I think we have a hangover from our heritage as an agricultural society. It is the notion that we must eat 3 large meals per day. In those days, we worked 18 hours in the fields, together, and the need for large meals was clear. These days, most of us are not manual labourers. Eating three large meals is a habit we have inherited from the days, long gone, when there was still walking, lifting, stuking, forking and cleaning of stalls to be done.
I'm not saying that mealtimes shouldn't be family times, but it might be time to examine the nutritional needs we have in our current society and set some new guidelines.
We know, for example, that it is important, especially for children, to get adequate nutrition in the morning. An egg, some WHOLE GRAIN toast with peanut butter and a glass of milk are a good start to the morning. In the winter, a hot cereal would be good as well.
A protein snack mid morning. A wedge of cheese and a carrott.
Lunch should be protein, veggies, a non-sugar drink and some complex carbs. Depending on your occupation on an afternoon, it should reflect the amount of calories you are likely to burn in that afternoon period.
A mid afternoon protein snack. A low sugar yogourt for example.
But supper? Should it be an extremely hearty meal when most settle down to an evening of TV watching or computer work?
Twenty five years ago when I was a military wife, we had Dutch exchange students at the base. They were quite horrified at the amount of food we ate at supper time. I don't know if it was just this group of Europeans, or if it is a Euro thing. My friend told me they had soup, a piece of cheese and some veggies in the evening, and a coffee later.
Given the obesity epidemic, the fact that a high carb meal is well known to slow one down, and our current activity levels of any evening, dinner/supper needs to be rethought as a small repast reflecting the energy needed in the upcoming several hours. Lunch at supper, and supper at lunch might be a better solution to our spreading waistlines. Unless you are stuking hay in the field or digging a ditch after your evening meal.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Not a good way to start the day
You see all the ads on TV about eating cereal in the morning. They make me cringe when they suggest it's a good way to lose weight.
Not cereal. Cereal of most types is a bowl of sugar. Even with some whole grains, it's still a sugary way to start the day. And it will for sure spike your blood sugar and you'll be hungry.
A better breakfast would be cottage cheese, some berries, coffee with sweetener....or even eggs and bacon with most of the fat drained away.
No orange juice. I admit I take a mouthful of OJ with my iron pill in the am. Can't give that one up.
I continue to be horrified at the diet advice given to Type 2 diabetics. Cut down on those carbs and cut down on your insulin and metformin, I say. And 30 minutes at least on the treadmill every day even if you are active.
In Canada, the RDA for carbs is 300 grams! Yikes. We try and stay under 50. My husband has lost 30 lbs. and my father 22, and I'm hovering still at the 65 mark. Need to get at it.
Watch those carbs. Eat as few as possible. My husband has a piece of toast with peanut butter on it in the am, none at lunch, and a bun or something at supper with his protein and veggies. He's a big blueberry eater. We both take vitamin D, 2 grams a day, as we live in Canada well North of the Mason-Dixon line.
In the winter I will have oatmeal once in a while, with ground flax added, and a sucralose brown sugar. Maybe a few almonds thrown in.
We also eat a lot of Greek salad. Can't get enough. So we eat a modified low-carb Mediteranean diet. It is the best.
Not cereal. Cereal of most types is a bowl of sugar. Even with some whole grains, it's still a sugary way to start the day. And it will for sure spike your blood sugar and you'll be hungry.
A better breakfast would be cottage cheese, some berries, coffee with sweetener....or even eggs and bacon with most of the fat drained away.
No orange juice. I admit I take a mouthful of OJ with my iron pill in the am. Can't give that one up.
I continue to be horrified at the diet advice given to Type 2 diabetics. Cut down on those carbs and cut down on your insulin and metformin, I say. And 30 minutes at least on the treadmill every day even if you are active.
In Canada, the RDA for carbs is 300 grams! Yikes. We try and stay under 50. My husband has lost 30 lbs. and my father 22, and I'm hovering still at the 65 mark. Need to get at it.
