Nutrition & Eating - page 1 *** 90% of your ability to lose weight and keep it off will center on what you eat.  ***

NOTE: It is a good idea to talk to your doctor before starting on any diet program.  Even when it comes to food, there could be interactions with certain medial problems and prescription drugs. For example, a very nutritious food like broccoli can be bad for people with certain thyroid conditions. This section is to help you learn to eat foods that will not only be good for your body, but help you lose weight.  You need to incorporate these new eating habits, foods, and menus into your own personalized diet. Several weight loss studies show that if you find a diet that appeals to your individual tastes, you are more likely to stay on it and continue to lose weight.  Diet4Living promotes this concept because quite frankly, it works better than any other concept.  You need to make each change a permanent part of our life; not a temporary change. After all, if you are not making permanent changes in your lifestyle, you are only making temporary changes in your lifestyle.  Phase 2 of this site has temporary diet plans to battle weight loss plateaus.  However, if you do not have the principals in phase 1 as part of your daily lifestyle, the concepts in phase 2 will not work well.  You will regain the weight you lost since you have not resolved the problem that made you overweight in the first place. There are quicker ways to lose weight than with Phase 1 principals.  But quick weight loss is not the goal in this section of D4L.  Instead the goal here is leaning a new lifestyle of eating healthy and permanent weight management.

