Saturday, September 30, 2006

How we eat with our eyes

A study was done in Sweden regarding human eating behaviour and what was found from this was very quite interesting, it would seem that most of us eat with our eyes instead of our stomachs so what does this actually mean then.

Well it would seem that some of the reasons why people become overweight in the first place is merely how they are eating rather than what they are eating, some people might know this and some people may not, that on average a man say for instance only needs 2550 calories per day, so it will probably easy to see how easy it would to be to eat over that amount I mean how many of us actually write-down in calorific notes how much we eat, I would say 90% of us don't take any notes at all about what we eat.

Now the study that was done on obese people found something out quite interesting what they noticed was when people are blindfolded, they ate 22% less food than if they were blindfolded. So the interesting thing about this is it tells you how that if you eat with your eyes rather than your stomach then you're more likely to gain weight.

If you actually think about this and what is actually happening it seems that when food is put on a plate in front of us no matter how much there is on the plate we are programmed to eat what is on the plate, I have got some theories about how this works the food is on the plate and is more or less saying to us eat me eat me eat me, it's crying out so this is what we tend to do, eat all the food that is on the plate, but think about this for a minute what if you ate more slowly so that the time taken for your stomach to give the full signal then you would eat less food surely, it takes about 20 to 30 minutes for your stomach to give your brain the full signal, which can give you plenty of time to eat lots of food so the thing is to chew your food eat it slower and hence eat less and hopefully lose weight.

Friday, September 29, 2006

The humble sweet potato

The sweet potato is a vegetable packed with nutritional goodness it might be one those vegetables that you tend to overlook when your grocery shopping, it wasn't until just recently that I myself found out about these potatoes and how good for you they are

In fact they are so much better for you than the normal humble potato, that isn't to say that straightforward potatoes aren't necessarily bad for you, but after doing some research it turns out that when you eat say a jacket potato for instance with some butter as a filling you may tend to think that eating that would be okay that but is that the case, I heard somebody recently say on a well-known TV programme that chips as in the one’s you buy from a chip shop say have a bit of a double whammy attached to them.

The chips will be covered in saturated fat but also the potatoes themselves are broken down into glucose very quickly so again hence fat storage this is why a lot of people who eat chips tend to gain weight, there's nothing wrong of course with eating a jacket potato with other foods say for instance beans or some other nutritious food this will lower the whole GI rating of the meal, or jacket potatoes just on their own with a bit of butter, are okay in moderation but a potato on its own have a generally high GI rating.

So back to the sweet potato and anyway these potatoes are full of vitamins and minerals namely vitamin C. vitamin a manganese, fibre, vitamins B6, potassium and iron and very low in calories approximately 95 cal per serving which is quite low.

Also sweet potatoes are what's known as an antidiabetic food which is good news for people with diabetes, it can help towards stabilising blood sugar which will prevent high levels of insulin which can lead to fat storage, so my suggestion to you is go out try some and see what you think they do taste nicer than a normal potato I can assure you of that.
Hi again weekly weigh in again nothing to report today hit a plateau it would seem a little bit disappointing but it won't deter me none the less you can tend to yo yo a bit and hit these roadblocks.

Might have to do more exercise again I cut my regime down to 4 days 4 days on 3 off it seemed to work better for me ahh well, carry on and keep positive at least I am not gaining more weight.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Low GI snack try this for a quick snack if your in a hurry

Two slices of whole meal bread toasted
Chopped Mushrooms
Tomato cut into four quarters
Baked Beans
Chili Powder

Add the chopped mushrooms to a bowl then add the beans mix these two together covering the mushrooms with the tomato sauce, add some chili powder not to much is needed just to spice it up then add the tomato heat in a microwave for about 4 minutes

