The Truth About Carbohydrates

The Truth about Carbohydrates

• Carbohydrates are the body's ideal fuel for most functions. They supply the body with the energy needed for the muscles, brain and central nervous system. In fact, the human brain depends exclusively on carbohydrates for its energy.
• Carbohydrates are found in fruits, vegetables, beans, dairy products, foods made from grain products, and sweeteners such as sugar, honey, molasses, and corn syrup.
• The body converts digestible (non-fiber) carbohydrates into glucose, which our cells use as fuel. Some carbs (simple) break down quickly into glucose while others (complex) are slowly broken down and enter the bloodstream more gradually.
• During digestion, all carbohydrates are broken down into glucose before they can enter the bloodstream where insulin helps the glucose enter the body’s cells. Some glucose is stored as glycogen in the liver and muscles for future use, like fueling a workout. If there is extra glucose, the body will store it as fat.

All carbohydrates are not created equal.
There are basically three types of carbohydrates:

1. Simple carbohydrates are composed of 1 or 2 sugar units that are broken down and digested quickly.

Recent research has shown that certain simple carbohydrate foods can cause extreme surges in blood sugar levels, which also increases insulin release. This can elevate appetite and the risk of excess fat storage.

2. Complex carbohydrates (also referred to as starch) are made up of many sugar units and are found in both natural (brown rice) and refined (white bread) form. They are structurally more complex and take longer to be broken down and digested.

Complex carbohydrate foods have been shown to enter the blood stream gradually and trigger only a moderate rise in insulin levels, which stabilizes appetite and results in fewer carbohydrates that are stored as fat. Unrefined or ‘whole grain’ carbohydrates found in products like brown rice, whole wheat pasta and bran cereals are digested slowly. They contain vitamins, minerals and fiber which promote health. Fiber and nutrient-rich vegetables, fruits and beans which are carbohydrates also have many important functions for the body and are important for good health.

3. Indigestible carbohydrates are also called fiber. The body is unable to breakdown fiber into small enough units for absorption. It is therefore not an energy source for the body but does promote health in many other ways.

Simple carbs, complex carbs, and fiber are found in many foods. Some provide important nutrients that promote health while others simply provide calories that promote girth.

• Sugar, syrup, candy, honey, jams, jelly, molasses, and soft drinks contain simple carbohydrates and little if any nutrients.
• Fruits contain primarily simple carbohydrate but also valuable vitamins, minerals, fiber, and water.
• Vegetables contain varying amounts of simple and complex carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, fiber, and water.
• Legumes such as beans, peas, lentils and soybeans contain complex carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins, minerals, and protein.
• Milk products contain simple carbohydrates along with protein, calcium and other nutrients.
• Grain products contain complex carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins, minerals, and protein. The amounts vary depending on the type of grain used and the amount of processing. Selecting whole grain options whenever possible is recommended.

What You Should Know About Low-Carbohydrate Diets

Following an extremely low-carbohydrate diet is disastrous, dangerous, and above all—boring! Carbohydrates are NOT the enemy. Including the appropriate amounts and types of carbohydrate-rich foods in your diet is essential for long-term health and weight loss/maintenance.

The Body’s Immediate Reaction to Very Low Carbohydrate Diets

When there is a severe deficit of carbohydrates, the body has several immediate reactions:

* With no glucose available for energy, the body starts using protein from food for energy. Therefore this protein is no longer available for more important functions, such as making new cells, tissues, enzymes, hormones, and antibodies and the regulation of fluid balance.
* When carbohydrates are lacking, the body cannot burn fat in the correct way. Normally carbs combine with fat fragments to be used as energy. When carbs are not available, there is an incomplete breakdown of fat that produces a by-product called ketones. These ketones accumulate in the blood and in the urine causing ketosis, which is an abnormal state. Ketosis does cause a decrease in appetite because it's one of the body's protection mechanisms. It's an advantage to someone in a famine (which the body thinks it's experiencing) to lack an appetite because the search for food would be a waste of time and additional energy.
* Due to the lack of energy and the accumulation of ketones, low-carb diets are often accompanied by nausea, headaches, dizziness, fatigue, bad breath, and dehydration.
* Because of dehydration and a lack of fiber, constipation can result.
* Exercise and fitness performance is reduced on a low-carb diet. Do not be surprised if your energy level is so low that you cannot make it through your normal workout routine.

