Unwanted Hair
or Prevent
Baldness
The Health Information Network
Education - Business - Product & Service Reviews
The Travel Guide
|
Diet > To Diet Or Not To Diet and The Dangers of Crash Diets By Leanne James The Truth about Healthy Weight Loss You hear about all kinds of new, weird and wonderful weight loss plans and diets each year. Women’s magazines always have a new one. I’ve heard of all kinds – the apple diet, brown rice diet. I had a lady who told me she had been recommended by her GP to eat only Steak and Tomatoes and take diet pills. These are not balanced, effective long-term ways to loose weight. People usually find that after they follow this kind of diet, then stop, they put the weight back on again. In fact one study revealed that 1/3rd of people studied, who went on crash diets of 500 calories a day or less, developed Gallstones and note some products such as the Lemon Detox Diet are considered fraudulant. Your Diet But what if you are one of the people who have what is considered a healthy, well balanced diet – containing plenty of fruit, vegetables, grains and cereals and some protein or meats – but you still put weight on. What can you do? One of the first things to do is to cut down on the amount of carbohydrate foods (grains, cereals, pasta, bread, potato, kumara etc) you are eating. It’s a problem a lot of us make – cutting down on proteins (such as meats, dairy products, nuts and seeds) & eating a lot more carbohydrates. Too higher carbohydrate intake produces too much insulin. Insulin is the hormone that is produced by the pancreas when we eat sugar or foods that release sugar upon digestion, like carbohydrates. Insulin enables our cells to absorb glucose from the blood. The cells process the glucose to make the energy they need to function. If you eat too much sugar or too many carbohydrates in proportion to your protein intake, your pancreas will pump out to much insulin. This can have many harmful effects. In today’s diets, researchers have found more and more of us are consuming far too many refined carbohydrates (white rice, pasta, bread, sugar) and too little protein (such as meats, fish, nuts and seeds). For the health professionals who are seeing these people, this is posing a real concern – especially as new research shows that some of our major health risks may be initiated by such diets. Lets look at this a little closer. A too higher carbohydrate intake produces too much insulin. Insulin is the hormone that is produced by the pancreas when we eat sugar or foods that release sugar upon digestion, such as carbohydrates. Insulin enables our cells to absorb glucose from the blood. The cells process the glucose to make the energy they need to function. However if you eat too many carbohydrates or sugar, in proportion to your protein intake, your pancreas will pump out too much insulin. This can have many harmful effects. So what can we do to address these issues? Have a close and honest look at your own diet and exactly what it is that you are or are not eating. To get your metabolism working you need to eat regularly. Don’t think that because you may be carrying extra fat, you need to eat less – in fact, this couldn’t be further from the truth. A lot of people tell me that their diet is very good, yet when I look at it, I can see that it is usually very high in carbohydrates, compared to the amount of protein they consume. For example, they may have cereal &/or toast for breakfast, fruit at morning tea, a sandwich followed by a muesli bar for lunch, a biscuit in the afternoon and meat and vegies for dinner. All in all it seems healthy, however if we analyze what the foods are providing the body with, we’d see there are far too many carbohydrates consumed in proportion to the amount of protein. I believe it is the balance of carbohydrate and protein in the diet that is the most vital thing, as both of these sources of fuel are essential to the body. By eating a balance of protein and carbohydrate you give your body the energy it needs to get going, but also sustain you for around 2 ˝ hours. So long as you eat again before your blood sugar levels drop low, you will have consistent energy throughout the day and not feel too pumped up by the time you want to go to sleep at night. Exercise is essential and the more you can do, the more fat you will burn. Any “movement” that produces resistance (rowing, swimming, weights etc) will also help to increase muscle mass – so long as your protein intake is adequate. If you are not use to doing any exercise, you may want to seek the advice of a professional trainer. But remember – Any exercise you do you will benefit from – so start off realistically and work up from there. If you are really not into exercising, start going for a walk once a week and work up from here. Purchase some Velcro wrist & ankle bands which have lead weights on them. Wear these while walking, to produce resistance and hence a muscle building action. Leanne James is a Professional Herbalist, Health Coach, Chartered Natural Medicine Practitioner and the owner of The Online Natural Pharmacy HealthyOnline.
Yogic Slim |
|
| ||
 |
Detox & Rebuild
|
Disclaimer:
All Information is provided for
educational purposes only and not intended
to be used for any therapeutic purpose, neither is it intended to diagnose,
prevent, treat or cure any disease. Please consult a health care
professional for diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions.
While all attempts have been made to ensure the accuracy of this information,
The Health Information Network does not accept any responsibility for any errors or
omissions.
©Copyright The Health Information Network