Calories: A calorie is a unit of energy that your body uses for fuel--just like gas for a car.  Metabolism: Metabolism is the rate your body burns calories --a small car burns more gas than a large SUV.  Metabolism can be altered by various factors --the four  main ones are: A. The more muscle you have, the more calories your body will burn since muscle requires more calories to maintain than fat.  That is why a poor diet will cause you to lose muscle and therefore lower your metabolism. B. Going on an extremely low calorie diet will slow your metabolism way down.  It is the body’s way of fighting off starvation.   C. Exercise will increase your metabolism even after the activity has stopped.  A higher intensity workout will raise your metabolism more than a low intensity one. D. Fat loss (unfortunately).  The only downside of losing weight is that your metabolism will go down due to the fact that you have less fat to feed.  But what would you rather have a great looking and feeling body or eat a few more calories per day;--depending on who you are, an extra 50 pounds weight gain would only allow you to eat about one or two cookies per day without weight gain.  As you can see, the extra weight and poor health is just not worth it.   To gain or lose weight: Gaining or losing weight is NOT due to WHAT you eat, it is due to the calories of energy in the food you eat.  See the excellent article from the Harvard Medical School titled "Cutting Calories, Not Juggling Menu, the Key to Weight Loss " Just like there are different types of fuel, there are different types of food.  And just like rocket fuel has more energy than the same amount of lamp oil, chocolate whipped cream pie has more caloric energy than the same amount of broccoli.  A human nutrition professor at Kansas State University named Mark Haub ate a diet of for 10 weeks.  He lost 27 pounds.  What did he eat?  Sugary cereals, Twinikies, Oreos, Little Debbies, Hostess cupcakes, and Doritos chips.  He proved that weight loss was based on calorie restriction and not the type of foods you eat.  But on the down side,  this kind of a diet does not provide the nutrients the body needs. According to his results, he also lost about 5 pounds of muscle.  Not good! Excess calories: Excess energy is stored in the fat cells.  Losing or gaining weight is dependent on your caloric balance.  Again, it is not dependent on the type of food you eat. See Energy Balance Calories in a pound: You must burn off 3500 calories to lose one pound of fat.  This can be done in two ways: A. Reducing your caloric intake below what your body uses by eating less B. Burning calories by exercise Muscle: During a diet if you do not exercise and consume the proper nutrition including enough protein, you will lose muscle.  Good balanced nutrition is essential.  Exercise that includes weight lifting is also essential. Food quality: The old adage, "you are what you eat" is true.  The quality of the foods you normally eat will determine how well your body will function.  Good quality food will help your body function normally and thus help you lose weight.  A continued diet of poor quality food will in time lead to medical complications and loss of muscle.   Focus on the QUALITY of the food you eat ! ! !  When you focus on the quality of the foods you eat, the quantity (amount) and calories will almost always moderate and help you lose weight without feeling hungry. One thing to keep in mind is that you should tell yourself that there is no food off limits to yourself.  Some foods are better than others.   Also, the higher in calories a food is, the less of it you should eat.   Therefore, eating a pound of chocolate has more calories than a pound of lettuce.  Life is a balance. High calorie foods vs low calorie bulk foods: Calories do not fill the belly or make you feel full.  Eating 2000 calories of chocolate cream pie will not make you suddenly feel full due to the calories.  On the other hand, most people would not be able to eat 20 cups of celery--which only have 320 calories. Many fast food 1/3 pound burger and fries combo meals have 1200 calories.  Yet the same quantity of lean beef served with other vegetables could have well have under 400 calories if it is prepared right. The photo to the right shows an entire plate of food with only 400 calories (97% lean hamburger, black beans, tomato, lettuce, onion, corn chips and salsa) .  You would need to eat three of these plates for the same calories. Overweight people often do not eat more volume of food than normal weight people.   Rather overweight people eat foods that are high in calories, high in refined carbohydrates and fat; along with lacking regular exercise.  Normal weight people often eat a lot of high volume / low calorie foods (a.k.a. fruits and veggies) and are active.  Meals how often? If you are hungry, it can take up to 15-20 minutes for your stomach to register the food and lower your appetite.  If you get overly hungry, you are far more likely to overeat since you will need time to feel full.   But even more than that, your will power to eat nutritious foods will decline.   Therefore the better you can control your appetite, the easier it will be for you to control food intake. How often you eat depends a lot on your own system.  It should be noted that contrary to popular belief, eating more frequently will not burn more calories or speed up your metabolism. However, if you start a serious weight lifting program, more frequent protein packed meals may be a benefit for muscle growth. While most people are fine eating three times a day, people with weight problems should consider eating more frequently.  For example,  eat three normal meals and 2-3 smaller meals (healthy food snacks) between the larger ones.   Why?  It may well control your hunger better so you will not overeat.  You just need to make sure you are not consuming more calories; but rather the small healthy food snacks help curb your appetite and food intake during the larger meals.  Again, this depends on your own body.  Some other good strategies for hunger control are: A. Eating a small low calorie appetizer (salads are great for this) 15-20 minutes before the main meal will help prevent your appetite from getting too much and will allow you to make better food choices during the main meal.  It will also save the higher calorie foods for last.  B. Another trick is to drink a large no-calorie beverage 15-20 minutes before your meal.   C. You can’t always time when your body is hungry.  Whether at work, home, school, or wherever, always try to have nutritious low calorie foods available (e.g. carrot sticks, apples, skinless chicken breast meat, pickles, bananas, etc.).   Just knowing you always have food available can help control psychological hunger.  For many people the thought of a diet makes them hungry.  The thought of always having food available is comforting. Easy access: Prevent easy access to certain foods.  No food should be “off limits”.  However, foods you know that are not good for you or that you will over eat should not be kept at home-if at all possible.  When we have cravings (and you will have them), it is too easy to give in when the food is at our fingertips.  Portion Control: Because it takes 15-20 minutes for our brains to register that we are full, it is good to limit your portion sizes.  Once you have eaten your portion and had time for the food to register in your mind, you can always eat more.  But if you can eat less and still feel full, all the better. Limit purchases: When it comes to food that may not be the best for you or food you use as a reward for good behavior, try to only buy it in small controlled portions.  So instead of buying a gallon of ice cream, buy only a single ice cream bar. This will help your ability to stay on track. How much did you eat? Many people don’t mindfully keep track of how much they eat in a day.  They forget about food they may have had between meals.  Simply keeping a log of what you eat each day will help you realize how much you are eating.  Eating out: Don’t give up on your favorite restaurants (fast food or not).  First, try to find what they have on the menu that is good tasting and good for you.  You can also do things that cut the calories down such as order a burger without mayo or cheese.  This alone can cut 100 calories out of a single burger.  Experiment and be willing to compromise. Also, many restaurants have calorie charts online and a few allow you to remove or add items from a menu item to see how it effects the calories.  Type in the name of your favorite restaurant and the word "nutrition" to see what they offer. Beware of advice: There are many dietary eating tips and supplements out there.  Some may have a small grain of truth, but they offer such little results they should be ignored.  For example, a particular diet drug had clinical proof it helped with weight loss.  But at over $100 per month for the pills and the fact the average person lost only 2 pounds after 6 months, it simply was not worth using (especially when considering the side effects it had).  The same is true for diet advice like, “chew sugar free gum to burn calories and lose weight”.  Yes it may burn calories, but let’s be frank; it is simply not going to make a big change in your life. Focus on what matters most. Diet4Living strives to provide accurate diet information that is based on scientific studies by heath professionals.  That is why much of our articles takes you to hospitals, clinics, and university sites along with information from the health care professionals.

Next: Nutrition pg2

Further Reading:

Cutting Calories, Not Juggling Menu, the Key to Weight Loss By Harvard Medical School ________________________ Energy Balance by Diet4Living ________________________ Twinkie diet helps nutrition professor lose 27 pounds by By Madison Park, on CNN.com