Don't Lose the Fat: Why Some Diet Gurus May Have Steered You Wrong

Don't Lose the Fat: Why Some Diet Gurus May Have Steered You Wrong
Copyright (c) 2006 Debbie Fontana

It's become a mantra. Fat is bad.

At least, that's what almost all the diet gurus say.

But did you know that when we cut too much fat from our
diets, we may be eliminating the very element we need to
absorb the vitamins and nutrients that keep us healthy.

That's because certain vitamins, especially in fruits and
vegetables, are "fat-soluble." In other words, your body
can't absorb nutrients unless enough fat is present.

So if you're constantly eliminating the fat from your diet
to cut calories or to follow the latest warnings, you may
be getting far less healthful effects from your salads,
other vegetables and fruits.

In studies released in 2004 and again this year by Ohio
State University, researchers found that the absorption of
carotenoids from yellow, orange, and red vegetables is
better when you eat them with some fat. Carotenoids are
believed to have cancer-fighting properties.

Here is a partial list of some fat-soluble compounds that
may be absorbed better if you eat them with fat:

1. Beta Carotene. This can be found in foods such as
cantaloupe and carrots.

The researchers suggest eating salads with full-fat rather
than low-fat or no-fat dressings. So if you put carrots in
your salad, full-fat dressing may help you to absorb the
nutrients.

But with so many people unable to stay on strict low-fat or
veggie diets, why not choose something that tastes a little
better? For example, something that people in Pittsburgh
once called a Boston cooler.

You cut a cantaloupe in half (leave the rind on), clean the
seeds out of the middle, and put a scoop of chocolate or
vanilla ice cream in the hollow of the half-melon.

Then place the half-melon in a bowl so it doesn't fall over
when you try to eat it. You eat the ice cream and the melon
with a spoon.

It's about 250 calories, but it's a great snack or dessert.
You get to indulge with ice cream, but still get some good
nutrients from the cantaloupe.

It's also filling. So you shouldn't be as hungry as when
you just nibble on a salad.

And the best part is that the fat in the ice cream may
enhance your body's ability to absorb the fat-soluble
compounds from the cantaloupe. (Although no one knows for
sure at the moment.)

2. Lycopene. This is the red carotenoid found in
watermelon, tomatoes and pink grapefruit.

It's also a potential cancer fighter. Researchers have
shown that our bodies absorb the lycopene in tomatoes more
efficiently as sauce, juice or ketchup.

Here again, rather than always eating salads with full-fat
dressing, why not try cheese ravioli with tomato sauce?
It's a tasty, satisfying dinner.

And you may be enhancing your absorption of the lycopene in
the tomato sauce with the cheese in the ravioli.

3. Vitamin E. This can be found in broccoli, mangoes,
peanuts and spinach.

Some research suggests that vitamin E can help your heart
and possibly prevent blood clots. But the results aren't
conclusive yet.

However, a recent German study with rats showed that eating
trans fats actually slowed the absorption of vitamin E when
compared to other types of fats. So this may get tricky.

4. Lutein. This antioxidant can be found in dark green,
leafy vegetables like spinach and also in egg yolks.

Lutein is supposed to help your skin and your eyes,
particularly in reducing the risk of macular degeneration.

I find it interesting that we're allowed to eat eggs again
when the food police vilified eggs for so many years -
particularly egg yolks.

Have we also gone too far in vilifying fat?

So before you completely cut the fat from your diet, think
about the nutrients you may be missing.

Now I'm not saying we should eat only high-fat foods.

But while it's not healthy to go to extremes with high fat,
it seems as though it's not healthy to go to extremes with
low fat, either.

Maybe it isn't only the fat that's making us fat, but also
the number of calories we consume. Some moderation in both
areas just might do the trick.

And I believe people are more likely to lose weight if they
like the foods they eat.

So talk to your doctor about whether you really need to cut
so much fat from your diet. Or is it healthy to have a
little ice cream or ravioli once in a while?

His answer might surprise you.

----------------------------------------------------
Debbie Fontana is a full-time author and business owner who
writes about health, weight loss, looking great, and
feeling fantastic. She created the delicious I Love to
Cheat lifestyle diet and the companion I Love to Cheat
Rewards Newsletter. She encourages her subscribers to
submit their weight loss problems, questions, and concerns.
Visit her at http://www.ILoveToCheatDiet.com

Tweaking Your Fat Loss Diet

Tweaking Your Fat Loss Diet
=====================
Hey Ray, I keep forgetting to book an appointment to sit
down to try and lose more fat off my tire, so I'll try and
type out my diet thoughts here. It's going to get long
winded but here it goes. I'm sitting at 195lbs down from
242lbs after reading your book, and of course it's not good
enough for me. I have been eating the same portions and
food since day 1 when I set up the meal plans for 226lbs.
Here's my game plan, let me know of it makes sense or not
please.

