Grab fruit for sweet cravings

I have been telling my clients for years that in order to meet those sweet cravings and still lose weight, all they have to do is grab fruit instead. Not only will they avoid the guilt, but they will feel better and be providing healthy nutrients to their body, along with the weight loss, too!

Now there is a study that actually shows this theory to be true.

A group led by Cornell University marketing professor Brian Wansink looked at the eating habits of thousands of people and concluded that the craving for something sweet spans both candy and fruit. The study, published in the journal Appetite, found people who eat candy, cakes and other sweet snacks eat more fruit than people who prefer salty snacks like nuts and chips.

The researchers analyzed self-reported eating habits of more than 14,000 Americans contained in U.S. Department of Agriculture surveys. They also relied on information from 405 people who responded to their own mailed survey.

Now, how valid is this research, really? Well, I would suggest waiting. If more research on the same topic is conducted in the future, and we start to see a trend, then I would feel more confident in saying, ‘research shows…’ For now, however, I will continue to make this suggestion to clients, because I know it works.

How can you use this information to eat fruits instead of sweets? First, the simplest way is to always have fruit in the house that is easy to grab and eat. If you buy grapes, wash them so they are ready to eat. Some people like frozen grapes! Then remember you have the fruit and grab that when you have the urge to grab something to put in your mouth. Another suggestion is to eat fruit after your meals, especially after dinner. If it’s a tasty fruit, it will satisfy that desire for something sweet after your meal. Put berries on cereal in the morning instead of sugar, or use unsweetened applesauce on waffles instead of syrup are a couple more examples of how to increase fruit while cutting down on sugars.

Glycemic index and weight loss

Many studies looking into how the glycemic index effects various aspects of health through the years, including weight, cancer, and diabetes, just to name a few. The glycemic index is a measure of how quickly the food converts into sugar, or glucose, in the blood. In some countries, this is a commonly used measure for foods that supply carbohydrates. In the US, this is a very controversial subject and research continues to further the confusion, some showing benefits to various health conditions and some showing no benefits at all.

The most recent study was published in the October, 2006 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, and concluded that a high glycemic index diet correlated with greater waist circumference, body weight, and percentage of body fat in women, and the effect was strongest among inactive women. But glycemic index had none of these effects on men. The researchers suggest that gender somehow affects the influence of glycemic index on weight gain.

Many things can influence the glycemic index of a food, including cooking methods and the other foods in the meal. Years ago I became intrigued as to how it could help my clients and spent a lot of time investigating all the current research. I found other RD’s who were using it in their practice to educate clients who wanted to lose weight or control their blood sugars and discussed the theory with them, learning how it was helping their clients. My focus was particular to weight loss. As I always do when I’m considering new information, I tested the theory of increasing low glycemic index foods on myself. Because I work with personal training clients early in the morning, I generally eat breakfast at 4:30am, which means I am hungry by about 9am in the morning, but am too busy to be able to stop and eat at that time. I changed my breakfast to include a few simple changes, such as slow-cook oatmeal and less juice and more whole fruits, to go along with the protein food I always include with breakfast. These simple changes helped me feel satisfied longer, where I didn’t need to eat again so early.

What did this show me? I actually would eat fewer calories because I was hungry less often. Many studies showed this very result, in fact. But how do you know what foods are low glycemic index foods? There is a simple rule to follow that can help: Choose foods or ingredients that are less processed and more whole and less cooked. For example, slow-cooked oatmeal is a better choice than instant, barley is a better choice than white bread or white rice, and breads or pancakes made with mostly intact whole grains or 100% stone ground whole wheat or flax seed is better than breads made with white flour.

Choosing foods lower in the glycemic index is a simple experiment you can practice on yourself. Because these include healthier, less processed foods, you really can’t go wrong! Even for people with diabetes, choosing less processed, more whole foods is a good choice.

To read the abstract from the AJCN study, click here.

To read more about the glycemic index, go to this link:

http://www.mendosa.com/gi.htm

Drop the fat or increase fruits and vegetables?