The Long-Term Effects of Low Carbohydrate Diets
When you severely restrict carbohydrates, your consumption of protein and fat increases, which has several long-term effects:

* The risk of many cancers increases when fruits, vegetables, whole grain products, and beans are eliminated from the diet.
* Protein foods are also high in purines, which are broken down into uric acid. Elevated levels of uric acid in the blood may lead to needle-like uric acid crystals in joints, causing gout.
* Kidney stones are more likely to form on high protein, ketosis-producing diets.
* Over time, high protein diets can cause a loss of calcium and lead to osteoporosis.
* The risk of heart disease is greatly increased on a low-carb diet that is high in protein, cholesterol, fat, and saturated fat. A temporary reduction in cholesterol levels may be experienced, but this is common with any weight loss.

The Million Dollar Question

How do you include carbohydrates in you diet in a safe, effective, and controlled way? The “Please KISS Me” (Please Keep It So Simple for Me) plan for carbohydrate control is a wonderful tool that only contains 3 simple rules:

RULE 1: Include the following in your diet:

* Fruits: 2-4 servings daily
* Vegetables: 3-5 servings daily
* Whole grain breads, muffins, bagels, rolls, pasta, noodles, crackers, cereal, and brown rice: 6-11 servings daily
* Legumes, beans and peas: 1-2 servings daily
* Low-fat and non-fat dairy products: 3 servings daily

RULE 2: Limit the following to less than 2 servings daily:

* Fruit Juice
* Refined and processed white flour products (bread, muffins, bagels, rolls, pasta, noodles, crackers, cereal)
* White rice
* French fries
* Fried vegetables

RULE 3: Eliminate the following from your diet or eat only on occasion:

* Sugary desserts, cookies, cakes, pies, candies
* Doughnuts and pastries
* Chips, cola and carbonated beverages
* Sugar, honey, syrup, jam, jelly, molasses

That’s it! A simple, effective carbohydrate-controlling plan that, when combined with your SparkDiet, allows you to reap the countless benefits of complex carbohydrates and fiber while enhancing your health and maintaining a healthy weight. The long term result will be a healthy you!

Eggs are Egg-cellent

Here are four ways eggs your health:

• Eggs are an excellent source of low-cost, high-quality protein. One large egg provides more than 6 grams of protein, yet contains only 75 calories. And the protein is "complete," providing all nine of the body's essential amino acids.
• Eggs are one of the best sources of choline. Found primarily in the egg yolk, one large egg provides 30% of the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of this essential nutrient, which plays an important role in brain health and the reduction of inflammation. Many people are deficient in choline, which is found in trace amounts of many different foods.
• Eggs are a great food for those trying to lose weight. Because of the high amount of quality protein in eggs, they make a very satisfying breakfast, which is especially useful for people trying to lose weight. Eating eggs for breakfast enhances weight loss by increasing satiety, resulting in better adherence to a reduced-calorie diet.
• Eggs protect eyesight. Egg yolks contain a highly absorbable form of vision-protective carotenoids like lutein and zeaxanthin, which help to prevent age-related macular degeneration and cataracts. Eggs increases blood levels of these nutrients without increasing cholesterol or triglyceride levels.

So how many eggs should you eat?

Just because something is good for you doesn't always mean that more of it is necessarily better. a couple of eggs a day, a few days a week, should be safe and health for most people. "One egg daily can easily be a part of a well-balanced, nutritious diet for healthy adults." An important exception is for diabetics, who experienced an increased risk of coronary artery disease when consuming greater than six eggs per week.

No matter what kind of eggs you choose to eat, be sure to follow proper handling and preparation guidelines to ensure that your eggs are safe to eat. Raw or improperly handled eggs can be a source of disease.