Watch those carbs. Eat as few as possible. My husband has a piece of toast with peanut butter on it in the am, none at lunch, and a bun or something at supper with his protein and veggies. He's a big blueberry eater. We both take vitamin D, 2 grams a day, as we live in Canada well North of the Mason-Dixon line.
In the winter I will have oatmeal once in a while, with ground flax added, and a sucralose brown sugar. Maybe a few almonds thrown in.
We also eat a lot of Greek salad. Can't get enough. So we eat a modified low-carb Mediteranean diet. It is the best.
Monday, September 7, 2009
They just don't get it, or don't want to.
They just don't get it. Or they don't want to.
I'm starting to be a conspiracy theorist. Or maybe people simply don't want to believe that our bodies haven't had enough time to evolve to process carbs that well. Oh well.
If you read what Jennifer Aniston or any other normal weight adult, with a few exceptions, eats, they just don't eat MUCH and they eat extremely carefully. She talks about watching the carbs.
The simple fact is that our body burns fat when it doesn't get carbs. For almost everyone except Type I diabetics, this is a good thing. Two thirds of us are overweight. Designers are going into the large sizes because there are fewer and fewer small people. That is not a good thing.
For those of us with BMIs over 30, we need to burn fat. The only way to do that is to deprive our body of carbs so it switches to burning fat. And our body is well able to do so. It always gets its fuel. That is why anorexics die -- the body, lacking fuel from either carbs or proteins, starts using lean muscle mass for fuel, including the liver and heart. But we are not going there.
I was looking at my favourite yogourt at the store. It has 25g of carbs per serving. Too damn much. Very few options for low carb yogourt. I could only have that one yogourt, a slice of bread, and a few other incidental carbs during the day to stay under 50g. And half an hour on the treadmill plus taking a lot of steps during the day will burn several pounds a week. I stay satisfied with some lean meats and right kinds of fats like olive oil and avocados, or nuts.
When people talk about ketoacidosis roll your eyes as it's not likely you are going there. You do want to burn fat and eat lean protein. I prefer South Beach to Atkins, but that is my preference. I lost my gall bladder a few years back (and am glad of it) so like to keep the balance of digestive fluids at the optimum.
It's biochemical truth that carbs make fat. If everyone ate half of their daily carb intake for several months, North America would lighten up considerably. Archer Daniels Midland or the other big food companies might not like it, but it would be a good thing.
I'm starting to be a conspiracy theorist. Or maybe people simply don't want to believe that our bodies haven't had enough time to evolve to process carbs that well. Oh well.
If you read what Jennifer Aniston or any other normal weight adult, with a few exceptions, eats, they just don't eat MUCH and they eat extremely carefully. She talks about watching the carbs.
The simple fact is that our body burns fat when it doesn't get carbs. For almost everyone except Type I diabetics, this is a good thing. Two thirds of us are overweight. Designers are going into the large sizes because there are fewer and fewer small people. That is not a good thing.
For those of us with BMIs over 30, we need to burn fat. The only way to do that is to deprive our body of carbs so it switches to burning fat. And our body is well able to do so. It always gets its fuel. That is why anorexics die -- the body, lacking fuel from either carbs or proteins, starts using lean muscle mass for fuel, including the liver and heart. But we are not going there.
I was looking at my favourite yogourt at the store. It has 25g of carbs per serving. Too damn much. Very few options for low carb yogourt. I could only have that one yogourt, a slice of bread, and a few other incidental carbs during the day to stay under 50g. And half an hour on the treadmill plus taking a lot of steps during the day will burn several pounds a week. I stay satisfied with some lean meats and right kinds of fats like olive oil and avocados, or nuts.
When people talk about ketoacidosis roll your eyes as it's not likely you are going there. You do want to burn fat and eat lean protein. I prefer South Beach to Atkins, but that is my preference. I lost my gall bladder a few years back (and am glad of it) so like to keep the balance of digestive fluids at the optimum.
It's biochemical truth that carbs make fat. If everyone ate half of their daily carb intake for several months, North America would lighten up considerably. Archer Daniels Midland or the other big food companies might not like it, but it would be a good thing.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Again, why low carbs?