If you are trying to lose weight, you may be confused about what exactly to do. Many people will try to cut their fat intake radically in order to lose that weight. However, as I see quite regularly with my own clients, if they try to cut the fat too much, they eventually give up and find themselves craving fat everywhere they go. I am always encouraging clients to cut down the animal and saturated fats, replace those fats with what I call ‘plant fats’, mentioned below, and increase their intake of fruits and vegetables.

We know that that eating more vegetables and fruits, sources of so many antioxidant vitamins and phytochemicals, is a powerful step to lowering the risk of cancer and other health problems. But people often struggle to increase their intake of such foods. It is not always because they don’t like them, they just don’t take the time to buy them and keep them in the house. You have to buy produce more often than just once a week, and then you have to make a conscious effort to prepare them and to cook them. Although we are all short on time, we still find ways to fill the little time we have, but preparing produce is often low on the list of priorities.

But how does cutting fat really affect our health? If we cut fat dramatically and increase fruits and vegetables, is that better than keeping the fat intake moderate? Many people don’t realize that we do need fat in our diet; all fat-soluble nutrients must have fat in order for optimum absorption.

Researchers at the University of Michigan recently decided to see how results of boosting vegetable and fruit consumption might vary depending on level of fat consumption. Around 100 women were followed for a year. Some made no changes at all in their eating. Others increased vegetables and fruits from less than four servings a day to about 11, but kept dietary fat at their usual level of more than 30 percent of calories. A third group kept their usual low intake of vegetables and fruits, but reduced dietary fat to an average of about 16 percent of calories, which is very low, and a fourth group both decreased fat consumption and increased vegetables and fruits.

Eating more produce raised consumption of nutrients like vitamin C and beta-carotene substantially. More importantly, blood levels of vitamin C, beta-carotene and another carotenoid, alpha-carotene, also rose. These increases were not prevented by reduced dietary fat, but researchers did find that gamma-tocopherol, an anti-inflammatory form of vitamin E, had been decreased by 50 percent. The problem is that this is the form of vitamin E that can be most beneficial in the growth of cancer cells.

To get health benefits from low-fat diets, make sure that saturated fat is the type of fat you cut back. Also, be sure that you include foods that provide both alpha- and gamma-tocopherol. We get alpha-tocopherol from olive and canola oil, nuts, fortified cereal, whole grains and dark green vegetables. We get gamma-tocopherol from canola oil, pistachios, pecans, peanuts, walnuts, as well as a small amount from avocados.

Study on drug reactions

Until now, people in the medical profession, and many consumers, knew that there were a lot of drug reactions in the US, but only recently has this theory been studied.

The results come from the first two years, 2005 and 2006, of data from a national surveillance project on outpatient drug safety. The project was developed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. The study was published in the October 18, 2006 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The CDC has estimated that about 130 million Americans use prescribed medication every month. U.S. consumers buy far more medicine per person than anywhere else in the world.

The database included 63 nationally representative hospitals that reported 21,298 bad drug reactions among U.S. adults and children treated in emergency rooms during the two-year period. The tally is based on what emergency room doctors said were complications from using prescription drugs, over-the-counter medicines, dietary supplements or herbal treatments. It is estimated that this doesn’t even give the full count, because researchers believe that some reactions were misdiagnosed or never required a visit to the emergency room. However, from this data, researchers said it translates to 701,547 complications nationwide each year. Researchers estimate that at least 50% of these reactions are in people 65 years old and older.

Complications included diabetics on insulin passing out from low-blood sugar, excessive bleeding in patients on warfarin, a common blood thinner, and severe skin rashes in patients taking amoxicillin. Drug reactions were severe enough to require hospitalization in about 17 percent of patients. The study did not include information on whether any of the reactions were fatal.

The conclusion is that physicians need to spend more time explaining medications to their patients.

My recommendation is that if you take any medication or any supplements, be sure to talk about them with your doctor. Be sure you understand any interactions between multiple drugs and between drugs and herbs. Understand why you are taking anything you take, from a simple vitamin C supplement to a more complicated drug for high blood pressure or diabetes. Know how vitamin C can interact with your medications. Although some of these products may seem very simple, they are still foreign substances that we put into our bodies and we can suffer reactions that could put us in serious medical jeopardy. Don’t become part of the 17,000 people hospitalized due to drug interactions/reactions.

To read the abstract of the survey, click here:

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/296/15/1858