Can Protein Supplements Aid in Weight Loss?
In the struggle to lose weight and gain a fit, sculpted body, have you considered turning to protein as an ally?
Essential to any animal’s diet, proteins and their component amino acids play a role in virtually every cellular process. Most importantly to those trying to maintain good health and lose extra fat, proteins are the literal ‘building blocks’ of muscle. Without them, no muscle growth would even be possible.
During weight loss, a quality protein will help keep your muscles from degrading and disappearing along with the fat, allowing them to grow when it seems like everything else is shrinking.
After a punishing workout, having ample protein in your system will prevent a reaction called muscle catabolism. This is when the muscle cells that have been damaged by your workout repair themselves by stealing nutrients from their healthy neighbors. This process will work against your efforts to build a lean, muscular physique, since your muscles will be basically cannibalizing themselves!
Protein also works to support your overall health in more subtle ways. It can help bolster your immune function, break down cholesterol, and deliver nitrogen, an essential element in your body development and DNA synthesis. There’s evidence, too, that it plays a role in boosting your metabolism, which is good news for those trying to burn up their fat reserves.
Many athletes the world over, pro and novice alike, have added protein supplements to their diets. This is due to the fact that most dietary sources of protein (meat, dairy, certain vegetables and grains) come with unwanted add-ons like trans fat and bad cholesterol. A quality protein supplement will deliver the health-supporting protein you need (usually derived from dairy sources), without any of these add-ons. And be sure to check the label—the highest quality supplements often come with an impressive array of vitamins and minerals, as well.
The powdered versions of protein supplements are probably the most widespread and the most versatile. They come flavored or unflavored, and can be used to add a protein punch to virtually anything—pancakes, cookies, muffins, smoothies, soups, you name it!
Eating more high-quality protein and less sugar can also help reduce blood pressure. Though managing high blood pressure will never be a matter of simply swapping out items in your diet, it’s generally agreed that your consumption of carbs can have a direct effect on your blood sugar. Supplementing out some of the flour and sugar in your baking recipes for a protein powder instead can help you take steps towards better overall health.
There are hundreds of sites and blogs online with recipes that include protein powders. With a bit of research you’ll find a brand of supplement that suits you, and then you can start raking in the health benefits!
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Is Alli Even Worth It?
Alli is a fat binding diet pill that came out as a non-prescription alternative to its prescription twin Orlistat. It’s just a slightly milder formula of the same fat binding pill that you take three times a day with meals. It is supposed to help your body pass fat through the body without digesting it.
This in turn helps you to lose weight and to help keep fat off undesirable areas of the body. It simply passes right through your body, into your stool, which is part of the reason it has such a reputation for having embarrassing side effects.
These side effects include leakage, excessive gas and diarrhea. These symptoms get much worse the more fat you eat, so the company that makes the drug advises against consuming a lot of fat, and keeping it to a limited amount of grams (no more than 15 per meal) in order to avoid these types of problems.
However, some people have said that even though they stuck to that guideline, they still had the issues with the gas and the bloating and leakage and so forth. There are plenty of horror stories online if you ever care to read any of the more unsavory stories of people’s experiences with Alli.
On the other hand, some people do say that Alli has helped them to lose weight. They say that it has helped them to get in the habit of reducing their dietary fat intake, and has also helped them develop the discipline they need as well as the taste to go away for high fat foods. Why? Simply because they were too embarrassed to endure the possible symptoms of eating fat!
What are some options to fat binding products like these that inevitably end up coming out the “other end”? Well, there have been some very promising studies done on green tea lately that show it may actually have a slight fat binding effect.
The study showed the mice who were fed a diet of vanilla shakes AND a green tea pill with every meal actually excreted more fat out in their stool versus the mice who were simply fed the shakes with nothing else. They also tended to maintain their weight better than the mice who did not get the green tea supplement.
The thought is that the ECGC contained in green tea actually helps to bind the fat and take it from the body better than nothing at all.
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The Nutrient Rich Avocado
Avocados are delicious and filling. Whether eaten plain or used in a guacomole dip, they have a rich creamy texture that is, undoubtedly, appealing. Avocados are not necessarily a low calorie food. One half of an average avocado contains approximately 125 calories.
One cup of pureed avocado contains 384 calories and 297 of those calories is from fat. That fact sounds unhealthy but it is not. Avocados have zero cholesterol. A one cup serving of pureed avocado provides 63 % or 16 g. of dietary fiber. It also provides 5 g. of protein, 7% of the RDA for vitamin A, 34% for vitamin C, 3% for calcium and 8% of iron.
