Search Weight Loss Topics:

Page 147«..1020..146147148149..160170..»

Home » Diets that Work » Page 147

Nearly three decades ago, when I was an overweight teenager, I sometimes ate six pieces of sliced white toast in a row, each one slathered in butter or jam. I remember the spongy texture of the bread as I took it from its plastic bag. No matter how much of this supermarket toast I ate, I hardly felt sated. It was like eating without really eating. Other days, I would buy a box of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes or a tube of Pringles: sour cream and onion flavour stackable snack chips, which were an exciting novelty at the time, having only arrived in the UK in 1991. Although the carton was big enough to feed a crowd, I could demolish most of it by myself in a sitting. Each chip, with its salty and powdery sour cream coating, sent me back for another one. I loved the way the chips curved like roof tiles would dissolve slightly on my tongue.

After one of these binges because that is what they were I would speak to myself with self-loathing. What is wrong with you? I would say to the tear-stained face in the mirror. I blamed myself for my lack of self-control. But now, all these years later, having mostly lost my taste for sliced bread, sugary cereals and snack chips, I feel I was asking myself the wrong question. It shouldnt have been What is wrong with you? but What is wrong with this food?

Back in the 90s, there was no word to cover all the items I used to binge on. Some of the things I over-ate crisps or chocolate or fast-food burgers could be classified as junk food, but others, such as bread and cereal, were more like household staples. These various foods seemed to have nothing in common except for the fact that I found them very easy to eat a lot of, especially when sad. As I ate my Pringles and my white bread, I felt like a failure for not being able to stop. I had no idea that there would one day be a technical explanation for why I found them so hard to resist. The word is ultra-processed and it refers to foods that tend to be low in essential nutrients, high in sugar, oil and salt and liable to be overconsumed.

Which foods qualify as ultra-processed? Its almost easier to say which are not. I got a cup of coffee the other day at a train station cafe and the only snacks for sale that were not ultra-processed were a banana and a packet of nuts. The other options were: a panini made from ultra-processed bread, flavoured crisps, chocolate bars, long-life muffins and sweet wafer biscuits all ultra-processed.

What characterises ultra-processed foods is that they are so altered that it can be hard to recognise the underlying ingredients. These are concoctions of concoctions, engineered from ingredients that are already highly refined, such as cheap vegetable oils, flours, whey proteins and sugars, which are then whipped up into something more appetising with the help of industrial additives such as emulsifiers.

Ultra-processed foods (or UPF) now account for more than half of all the calories eaten in the UK and US, and other countries are fast catching up. UPFs are now simply part of the flavour of modern life. These foods are convenient, affordable, highly profitable, strongly flavoured, aggressively marketed and on sale in supermarkets everywhere. The foods themselves may be familiar, yet the term ultra-processed is less so. None of the friends I spoke with while writing this piece could recall ever having heard it in daily conversation. But everyone had a pretty good hunch what it meant. One recognised the concept as described by the US food writer Michael Pollan edible foodlike substances.

Some UPFs, such as sliced bread or mass-produced cakes, have been around for many decades, but the percentage of UPFs in the average persons diet has never been anything like as high as it is today. It would be unusual for most of us to get through the day without consuming at least a few ultra-processed items.

You might say that ultra-processed is just a pompous way to describe many of your normal, everyday pleasures. It could be your morning bowl of Cheerios or your evening pot of flavoured yoghurt. Its savoury snacks and sweet baked goods. Its chicken nuggets or vegan hotdogs, as the case may be. Its the doughnut you buy when you are being indulgent, and the premium protein bar you eat at the gym for a quick energy boost. Its the long-life almond milk in your coffee and the Diet Coke you drink in the afternoon. Consumed in isolation and moderation, each of these products may be perfectly wholesome. With their long shelf life, ultra-processed foods are designed to be microbiologically safe. The question is what happens to our bodies when UPFs become as prevalent as they are at the moment.

Evidence now suggests that diets heavy in UPFs can cause overeating and obesity. Consumers may blame themselves for overindulging in these foods, but what if it is in the nature of these products to be overeaten?

In 2014, the Brazilian government took the radical step of advising its citizens to avoid UPFs outright. The country was acting out of a sense of urgency, because the number of young Brazilian adults with obesity had risen so far and so fast, more than doubling between 2002 and 2013 (from 7.5% of the population to 17.5%). These radical new guidelines urged Brazilians to avoid snacking, and to make time for wholesome food in their lives, to eat regular meals in company when possible, to learn how to cook and to teach children to be wary of all forms of food advertising.

The biggest departure in the Brazilian guidelines was to treat food processing as the single most important issue in public health. This new set of rules framed unhealthy food less in terms of the nutrients it contains (fats, carbohydrates etc) and more by the degree to which it is processed (preserved, emulsified, sweetened etc). No government diet guidelines had ever categorised foods this way before. One of the first rules in the Brazilian guidelines was to avoid consumption of ultra-processed products. They condemned at a stroke not just fast foods or sugary snacks, but also many foods which have been reformulated to seem health-giving, from lite margarines to vitamin-fortified breakfast cereals.

From a British perspective where the official NHS Eatwell guide still classifies low-fat margarines and packaged cereals as healthier options it looks extreme to warn consumers off all ultra-processed foods (what, even Heinz tomato soup?). But there is evidence to back up the Brazilian position. Over the past decade, large-scale studies from France, Brazil, the US and Spain have suggested that high consumption of UPFs is associated with higher rates of obesity. When eaten in large amounts (and its hard to eat them any other way) they have also been linked to a whole host of conditions, from depression to asthma to heart disease to gastrointestinal disorders. In 2018, a study from France following more than 100,000 adults found that a 10% increase in the proportion of UPFs in someones diet led to a higher overall cancer risk. Ultra-processed has emerged as the most persuasive new metric for measuring what has gone wrong with modern food.

Why should food processing matter for our health? Processed food is a blurry term and for years, the food industry has exploited these blurred lines as a way to defend its additive-laden products. Unless you grow, forage or catch all your own food, almost everything you consume has been processed to some extent. A pint of milk is pasteurised, a pea may be frozen. Cooking is a process. Fermentation is a process. Artisanal, organic kimchi is a processed food, and so is the finest French goats cheese. No big deal.

But UPFs are different. They are processed in ways that go far beyond cooking or fermentation, and they may also come plastered with health claims. Even a sugary multi-coloured breakfast cereal may state that it is a good source of fibre and made with whole grains. Bettina Elias Siegel, the author of Kid Food: The Challenge of Feeding Children in a Highly Processed World, says that in the US, people tend to categorise food in a binary way. There is junk food and then there is everything else. For Siegel, ultra-processed is a helpful tool for showing new parents that theres a huge difference between a cooked carrot and a bag of industrially produced, carrot-flavoured veggie puffs aimed at toddlers, even if those veggie puffs are cynically marketed as natural.

The concept of UPFs was born in the early years of this millennium when a Brazilian scientist called Carlos Monteiro noticed a paradox. People appeared to be buying less sugar, yet obesity and type 2 diabetes were going up. A team of Brazilian nutrition researchers led by Monteiro, based at the university of Sao Paulo, had been tracking the nations diet since the 80s, asking households to record the foods they bought. One of the biggest trends to jump out of the data was that, while the amount of sugar and oil people were buying was going down, their sugar consumption was vastly increasing, because of all of the ready-to-eat sugary products that were now available, from packaged cakes to chocolate breakfast cereal, that were easy to eat in large quantities without thinking about it.

To Monteiro, the bag of sugar on the kitchen counter is a healthy sign, not because sugar itself has any goodness in it, but because it belongs to a person who cooks. Monteiros data suggested to him that the households who were still buying sugar were also the ones who were still making the old Brazilian dishes such as rice and beans.

Monteiro is a doctor by training, and when you talk to him, he still has the idealistic zeal of someone who wants to prevent human suffering. He had started off in the 70s treating poor people in rural villages, and was startled to see how quickly the problems of under-nutrition were replaced by those of tooth decay and obesity, particularly among children. When Monteiro looked at the foods that had increased the most in the Brazilian diet from cookies and sodas to crackers and savoury snacks what they had in common was that they were all highly processed. Yet he noticed that many of these commonly eaten foods did not even feature in the standard food pyramids of US nutrition guidelines, which show rows of different whole foods according to how much people consume, with rice and wheat at the bottom, then fruits and vegetables, then fish and dairy and so on. These pyramids are based on the assumption that people are still cooking from scratch, as they did in the 50s. It is time to demolish the pyramid, wrote Monteiro in 2011.

