Size Counts – Portion Control
Many of us think we need to starve or overwork ourselves to get results, skip dessert, only eat lettuce leaves and we not allowed to enjoy our food! This is not true, and if anything, this actually makes us put on more weight than we actually lose during this crash dieting. The trick to eating anything…..Portion Control! The principal is that you can eat ALMOST anything but in moderation. Eat more to weigh less? Yes, this is completely true, many people don’t eat enough food, so what happens is the body gets used to not getting food regularly and instead [...]
Meal Replacements & Weight Loss
Traditionally meal replacements have featured predominantly in gyms, sports fields, hospitals and social development projects with the purpose of providing nutrient dense foods to meet increased requirements and/or poor intake. However, with the fast-paced lives many of us now lead, meal replacements are quickly becoming a viable option for healthy meals on-the-go. Often, the healthy food everyone aspires to eat is simply out of reach for the time-strapped mom, meeting-bound dad or the active teen, who often simply settle for the combo-meal at their closest drive-thru. Healthy eating needn’t be difficult, but it often is because many people just don’t [...]
Going Gluten Free?
Going gluten-free (gluten being a protein found in the likes of wheat, rye and barley) has been a prominent trend in the past few years. More people seem to be buying and cooking gluten-free. Despite its popularity, it still seems largely misunderstood so before you ban gluten, here are some facts to clear up any possible confusion. NOT EVERYONE WILL BENEFIT FROM A GLUTEN FREE DIET Certain individuals will most certainly benefit from a gluten-free diet, such as those with coeliac disease. Coeliac disease is a genetic disorder characterized by an inability to absorb Gliadin, a component of gluten. Coeliac [...]
Overweight Children
One in 5 children (5-19 years old) is overweight these days. This has nothing to do with "puppy fat" and unless something changes these children do not "grow out of it". Instead, they face very real immediate and future health risks. Immediate health effects: Obese youth are more likely to have risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as high cholesterol or high blood pressure. In a population-based sample of 5- to 17-year-olds, 70% of obese youth had at least one risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Obese adolescents are more likely to have pre-diabetes, a condition in which blood glucose levels [...]
BMI
Most of us may have heard the term BMI and know it is linked with our weight but what exactly is it measuring and how accurate is it? BMI is used by dieticians, doctors, nurses, other health professionals and the general public. Basics of BMI BMI is a person's weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters. For example a person weighing 70kg at 1.6m tall will have a BMI of 27. This describes how "round" a person is. BMI is calculated the same way for adults and children but there are different charts for children. There [...]
Glycaemic Index (GI)
The Glycaemic Index (GI) is a system that ranks carbohydrate containing foods based on their physiological effect on blood glucose (blood sugar) levels. The GI of a specific food is determined by comparing the Blood Glucose Response (BGR) of that food with the BGR of glucose. Glucose is used as the reference food as it is absorbed quickly from the small intestine and results in the greatest and most rapid rise in blood glucose (GI of 100). Foods are ranked on a scale from 0 – 100, according to their actual effect on blood glucose levels. GI Range Low 55 [...]
Ask-the-Coach: Sweeteners
ARE SWEETENERS REALLY BAD FOR ME? ----------------------------------------------------- For many years (decades actually) we have used sweeteners because they provide a sweet taste without the calories (and ultra-high-GI calories at that) of sugar. For many of us this has really helped with weight control and healthier living in general since it is really not that hard when compared to many other healthy-lifestyle changes we struggle with! In recent times people have become concerned that sweeteners are unhealthy, cause cancer, create headaches, cause diabetes, etc. The list of evil things attributed to sweeteners includes almost every illness known to us! I recently became [...]
Ask-the-Coach: Genetics & Weight Loss
I HAVE HEARD ABOUT SOME NEW MEDICAL RESEARCH TO DO WITH GENETIC CONTROL OF WEIGHT LOSS? ------------------------------------------------ Yes indeed. There has been some very exciting genetic in this area. The ground-breaking work has been led by teams at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard Medical School, with the most important academic publication being in the New England Journal of Medicine in September 2015 (link here). The research has shown that our fat cells can use excess calories (energy) to create heat (thermogenesis) OR to store fat (causing obesity). More crucially it has been found that these cells can [...]
Ask-the-Coach: Weight Loss
I AM DESPERATE. I AM AT LEAST 20KG OVERWEIGHT AND HAVING TRIED MANY DIETS I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO NEXT!!?? ------------------------------------------------ What a question! This must be THE million-dollar question in the world of health & wellness today. The truth is that more and more people want (and mostly need) to lose weight. A massive industry now exists to offer solutions, services, promises, products, etc. What is often missing is good honest advice on what works and what does not work. The most important thing about weight loss is not medical or nutritional science. For the most part, most [...]
This content is provided by Futurelife and reviewed by Sanlam wellness.
