04.13.07
Posted in Articles at 2:42 am by Contact
Healthy eating means getting a wide variety of the right foods into your diet. A balanced diet is not rigid or miserable, and has room in it for the occasional treat.
What nutrients do you need?
To keep running smoothly, your body needs:
- Carbohydrates (sugars and starchy food), for energy
- Proteins, for building muscle etc
- Fats, for energy and making cell walls, etc
- Fibre, to keep the gut healthy
- Vitamins and minerals, for a wide range of functions
- Water, to flush out the waste products of your metabolism
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from theSite.org
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02.15.07
Posted in Natural, Articles at 10:39 am by Contact
By Hope Tinney, WSU Today
Low carb? Low fat? No flour? No sugar? What’s a body to do?
We turned to WSU’s own informal “Food Intake and Obesity Group” in the Department of Veterinary, Comparative Anatomy, Physiology and Pharmacology for answers.
Well, they said, it isn’t easy. And ultimately, the best answer right now is an eight-letter word: exercise.
Okay, you didn’t need a Ph.D. to figure that out. But, you probably do need a Ph.D., and years of research, to begin to figure out why dieting to lose weight is so difficult.
From an evolutionary perspective, gaining weight during times of plenty would have been not only beneficial, but perhaps critical. While we in the 21st century have certain ideas about what is or isn’t a healthy weight, perhaps our stomach and brain are still operating according to controls that made sense for tens of thousands of years previously. Easy access to tasty food was rarely a problem; too little food of any kind was.
“There’s a lot of redundancy in the systems that maintain body weight,” said VCAPP professor Steve Simasko. Michael Wiater, a research and teaching assistant, put it another, more ominous, way: “The prospects for overriding the biological controls are not good, and it’s important to understand there will be consequences for dieters, such as chronic hunger, which can be painful.”
Simasko and Wiater, along with Sue Ritter, Gil Burns, and Bob Ritter, study various aspects of the gastrointestinal tract and enteric nervous system. At the cellular, and even molecular, level, they are trying to figure out how the gastrointestinal tract sends signals to the brain, what those signals are, and how those signals affect us when we feel hungry, what we decide to eat and when we decide to stop eating. It’s a complicated process.
Read the entire story at WSU Today.
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12.29.06
Posted in Natural, Articles at 5:50 am by Contact
In his book Lost Horizon, popular British novelist James Hilton describes Shangri-La as a mystical and secluded community in the Himalayas that is full of peace and tranquility. Since the term is now a widely used metaphor for utopia, psychologist Seth Roberts thought it provided the perfect name for his revolutionary new approach to weight loss.
According to Roberts, the food you eat impacts your weight by influencing what is known as the body-weight set point. Though this is a term borrowed from engineering, weight-loss researchers have used it to refer to the weight your body ???wants to be.??
???The set point is the weight your brain wants you to be,?? Roberts says. ???Your brain pushes you towards that weight by making you more or less hungry.??
However, one thing that Roberts has discovered is that eating certain foods can actually cause your set point to increase or decrease. There are high-set-point foods, and there are low-set-point foods.
???Some foods cause your set point to increase or decrease based on flavor,?? Roberts explains. ???Your brain uses flavor as a way of measuring how much food is available in the world. When the flavor-calorie association is strong, you are telling the brain that food is abundant.??
Read More on eDiets
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12.23.06
Posted in Natural, Articles at 2:05 pm by Contact
So, What’s it Like?
The South Beach Diet is divided into three different Phases. The first Phase lasts for two weeks and is the strictest of the three. Each Phase includes specific allowable foods on the Foods to Enjoy list, as well as meal plans and recipes.
Though some have compared the plan to Atkins, but the doctor starts off by making one thing clear: “The South Beach Diet is not low-carb (Agatston, p 3).” The only true similarity between the two diets is the stringent two week introductory period.
Dr. Agatston’s weight loss advice focuses on a healthy balance between carbs and fats — good carbs and fats, that is. Highly processed foods like baked goods and soft drinks are off-limits.
Dr. Agatston says decreasing the bad carbs will help you metabolize what you eat more effectively and will also improve insulin resistance, leading to weight loss. The diet is based on the Glycemic Index.
When you first read the requirements of Phase 1, it may sound a little daunting, especially if you are used to low-fat, high-carb diets.
Dr. Agatston says you will become accustomed to eating the good carbs and fats and leaving the bad ones behind. He says by doing so you can lose anywhere between 8 and 13 pounds in the first two weeks.
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Posted in Articles at 1:59 pm by Contact
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How depressing, how utterly unjust, to be the one in your social circle who is aging least gracefully.
In a laboratory at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, Matthias is learning about time???s caprice the hard way. At 28, getting on for a rhesus monkey, Matthias is losing his hair, lugging a paunch and getting a face full of wrinkles.
Yet in the cage next to his, gleefully hooting at strangers, one of Matthias???s lab mates, Rudy, is the picture of monkey vitality, although he is slightly older. Thin and feisty, Rudy stops grooming his smooth coat just long enough to pirouette toward a proffered piece of fruit.
Tempted with the same treat, Matthias rises wearily and extends a frail hand. ???You can really see the difference,?? said Dr. Ricki Colman, an associate scientist at the center who cares for the animals.
What a visitor cannot see may be even more interesting. As a result of a simple lifestyle intervention, Rudy and primates like him seem poised to live very long, very vital lives.
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Posted in Articles at 1:53 pm by Contact
December 8 2006: 1:48 PM EST NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com)
Coca-Cola Co. will launch fortified Diet Coke Plus in spring 2007, according to a report published Friday.? — Coca-Cola plans to launch a new version of Diet Coke in 2007 that is fortified with vitamins and minerals, according to a report published Friday. Diet Coke Plus, slated for a spring launch, will be the first nutrient-enhanced carbonated soda to be offered by a major brand, said Beverage Digest. Video More video At Fortune’s Innovation Forum, Nick Pudar, a VP at OnStar, discusses the mindsets that crush creativity. Play video A Coca-Cola representative would not confirm the report, but he did not deny it. “We’re always looking to innovate around existing brands,” he said. “And we’re also looking at new opportunities.” “We’ll have lots of news to share on the innovation front in 2007,” he added. Next year, rival Pepsi (Charts) will introduce a line of enhanced carbonated drinks called “Tava,” said the report.
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11.15.06
Posted in Natural, Articles at 2:53 pm by Contact
5ADay.gov?
Almost Everyone Needs to Eat More Fruits and Vegetables
A growing body of research shows that fruits and vegetables are critical to promoting good health. To get the amount that’s recommended, most people need to increase the amount of fruits and vegetables they currently eat every day. How Many Fruits and Vegetables Do You Need?
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Posted in Articles at 2:48 pm by Contact
Dietary Guidelines for Americans is published jointly every 5 years by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Agriculture (USDA). The Guidelines provide authoritative advice for people two years and older about how good dietary habits can promote health and reduce risk for major chronic diseases.
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Posted in Articles at 2:44 pm by Contact
Forbes.com by Susan Yara
Many diet books offer the same kind of planned obsolescence. Spas want people to come back. So do most diet programs and low-calorie foodmakers. The last thing these companies want is for people to get so thin they won’t need them anymore.
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11.08.06
Posted in Natural, Articles at 2:16 pm by Contact
Jackson Siegelbaum
Lactose is the simple sugar found in milk and milk products. It can also be found in a variety of other foods and even as a filler in some pills and capsules. The enzyme lactase, present in the lining of the small intestine, splits lactose into two simple sugars. These simple sugars can then be absorbed by the body and used as nourishment.
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