Once something has been classified, it can be studied. In the 10 years since Monteiro first announced the concept, numerous peer-reviewed studies on UPFs have been published confirming the links he suspected between these foods and higher rates of disease. By giving a collective name to ultra-processed foods for the first time, Monteiro has gone some way to transforming the entire field of public health nutrition.

As he sees it, there are four basic kinds of food, graded by the degree to which they are processed. Taken together, these four groups form what Monteiro calls the Nova system (meaning a new star). The first category group 1 are the least processed, and includes anything from a bunch of parsley to a carrot, from a steak to a raisin. A pedant will point out that none of these things are strictly unprocessed by the time they are sold: the carrot is washed, the steak is refrigerated, the raisin is dried. To answer these objections, Monteiro renamed this group unprocessed and minimally processed foods.

The second group is called processed culinary ingredients. These include butter and salt, sugar and lard, oil and flour all used in small quantities with group 1 foods to make them more delicious: a pat of butter melting on broccoli, a sprinkling of salt on a piece of fish, a spoonful of sugar in a bowl of strawberries.

Next in the Nova system comes group 3, or processed foods. This category consists of foods that have been preserved, pickled, fermented or salted. Examples would be canned tomatoes and pulses, pickles, traditionally made bread (such as sourdough), smoked fish and cured meats. Monteiro notes that when used sparingly, these processed foods can result in delicious dishes and nutritionally balanced meals.

The final category, group 4, is unlike any of the others. Group 4 foods tend to consist largely of the sugars, oils and starches from group 2, but instead of being used sparingly to make fresh food more delicious, these ingredients are now transformed through colours, emulsifiers, flavourings and other additives to become more palatable. They contain ingredients unfamiliar to domestic kitchens such as soy protein isolate (in cereal bars or shakes with added protein) and mechanically separated meat (turkey hotdogs, sausage rolls).

Group 4 foods differ from other foods not just in substance, but in use. Because they are aggressively promoted and ready-to-eat, these highly profitable items have vast market advantages over the minimally processed foods in group 1. Monteiro and his colleagues have observed from evidence around the world that these group 4 items are liable to replace freshly made regular meals and dishes, with snacking any time, anywhere. For Monteiro, there is no doubt that these ultra-processed foods are implicated in obesity as well as a range of non-communicable diseases such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

Not everyone in the world of nutrition is convinced by the Nova system of food classification. Some critics of Monteiro have complained that ultra-processed is just another way to describe foods that are sugary or fatty or salty or low in fibre, or all of these at once. If you look at the UPFs that are consumed in the largest quantities, the majority of them take the form of sweet treats or sugary drinks. The question is whether these foods would still be harmful if the levels of sugar and oil could be reduced.

The first time the nutrition researcher Kevin Hall heard anyone talk about ultra-processed food, he thought it was a nonsense definition. It was 2016 and Hall who studies how people put on weight at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at Bethesda, Maryland was at a conference chatting with a representative from PepsiCo who scornfully mentioned the new Brazilian set of food guidelines and specifically the directive to avoid ultra-processed foods. Hall agreed that this was a silly rule because, as far as he was concerned, obesity had nothing to do with food processing.

Anyone can see that some foods are processed to a higher degree than others an Oreo is not the same as an orange but Hall knew of no scientific proof that said the degree of processed food in a persons diet could cause them to gain weight. Hall is a physicist by training and he is a self-confessed reductionist. He likes to take things apart and see how they work. He is therefore attracted to the idea that food is nothing more than the sum of its nutrient parts: fats plus carbs plus protein and fibre, and so on. The whole notion of ultra-processed foods annoyed him because it seemed too fuzzy.

When Hall started to read through the scientific literature on ultra-processed foods, he noticed that all of the damning evidence against them took the form of correlation rather than absolute proof. Like most studies on the harmful effects of particular foods, these studies fell under the umbrella of epidemiology: the study of patterns of health across populations. Hall and he is not alone here finds such studies less than convincing. Correlation is not causation, as the saying goes.

Just because people who eat a lot of UPFs are more likely to be obese or suffer from cancer does not mean that obesity and cancer are caused by UPFs, per se. Typically, its people in lower economic brackets who eat a lot of these foods, Hall said. He thought UPFs were being wrongly blamed for the poor health outcomes of living in poverty.

At the end of 2018, Hall and his colleagues became the first scientists to test in randomised controlled conditions whether diets high in ultra-processed foods could actually cause overeating and weight gain.

For four weeks, 10 men and 10 women agreed to be confined to a clinic under Halls care and agreed to eat only what they were given, wearing loose clothes so that they would not notice so much if their weight changed. This might sound like a small study, but carefully controlled trials like this are considered the gold standard for science, and are especially rare in the field of nutrition because of the difficulty and expense of persuading humans to live and eat in laboratory conditions. Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina, has praised Halls study published in Cell Metabolism for being as good a clinical trial as you can get.

For two weeks, Halls participants ate mostly ultra-processed meals such as turkey sandwiches with crisps, and for another two weeks they ate mostly unprocessed food such as spinach omelette with sweet potato hash. The researchers worked hard to design both sets of meals to be tasty and familiar to all participants. Day one on the ultra-processed diet included a breakfast of Cheerios with whole milk and a blueberry muffin, a lunch of canned beef ravioli followed by cookies and a pre-cooked TV dinner of steak and mashed potatoes with canned corn and low-fat chocolate milk. Day one on the unprocessed diet started with a breakfast of Greek yoghurt with walnuts, strawberries and bananas, a lunch of spinach, chicken and bulgur salad with grapes to follow, and dinner of roast beef, rice pilaf and vegetables, with peeled oranges to finish. The subjects were told to eat as much or as little as they liked.

Hall set up the study to match the two diets as closely as possible for calories, sugar, protein, fibre and fat. This wasnt easy, because most ultra-processed foods are low in fibre and protein and higher in sugar. To compensate for the lack of fibre, the participants were given diet lemonade laced with soluble fibre to go with their meals during the two weeks on the ultra-processed diet.

It turned out that, during the weeks of the ultra-processed diet, the volunteers ate an extra 500 calories a day, equivalent to a whole quarter pounder with cheese. Blood tests showed that the hormones in the body responsible for hunger remained elevated on the ultra-processed diet compared to the unprocessed diet, which confirms the feeling I used to have that however much I ate, these foods didnt sate my hunger.

Halls study provided evidence that an ultra-processed diet with its soft textures and strong flavours really does cause over-eating and weight gain, regardless of the sugar content. Over just two weeks, the subjects gained an average of 1kg. This is a far more dramatic result than you would expect to see over such a short space of time (especially since the volunteers rated both types of food as equally pleasant).

After Halls study was published in July 2019, it was impossible to dismiss Monteiros proposition that the rise of UPFs increases the risk of obesity. Monteiro told me that as a result of Halls study, he and his colleagues in Brazil found they were suddenly being taken seriously.

Now that we have evidence of a link between diets high in UPFs and obesity, it seems clear that a healthy diet should be based on fresh, home-cooked food. To help champion home cooking among Brazilians, Monteiro recruited the cookery writer Rita Lobo, whose website Panelinha (network) is the most popular food site in Brazil, with 3m hits a month. Lobo said that when she tells people about UPFs, the first reaction is panic and anger. They say: Oh my God! Im not going to be able to eat my yoghurt or my cereal bar! What am I going to eat? After a while, however, she says that the concept of ultra-processed foods is almost a relief to people, because it liberates them from the polarities and restriction created by fad diets or clean eating. People are thrilled, Lobo says, when they realise they can have desserts again, as long as they are freshly made.

But modern patterns of work do not make it easy to find the time to cook every day. For households who have learned to rely on ultra-processed convenience foods, returning to home cooking can seem daunting and expensive. Halls researchers in Maryland spent 40% more money purchasing the food for the unprocessed diet. (However, I noticed that the menu included large prime cuts of meat or fish every day; it would be interesting to see how the cost would have compared with a larger number of vegetarian meals or cheaper cuts of meat.)