Avocados, ounce for ounce, are a very nutrient rich food. The calories in an avocado contribute nearly 20 vitamins and minerals and healthy plant compounds to your nutritional intake. While avocados seemingly have a high fat content, 75% of the fat is unsaturated. Avocados contain the good kind of fat.
Avocados also contain lutein which is a carotenoid that may help to maintain eye health as we age. Another bonus to selecting avocados as part of a healthy diet is that they naturally have a low sugar content. A one ounce serving of an avocado has less than 1 g. of sugar.
Avocados can help individuals stay within the Heart Association’s recommendations of limiting sodium and eating 4 1/ 2 cups of fruits and vegetables per day. Also, avocados can help you to concentrate on monounsaturated fats.
Avocados are sodium, cholesterol and trans fat free. Monounsaturated fats can help to lower bad cholesterol levels. For people trying to maintain healthy eating habits, avocados can be used to substitute for butter or mayonnaise on sandwiches. The creamy texture can add moisture and flavor to sandwiches and be a healthy addition with zero cholesterol.
For dips, the use of avocados in place of the more fattening, cholesterol laden choices such as sour cream or cheese bases, can reduce your cholesterol intake dramatically. Avocados are a good choice for anyone who needs to address weight management, diabetes control or cholesterol control.
Avocados can be an excellent choice for baby foods. Because of it’s creamy texture and mild taste, it could be one of baby’s first fruits to enjoy. In addition to this use, avocados can be used in salads and recipes with chicken and guacomole.
When choosing an avocado at the market, look for a ripe one. A ripe, ready to eat avocado will yield to gentle pressure, but will not feel mushy. Make sure you only gently squeeze the avocado since the avocado may bruise if you apply too much pressure.
If you pick a ripe avocado, you will need to eat it in a day or two. You can select a firm green avocado if you want one to eat in about 5 days. Just store the firm avocado at room temperature. If you need to slow the ripening, store your avocado in the refrigerator.
BOOKMARK OR SHARE :Does Green Tea Really Help You Lose Weight?
There is really no dispute that green tea, as well as other types of natural teas, are extremely healthy for the human body. They contain multiple different TYPES of antioxidants, and the tea itself is completely free of calories.
It has also been hailed as an excellent and healthier alternative to America’s favorite energy drink – coffee. However, you still should really try to drink green tea only if it is organic, as, just like coffee beans, tea leaves contain pesticides and other chemicals if they are not certified organic – making your hot drink into a steaming cup of chemicals!
The debate about whether green tea can also help the body with weiht loss has raged for a while. Some said that green tea, while healthy, really didn’t improve odds of weight loss much when taken for weight loss specifically. Others claimed that green tea was excellent for weight loss, helping to spur weight loss and speed fat loss.
Apparently there is now some more definitive proof that green tea is, in fact as useful tool for those who want to lose weight. A compound that is found in green tea called Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) has shown to be effective at slowing weight gain in mice when tested.
Another interesting point of the study was that the mice that took green tea every day and started off obese showed fecal evidence of less bodily fat absorption. This strongly suggests that some how green tea consumptions helps our bodies to limit the amount of dietary fat that we absorb (which of course leads to weight gain and fat storage).
The mice that took the green tea every day appeared to gain weight about 45% slower than the mice that did not have the green tea. That’s quite a nice difference! Think I might have to add green tea into my diet again!
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What is the Paleo Diet?
I have to admit, when I saw the name, I thought of a plant based diet, or vegetarian. I guess because the name sort of sounds like the word plant. But when I really thought about it, that was silly, because they were really naming this diet out of a period of time where humans ate certain foods in the hunting and gathering age of man.
This was the time when men and women did not have access to such processed and unhealthy foods as we do today. Foods were simple, stripped down. Even the way they cooked their foods was minimal because they only had one way to do it – with fire. They probably didn’t salt the heck out of their meats, they probably ate it right from the animal, barely cooked.
They also ate a lot of their veggies and fruits raw. They basically consumed a very minimally processed diet, whereas today we consume a ton of processed, over cooked foods that have a lot of the nutrients cooked out or processed right out of them.
The meats that are focused upon in the paleo diet are leaner meats, not the fatty variety or processed variety like sausages and bacon. They are lean cuts of beef, chicken, venison (deer meat, which is actually pretty healthy for you), and fish (which is always excellent for you).
The other foods that you should eat are fruits and vegetables, minimally processed of course. Notice how they do not want you to totally shun carbs. They instead focus on unprocessed, whole foods that are naturally low in fat and which give natural, all day energy.