• Avoid raw eggs, and foods made with raw eggs (Caesar dressing, homemade mayonnaise, eggnog, and cookie dough). These foods are safe if a pasteurized egg product is used.
• Check the carton to be sure that the eggs you are buying are clean and free of cracks.
• Store eggs in the coldest part of the refrigerator (not in the door), and use within three to five weeks, or by the expiration date on the carton. Hardboiled eggs should also be stored in the refrigerator and used within one week.
• When cooking with eggs, don’t leave the carton on the counter during prep time. Take out the eggs you will use and return the carton to the refrigerator.
• Wash all surfaces, cooking utensils, and skin with warm, soapy water before and after handling eggs.
• Cook eggs until yolks are firm.
• Cook egg-containing dishes to at least 160 degrees Fahrenheit to destroy any bacteria safely.

Risks of a Eating a Low-Fat Diet

Being conscious of your dietary fat intake is definitely a good thing, especially when you're trying to reduce your risk of heart disease or lose weight. But if you take it too far, you could be putting your health in jeopardy.

So how much fat do you need?
For healthy adults, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend 20% to 35% of your daily calories come from fat. Use the following chart to see your estimated daily fat recommendations based on these ranges.

Recommended Daily Fat Intake Based on Calorie Needs

*20%-35% of daily calories
^Less than 20% of daily calories
+Greater than 35% of daily calories

Lower fat isn't necessarily better. Regularly consuming fewer than 20% of your daily calories from fat (see "Too Low" on the chart above) will put your health at risk in many ways as discussed above. A diet too high in fat (see "Too High" on the chart above) can also lead to problems—heart disease, diabetes, cancer and weight gain. Here are six health risks you're taking when you restrict your fat intake too far.


1. Poor Vitamin Absorption
Eating a diet too low in fat can interfere with the absorption of the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. Because these nutrients are fat soluble, your body needs dietary fat to utilize them. These vitamins are stored mostly in the liver and fat tissue and are important in bodily functions such as growth, immunity, cell repair and blood clotting. If you're not eating enough fat to bring these vitamins into your body, they will be excreted, and you may be at risk for a vitamin deficiency.

2. Depression
A diet that's too low in fat—especially essential fatty acids, which your body can only get from food—might hurt your mental health. Both omega-3s and omega-6s play roles in mood and behavior. They are the precursor to many hormones and chemicals produced in the brain. One study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders has linked low and abnormal essential fatty acid intake to depressive symptoms. Other research shows that, because fatty acids help to insulate nerve cells in the brain, allowing these nerve cells to better communicate with one another. People who are deficient in omega-3s may suffer from bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, eating disorders, and ADHD.

3. Increased Cancer Risk
Colon, breast, and prostate cancers have all been correlated with low intakes of essential fatty acids. Research has shown that a high intake of omega-3s slows prostate tumor and cancer cell growth, too. If your diet lacks healthy fats, you could be increasing your risk of cancer.

4. High Cholesterol and Heart Disease
Low-fat diets also play a role in cholesterol levels and heart disease. When your diet is too low in fat, your body's level of HDL (the "good" cholesterol) goes down. This is problematic because you want your HDL level to be high to help protect against heart disease. HDL collects "bad" cholesterol from the blood and transports it to the liver for excretion. When those ratios are out of balance—and when your LDL ("bad" cholesterol) level gets too high, you face cholesterol problems and an increased risk of heart disease. Essential fatty acids, especially Omega-3s, can elevate HDL, improve cholesterol levels and protect the heart.

5. Imbalance of Nutrients—Especially Carbs
If you're not eating enough fat, then you're likely getting too much of other things, namely carbs and/or protein. This affects the overall balance of your diet, which could lead to health problems. A carbohydrate-rich diet can inflate appetite and girth and increases your chances of developing type 2 diabetes. On the flip side, a high-protein diet taxes the kidneys and liver and can lead to osteoporosis. Both cases can result in nutrient deficiencies. The key is to balance all three macronutrients—fat, carbs and protein—to ensure optimal nutrition and disease prevention (more on that below).

