, full fat butter in a stick.  Next, I like to add some organic wild rice or brown rice (slow cooked, important) to add a little more texture, give it a nuttier flavor, and also to add more fiber to the stuffing. 

What you get is a little bit more filling, and it adds some really easily digested, and easily utilized “real foods” to your stuffing.  It is also terrifically spicy, so you don’t sacrifice the flavor and your turkey is still full of flavor. 

 

 

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