Serve on the wholemeal toast it's delicious
Well today had a look at a domain name the one I want is available, so wordpress plus my own hosting is looking very tempting reason being blogger, can be very slow at times publishing wise so , I am looking to change over anyone know is it easy converting your posts from here to wordpress easy or not ?
Onion Bhajis may help to prevent colon cancer a report claims today, good job I eat a lot then if you would like to know what they are and how to make them here is a link to a recipe I use to make mine mmmm lovely just makes my mouth water thinking about them. Onion Bhaji Recipe

have a go make some there yummy
Hi all hope you like the new header and just so you know no it's not me posing in that picture just in case you where wondering :-P

Tuesday, September 26, 2006











How about this to keep you motivated new t-shirt perhaps :)
Hello how all out there in the blogosphere this blog is relatively new and has been running now for a few weeks, it is of course predominantly about me and my efforts to lose weight, but rather than just blog about that all the time, I thought it might be nice to have snippets of news information on food and anything related to diet and nutrition.

I'm hoping it will be a roaring success and I know sometimes that the best way to get people to your blog is by word of mouth, so as your passing by you might see something quite interesting I would be grateful if you could pass the word round the blogosphere so to speak, if things go the way I plan them to, I may eventually get hosting and transfer it over to WordPress which is a lot more configurable and more powerful than blogger is

So to wrap things up for this post I hope you are enjoying what I'm doing so far and will be grateful for any feedback.

Bye for now

Mark :)
Foods to Avoid or Limit for Better Health

These include
  • Sugar
  • Flour white refined
  • White rice

Researching The "Super Size Me" Diet

In February, seven healthy medical students in their early 20s spent weeks stuffing themselves with hamburgers, pizzas, milk shakes and 200g bacon breakfasts - all on the university's tab. A second group of subjects are just now hitting the junk food. Physical exercise is to be avoided. Bikes are out.

read more | digg story

Five Dieting Myths

You've probably heard that certain foods can help you burn calories or that snacking when on a diet is always a bad idea.
It turns out these are just myths.

read more | digg story

Sunday, September 24, 2006

How we are designed not to eat meat.

Everyone could argue that we are or are not intended to eat meat as part of our diets, but do we really know if all those years ago before fridges and frozen meat were readily available, let's say for instance years ago we would be hunters and don't forget we would be running after our food instead of going to the food store and buying it over the counter like we are so used to doing so it begs the question. Are we designed to eat meat

Here is a link to a article which I think you might find quite interesting read more here.....

Friday, September 22, 2006

Half of UK children "drink" almost five litres of cooking oil every year as a result of their pack-a-day crisp habit, experts warn.


Read more here full story crisps
Weekly weigh in nothing to report this week still the same as last Friday but this has happened before so onwards and upwards as they say.

Here is how it looks still lol never mind keep at it. Quick update have now added my stats from day one if you look and scroll down the page you should be able to see it.


Monday, September 18, 2006

Hot food and weight loss:

Along time ago I read some where that hot foods can or may help in a weight loss program if your on one that is. State the obvious why not anyway, I came across this article about chillies and there health benefits and thought I would post the article to read here, enjoy it is quite interesting link.


I must aplogise for the error on my ticker on Friday I added weight on instead of taking it off that has now been corrected.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Hello fellow bloggers weekly weigh in again being as it's Friday and it looks like there is a slight difference in the needle not a great amount but some none the less so it's down another 0.5 k on the scales not a fantastic amount but enough, Im on the right road so that's all that matters some change is better than none at all I say.

So here's how it looks




Sunday, September 10, 2006

More tea anyone you may recall in an post a while back how I spoke about the health benefits of various teas, the other wile perusing a forum I came across a post, about another sort of tea that is very good for you and may be a aid in weight loss.

That tea is called Wu-Long Tea

amongst it's many health benefits are
  • Diabetes
  • Ezcema
  • Allergies
  • Bacterial infections
  • Dental cavaties
  • Obesity
  • Cancer
Read in more depth here Wu-long tea

Ever thought of becoming a vegetarian or maybe even vegan, why do I say this quite simply this I have been reading a article on Steve Pavlinas blog, about this very thing.