In Brazil, cooking from scratch still tends to be cheaper than eating ultra-processed food, Lobo says. UPFs are a relative novelty in Brazil and memories of a firm tradition of home cooking have not died yet here. In Brazil, it doesnt matter if you are rich or poor, you grew up eating rice and beans. The problem for you [in the UK], Lobo remarks, is that you dont know what your rice and beans is.

In Britain and the US, our relationship with ultra-processed food is so extensive and goes back so many decades that these products have become our soul food, a beloved repertoire of dishes. Its what our mothers fed us. If you want to bond with someone who was a child in 1970s Britain, mention that you have childhood memories of being given Findus Crispy Pancakes and spaghetti hoops followed by Angel Delight for tea. I have noticed that Australian friends have similar conversations about the childhood joys of Tim Tams chocolate biscuits. In the curious coding of the British class system, a taste for industrial branded foods is a way to reassure others that you are OK. What kind of snob would disparage a Creme Egg or fail to recognise the joy of licking cheesy Wotsit dust from your fingers?

I am as much of a sucker for this branded food nostalgia as anyone. There is a part of my brain the part that is still an eight-year-old at a birthday party that will always feel that Iced Gems (ultra-processed cookies topped with ultra-processed frosting) are pure magic. But Ive started to feel a creeping unease that our ardent affection for these foods has been mostly manufactured by the food corporations who profit from selling them. For the thousands of people trapped in binge-eating disorder as I once was UPFs are false friends.

The multinational food industry has a vested interest in rubbishing Monteiros ideas about how UPFs are detrimental to our health. And much of the most vociferous criticism of his Nova system has come from sources close to the industry. A 2018 paper co-authored by Melissa Mialon, a French food engineer and public health researcher, identified 32 materials online criticising Nova, most of which were not peer-reviewed. The paper showed that, out of 38 writers critical of Nova, 33 had links to the ultra-processed food industry.

For many in the developing world, the prevalence of ultra-processed foods is making it hard for those on a limited budget to feed their children a wholesome diet. Victor Aguayo, chief of nutrition at Unicef, tells me over the phone that, as ultra-processed foods become cheaper and other foods, such as vegetables and fish, become more expensive, the UPFs are taking up a bigger volume of childrens diets. Whats more, the pleasurable textures and aggressive marketing of these foods makes them appealing and aspirational both to children and parents, says Aguayo.

Soon after the arrival in Nepal of brightly coloured packages that, as Aguayo describes them, look like food for children: the cookies, the savoury snacks, the cereals, aid workers started to see an epidemic of both overweight and micronutrient deficiency including anaemia among Nepalese children under the age of five.

Aguayo says there is an urgent need to change the food environment to make the healthy options the easy, affordable and available ones. Ecuador, Uruguay and Peru have followed Brazils example in urging their citizens to steer clear of ultra-processed foods. Uruguays dietary guidelines issued in 2016 tells Uruguayans to base your diet on natural foods, and avoid the regular consumption of ultra-processed products. How easy this will be to do is another matter.

In Australia, Canada or the UK, to be told to avoid ultra-processed food as the Brazilian guidelines do would mean rejecting half or more of what is for sale as food, including many basic staples that people depend on, such as bread. The vast majority of supermarket loaves count as ultra-processed, regardless of how much they boast of being multiseed, malted or glowing with ancient grains.

Earlier this year, Monteiro and his colleagues published a paper titled Ultra-processed foods: what they are and how to identify them, offering some rules of thumb. The paper explains that the practical way to identify if a product is ultra-processed is to check to see if its list of ingredients contains at least one food substance never or rarely used in kitchens, or classes of additives whose function is to make the final product palatable or more appealing (cosmetic additives). Tell-tale ingredients include invert sugar, maltodextrin, dextrose, lactose, soluble or insoluble fibre, hydrogenated or interesterified oil. Or it may contain additives such as flavour enhancers, colours, emulsifiers, emulsifying salts, sweeteners, thickeners and anti-foaming, bulking, carbonating, foaming, gelling and glazing agents.

But not everyone has time to search every label for the presence of glazing agents. A website called Open Food Facts, run by mostly French volunteers, has started the herculean labour of creating an open database of packaged foods around the world and listing where they fit into on the Nova system. Froot Loops: Nova 4. Unsalted butter: Nova 2. Sardines in olive oil: Nova 3. Vanilla Alpro yoghurt: Nova 4. Stphane Gigandet, who runs the site, says that he started analysing food by Nova a year ago and it is not an easy task.

For most modern eaters, avoiding all ultra-processed foods is unsettling and unrealistic, particularly if you are on a low income or vegan or frail or disabled, or someone who really loves the occasional cheese-and-ham toastie made from sliced white bread. In his early papers, Monteiro wrote of reducing ultra-processed items as a proportion of the total diet rather than cutting them out altogether. Likewise, the French Ministry of Health has announced that it wants to reduce consumption of Nova 4 products by 20% over the next three years.

We still dont really know what it is about ultra-processed food that generates weight gain. The rate of chewing may be a factor. In Halls study, during the weeks on the ultra-processed diet people ate their meals faster, maybe because the foods tended to be softer and easier to chew. On the unprocessed diet, a hormone called PYY, which reduces appetite, was elevated, suggesting that homemade food keeps us fuller for longer. The effect of additives such as artificial sweeteners on the gut microbiome is another theory. Later this year, new research from physicist Albert-Lszl Barabsi will reveal more about the way that ultra-processing actually alters food at a molecular level.

In a two-part blog on ultra-processed foods in 2018 (Rise of the Ultra Foods) Anthony Warner, a former food industry development chef who tweets and campaigns as Angry Chef, argued that Nova was stoking fear and guilt about food and adding to the stress of already difficult lives by making people feel judged for their food choices. But having read Kevin Halls study, he wrote an article in May 2019 admitting: I was wrong about ultra-processed food it really is making you fat. Warner said the study convinced him that eating rate, texture and palatability of UPFs lead to overeating, and ended with a call for more research.

Hall tells me that he is in the process of constructing another study on ultra-processed food and obesity. This time, the people on the ultra-processed diet would also be eating larger amounts of unprocessed foods, such as crunchy vegetables with low energy density, while still getting more than 80% of their calories from ultra-processed food equivalent to adding a side salad or a portion of broccoli to your dinner of frozen pizza. This is much closer to how most families actually eat.

Even if scientists do succeed in pinning down the mechanism or mechanisms by which ultra-processed foods make us gain weight, its not clear what policy-makers should do about UPFs, except for giving people the support and resources they need to cook more fresh meals at home. To follow the Brazilian advice entails a total rethink of the food system.

For as long as we believed that single nutrients were the main cause of poor diets, industrial foods could be endlessly tweaked to fit with the theory of the day. When fat was seen as the devil, the food industry gave us a panoply of low-fat products. The result of the sugar taxes around the world has been a raft of new artificially sweetened drinks. But if you accept the argument that processing is itself part of the problem, all of this tweaking and reformulation becomes so much meaningless window-dressing.

An ultra-processed food can be reformulated in countless ways, but the one thing it cant be transformed into is an unprocessed food. Hall remains hopeful that there may turn out to be some way to adjust the manufacture of ultra-processed foods to make them less harmful to health. A huge number of people on low incomes, he notes, are relying on these relatively inexpensive tasty things for daily sustenance. But he is keenly aware that the problems of nutrition cannot be cured by ever more sophisticated processing. How do you take an Oreo and make it non-ultra-processed? he asks. You cant!

This article was amended on 13 February 2020. An earlier version referred to American friends reminiscing about Tim Tams; it should have said Australian. It also described Melissa Mialon as a Brazilian nutritionist; she is a French food engineer.

Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, and sign up to the long read weekly email here.

More:
How ultra-processed food took over your shopping basket - The Guardian

The catalyst came when Corbett moved from her position as interim chief executive of Australia Post to consulting at PwC in 2018, when her coffee consumption skyrocketed to five or six skim cappuccinos a day.

Corbett says it was almost a year before she noticed the extra coffees were adding kilojoules and sugar to her diet. I just went,Im not doing anything different, whats happening?, she says.

Corbett no longer follows her meal plan to the letter, but she does observe three or four alcohol-free days each week, hits the gym with her personal trainer three times a week and avoids carbs after lunchtime.