People ask again and again why carbs are bad for you. I guess the simple answer is, "because they make your body store fat."
Some people tell me, "I love carbs, I eat a lot of them." One friend in particular eats almost no fat and FREAKS if some fat gets into her diet. Well, if you have no fat in your diet, you are going to suffer somewhere. See my post on sat fats and the fact that they do have some redeeming qualities. But if you are not fat, you shouldn't change your eating habits too much unless you have high triglycerides, low hdl, high ldl, wrong size ldl particles, high blood pressure, diabetes, high inflammation indicators or a history of breast cancer or other cancers. why?
Because a high carb diet affects all of the above. Keep track of your carb intake for one day. Those slices of bread, the hidden sugars in drinks, yogourt, peanut butter and lots of other places all add up. They added carbs when they took out the fat.
Your body will make energy out of fats and stored fat if you cut your carb intake. Eat a piece of toast with peanut butter on it in the morning if you find you can't live without carbs. You'll burn it off quickly, and then your body will go back to burning fat if you eat protein, vegetables that are low sugar, and low sugar fruits. It's all about burning the fat around your middle-it is the most dangerous fat and impedes your organs and strains your heart.
Without carbs, you may have higher cholesterol, but as your triglycerides lower, the size of your LDL particles will get bigger, and that is good for your heart. The small LDL particles are the ones that stick together and cause blockages.
The only for sure scientific correlation is that people who have good levels of HDL have fewer heart attacks. So of course that is the ultimate goal, is to get that number into the approved range. And that takes a change in diet, to include olive oil, oils from nuts, lean proteins, salmon and other fatty fish and vegetables that don't raise your blood sugar.
The easiest route is to follow South Beach as closely as possible. It's the sugar in our diets that is killing us. And carbs equals glucose equals sugar. Bye bye baked potato, rice, white bread, chips and pop.
Some people tell me, "I love carbs, I eat a lot of them." One friend in particular eats almost no fat and FREAKS if some fat gets into her diet. Well, if you have no fat in your diet, you are going to suffer somewhere. See my post on sat fats and the fact that they do have some redeeming qualities. But if you are not fat, you shouldn't change your eating habits too much unless you have high triglycerides, low hdl, high ldl, wrong size ldl particles, high blood pressure, diabetes, high inflammation indicators or a history of breast cancer or other cancers. why?
Because a high carb diet affects all of the above. Keep track of your carb intake for one day. Those slices of bread, the hidden sugars in drinks, yogourt, peanut butter and lots of other places all add up. They added carbs when they took out the fat.
Your body will make energy out of fats and stored fat if you cut your carb intake. Eat a piece of toast with peanut butter on it in the morning if you find you can't live without carbs. You'll burn it off quickly, and then your body will go back to burning fat if you eat protein, vegetables that are low sugar, and low sugar fruits. It's all about burning the fat around your middle-it is the most dangerous fat and impedes your organs and strains your heart.
Without carbs, you may have higher cholesterol, but as your triglycerides lower, the size of your LDL particles will get bigger, and that is good for your heart. The small LDL particles are the ones that stick together and cause blockages.
The only for sure scientific correlation is that people who have good levels of HDL have fewer heart attacks. So of course that is the ultimate goal, is to get that number into the approved range. And that takes a change in diet, to include olive oil, oils from nuts, lean proteins, salmon and other fatty fish and vegetables that don't raise your blood sugar.
The easiest route is to follow South Beach as closely as possible. It's the sugar in our diets that is killing us. And carbs equals glucose equals sugar. Bye bye baked potato, rice, white bread, chips and pop.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Women, Insulin and Breast Cancer
It used to be all about estrogen. It was postulated that obese women, and there are too many of us, synthesized estrogen in adipose tissue. Now there is some thought that insulin is also part of the problem, due to high carb diets we are all following to keep fat levels low.
But we know now that that's all bunk, right, and we should be following a "plant-based, Meditteranean, low carb, right oil and fat" diet.
Anyway, an article of interest is "Insulin, Insulin-like Growth Factor-I, and Risk of Breast Cancer in Postmenopausal Women." Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Vol 101, Issue 1, Jan 7/09.