In a nutshell it talks about two stages he went through in his life from eating meat and dairy products, and then switching to a vegetarian diet or way of eating whichever you prefer and then moving over to a strictly vegan diet.

It is quite a interesting read here is the link to the article. here

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Saturday, September 09, 2006

A while back now I remember reading a list of things that sugar can do to your body here is the list.

146 Reasons Why Sugar Is Ruining Your Health

By Nancy Appleton, Ph.D.

www.nancyappleton.com

Author of LICK THE SUGAR HABIT and LICK THE SUGAR HABIT SUGAR COUNTER.

1. Sugar can suppress the immune system.

2. Sugar upsets the mineral relationships in the body.

3. Sugar can cause hyperactivity, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and crankiness in children.

4. Sugar can produce a significant rise in triglycerides.

5. Sugar contributes to the reduction in defense against bacterial infection (infectious diseases).

6. Sugar causes a loss of tissue elasticity and function, the more sugar you eat the more elasticity and function you loose.

7. Sugar reduces high density lipoproteins.

8. Sugar leads to chromium deficiency.

9 Sugar leads to cancer of the ovaries.

10. Sugar can increase fasting levels of glucose.

11. Sugar causes copper deficiency.

12. Sugar interferes with absorption of calcium and magnesium.

13. Sugar can weaken eyesight.

14. Sugar raises the level of a neurotransmitters: dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine.

15. Sugar can cause hypoglycemia.

16. Sugar can produce an acidic digestive tract.

17. Sugar can cause a rapid rise of adrenaline levels in children.

18. Sugar malabsorption is frequent in patients with functional bowel disease.

19. Sugar can cause premature aging.

20. Sugar can lead to alcoholism.

21. Sugar can cause tooth decay.

22. Sugar contributes to obesity

23. High intake of sugar increases the risk of Crohn's disease, and ulcerative colitis.

24. Sugar can cause changes frequently found in person with gastric or duodenal ulcers.

25. Sugar can cause arthritis.

26. Sugar can cause asthma.

27. Sugar greatly assists the uncontrolled growth of Candida Albicans (yeast infections).

28. Sugar can cause gallstones.

29. Sugar can cause heart disease.

30. Sugar can cause appendicitis.

31. Sugar can cause multiple sclerosis.

32. Sugar can cause hemorrhoids.

33. Sugar can cause varicose veins.

34. Sugar can elevate glucose and insulin responses in oral contraceptive users.

35. Sugar can lead to periodontal disease.

36. Sugar can contribute to osteoporosis.

37. Sugar contributes to saliva acidity.

38. Sugar can cause a decrease in insulin sensitivity.

39. Sugar can lower the amount of Vitamin E (alpha-Tocopherol in the blood.

40. Sugar can decrease growth hormone.

41. Sugar can increase cholesterol.

42. Sugar can increase the systolic blood pressure.

43. Sugar can cause drowsiness and decreased activity in children.

44. High sugar intake increases advanced glycation end products (AGEs)(Sugar bound non-enzymatically to protein)

45. Sugar can interfere with the absorption of protein.

46. Sugar causes food allergies.

47. Sugar can contribute to diabetes.

48. Sugar can cause toxemia during pregnancy.

49. Sugar can contribute to eczema in children.

50. Sugar can cause cardiovascular disease.

51. Sugar can impair the structure of DNA

52. Sugar can change the structure of protein.

53. Sugar can make our skin age by changing the structure of collagen.

54. Sugar can cause cataracts.

55. Sugar can cause emphysema.

56. Sugar can cause atherosclerosis.

57. Sugar can promote an elevation of low density lipoproteins (LDL).

58. High sugar intake can impair the physiological homeostasis of many systems in the body.

59. Sugar lowers the enzymes ability to function.

60. Sugar intake is higher in people with Parkinson’s disease.

61. Sugar can cause a permanent altering the way the proteins act in the body.

62. Sugar can increase the size of the liver by making the liver cells divide.

