There is no doubt that your weight would be directly dependent on your food habits, apart from other genetic factors. Less we realize that when we fast or go on liquid diet, the weight we lost comes back, rather in greater degree, when we resume our normal eating pattern. This goes on to reflect the importance of our food intake, specifically the contents of the food we take and their effect on our body. It is extremely important for us to master the food we take. Understanding what we are eating will help us a great deal in our weight loss endeavors. For this, while buying any food product, paying attention to the ingredients and their quantity on the label can be a good start.
In most of the countries it is mandatory for the manufacturers to label the food containers with the information on nutritional value, calories, fats, carbohydrates, proteins and the serving size of the food item it carries. Most of the nutritional facts and contents are usually specified on per serving basis. Thus it means that if the box says good to serve two and you eat the whole box, you have taken twice the amount of fats, proteins, calories and carbohydrates and whatever else is mentioned in the label.
Some of the labels even provide greater details, such as the sugar/salt content of specific food items. The sodium (salt) content, if you closely observe, would be way too high canned and frozen foods. This is true even for the so called ‘diet’ or ‘low fat’ food consumables. Observing these details will give a clear idea on how toxic and damaging these items are to your body.
Large mass eat excessive fat, without being aware of how much fat is present in the food they consume. Do you know that 1 gm of fat is 10 calories and 1 gm of carbohydrates is 4 calories? The crux of the matter is obesity is a result of excessive fat consumption with or without one’s knowledge.
Ideally the body needs not more than 20 – 30 gms of fat per day but many obese people can consume more than 100 gms of fat a day. As a thumb rule, it is not advisable to consume more than 15 gms of fat with each meal.
Milk and protein products like meat, egg, and other dairy items contain fat. For instance, you consume full cream milk, you consume 1 gm of fat for every ounce and a glass has 8 ounce. But if you consume toned milk, you reduce the fat consumption by half.
Another myth is having salads in place of meals is a proven way to lose weight. But as a matter of fact, salad dressing is made from vegetable oil, which is of course a type of fat. Hence 1 ounce of a typical salad dressing would contain about 15 gms of fat on an average, which should ideally be half of your total consumption of fat per day.
Considering all the above facts and being mindful of your intake of fat, calories, carbohydrates with each meal, you can reduce weight even without exercising!
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