- Doing the wild rose cleanse this week starting Thursday.

- At this point changing portions to adjust to 195lb BBE
calculations but up the protein from .8/lb to 1g/lb. Not
a lot of change for my diet actually for the cleanse except
for fish instead of poultry, plan to keep protein levels
high just using fish (likely lots of salmon), everything
else is a match, or close to it anyway.

- When I am done the cleanse and go back to poultry,
cottage cheese etc, I am looking at a few changes. The
carbohydratess are a no brainer, just cut back a bit. For
proteins I eat a pretty standard set of foods: Meal 1 -
cottage cheese 2- chicken / turkey 3- chicken or
salmon 4-chicken / turkey 5 & 6- burgers or pork chops,
just something other than chicken or turkey. My thoughts
are to keep the daily proteins the same except maybe more
emphasis on turkey, but change the night meals to white
fish or some type - crab, cod, halibut, stuff like that
with very low fat contents, or should I be switching
everything to white fish to try and cut fat from the diet?

- Still have a protein shake at 10 am and eat ice cream at
night (usually an ice cream bar) Ice cream is because I
found myself getting dizzy a lot and realized it was lack
of sugar, have felt a lot better since starting this.
Anything I can do different as I realize its not the best
thing for attaining a 6 pack!

Work outs: Going to start running 3 miles, 2 or 3 days a
week before work (this assumes I can drag my butt out of
bed) to see if I can get things moving some more, otherwise
I am fairly active in the evenings, more so when my
shoulder smartens up. Thoughts?

Thanks again, Mack

From Ray:

First I think you should start looking at body fat
percentages now instead of the scale. I saw you the other
night and you are getting really lean. I don't know if you
have a certain number you want to see on the scale, but if
not, I would be more concerned with body composition than
getting that scale to go down any more. After all, do you
want to fight at 160 lbs and 10% body fat or 190 lbs and
10% body fat? Just a choice so let me know.

Now on to the diet. The cleanse is going to make you feel
awesome after and I think you will see great benefits from
it. So that is a go. As for the BEE calculations, I
wouldn't drop as low as 195. I would only go for a 210 for
now. Big changes usually cause the body to freak out and
rebel. You don't want that, you have to just tease it a
little and not totally tick it off.

With your activity level, I would not decrease the
carbohydrates for the increase in protein. This is my
opinion but I feel that if the carbohydrates are not
available then your body is going to go after the protein
next since it is not the macronutrient that is needed for
survival, fat is. So it is extra muscle you are after, then
add the protein on top but don't decrease your
carbohydrates right now. Not for an athlete.

As for fat, you do not want to cut it out totally. Fat
should be at least 15% of your calories. You need this for
hormone production buddy. I like the way you cycle your
protein sources, keep that up and I would actually go for
more fatty meats at night along with fibrous carbohydrates
if fat storage is a concern. If that makes no sense to you
then we can talk about the science on that later.

As for the ice cream at night, this is weird. You are
considering cutting back on carbs for the sake of increased
protein but then eating ice cream at night for the sugar
you need. See what is happening there? This is another good
reason why you need to keep your carb intake at the present
levels or even bump them up just a bit. You only need to
add a few grams of complex carbs here and there and the
light-headedness will go away. Try some oatmeal with a
banana any time you need a sugar/carb fix. It will break
down fast at the start and slow burn on the end from the
banana and oatmeal combo.

Now for the extra activity. I know you know the math of fat
loss. 3500 calories per pound of fat is the magic number.
Now how many calories are you in deficit when you calculate
your classes, gym sessions and good eating. If you are in
deficit then the extra running should only be because you
like it or need to improve your performance in running.
Doing excess work to burn calories can throw you into
overtraining really fast. Watch yourself. I think you are
doing enough activity already with the MMA, my class and
the gym. If anything I would go with sprints in the morning
if you must go for a run. 10 sprints for 100 yards with 30
seconds rest in between.

Hope that helps buddy! Keep going, your looking great!

----------------------------------------------------
Ray L Burton is a personal trainer and author of the best
selling internet ebook titled, Fat to Fit - The Journey.
You can learn more about exercise and wieght loss at
http://www.buildingbodies.ca and read more about his weight
loss book at http://www.fattofitbook.com

No Running in School?

Most of the top athletes started running early in life. Just look at the
Kenyans -- they used to run to school and back, sometimes 6 miles there and
back. So, yes the earlier you start exercising in life the better-- you
create the habit, and the chances you'll suffer from obesity problems later
are severely reduced.
===========================================

No Running in School?
Copyright (c) 2006 The Brain Code LLC

Dodge ball was out years ago because of it's dangerous
nature. Now some schools in Wyoming, Washington, Oregon,
California and South Carolina have banned tag, soccer and
touch football. Just this week some Massachusetts schools
added themselves to the game-banning list, citing a broader
rule against "hitting and inappropriate touching" ­ WHAT???