63. Sugar can increase the amount of liver fat.

64. Sugar can increase kidney size and produce pathological changes in the kidney.

65. Sugar can damage the pancreas.

66. Sugar can increase the body's fluid retention.

67. Sugar is enemy #1 of the bowel movement.

68. Sugar can cause myopia (nearsightedness).

69. Sugar can compromise the lining of the capillaries.

70. Sugar can make the tendons more brittle.

71. Sugar can cause headaches, including migraine.

72. Sugar plays a role in pancreatic cancer in women.

73. Sugar can adversely affect school children's grades and cause learning disorders..

74. Sugar can cause an increase in delta, alpha, and theta brain waves.

75. Sugar can cause depression.

76. Sugar increases the risk of gastric cancer.

77. Sugar and cause dyspepsia (indigestion).

78. Sugar can increase your risk of getting gout.

79. Sugar can increase the levels of glucose in an oral glucose tolerance test over the ingestion of complex carbohydrates.

80. Sugar can increase the insulin responses in humans consuming high-sugar diets compared to low sugar diets.

81 High refined sugar diet reduces learning capacity.

82. Sugar can cause less effective functioning of two blood proteins, albumin, and lipoproteins, which may reduce the body’s ability to handle fat and cholesterol.

83. Sugar can contribute to Alzheimer’s disease.

84. Sugar can cause platelet adhesiveness.

85. Sugar can cause hormonal imbalance; some hormones become underactive and others become overactive.

86. Sugar can lead to the formation of kidney stones.

87. Sugar can lead to the hypothalamus to become highly sensitive to a large variety of stimuli.

88. Sugar can lead to dizziness.

89. Diets high in sugar can cause free radicals and oxidative stress.

90. High sucrose diets of subjects with peripheral vascular disease significantly increases platelet adhesion.

91. High sugar diet can lead to biliary tract cancer.

92. Sugar feeds cancer.

93. High sugar consumption of pregnant adolescents is associated with a twofold increased risk for delivering a small-for-gestational-age (SGA) infant.

94. High sugar consumption can lead to substantial decrease in gestation duration among adolescents.

95. Sugar slows food's travel time through the gastrointestinal tract.

96. Sugar increases the concentration of bile acids in stools and bacterial enzymes in the colon. This can modify bile to produce cancer-causing compounds and colon cancer.

97. Sugar increases estradiol (the most potent form of naturally occurring estrogen) in men.

98. Sugar combines and destroys phosphatase, an enzyme, which makes the process of digestion more difficult.

99. Sugar can be a risk factor of gallbladder cancer.

100. Sugar is an addictive substance.

101. Sugar can be intoxicating, similar to alcohol.

102. Sugar can exacerbate PMS.

103. Sugar given to premature babies can affect the amount of carbon dioxide they produce.

104. Decrease in sugar intake can increase emotional stability.

105. The body changes sugar into 2 to 5 times more fat in the bloodstream than it does starch.

106. The rapid absorption of sugar promotes excessive food intake in obese subjects.

107. Sugar can worsen the symptoms of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

108. Sugar adversely affects urinary electrolyte composition.

109. Sugar can slow down the ability of the adrenal glands to function.

110. Sugar has the potential of inducing abnormal metabolic processes in a normal healthy individual and to promote chronic degenerative diseases.

111.. I.Vs (intravenous feedings) of sugar water can cut off oxygen to the brain.

112. High sucrose intake could be an important risk factor in lung cancer.

113. Sugar increases the risk of polio.

114. High sugar intake can cause epileptic seizures.

115. Sugar causes high blood pressure in obese people.

116. In Intensive Care Units, limiting sugar saves lives.

117. Sugar may induce cell death.

118. Sugar can increase the amount of food that you eat.

119. In juvenile rehabilitation camps, when children were put on a low sugar diet, there was a 44% drop in antisocial behavior.