Maintaining a healthy weight is a common challenge in the C-suite. In the face of long work days, frequent travel, lunch meetings and boozy evening events often on top of taking care of a family eating healthily can easily fall by the wayside. But some executives, like Corbett, say they have cracked the code.

Intermittent fasting and gym workouts proved the right combination for Cameron Holland.Supplied

Cameron Holland, chief executive of holiday package company Luxury Escapes, lost 14 kilograms over three months using a combination of the Fast 800 intermittent fasting regime and dawn gym sessions. In general, I find that the age-old rule of calories in and calories out is about as sophisticated a diet plan that anyone ever really needs, Holland says.

In the travel and hospitality industry, eating out is practically in the job description, he says. I love the old adage about the difference between a director and a shopping trolley you get more food in a director and get more direction from a shopping trolley, Holland quips.

When he cant avoid corporate dining, Holland observes three rules: portion control, always choose the fish, and avoid that second glass of wine. While not successful every time, it helps to at least know the boundaries, he says.

David Brewster, chief legal officer of Coles Supermarkets, says his companys no gifts policy is a blessing in disguise because it means he usually has to turn down lunch and dinner invitations. I think thats what really kills executives eating those meals that are high in salt and fat and you cant control the menu, he says.

Brewster has been an avid runner for the past decade and runs marathons to stay in shape.

If taking clients out for a meal is non-negotiable, Vanessa Bennett, chief executive of business coaching company Next Evolution Performance, suggests opting for lunch instead of dinner.

Its safer over lunch than dinner, eating-wise and drinking-wise, Bennett says, noting that the days of the long lunch have passed. People do still tend to go back to work these days.

Nicole Dynan, a dietitian and spokeswoman for the Dietitians Association of Australia, suggests looking at the restaurant menu online before arrival. Have a look so youre a little bit informed and dont have to make a rushed decision, she says.

In addition to dietary changes, all the executives who spoke to BOSS have incorporated exercise into their day, whether its a seven-minute workout app or running marathons.

Hugh Alsop, chief executive of biotechnology company Kinoxis Therapeutics, shed seven kilograms in four weeks by eating ready-made keto meals from BeFit and eliminating alcohol.

Keto is a fantastic option for people and it just really goes back to the way people used to eat. We never used to eat heaps of carbs, Alsop says. But its tough, so you need to be committed.

He no longer eats the BeFit meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but he finds them handy for lunch on the go.

Despite the popularity of the keto diet, Dynan warns that cutting all carbs can make it harder to concentrate at work, which would be an issue for executives.

Theyre doing a lot of mentally draining work and need to be firing on all cylinders, Dynan says. If theyre starving from lack of carbs, their brains going to be running on empty.

She recommends filling one quarter of your plate with healthy carbohydrates such as brown rice or sweet potato, one quarter protein such as lean meat or tofu and the remaining half plate with vegetables.

Alsop says he didnt find concentration an issue, but craving carbs was a challenge. He helped curb these cravings by having healthy snacks, such as protein balls, on hand.

Travel can be another stumbling block for executives watching their weight. Bennett and Dynan recommend eating plant-based foods, avoiding alcohol and drinking plenty of water. Dynan also recommends eating relatively little on flights to help the digestive system.

Corbett and Brewster both say they do what they can to avoid eating during flights."Oh no, I just avoid aeroplane food," Corbett says, laughing.

Go here to see the original:
Executives reveal which fad diets actually work - The Australian Financial Review

They dont call high blood pressure a silent killer for nothing. Turns out, about half of Americans have this condition, which, left unaddressed, can cause hardening of the arteries, stroke, kidney damage, and even early cognitive decline and dementia. Yet most people with high blood pressure (also called hypertension) have no idea theyre affected.

High blood pressure, in most cases, is asymptomatic, says Lawrence Phillips, M.D., cardiologist and assistant professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health. So people dont feel that they have it, which is why regular screening is so important. (If you havent had your numbers checked in two years, see a doc.)

In the simplest terms, blood pressure is the force of your blood against the walls of your blood vessels and arteries, and it is expressed as two numbers: The top number (systolic blood pressure) represents the pressure or force in the arteries when your heart beats, and the bottom number (diastolic blood pressure) is the pressure measured between heart beats, explains Amnon Beniaminovitz, M.D., a cardiologist at Manhattan Cardiology.

Anything over 130/80 mmHg is considered high blood pressure.

While normal blood pressure is necessary for survival, high blood pressure is dangerous because it means your heart is working much harder to pump blood throughout your body. You can sort of think of high blood pressure as your blood punching the walls of the heart and other organs over and over again, says Dr. Philips. If that punching is at a high force, youre going to develop thickening and damage over time.

According to the American Heart Association, anything above 120/80 mmHg is considered elevated blood pressure, while anything over 130/80 mmHg is considered high blood pressure. The good news: Elevated and high blood pressure can often (but not always) be addressed with diet and lifestyle modifications, says Dr. Philips.

Step one: Figure out whats causing your high blood pressure in the first place. For most people, its multifactorial, meaning a bunch of factors work in tandem to spike your levels into unsafe territory. Here, the most common causes of blood pressure and how to address them to bring your numbers back down.

Excessive sodium intake has a direct impact on blood pressure. More salt equals more sodium in the blood, which then pulls water from the surrounding tissues into your vessels and increases blood volume, says Dr. Beniaminovitz. More blood volume leads to higher blood pressure.

But if youre thinking, I dont even use that much salt, its probably still hiding elsewhere in your diet. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Americans are consuming an average of 3,400 mg of sodium per day, which is well beyond the recommended cap of 2,300 mg per day. And of that, more than 70% of a persons sodium intake is coming from processed and restaurant foods, including things like bread, breakfast cereal, chips, cookies, pizza, canned beans and veggies, canned soups, and pasta saucenot the salt shaker itself.

Additionally, a diet heavy in processed foods can cause weight gain, and when people are overweight, the body has to pump blood to more tissue, which can increase blood pressure, says Dr. Philips. We see an extremely large amount of high blood pressure in obese patients.

Instead, load up on whole foods rich in beneficial nutrients, like vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, fish, nuts, seeds, and olive oil, suggests Dr. Beniaminovitz. Potassium and magnesium are both minerals that help blood vessels relax, which in turn can help lower blood pressure; and recent research links high-fiber diets to significant reductions in systolic blood pressure.

If you want to follow a specific dietary plan thats been proven to lower blood pressure, Dr. Beniaminovitz recommends either the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet or a well-formulated Mediterranean Diet.

For people who already drink, moderate alcohol consumption (one drink a day for women, two a day for men) is often not a problem, and some research suggests it may even help prevent heart disease. However, heavier alcohol consumptionespecially frequent binge drinking episodescan lead to chronically elevated blood pressure, says Dr. Philips. Research has also tied binge drinking to an increased risk of developing atherosclerosisbuildup of fatty plaque in the arteries, which can lead to heart attack and stroke.

One drink equals 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of spirits. And if its really more about the ritual than the alcohol itself, consider periodically swapping out your glass of cabernet for a kombucha or one of those trendy new non-alcoholic cocktails from brands like Curious Elixirs, Seedlip, and Kin.

Sitting too much or leading a sedentary lifestyle can mess with just about every aspect of your health, and your cardiovascular health is no exception. Being sedentary leads to elevated blood pressure, both indirectly and directly, says Dr. Beniaminovitz. Sedentary people tend to be overweight or obese, and, as mentioned above, weight is one of the main driving causes of high blood pressure.

Additionally, getting regular aerobic activity helps you maintain a healthy blood pressure by making blood vessels more compliant (or flexible) and less sensitive to hormonal influences, he explainsso a lack of such activity may accelerate arterial hardening, forcing the heart and blood vessels to work that much harder.

A research analysis of nearly 400 studies suggests that regular exercise could be as effective as commonly prescribed blood pressure drugs. In the pantheon of physical activity, aerobic exercising is the best for blood pressure, says Dr. Beniaminovitz. Aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise per week (about 20 to 30 minutes a day) such as biking, brisk walking, swimming, a barre class, or even higher-speed varieties of yoga like vinyasa.

From an evolutionary standpoint, stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline are released into the blood to help us escape danger (to fight or flee)they increase heart rate, elevate blood pressure, constrict blood vessels, and enlarge our pupils to help us think and move fast, explains Dr. Beniaminovitz.

