|
|
|
Fibromyalgia Myths and Truths
Fibromyalgia Myths and Truths. © By Lena Sanchez When, after 15 years of excruciating pain and hospitalizations without an answer to the pain suffered daily, I was finally diagnosed with Fibromyositis, now known by it's common name Fibromyalgia...
How To Eat A Healthy Diet When You Don't Want To
How To Eat A Healthy Diet When You Don't Want To
By Jeannie Crabtree
For some people it is really hard to give up the junk food and sweets and eat a better, more nutritious diet. So let's use the example of eating the 5 to 9 fruits and...
How to Gain Weight and Build More Muscle Mass
In the health, fitness, and nutrition world, achieving optimal or desired body weight is dominated by a single theme: losing weight. The vast majority of products and services available on the market proclaim to achieve weight loss goals, and even...
Roadblocks To Wellness
Have you noticed that as we live in the 21st century, health and wellness is becoming the 'in' thing. Ever wondered why, with the heightened awareness of being healthy, 1 out of 2 Americans are overweight, and 1 out of 3 are obese. In fact, 1...
The Right Way to Eat for Better Health and Weight Loss
Copyright 2005 Ryan Cote
Did you know that how and when you eat is important for good health?
For most of your life, you probably have eaten breakfast, lunch and dinner. Now depending on your eating habits, this may be okay...but many people...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
What Kind of Fat Can You Eat?
Research has shown that you not only need to watch the "amount" of fat that you eat in your diet, but also the "types" of fat you eat. This article will help you minimize the negative effects that fat has on your health.
1. Basic Terms:
- "Bad" cholesterol clogs your arteries and causes heart disease.
- "Good" cholesterol helps collect up the bad cholesterol and get it out of your system.
- Saturated fat is "bad fat" that increases the bad cholesterol in your body.
- Polyunsaturated fat is "good fat" that lowers both good and bad cholesterol.
- Monounsaturated fat is "really good fat" that helps lower the bad cholesterol, but leaves the good cholesterol alone.
- Fatty acids are the building blocks of fat.
- Trans fatty acids are made in the production of partially hydrogenated vegetable oils used to make margarine and many snack foods and processed foods.
- Whole foods are unprocessed food that occur in nature... nuts, meat, milk, poultry, eggs, fish, seeds, grains, rice, fruits, vegetables.
2. Why Fat is Bad: Fat is calorie-dense, it contains more than twice the number of calories as carbohydrates. A high fat diet has been linked to several chronic diseases such as cancer and increased risk of coronary heart disease. Saturated fats can increase bad cholesterol.
3. Why Fat is Good: It gives taste and texture to foods. Unsaturated fats can decrease the bad cholesterol in your body.
4. How Fat in Your Diet Affects You: Fat in your food can affect you differently depending on your particular health issues.
If you are at risk for heart disease, saturated fat is something you want to avoid. According to the American Heart Association, a heart healthy diet can contain up to 30% of calories from fat, as long as most of the fat is unsaturated. More on the heart-healthy diet: http://www.nutricounter.com/articles/garrett3.htm
If you are diabetic, you want
to lower the trans fatty acids and raise the polyunsaturated fatty acids. Consider reducing the amount of processed foods and increasing the amount of whole foods you consume. More on the diabetic diet: http://www.nutricounter.com/articles/garrett4.htm
If you are on a diet to lose weight, it's a good idea to lower total fat in your diet. Losing weight comes down to the calories in versus calories out and fat has more than twice the amount of calories as other foods.
5. Types of Fat You Should Choose:
- Polyunsaturated fats are found in flax, corn, safflower, soybean, sesame, and sunflower oils. (These nonhydrogenated fats are liquid at room temperature.)
- Polyunsaturated fats found in fish.
- Monounsaturated fats found in olive oil and canola oil.
Read this article for more information on fat in animal meats: http://www.nutricounter.com/articles/howard1.htm
6. Types of Fat You Should Try to Avoid:
- Any type of hydrogenated fat. This is man-made fat and you will find it in snack foods, margarine, bakery products and other processed foods.
- Man made fat substitutes like Olestra (you might find fat substitutes in fat free snack foods). Even if scientific research could solidly prove that fat substitutes weren't hazardous to your health, these products just perpetrate bad eating habits.
- Animal fats including whole milk, butter, poultry skin, and fatty cuts of meat.
Fat doesn't have to be a bad thing if you choose your fat wisely! If you can choose whole foods over process foods, you will be eating a much healthier diet. Also, for any type of special diet, use your NutriCounter (http://www.nutricounter.com) to help you keep track of your total fat and saturated fat intake.
About the Author
Come and visit the NutriCounter web site for more information on how nutrition influences weight loss, diabetes, pregnancy, heart disease and more! http://www.nutricounter.com
|
|
|
|
|
|