Vote for Your Health

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.

Read the rest of this entry »