120. Sugar can lead to prostrate cancer.

121. Sugar dehydrates newborns.

122. Sugar increases the estradiol in young men.

123. Sugar can cause low birth weight babies.

124. Greater consumption of refined sugar is associated with a worse outcome of schizophrenia

125. Sugar can raise homocysteine levels in the blood stream.

126. Sweet food items increase the risk of breast cancer.

127. Sugar is a risk factor in cancer of the small intestine.

128. Sugar may cause laryngeal cancer.

129. Sugar induces salt and water retention.

130. Sugar may contribute to mild memory loss.

131. As sugar increases in the diet of 10 years olds, there is a linear decrease in the intake of many essential nutrients.

132. Sugar can increase the total amount of food consumed.

133. Exposing a newborn to sugar results in a heightened preference for sucrose relative to water at 6 months and 2 years of age.

134. Sugar causes constipation.

135. Sugar causes varicous veins.

136. Sugar can cause brain decay in prediabetic and diabetic women.

137. Sugar can increase the risk of stomach cancer.

138. Sugar can cause metabolic syndrome.

139. Sugar ingestion by pregnant women increases neural tube defects in embryos.

140. Sugar can be a factor in asthma.

141. The higher the sugar consumption the more chances of getting irritable bowel syndrome.

142. Sugar could affect central reward systems.

143. Sugar can cause cancer of the rectum.

144. Sugar can cause endometrial cancer.

145. Sugar can cause renal (kidney) cell carcinoma.

146. Sugar can cause liver tumors.

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Friday, September 08, 2006

Weekly weigh in again and things are OK down another kilogram I can see it this time so looks like I got past the plateau which I hit the other week.

So here's how it looks



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Thursday, September 07, 2006

What is your (BMR) Basic Metabolic Rate.

Well in a nutshell this figure represents your resting energy needs in order to maintain life keep vital organ function and maintain life as a whole. Why is this important you may ask, well as you probably notice over the years your eating habits tend to remain a bit consistent as in you don't tend to consciously think about what your eating.

I'm not saying you don't think about how or what your eating but just eat regardless of the content of your food or eat what you have always eaten as in quantity also, how does this become a problem well over the years our weight can tend to creep up on us and we start thinking how come I am putting on weight, nothings changed much still eating the same foods.

So why the weight gain well as we get older our metabolic rate changes and slows down so eat the same foods in the same quantity and you'll gain weight.

So what you need to know is what your basic metabolic rate is for your age then once you have this information you will know what your calorie intake should be for the amount of exercise your doing and how much deficit you need in order to loose weight of which I am about to give a example.

So if I want to keep losing weight or so the theory goes I go to this site BMR calculator and input my details this is to give you a example so here is my result 2078

So then what you need to do is go to the calorie calculation page which is based on the Harris Benedict formula so I use the x 1.55 figure so therefore 2078 x 1.55=3220 calories so now you subtract 500 from that total and in my case it is 2720 and that will account for the 500 calorie deficit in order to lose one pound of fat.

So it's quite plain to see if you go less than the figure quoted then you will stop weight loss and above it will gain weight.

Hope you find this information useful.

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Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Fibre are you getting enough ?

According to what people say it's best to eat at least 25-30 grams of fibre a day. This can be made up from, fruits and vegetables eg baked beans are a good source of fibre.

Here is a link to a quiz that you can do to see if your are getting your daily dose of fibre.

http://www.health24.com/tools/Quizzes/1891-1892,55.asp

Friday, September 01, 2006

The green tea and cold water experiment.

Since I have been on my quest for losing weight, I have read some supposed ways of boosting your weight loss so now I intend on trying on drinking cold water, ice cold that is and green tea and see if that makes if any difference.

Green tea is supposed to burn 80 calories if you drink it so well worth a go if nothing else. See you in a week or sooner bye for now

Mark

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It's weekly weigh in time again folks it is very hard to tell if I've lost any this week the graduations on our scales are a bit hard to see but it looks like there might be a slight loss so.

Update looks like I was wrong just weighed myself and still 100kg ahh well keep plodding eh I'll update my ticker also.

Heres how it looks now see ticker below





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