In the past, the stressful event was typically over pretty quicklybut today, relentless work demands, overbooked schedules, challenging relationships, and even social media have led to an epidemic of chronic stress, which triggers the same release of stress hormones. But unlike our ancestral past, theres often no reprieveits constantand thus, blood pressure may remain elevated. One study found that logging more than 41 hours a week at work raised the risk of hypertension by 17%.

Physical activity is one of the most effective ways to reduce levels of stress hormones and minimize their impact on blood pressure, says Dr. Beniaminovitz. Mindfulness practices like deep breathing, meditation, and yoga, or even reading a book or listening to your favorite music, can also keep stress hormones in check.

You may also need to cut out certain activities, like checking those work emails at all hours. People have to get to know themselves and their triggers, and how they may be able to remove themselves from situations that increase stress and anxiety, says Dr. Philips.

You may not necessarily feel stressed when you experience loneliness or social isolation, but these feelingswhen they persistcan trigger the same dangerous release of stress hormones that spike blood pressure, says Dr. Beniaminovitz. Not to mention, chronic loneliness is associated with depression, and research has shown a correlation between depression, subsequent weight gain, and increase in blood pressure.

We are social beings and we need a certain amount of social interaction to function optimally, says Dr. Beniaminovitz. But if the idea of putting yourself out there seems impossible, start small. Send a friend a quick DM to say youre thinking of them, and see where things go. Combine physical activity and social time by committing to a weekly Saturday morning yoga class with a pal. Want to make new friends? Try volunteering to meet like-minded people. (Here are eight actionable ways to deal with loneliness.)

In general, inadequate sleep may lead to high blood pressure by increasing stress hormones, or by increasing your cravings for junk food and thus contributing to weight gain, says Dr. Beniaminovitz. But the biggest sleep-related cause of hypertension is obstructive sleep apnea (OSA)a disorder that causes someone to stop breathing for brief periods of time while sleeping due to an obstruction of their upper airway.

With higher obesity rates, more and more people are developing OSA, says Dr. Philips. This leads to broken sleep and decreased oxygen levels in the body, and part of the bodys response is to increase blood pressure. In fact, its estimated that half of people with hypertension also suffer from OSA. Some signs you may have sleep apnea? Your partner says you snore or gasp in your sleep and youre always tired despite going to bed at a reasonable hour.

If you suspect OSA, see your doctor ASAP so they can conduct a sleep study in which your oxygen levels will be measured throughout the night, says Dr. Philips. If you are diagnosed, you will likely be prescribed a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine to wear over your mouth and nose at night to help you breathe.

If you do have high blood pressure, your doctor will likely take into consideration the range of other diseases and disorders that, when poorly managed, cause your blood pressure to become elevated. These include thyroid problems, renovascular disease, Cushings syndrome, and a number of others. The key to all these conditions is the correct diagnosis, says Dr. Beniaminovitz. When the proper diagnosis is made, working with your doctor to reverse and or treat these conditions often cures high blood pressure.

Additionally, a number of common medications can increase blood pressure such as antidepressants, decongestants, St. Johns Wort, oral contraceptives, NSAIDs, and prednisone.

If your doc says your BP is high, bring up any strange symptoms that could indicate an underlying cause (for example, if youre experiencing weight gain, exhaustion, and hair loss, it could be hypothyroidism), and always provide them with a list of your current medications and supplements.

If your meds are the issue, ideally they would be discontinued or changed to ones that have no or less effect on blood pressure, says Dr. Beniaminovitz. If a change in medication is not possible, often your doctor will prescribe optimal lifestyle and blood pressure medication to combat the effects.

Genes do play some role in high blood pressure, which is why younger people in seemingly great health can still be diagnosed with hypertension, says Dr. Philips. However, more often than not, its also likely that people with a family history of high blood pressure share common environments (similar diets, similar sedentary lifestyles, etc) that increase their riskand these are very much modifiable.

Our genes also interact with the environment and we can influence them by the choices we make, says Dr. Beniaminovitz. While lifestyle changes may not help you in never developing high blood pressure if you have a strong family history, optimal lifestyle will aid in delaying the onset of blood pressure and the need for early medications. Instead of developing high blood pressure in your 30s or 40s, with optimal diet and lifestyle you may delay the onset of high blood pressure to your late 60s or 70s.

Theres no magic bullet, but if you have a strong family history, thats even more reason to implement all of the dietary and lifestyle recommendations aboveeat whole foods, move your body more, manage stressand get your blood pressure checked regularly.

Like what you just read? Youll love our magazine! Go here to subscribe. Dont miss a thing by downloading Apple News here and following Prevention. Oh, and were on Instagram too.

See the rest here:
What Causes High Blood Pressure? 8 Reasons for High Blood Pressure - Prevention.com

If you or your child has ever had a stomach virus, you may have heard of and implemented the BRAT diet. BRAT stands for bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast, which are supposed to be easy on the stomach and help relieve symptoms like nausea and diarrhea.

However, the diet has fallen out of favor since it was first introduced and it may not be the best option anymore. Here's what you need to know.

The BRAT diet "has been around for about a century, and it was originally developed for pediatricians to give to kids to minimize the amount of diarrhea they have when they get acute intestinal illnesses," says Dr. David Cutler, MD, a family medicine physician at Providence Saint John's Health Center.

Though the diet was primarily invented for sick children, adults suffering from acute stomach problems can also use it to reduce their symptoms. But before starting yourself or your child on the BRAT diet, it's crucial that you know what's causing the symptoms in the first place.

"[There are] many different causes of diarrhea and for some, a BRAT diet definitely would not be a good idea [like] if they have some infection going on, if they have some inflammatory condition in their intestines, or if they're having a dietary reaction," says Cutler.

He warns something more serious could be going on if you're experiencing bloody stool, high fever, or severe abdominal pain. In this case, you should head to your doctor instead of starting the BRAT diet.

Let's say you've ruled out the other possible problems, and you're simply dealing with an acute viral intestinal illness like your run of the mill gastroenteritis like a stomach bug that'll resolve in a couple of days.

To really recover from a stomach bug, experts believe that you need a full range of vitamins, nutrients, proteins, and healthy fats. The BRAT diet provides a small amount of nutrients like vitamin C in applesauce and the fiber and vitamin B-6 in bananas. But you'll be lacking other key nutrients including protein and healthy fats.

In fact, the BRAT diet isn't as popular or as endorsed by doctors as it once was. "It's been discovered over the years that it nutritionally is very deficient in a lot of things that kids need. So generally, it's fallen greatly out of favor to use," says Cutler.

Therefore, to get the full range of nutrition you'll want to re-introduce a normal balanced diet after one or two days of the BRAT diet to regain your health.

Since prolonged diarrhea and vomiting can be very dehydrating, the most important thing is staying hydrated by consuming lots of fluids.

"The best way to treat diarrhea is simply to replace the fluid that you're losing in the diarrhea," says Cutler.

Drink lots of water and consider rehydration solutions such as low-sugar options like G2 or Pedialyte that contain fluids and electrolytes. Avoid high-sugar drinks like regular Gatorade or Powerade because the sugar may actually worsen diarrhea. Soup or plain broths are also good options that are soothing and rehydrating.

"Most experts would now recommend that people just avoid foods that might be aggravating diarrhea, and to stay on a good healthy diet with fiber and protein and mono or polyunsaturated fats," says Cutler.

In addition to sugary drinks, other foods that may upset your stomach and exacerbate your symptoms may include dairy, greasy foods, and foods high in insoluble fiber like beans, nuts, and leafy greens.

The bottom line is the BRAT diet might be helpful short-term, but it's even more important to stay hydrated and avoid aggravating foods when trying to get better. The BRAT diet shouldn't be used for more than a couple of days, for either children or adults.

View post:
What is the BRAT diet? Why doctors no longer recommend it - Insider - INSIDER

Susanna Liu

Tomorrow, the Yale College Council and Yale Student Environmental Coalition are hosting the inaugural Yale Climate Crisis Summit. Prompted in no small part by the powerful displays of climate activism on campus and in New Haven in recent months, the summit will highlight the work of Yale students and New Haven residents in combating the climate crisis.

Over the past two decades, climate activism has moved from a focus on individual behavioral change to breaking down institutions that lie at the root of todays situation. But in both earlier and present iterations of the climate movement, the relationship between climate and our food systems has largely been ignored. For us to solve the climate crisis locally and across the world, we need to start talking about the food we eat.

