Posts Tagged ‘calories’
What are Empty Calories?
Whenever you want to lose those extra kilos that we had, the first thing suggests a diet is the amount of calories you should eat daily. Men and women (separately), we need a minimum and maximum amount per day to achieve weight loss or to keep the ideal.
Within those calories, we take special care to consider the so-called empty calories. These are those that provide food as our mothers would say “do not feed.”
Usually, a lot of sugars, fats (saturated and trans) and additives, but have few essential nutrients (including none) needed for health. In conclusion, they add lots of calories but do not satisfy the appetite or cover nutritional needs.
Usually associated with overweight because they provide many simple carbohydrates, rapidly absorbed and unhealthy fats that promote weight gain. The empty calories may promote increased cholesterol, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Recent studies say that people who eat lots of fat and empty calories are more likely to be obese in the future, but for now do not experience rapid weight gain.
When the diet is based on these products, often stopping foods are healthy nutrients (vitamins, minerals and fiber), resulting in a vicious circle because more sugar and fat consumed, the more need is the body of B vitamins to metabolize them. That is why part of obese people have serious nutritional deficiencies.
Foods that are empty calories are mainly industrial pastries and cakes, sweets, alcoholic beverages (except fermented as wine, beer or cider, which does result in healthy nutrients), snack or most fast food. Instead of making pastries for breakfast and snacks opt for a full sandwich, a skimmed milk or fruit drinks sweetened with sweetener and choose products low in fat sugar.
Posted in Food and Nutrient | 
Tags: calories, empty calories, essential nutrients, fiber, healthy foods, minerals, vitamins, weight gain | 
No Comments »
Increase Fiber Intake Reduced Abdominal Fat
A new study shows that eating just a little more fiber would have great impact in reducing the waist size of youth in America. Latino adolescents who increased their fiber intake for two years managed to reduce significantly the amount of fat around the waist, while young people who ate less fiber increased abdominal size.
These were the team’s findings Jaimie N. Davis, of the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. The team was studying the abdominal fat, which is the most dangerous because it increases the risk of developing diabetes and heart disease.
The authors were asked to 85 men and women between 11 and 17 years are overweight to respond in an initial questionnaire and two years later on eating habits. At that age, “Davis said, the diet of some trends are worsening.
Consumption fell about 3 grams fiber per 1,000 calories in 46 participants and raised in the same proportion in another 35. Abdominal fat increased by 21 percent in those who ate less fiber, but declined by 4 percent in those who increased their consumption. The results were published in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
“Even a slight reduction of dietary fiber has a significant metabolic effect,” Davis said. The recommended fiber intake for young people is 14 grams per 1,000 calories consumed, or about 25-30 grams per day. From these results, Davis said, increasing 6 grams of fiber daily (half a cup of beans or wheat tortilla) tremendously alter the waist size of the young. “It is a possible target for children” he said.
People of any age who want to improve fiber intake must carefully read food labels. “That says ‘whole wheat‘ or ‘multigrain’ does not mean it is a good source of fiber. People think that if it is brown, is wheat is good, but not necessarily so,” she explained. Instead, Davis advised people to check the Nutrition Facts label for grams of fiber the food contains per serving.
The researcher said the findings would not be applicable to other ethnic young because Latinos were more likely than whites and blacks to accumulate fat in the abdominal area. “The increase in fiber intake would have positive effects in all cultures, but different,” Davis concluded.