A recent article published in USA Today explains how a
trend is developing across the country limiting kid's
physical activity in schools. Many districts are banning
more and more games in PE and on recess.

Another class bites the dust

To make matters worse many middle schools and high schools
are cutting PE from the full year curriculum. ‘The Shape of
the Nation' report, released about a month ago, concluded
that most states are failing to provide student's with
adequate physical education. The report showed that the
number of students attending a daily PE class is down to
28%! Does this have anything to do with the fact the 1 out
of 5 school age kids today are overweight? Along with
horrible diets of most kids, the lack of sufficient
physical activity is a huge part of the problem.

Many schools cite the need for more academic class time in
order to meet the requirements of national testing
standards. The irony of it is that cutting PE programs is
actually making our student's test performance worse. A
large Canadian study looked at the academic performance of
kids split into two groups. One group received one hour of
PE class with moderate physical activity during the course
of the day, while the other group had academic instruction
for that hour.

At the end of the year, the group of kids that had PE
outperformed the other group in academic classes for every
grade tested. This was true even though the non-PE group
received about 15% more classroom instruction time. So does
it make sense to cut PE from our schools?

Physical activity is proven to increase attention, improve
learning and improve memory. These are all attributes that
help kids become better students. Yet our schools continue
to cut PE from their curriculum. We must put greater value
on physical activity in the school system and find a way to
support it.

Sweat or Stress

As the Canadian study suggests, physical activity can
actually make you smarter. Not only that, but exercise can
help prevent disorders like Alzheimer's disease,
Parkinson's disease and depression. It can even increase
your chances of recovering from a stroke or traumatic brain
injury.

Exercise causes a rise in several growth factors in the
brain that are responsible for helping brain cells survive
and divide into new brain cells, or neurons. One of the
brain areas producing new neurons is the hippocampus. The
hippocampus plays a critical role in learning, memory and
attention. Exercise helps new neurons grow in the
hippocampus, which helps improve performance on several
types of cognitive tasks.

Another important role of the hippocampus is in the
response to stress. In fact, studies show that a smaller
hippocampus is associated with anxiety disorders and
depression. Stress can damage the hippocampus and cause
neurons to die, the opposite of what happens when you
exercise.

Folks that exercise regularly know that they are much more
capable of handling stress throughout their day than they
are when they don't exercise. This is, in part, because
exercise and stress have opposite effects on the
hippocampus and exercise improves your ‘buffer' to handle
the stress.

Interestingly, anti-depressants work in a similar way.
Although, we don't completely understand the exact
mechanism of anti-depressant action, we do know that
several classes of anti-depressants increase new neurons in
the hippocampus. They do the same thing that exercise does!

Like exercise, anti-depressants also induce new neuron
growth in the hippocampus. Psychiatrists have known for a
long time that patients experiencing depression respond
much better to therapy if they combine it with regular
exercise. In some cases, exercise alone is sufficient to
alleviate depressive symptoms. Personally, I'd rather see
doctors try a prescription for more physical activity and a
better diet before they send you to the pharmacist.

How fast is your Brain Aging?

Studies also show that exercise protects the brain from
aging and injury. Older adults that regularly exercise
perform better in cognitive tasks and have lower rates of
Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. They also recover
stronger from strokes and from accidental brain injury.

One can argue that people who exercise have many factors in
their lives that can contribute to these findings. For
example, they smoke less, eat better, etc. However, studies
in laboratory animals support the idea that exercise alone
is protective. Animals that are exercised are protected
against traumatic brain injury in laboratory tests and
don't develop the extent of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's
disease in model systems.

Studies also show that in addition to exercise's protective
role, it is a valuable therapeutic tool for brain function.
Fitness training improves cognitive functions relative to
planning, scheduling, task coordination and attention.
Adults that exercise have more grey matter, representing
more brain cells, than adults that don't exercise.

We know that on average, adults tend to maintain the
lifestyle values that they had as kids. So does it make
sense to stand bye and watch schools cut PE and
heart-pumping recess activities?

----------------------------------------------------
Dr. Simon Evans is a neuroscientist at the University of
Michigan and a nationally licensed youth sports coach. Are
your kids getting everything they need to reach their
potential? What barriers are holding your family back? Find
out at Dr. Evans website at http://www.thebraincode.com

==============================
This is a bigger problem in the USA, but here in the UK obesity problems
amongst children are increasing. There is a drive though from schools to
get more kids to eat healthier foods, and its more and more common for junk
food to be banned at school. Children, like their parents, probably don't
get enough exercise though.