The reality is that we cannot transition to a sustainable world with the current prevalence of animal products in our diets. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, rearing livestock and poultry for meat, eggs and milk generates 14.5 percent of global carbon emissions. This contribution exceeds the total amount of transport-related emissions worldwide.

Animal agriculture is also the single largest source of methane emissions. Over a 100-year period, methane is 34 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Methane gases are especially important to a crisis mitigation strategy, as methane dissipates from the atmosphere 10 times faster than carbon dioxide. This means that if we reduce methane emissions, the climate benefits would be felt much more quickly.

The increasing regularity of climate disasters highlights the importance of strategies that have an immediate impact on global warming. For this reason, we must adjust our actions including what we eat to respond to one of the largest and fastest growing sources of greenhouse gases: animal agriculture. To ignore animal agriculture is to ignore the problem.

Animal agriculture is contributing not only to a crisis of environmental sustainability, but also to a crisis of justice. Climate change will hurt us all, but it is marginalized and powerless people who will be harmed the most. Not to mention billions of animals those that suffer directly in the food industry and those pushed to extinction in the face of ecological destruction. These are the troubling politics that unfold on our plates daily.

What are the actions we can take to reduce food-related emissions? In our student organizations, we can drastically reduce the amount of animal-based foods we provide at our events. Participating in local politics is also an effective tactic. We can lobby our Senators, Congressmembers, mayors and city council members to move public procurement of food away from animal products.

Across the country, activists have already succeeded in making change through local politics. In New York, for instance, a group of activists successfully lobbied for Meatless Mondays in all of the citys public schools. This comes to 1.1 million meatless meals per Monday.

In the battle against animal agriculture, we also wield substantial power by virtue of what we put on our plates. Our mundane consumption choices play a part in producing crises of justice, like the climate crisis we face today. These everyday choices can deliver great blows to animal agriculture.

When just one additional Yale student commits to a plant-based diet, over 1,000 meals per year would no longer involve the harms of animal agriculture. If every person who attended the climate strike last semester opted for a plant-based diet for a year as many already have 1.3 million meals would be free from the negative consequences of animal agriculture. Adopting a plant-based diet is not an option for everyone, but for those who it is, privilege translates into responsibility.

To care about the environment is to care about ending animal agriculture. The severity of the problem requires an all-out effort on the part of individuals and institutions alike.

SEBASTIAN QUAADE is a junior in Pierson College. RAM VISHWANATHAN is a junior in Silliman College. They are members of the Yale Animal Welfare Alliance. Contact them at sebastian.quaade@yale.edu and ram.vishwanathan@yale.edu.

Read this article:
QUAADE AND VISHWANATHAN: The politics of our plates - Yale Daily News

SHREVEPORT, La. - Heart disease often starts with diabetes. That's something Army Airborne veteran Bobby Sterling knows all about.

Sterling comes from a military family. His father was a Marine and later served in the Air Force for 28 years. Heart disease took his father's life. Sterling didn't know how close he was to following in his father's footsteps.

"I'm Bobby Sterling. Shreveport transplant here. 51 years old. On Dec 18, 2019, I had a triple bypass," he said.

Exercise has always been a part of Sterling's routine. "If you walk the outside perimeter it's about 3/4 of a mile," he said of Betty Virginia Park, where he walks about two days a week.

But Sterling used to run 5Ks.

"It's hard to outrun heredity. You think you're in really good shape," he said.

Although his father died of a heart attack at 58 years old, that didn't stop Sterling from enjoying a traditional Filipino meal.

Bobby Sterling and family

"The Filipino diet is lots of fried foods. There are some gumbo style choices too. But the fried food is hard to resist," said Sterling.

Dr. Trey Baucum with Advanced Cardiovascular Specialist said there is a connection between diet and heart disease.

"We eat a diet that has so much sugar in it and it's sugar in ways you don't think of," said Baucum.

Fried foods are usually blanketed in white flour, which is high in sugar or glucose. Over time a high glucose diet can damage blood vessels.

"In your retina, in your kidneys, your heart, in your lower extremities," Baucum said.

Sterling was having problems with his ankle when doctors discovered he had diabetes. Then, three months later, when he went for a routine colonoscopy.

"It was difficult to rouse me from the anesthesia," recalls Sterling.

Then a few days later, he had difficulty breathing so he went to Christus Highland emergency room. Doctors discovered a blockage in his arteries.

"The left anterior diagonal LAD is one of the most important of your arteries and that one was 100-percent blocked," Sterling said.

He couldn't believe it. He could have died.

"A lot of time diabetics, even type 2 diabetics, don't have symptoms of heart disease as they're developing heart disease," Baucum said.

Sterling's heart wasn't even strong enough for doctors to operate.

"I actually had to do cardiac rehabilitation for two months to get my heart strong enough to withstand the surgery," Sterling said.

Finally, his heart was strong enough for the triple-bypass surgery.

"Because of the intervention of the staff at Christus I'm here talking to you today," Sterling said.

Baucum said a diagnosis of diabetes doesn't have to end up with heart disease.

"If you go on a low very strict, very low calorie diet, you can actually reverse the process. You can actually become a non-diabetic," Baucum said.

Bobby Sterling and Brenda Teele

It's been just two months since Sterling's triple bypass surgery. For now, he's constantly monitored and wears an external wearable defibrillator.

His close call has been a wake-up call for the whole family. Doctors tell Sterling he won't have to worry about his heart for another 15 years. Hes fortunate his heart disease was discovered before it was too late.

Baucum said diabetics usually don't have chest pain even when they have advanced heart disease. They'll experience shortness of breath or fatigue and sometimes the first symptom a diabetic will experience is an actual heart attack.

Follow this link:
Shreveport man has close call because of undiagnosed heart disease - KTBS

From oat milk to cashew cheese, and seitan sausages to pea-protein burgers, plant-based products are big business. In the U.S. alone, the number of offerings labelled as such surged 268 per cent between 2012 and 2018, according to Mintel research. But what does plant-based mean, exactly? A new study from the National Cattlemens Beef Association suggests that less than half of us could answer that question correctly.

The survey of more than 1,800 participants ranging from 18 to 65 years old showed that 45 per cent understood plant-based beef to be a completely vegan, animal-free product, as Food Dive reports. Thirty-one per cent thought it could contain animal byproducts, but not meat, while 17 per cent believed it could contain small amounts of meat, but is primarily plant-based. Seven per cent assumed the term implied a beefy free-for-all with no restrictions on meat content whatsoever.

The findings are in line with an annual survey released by the International Food Information Council last spring, which revealed that while plant-based may seem self-explanatory, it means vastly different things to different people. Roughly one-third of respondents equated a plant-based diet with a vegan one, and a similar percentage defined it as a diet that emphasizes minimally processed foods that come from plants, with limited consumption of animal meat, eggs and dairy.

When asked what was most confusing about various plant-based product labels and advertisements in the recent beef association study, responses ranged from bafflement at descriptors Marbled juiciness doesnt make sense to me, one participant said about the Beyond Burger to taking issue with its very existence Its called a burger, looks like a burger, but is not meat.

In terms of its impact on health and the environment, respondents believed plant-based meat to be a better choice than beef: 52 per cent thought it was more sustainable, 51 per cent saw it as a healthy choice, 44 per cent considered it to be lower in sodium, and 39 per cent deemed it natural. But beef won out on perceptions of budget (46 per cent), protein content (43 per cent) and having fewer ingredients (42 per cent).

Despite further evidence of the fuzziness of plant-based terminology, any uncertainty doesnt seem to have had a negative impact on its popularity or perceived benefits. And although plant-based eating may be one of todays top food and beverage trends, the term itself dates back decades.

Thomas Colin Campbell, a nutritional biochemist who is credited with coining it in the early 1980s, told The New York Times that he arrived at the phrase in order to impress that his work was coming totally from science and not any sort of ethical or philosophical consideration. For his part, Campbell has since moved towards promoting a whole food plant-based diet instead, which differentiates between the nutritional value of unadulterated plants, and processed foods like chickn nuggets and high-tech veggie burgers.

