Food is not the Enemy!

Jul 01, 2009 2 Comments »

Why we are facing the problem of weight control and it seems a herculean task to keep our weight in check? We are living in a time where we are facing the problem of plenty. The era of World War I and World War II is over long ago. We only know about “those” times through movies or history books. No rationing on food and essential items. The Great depression of 1929 also belonged to a different time period. Today we have plenty to eat and plenty of household gadgets to take care of our daily chores. Today we also have good means of transportation if we want to go anywhere. In short we have plenty to eat and less of physical work to do. So lifestyle related diseases welcome us with open arms. How an intelligent person will cope with such a situation and keep weight in control? Will he/she behave like a monk and deprive himself/herself of all the so called good food? Or we will go with the flow the way we are going currently and let obesity acquire an alarming proportion in our lives? Should we treat food as enemy and fear it?

As usual the solution somewhat lies in between. To lose weight one doesn’t have to fear food and put oneself on strict regimen. We plan our diet carefully. Stick to the diet plan for a while get tired of it and start indulging ourselves a bit. How this bit of indulgence goes out of hand and turns into binging without any alarm? Then we go on a guilt trip. We again plan a diet to lose weight, promise ourselves to stick to it, lose focus somewhere and… We don’t have to enter into a vicious circle again and again.

So what is the solution for weight loss without treating food as an enemy? The solution lies in control over what you are eating. You have to listen to the small voice inside you. There is nothing wrong in having a sweet tooth and eating a piece of cake once in a while. But in order to lose weight successfuly you have to know when to stop. You should not deprive yourself of good food. But don’t go overboard.Make eating an enjoyable experience not for your tongue only but for your whole being too. While catering to your sweet tooth keep the overall picture in mind. Yesterday, I was gifted two boxes of sweets. One box contains the type I can “enjoy” all day on and often. I enjoyed a few and offered the rest to the security guard of our building complex. He was happy to share it with gardener, plumber and electrician of the building. Sharing has its immense benefits if you want to lose weight!

We have got only one life to live. So we must enjoy the pleasures of good food. But at the same time we have to remember that who is the “controlling factor” you or the food? So if you enjoy your favorite food occasionally its perfectly alright. Last week my sister won a free hospitality at a luxury holiday resort. Food was out of this world. But she enjoyed every bit of it. But ask the staff way to the swimming pool. She made a good use of it too and came back glowing with health and weight in control.

 

Your Body and Protein Needs

Jun 20, 2009 1 Comment »

As per the Harvard school of Public Health about 75% of your body weight (after taking out the water weight from total weight) is contributed by different kinds of proteins. Proteins are present in virtually every part of your body like muscles, bones, skin, hair, and any other body tissue. It acts as the source of energy for various chemical reactions that take place in your body and in the hemoglobin for carrying oxygen in the bloodstream.

Your body needs more than 10000 different kinds of proteins for it to look the way it does. However 20 of these known as amino acids are the building blocks for the body and act as raw material for all other types of proteins. These amino acids are essential for cell formations, repairs, formation of antibodies and RNA/DNA, transportation of oxygen throughout the body via bloodstream, building up of active muscles and are a part of various enzymes and hormonal processes. Your body is capable of producing about half of these amino acids by itself and thus these need not be a part of your daily dietary intake. These are known as non-essential amino acids. Remaining amino acids (9 in adults and 10 in young ones) are not produced by the body and thus need to be an essential part of your daily diet.

To have healthy and active muscular function it is essential for you to maintain an appropriate intake of protein because the body does not have stores for protein as it does for fat and glucose. Overconsumption of proteins may result in higher fats intake and thus lead to cholesterol levels increase, heart disease or other related diseases like gout. Kidneys can get damaged because of the additional stress that is put on them for processing high protein intake. On the other hand intake of protein lesser than the required measures may lead to slow growth rate, loss of muscle weight, immunity loss, weakened heart and respiration system etc. The condition of low protein intake is known as kwashiorkor.

For proper intake of protein a nutritionally balanced diet is essential. The daily needs of a healthy adult can be easily met with two to three servings of protein rich diet. A combination of lean meat, skin free poultry, fish, beans, lentils and legumes is best as the fat content in these is minimal. It is best to have the protein with fiber rich vegetables and foods.

Excess fat around the waist doubles the risk of death – a recent research

Jun 18, 2009 No Comments »

There is enough evidence to conclude that excess fat around the waist doubles the risk of premature death, according to a study conducted in Europe over 3,50,000 people. This study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The study offers adequate evidence to prove that people with the same body mass index may run the risk of premature death if their waist is excessively large. In other words, the larger the waist circumference, the greater the risk of death even if the body mass index is within the ‘specified range’. This is applicable also to people who are not obese as such but have a large waistline. With this study, researchers now suggest that doctors should include measuring the waistline and the hips along with the body mass index as part of the health checks done on patients. This is a suggestion made by not only Imperial College London, but the German Institute of Human Nutrition, and other research institutions all over Europe.

Waistline, when compared between subjects that had large waist i.e more than 120 cm in men and 100 cm in women with subject having smaller waist i.e. less than 80 cm in men and less than 65 cm in women, revealed that the risk of premature death is almost double in case of subjects having larger waist.

Every 5% increase in the waistline amplified the mortality risk by 17% in men and 13% in women.

The ratio of waist to hip also formed an integral part of this study. The study showed that about 98 percent of the people had a waist to hip ratio that ranged between 0.78 and 1.10 in men and between 0.66 and 0.98 in women. Given these ranges, an increase of the waist to hip ratio by 0.1 unit resulted in 34% higher mortality risk in men and a 24% risk in women.

The reason for the increased mortality is perhaps attributed to the fatty tissue that is formed around the waistline, which secretes Cytokines (hormones and compounds that are metabolically active), which contribute to the development of chronic diseases, especially cardiovascular and cancer according to the authors.

Though this study is concentrated on how the size of the waistline increase the risk of mortality even when the body mass index is within the specified range, there are enough findings available on the fact that how increased body mass index can significantly affect mortality rate.

The reaction of this study in the words of Prof. Elio Riboli, European coordinator of the EPIC study from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at Imperial College London, is worth noting. He says “Although smaller studies have suggested a link between mortality and waist size, we were surprised to see the waist size having such a powerful effect on people’s health and premature death. Our study shows that accumulating excess fat around your middle can put your health at risk even if your weight is normal based on body mass index scores. There aren’t many simple individual characteristics that can increase a person’s risk of premature death to this extent, independently from smoking and drinking.”