6. Overeating
If you're always choosing low-fat or fat-free foods at the grocery store, you could be shortchanging your weight-loss efforts. Many of these processed foods contain added sugars to enhance taste; often they're similar in calories to the original full-fat product. Research has shown that people tend to believe these foods are "freebies" and will even overeat them, thinking they're healthy or low in calories when they're anything but. Plus, fat helps carry flavor in our foods. It leads to fullness and satiety, which means you can get by longer on a meal or snack that provides fat without feeling the need to eat again soon. When that fat is missing, your appetite may get the best of you.


Considering the health risks of not eating enough fat, it is definitely important to include enough in your diet daily. However, not all fats are created equal. Foods such as avocados, canola and olive oil, almonds, tuna, salmon and flaxseed are all excellent sources of healthy fats. High-fat meats and dairy products, trans fats (hydrogenated oils), and saturated fats should be limited.
Just as eating too few calories can hurt your weight-loss efforts, a diet too low in fat can hurt your health, too. Enjoy a moderate amount of fat daily with the peace of mind that you are protecting your heart, brain and your body with every bite.save

Weight Loss Truths: Things you should understand before start !

1. You have to exercise more than you think.

Getting at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise most days of the week is great for improving heart health and staying active, but research indicates that those looking to lose weight or maintain weight loss have to do more—about twice as much.

In other words, things like taking the stairs, walking to the store, and gardening are great ways to boost activity level, but losing serious weight means exercising regularly for an hour or so.

2. A half-hour walk doesn’t equal a brownie.

It’s easy to underestimate how many calories some foods contain, it’s also easy to overestimate how many calories we burn while exercising.

Even if you exercise a fair amount, it’s not like you can eat whatever you want.

Although exercise does burn calories during and after exercise, you should be clear about the fact that for substantially reducing body weight nutritional modifications are also necessary and spending calories exercising will have limited results.

In other words, to lose weight, you have to cut calories and increase exercise.

3. Eating more of something won’t help you lose weight.

This idea—that eating more of a certain type of product will help you lose weight is in direct opposition to the basic idea behind weight loss—that we have to eat less, not more.

4. Simple Calories in = calories out won’t do!!!

The type of calories we eat matters and avoiding certain types helps to lose or prevent weight.

As logical sense would tell us, drinking 500 calories of soda is not equal to eating 500 calories of fruits and vegetables. One is simply “empty” calories, provides no real nutritional benefit and don’t do much to combat hunger. Whether you ascribe to the simple idea of trying to burn more calories than you take in or focus on avoiding certain types of calories, you want to minimize intake of empty calories, and maximize nutrient-dense calories.

5. Your body is always working against you.

Most people have noticed that it’s hard to lose weight, but easy to gain it. This is a relic of harder times, when food was not as abundant as it is today. Our genetic taste buds made energy-dense food desirable because it was necessary to pack away calories so we could make it through the thin times. We feasted when we could, in preparation for the famine.

But now that we live in a time of abundance, that system predisposes many of us for weight gain and retention. And for obese dieters, this system is even harder to overcome; after weight loss, they become better at storing fat, making it harder to keep weight off.



6. Our cultural environment.

It’s hard for people to come to a healthy sense of themselves given the cultural climate, and nutritious and pleasurable options for healthy food are not as easily accessible as less nutritious ones.

That doesn’t mean this can’t be overcome, but it does require maybe putting other parts of your life on a “diet.” like fast food restaurants, a bad-influence friend, or driving, which may help increase walking and biking.



7. Maybe you don’t need to lose weight.

It’s true that people can be fit and healthy and not necessarily be thin, just as it’s true that thin people may not necessarily be healthy. Good health, rather than weight, should be our focus; too often, it’s not.

Striving for an unhealthy level of thinness may be detrimental to our health, but understanding the health repercussions of obesity is also critical.



8. This is not a diet; this is your life.

We are made to think that we can lose weight fast, and that’s that. But most people who maintain their weight understand that eating and exercising are not temporary conditions, to be dumped once a pair of jeans fit. Instead, they are lifestyle choices, and ones to be made for the long haul.