The multitude of authors conducted a study and looked at 835 subjects who were nondiabetic. They looked at their various blood profiles and concluded that insulin levels were positively associated with the risk of breast cancer but with a few caveats, like hormone use. Obesity was also associated.
The conclusion was "these data suggest that hyperinsulinemia is an independent risk factor for breast cancer and may have a substantial role in explaining the obesity=breast cancer relationship."
They observed "strong positive association" between risk of breast cancer and high fasting insulin levels in postmenopausal women who weren't diabetic and weren't on hormone therapy.
This means that women who are obese have to lose weight, get their insulin levels down and get active. It also mentions high estradiol levels but I'm not sure what women can do about that, other than lose the adipose tissue that produces too much estrogen.
I'd love to hear some medical comments on this.
But we know now that that's all bunk, right, and we should be following a "plant-based, Meditteranean, low carb, right oil and fat" diet.
Anyway, an article of interest is "Insulin, Insulin-like Growth Factor-I, and Risk of Breast Cancer in Postmenopausal Women." Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Vol 101, Issue 1, Jan 7/09.
The multitude of authors conducted a study and looked at 835 subjects who were nondiabetic. They looked at their various blood profiles and concluded that insulin levels were positively associated with the risk of breast cancer but with a few caveats, like hormone use. Obesity was also associated.
The conclusion was "these data suggest that hyperinsulinemia is an independent risk factor for breast cancer and may have a substantial role in explaining the obesity=breast cancer relationship."
They observed "strong positive association" between risk of breast cancer and high fasting insulin levels in postmenopausal women who weren't diabetic and weren't on hormone therapy.
This means that women who are obese have to lose weight, get their insulin levels down and get active. It also mentions high estradiol levels but I'm not sure what women can do about that, other than lose the adipose tissue that produces too much estrogen.
I'd love to hear some medical comments on this.
Monday, June 8, 2009
More evidence
Today an article in Archives of Internal Medicine on the benefits of a low carb diet with a vegetarian twist.
It benefitted blood pressure, apolipoproteins and the ratio between total and ldl cholesterol.
More proof that carbs are not good for us.
I've been looking at articles from as far back as 2000, regarding things like "the metabolic syndrome, LDL particle size, and atheroclerosis: the Atherosclerosis and Insulin Resistance
(AIR) study". This was the first study to show a relationship between having small LDL particle size, metabolic syndrome and thickening of plaques in the arterial walls carotid and femoral arteries. And smaller LDL particles are not good.
Another article from the Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology journal, called "Change in LDL particle size is associated with change in plasma triglyceride concentration", talks about how LDL particle size is inversely related to plasma triglyceride concentrations, so the higher your triglycerides, the smaller the size of your LDL particles. It seems the smaller particles are the ones found in plaque folks.
I'm painting a picture here.
So how to lower your plasma triglycerides? Eat fewer carbs. In Canada the RDA for carbs is about 300 g. On South Beach, I would say you get less than 20g a day during Phase I, probably 50 during phase II and less than 100g during Phase III and the rest of your life, depending on whether you gain weight or not.
Exercise is also good for you. It burns whatever glucose you might have in your system and gets you into fat burning mode. It also increases your fitness level and endurance.
Next post: insulin levels and breast cancer
It benefitted blood pressure, apolipoproteins and the ratio between total and ldl cholesterol.
More proof that carbs are not good for us.
I've been looking at articles from as far back as 2000, regarding things like "the metabolic syndrome, LDL particle size, and atheroclerosis: the Atherosclerosis and Insulin Resistance
(AIR) study". This was the first study to show a relationship between having small LDL particle size, metabolic syndrome and thickening of plaques in the arterial walls carotid and femoral arteries. And smaller LDL particles are not good.
Another article from the Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology journal, called "Change in LDL particle size is associated with change in plasma triglyceride concentration", talks about how LDL particle size is inversely related to plasma triglyceride concentrations, so the higher your triglycerides, the smaller the size of your LDL particles. It seems the smaller particles are the ones found in plaque folks.