The low carb diet on the other hand, can leave people feeling groggy, depressed and with a total lack of energy because there are no raw foods with high carb content and fiber content that gives them that full satisfied feeling as well as quick body fuel for the day.
This is kind of the way my husband and I eat, so I thought that was amusing, because we do find that we feel our best when we eat this way. It may not be the best way to strip off the weight very quickly, but it’s a great way to slowly lose weight as well as to make sure you have a lean physique over the long term.
It’s way easier to stick to than a traditional low carb diet too, because you still get those carbs in there, they’re just natural and fiber filled.
BOOKMARK OR SHARE :Even Our Pets Need Diets in America?
I would venture to say that we are one of the only countries that are so obsessed with dieting that we even put our poor pets on diet routines. Maybe I’m wrong, but I sure do see a lot of specialty pet foods for obese dogs and cats lately, that it got my mind spinning about how much emphasis we put on a slim waistline in the US.
Not only that, but in reality many of our pets suffer from the same over eating that many of us Americans do. We put food out, and unless our pets have an incredible sense of self restriction, they usually are gonna go for it whenever they can, and get that food while they can.
It’s the nature of the beast, and it applies not only to animals, but their more sophisticated cousin, us. We are by nature hunters and gatherers, but we also are programmed to eat food whenever it is available, and eat as much as we can when it is, since originally, food was was not as available all the time as it is now.
So, we as humans have to self regulate when it comes to food intake. Hence, the popularity of hunger controlling pills, appetite suppressant patches and more. We don’t have the old “scarcity” variable in our favor when it comes to limiting our food intake. We are much like the kings and queens of the old days, we have unlimited food supply.
That’s why many kings and queens back then were fat! Peasants didn’t have constant easy access to food, but kings and queens and other royalty did, and hence, fatness was actually attractive because it was a sign of prosperity! Oh, how times have changed.
Being thin, toned and ripped is now a sign of prosperity, because those people are the ones that can afford the exercise programs, cellulite treatments, and healthier, wholesome foods that come with affluence.
When it comes to animals, I have found that cats tend to have a better sense of appetite control than man’s best friend, dog. Cats can definitely be fat, and those are the ones that have probably been fed too many table scraps or fattening wet foods, but cats that are only fed dry food, and are left to their own devices with a full bowl all the time, I’ve found, tend to not overeat.
Girl cats definitely have more of a tendency toward being “fat cats”, which may be due to hormones.
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CLA : Does It Really Reduce Body Fat?
There has been a lot of discussion about CLA in the world of health and overall wellness and anti cancer properties, as well as in the world of dieting and weightloss. I remember initially hearing about this acid when I was much younger for the first time.
Someone had told me that it was the latest “miracle” supplement that would help your body to retain lean muscle and lose extra fat. Who wouldn’t want that! So I remember that I took it for about a month, saw no results, and stopped taking it because I was bored with it.
Back then I had a much shorter attention span, and I always expected instant results. Instead of sticking with it for a while and seeing if it made any difference in my goals to be more of a “fat free” kind of gal, I ditched it after a month.
Often times, one month is not long enough to let a supplement work, and to really build up levels of a certain nutrient that has certain therapeutic properties in the blood stream so that it can actually DO what it says.
However, I read that CLA after all did not really show much of a difference in reduction of body fat in human trials. I think that was more of a wishful thinking thing by scientists who had seen positive results in lab rats.
With that in mind though, there are some who still firmly believe that CLA not only can help you to retain lean muscle mass and shed body fat when you take it over time, but there is also quite a bit of evidence that CLA has some excellent benefits as a weapon against cancer.
In fact, it was shown that tumors were basically much smaller or nonexistent in mice who had high levels of CLA in their blood stream, whereas those mice that did not, developed larger and perhaps more agressive tumors.
Similar effects have been seen in humans. Cancers of the mammary glands ( breast cancer), prostate cancer and other types of cancer have shown to be inhibited by high levels of CLA in the blood stream.
So, aside from adding another supplement to your regimen, what can you do to build your levels of this acid in your blood and at least gain the known benefits of it? By the way, the full name for it is Conjugated Linoleic Acid.
The foods you can eat that are high in CLA are eggs, preferably organic and cage free, any type of organic milk, since cows that eat grass typically produce milk and meat that is much higher in CLA, and cheeses that are full-fat cheese.
Cow meat from cows that are grass fed are sky high in CLA. Eating foods high in CLA may be connected to maintaining a healthy body weight.
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