While many use plant-based and vegan interchangeably, the formers haziness is central to its appeal. Where vegan is specific, plant-based is broad providing a soft-edged alternative to hard lines. For the 6.5 million Canadians thats nearly 20 per cent of the population (compared to roughly 470,000 vegans) who are rethinking but not eliminating meat, taking a vague approach to dietary labels has its advantages. Opting for openness over restriction is attractive when it means you can have your meat-free burger on Monday and a rotisserie chicken on Tuesday.

The nebulous nature of plant-based appears to be bolstering, rather than hindering, its success. Its well understood that the major players in the current meatless movement are targeting omnivores, not vegetarians and vegans, with their products. As an extension, being presented with an increasing number of plant-based foods that dont force a lifestyle change looks like an option, not an edict.

More here:
What does plant-based mean, anyway? More than half of us arent so sure, suggests beef association study - National Post

When youre trying to keep to a healthy diet, I find that the things that most frequently derail the best laid plans are holidays, family gatherings, work treats and restaurants.

With holidays and family gatherings, the best option is to make one or two healthier options to take along with you. If you stick to the salads, veggies and choices you brought with you, you may be able to avoid the gravy and desserts. Then youve got to defend yourself from the caring coworkers who are always bringing in doughnuts or homemade treats at your job. The best tactic there is avoidance. You just have to hide until the "treats" are gone.

If you want to liven up your workday, make it a point of hiding from the treat-giver all day. Cubicle walls make great cover.

Finally, there is the problem of going out to eat. Whether its a special occasion, a break from cooking or your family just wanting to go out on a Friday night, youre going to have to order from a menu now and then. If you know where youre going ahead of time, take advantage of the internet and look up their menu online.

The basics still apply when eating out: eat more veggies, eat whole foods, avoid processed foods and sugar, and avoid filling up on empty carbs like chips and bread.

Many restaurants have adapted with the times and offer healthier or lower-calorie alternatives to the regular menu. Taco Bell has a Fresco menu that removes the high-calorie sauces, sour cream and cheese. Starbucks has a low-carb breakfast option called sous-vied egg bites, which are per serving size mixtures of egg and other ingredients. One is a gouda and bacon and it is very tasty.

If youre eating at a Mexican restaurant or similar, then its easy to order something full of veggies, like fajitas, but you should skip the chips and salsa and heavy add-ons. Try adding avocado instead of salsas or sauces. Its full of flavor, but a healthier fat. If you do places like Chipotle (or Los Primos) you can order a burrito bowl all the flavor of a burrito without the tortilla. And you can fill that bowl with beans, lean proteins and vegetables to make a healthy meal.

The same goes for pizza. Get a thin crust, skip the greasy, processed meats, and pile on the veggies. If you go light on the sauce and cheese, its not a bad meal option.

Avoid ordering carb-heavy sides, those are never good for you. If you must choose a fast-food option because of time constraints, places like Wendys and Panera have large salad options that are fresh and full of flavor, like Paneras Fuji Apple Salad with Chicken. Healthy ingredients, including fruit and nuts, liven up a once boring meal of greens and make it a filling option for lunch or dinner.

If eating at a mid-range American restaurant, steakhouse or diner, go for quality, unprocessed proteins such as steak or chicken, add veggie sides and skip the breads, rolls and buns. If you order a burger, ask for it bun-less or wrapped in lettuce, and get a salad instead of fries.

Japanese food is already a pretty healthy choice, as they use a lot of veggies and fish, just dont overdo it on soy sauce as its high in salt. A typical Japanese menu can also be used as a helpful guideline in your brain when ordering Chinese food. Think more fish, soup and vegetables, and fewer of the fried options, sauces or noodles. Steamed tofu and vegetables make for a protein and fiber-filled meal.

Italian restaurants are a nightmare of calories. If you must eat at one, think Mediterranean when ordering, which makes ample use of ingredients such as citrus, olives, herbs, grains, veggies and seafood instead of only pasta and sauce. Delicious and healthier choices include bruschetta or caprese salad instead of breadsticks, or chicken cacciatore, grilled calamari, mussels in a white wine broth, or eggplant in place of the typical pasta entre. Youll feel better and just as sated after a dinner like that.

Finally, theres the traditional buffet restaurant: Dont eat at those.

Read more from the original source:
MIRANDA BEVERLY: Tips to keep healthy diets on track - Goshen News

Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images

Taylor Swift attends the 2019 American Music Awards in Los Angeles, Nov. 24, 2019.

In college, Id spend 45 minutes on the elliptical machine, then spend an hour at an exercise class. Id eat Raisin Bran for lunch, then rice with peas, maybe with a little cheese on top, for dinner. If I only ate a bag of microwave popcorn for lunch a meal, Id later learn, that was a universal signifier of disordered eating my friends would give me the side-eye, until one day, they sat me down and told me, Youre not getting enough calories.

I was embarrassed, because such a coordinated conversation meant that theyd surely been talking about me, and observing my eating habits, for months. But that surveillance did make me start consuming more calories, although never really enough, given how much I continued to exercise. My mind told me food was bad, and unnecessary, and easily ignored even though my body, like every body, was telling me it was very necessary. Not through hunger pains, which Id disciplined into disappearing, but through a feeling of weakness and slowness when I exercised.

I was never skinny in a way that would be considered concerning. I never forced myself to throw up. I never skipped meals. I ate sweets. I drank beer. I scavenged for late night nachos. I didnt go on diets. But like millions of other people, I had a deeply disordered relationship with food, sustained by the knowledge that, hey, it seemed to be working. My body was societally acceptable, hewing the line of what a desirable white womans body should look like which, by extension, meant that whatever I was doing to keep it that way was acceptable, too.

In Miss Americana, the much-anticipated Taylor Swift documentary now on Netflix, Swift articulates a similar idea. When she felt fat usually after seeing a picture of herself or a magazine cover suggesting shed gained weight or was pregnant that would just trigger me to juststarve a little bit, she said. Just stop eating. Anyone with disordered eating will tell you that starve a little bit and stop eating doesnt mean stop eating altogether, which would be too obvious a signal that something was wrong, but rather eat very, very carefully. You consume as few calories as possible, often engaging in whats known as orthorexia: obsessive clean or healthy eating.

Swift, like me and so many other bourgeois women I know, also engaged in a form of hypergymnasia, also known as exercise anorexia, in which you seek to control your body and your net calorie intake through compulsive exercise, but with inadequate energy to fuel it. I thought that I was just, like, supposed to feel like I was going to pass out at the end of a show or in the middle of it, she explains in the documentary. I thought that was how it was.

Taylor Swift on a tabloid cover from November 2016.

The exercise also served as a means of deflecting potential criticism about her size. I wouldve defended it to anyone who said, Im concerned about you, she continued. I was like, What are you talking about? Of course I eat. Its perfectly normal. I just exercise a lot. And I did exercise a lot. But I wasnt eating.

While Swift describes her attitude toward food and exercise, footage of her from that period in her life, in the mid-2010s, flashes on the screen. I remember her body from that time on the red carpet, in a photoshoot for Vogue. Shes a decade younger than me, so its no longer the sort of body to which I compare mine, but I imagined how impossibly desirable that body wouldve been to her peers. Thats how I felt about Britney Spears body back in the late 90s and early 2000s. Swift helped popularize the high midriff, a strip of skin visible between high-waisted skirts or shorts and crop tops, but Spears standardized the low midriff, tanned and muscular, just above a pair of jeans slung so low that a pair of thong underwear peeped out.

Swift talks about how theres always some standard of beauty that youre not meeting, and for her, it was that when she was thin, she didnt have a big enough ass, but if she gained enough weight to have an ass, then her stomach wasnt flat. Its all just fucking impossible, she says. That was the thing about the Britney stomach, too: for most women, especially women older than 17, it was just fucking impossible. Most womens bodies just dont look like that, no matter how much you exercise. Which is part of why it was the ideal, of course: because it was essentially unobtainable for the vast majority of the population.

But as a perfectionist, type A kid and then adult, I wasnt used to things that I couldnt obtain through hard work and discipline. You see the goal and you make a plan to achieve it. For some perfectionists, that plan can expand into a more visible, and more life-threatening, eating disorder. But I think more people are like me and Swift: We figure out a way to work toward the ideal without alarming anyone and lie, even to ourselves, about what were doing to our bodies.