I'm painting a picture here.
So how to lower your plasma triglycerides? Eat fewer carbs. In Canada the RDA for carbs is about 300 g. On South Beach, I would say you get less than 20g a day during Phase I, probably 50 during phase II and less than 100g during Phase III and the rest of your life, depending on whether you gain weight or not.
Exercise is also good for you. It burns whatever glucose you might have in your system and gets you into fat burning mode. It also increases your fitness level and endurance.
Next post: insulin levels and breast cancer
Monday, June 1, 2009
I didn't know sat fats did anything good...
"The approach of many mainstream investigators in studying the effect of consuming saturated fats has been narrowly focused to produce and evaluate evidence in support of the hypothesis that dietary saturated fat elevates LDL cholesterol and thus the risk of CAD. The evidence is not strong, and overall, dietary intervention by lowering saturated fat intake does not lower the incidence of nonfatal CAD; nor does such dietary intervention lower coronary disease or total mortality." (German and Dillard, Am J or Clin Nutr, 2004)
What?
That was 5 years ago and today on CNN the Crestor add still vilifies sat fats and cholesterol in contributing to CAD.
Anyway, I think changes are starting to happen, perhaps with Pres. Obama's stress on utilizing science.
In any case, we know that sat fats are essential in the body. Heck, we produce them ourselves, especially lactating women feeding their babies.
OK, so some good sat fats:
Butyric acid - may play a role in cancer prevention, is a modulator of the immune response and inflammation, functions as an antitumor agent by inhibiting growth and promotion differentiation and apoptosis (s-that is, cell death).
caproic, caprylic and capric acids - the second two have antiviral activity, monocaprin has antiviral activity against HIV, caprylic acid has antitumor activity in mice.
lauric acid - antiviral and antibacterial functions, kills heliobacter pylorii in the stomach, anticaries and antiplaque agent, has adverse effects on various microorganisms including bacteria, yeast, fungi and enveloped viruses, by disrupting lipid membranes and deactivating them.
myristic acid - associated with CAD but most strongly related to average serum cholesterol concentrations, can also increase HDL levels.
palmitic acid - in normal healthy people with normal cholesterol levels, palmitic acid lowers serum cholesterol, replacement of laurate-myristate with palmitate-oleate has a beneficial effect on an important index of thrombogenesis.
stearic acid - and other acids with less than 12 carbon atoms are thought not to increase cholesterol concentrations. Produces beneficial effects on thrombogenic and athergenic risk factors.
So they are not completely without merit. Next time, the effects of sat fats on cholesterol.
What?
That was 5 years ago and today on CNN the Crestor add still vilifies sat fats and cholesterol in contributing to CAD.
Anyway, I think changes are starting to happen, perhaps with Pres. Obama's stress on utilizing science.
In any case, we know that sat fats are essential in the body. Heck, we produce them ourselves, especially lactating women feeding their babies.
OK, so some good sat fats:
Butyric acid - may play a role in cancer prevention, is a modulator of the immune response and inflammation, functions as an antitumor agent by inhibiting growth and promotion differentiation and apoptosis (s-that is, cell death).
caproic, caprylic and capric acids - the second two have antiviral activity, monocaprin has antiviral activity against HIV, caprylic acid has antitumor activity in mice.
lauric acid - antiviral and antibacterial functions, kills heliobacter pylorii in the stomach, anticaries and antiplaque agent, has adverse effects on various microorganisms including bacteria, yeast, fungi and enveloped viruses, by disrupting lipid membranes and deactivating them.
myristic acid - associated with CAD but most strongly related to average serum cholesterol concentrations, can also increase HDL levels.
palmitic acid - in normal healthy people with normal cholesterol levels, palmitic acid lowers serum cholesterol, replacement of laurate-myristate with palmitate-oleate has a beneficial effect on an important index of thrombogenesis.
stearic acid - and other acids with less than 12 carbon atoms are thought not to increase cholesterol concentrations. Produces beneficial effects on thrombogenic and athergenic risk factors.
So they are not completely without merit. Next time, the effects of sat fats on cholesterol.
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