Even back in college, I knew that not everyones body type was the same, and that body ideals were contradictory just like Swift knew that she couldnt have a physique like her friend Karlie Kloss and a butt like Kim Kardashian West. But just because we recognize the ridiculousness of an ideal doesnt mean we dont find ourselves subject to it. These ideals are so pernicious that they have completely, and perhaps forever, messed up millions of peoples relationship with food, one of the most elemental components of living as a human in the world.

We figure out a way to work toward the ideal without alarming anyone and lie, even to ourselves, about what were doing to our bodies.

My own disordered eating started to shift when I was 30 and working at a boarding school that required spending a significant amount of time eating with and around teenage girls. From the first day, I knew I wanted to model a positive relationship with food: one that wasnt precise, or overthought, or the center of my life. At first, it was hard to convince myself to eat a normal lunch, instead of just scavenging on granola bars and a piece of fruit the way I had for the last decade. But over the first month, I saw that I didnt gain weight and I felt, well, better.

Swift, too, had this realization: If you eat food, have energy, get stronger, you can do all these shows and not feel it, she said. Which is a really good revelation. Because Im a lot happier with who I am and ... I dont care as much if somebody points out that I have gained weight. Its just something that makes my life better. She admits that shes not the size she once was, but thats fine. That wasnt how my body was supposed to be, she said. I just didnt really understand that. At the time, I really dont think I knew it.

Or, like me, some part of Swift did know her body wasnt supposed to be functioning that way she just couldnt get the rest of her to agree, especially when she was praised, in every way imaginable, when her body was like that. And thats why this sort of disordered eating hides in plain sight: Among high-achieving students, among athletes at all levels, among men and people of all different sizes, including (or especially) those who seemingly have it all together as much as Taylor Swift. Athletes in particular are adept at masking their disordered eating: They underreport their behaviors, their problems are conceived of as problematic but subclinical; they rarely report bingeing and purging, instead resorting to exercise as a (sanctioned) form of control.

The risk and prevalence of eating disorders, and disordered eating, rises in sports with an increased emphasis on an athletes diet, weight, size, and/or appearance. But our society in general already emphasizes, cherishes, and praises us when we conform to those expectations a lesson that young people of all genders begin to internalize at an incredibly young age, thats reinforced through pervasive cultural body-shaming. Which is why the behaviors listed as eating disorder warning signs preoccupation with weight, food, calories, carbohydrates, fat grams, and dieting, skipping meals and taking small portions of food at regular meals, and extreme concern with body size and shape dont even sound like red flags. Theyre just the parameters of daily life.

As Swift says in Miss Americana, You dont ever say to yourself, Ive got an eating disorder. But you know youre making a list of everything you put in your mouth that day. And you know thats probably not right. But then again, theres so many diet blogs that tell you that thats what you should do.

Swift talks about her history of disordered eating in Miss Americana.

Over the last decade, Ive accumulated a fair amount of ambivalence about Swift much of which can broadly be traced to the same period as the disordered eating she talks about, including her performance at the 2014 Victorias Secret Fashion Show, and the conspicuous making-friends-with-models that accompanied it. The obsessive celebrity selfies and appearances of her squad phase felt contrived, flirting with desperate despite the fact that she was arguably the most famous person in the world.

Its clichd to suggest that disordered eating habits develop, and are in turn healed, in step with our levels of personal confidence and self-love, but it stems from a larger truth: Our society is so harsh, unforgiving, and exacting when it comes to what people especially women should look like and how we should act that it creates a sort of personality vacuum, sucking away all other attributes until all that remains of our character is the ability to control our caloric intake. Its no coincidence that these disordered habits often develop in adolescence and young adulthood when were least sure of who we are, and havent yet cultivated a sense of self strong enough to reject messages about who we should be.

I began to form a different relationship with food and exercise when I realized that food wasnt my enemy, and exercise wasnt exclusively a way to combat what that enemy had done to me. Swift had a similar revelation, but the documentary as a whole suggests that it was part and parcel of a much larger reckoning with who she was, what she wanted, and what she wanted to stand for which was also what happened to me, as I entered into my thirties, and a new career, after graduate school.

Swift admits in the documentary that she recently caught herself start to do it: hating her body, wanting to starve it. And I was like, Nope, we dont do that anymore, she said, We do not do that anymore. Thats not the person shes decided she wants to be. And while the person Swift is today still contributes, willingly or not, to our collective understanding of what beauty and success looks like, she is also talking about her susceptibility to the pressure of that understanding. Shes refusing to hide, and thus continue to normalize, the behaviors that perpetuate it.

People with disordered eating often know that what theyre doing is unhealthy and fucked up. We dont need people to tell us that. What we do need, and what Swift does, is show that well still be OK even valuable and beloved if we leave those behaviors behind.

The National Eating Disorders Association helpline is 1-800-931-2237; for 24/7 crisis support, text NEDA to 741741.

Read more here:
Taylor Swift And The Gray Area Of Disordered Eating - BuzzFeed News

It was 2017 when we first decided to try the ketogenic diet for the first time and we were incredibly nervous about it. The thought of eating high fat and changing our metabolism was daunting.

The diet goes against almost every single piece of health and dietary advice we had ever heard or studied.

However, we were desperate. Lindsay was having such severe digestive problems that we committed to trying keto for one month, and then we would re-evaluate. Two weeks in, we were sure wed stick to it. Lindsays digestive problems were resolved and her energy levels drastically increased. Nic had better mental clarity than ever before. Not to mention our body compositions were both improving.

Because of our own success stories, Nic became a certified Ketogenic Living Health Coach, and has been testing the ketogenic diet and CrossFit for over a year now.

Fast forward to 2020 and keto seems to be running rampant these days. Miraculous stories of weight loss, health transformations, and so much more circulate all over the internet and within fitness groups. One community where keto is only just being explored is the world of CrossFit.

You may have heard that the ketogenic diet and CrossFit dont mix. Many people think that because CrossFitis extremely glycolytic meaning that the exercise is fuelled primarily by glucose any diet that is not high in carbohydrates will not work.

We are going to explore the science and facts behind the ketogenic diet and CrossFit, and explain why the keto diet is at least as good as a typical diet for CrossFit and also includes some unique benefits for CrossFit athletes.

The official CrossFit.com newsletter and website have begun to include many studies on the benefits of the ketogenic diet, and there is even a CrossFit approved course on the ketogenic diet titled Nutrition Network Professional Training in LCHF/Ketogenic Nutrition. CrossFit HQ seems to be endorsing the high fat low carb (HFLC) diet quite strongly this past year.

This is Part One of a series of posts covering different aspects of CrossFit and the impact the ketogenic diet has on each one. Here, youll learn about the studies that have been done on the ketogenic diet and its effects on CrossFit in particular, as well as a ketosis, energy systems, and why this funky metabolic state can actually be very beneficial for overall health and athletic performance, specifically CrossFit.

The metabolic state known as ketosis, in which the body burns fat (instead of carbohydrates) for energy, in the form of ketone bodies, is actually as old as mankind itself. Ketone bodies are produced during times of extended fasting, and most people often produce some ketone bodies in the early morning before they eat breakfast.

Going for many hours without food can cause a small production in ketones. This study highlights the fact that ancient people relied heavily on fat for their energetic needs. In fact, another study claims that it was the increased consumption of fat from bone marrow and brains that jump-started human evolution to have the large brain we have today.

In the modern lens, there are many benefits to the state of ketosis, including: weight loss, lowered blood sugar, improved cholesterol and reduced triglycerides, reduced risk of heart disease, andincrease in cognitive performance, between others.

The most basic way to look at the keto diet is that the body is consuming mostly fat for fuel, instead of carbohydrates.

When fat is consumed, it is broken down into free fatty acids (FFA) that can be used directly by cells for energy, or it can go to the liver, where it is broken down into ketone bodies, hence the name ketogenic diet.

There are modified versions of the ketogenic diet with different macronutrient breakdowns:

As you can see, keto is not even a one-size-fits-all diet but can actually be more lenient than some would have you believe especially once youre fat-adapted, meaning your body is efficiently using fat for energy production.

Throughout this series, youll get a better understanding on the best variation of keto for CrossFit, overall athletic performance, and overall health and longevity specifically.

See more here:
Keto and CrossFit: Does It Even Work? Part 1 - BOXROX

Page 147«..1020..146147148149..160170..»

Home » Diets that Work » Page 147