Monday, February 28, 2011

VITAMINS

I have started taking fish oil supplements. Omega 3 fatty acids are very important to include in your diet. It is great for people who do not like fish, which is a great source of Omega 3 fatty acids. I would rather take this supplement! It is very good for heart health, joint pain, and for your skin. They usually come in 1200 mg and one should be enough, although the bottle recommends 2 at meal time. Unless you have an already existing heart condition might want to take 2. Always consult with your doctor before taking any vitamins or medications.

A multivitamin is also very important especially for women. If you are thinking about having a baby it is very important to incorporate a multivitamin with 400mcg of folic acid daily. Folic acid is very important in preventing birth defects and you do not want to be lacking in this vitamin if you are thinking about conceiving.

VERY IMPORTANT for women is vitamin D and calcium. Most multivitamins come with at least 400 IUD of vitamin D. I have noticed that they have increased the vitamin D amount in the vitamin I take to about 800IUD. Vitamin D is very important because it helps the calcium get absorbed in our system. When more calcium is available in our blood more will be available to our bones. As women we need to be concerned about osteoporosis. We need to save our bones!!! So take a multivitamin and ask your doctor what calcium supplement is best to suit you. If you drink at least 3 glasses of milk a day already then your calcium supplement intake should not be that high. (has to be an 8oz glass)

There also has been debate that increased vitamin supplements is not good for your health. Although, I believe in concentrating what is important for your body. You need to think about what you are lacking in your diet that you can replenish safely through a multivitamin.

Friday, February 25, 2011

bread


I recommend Nature's Own 100% whole grain bread. Usually I have a salad and half a sandwich for lunch. That was getting really monotonous. So I decided to have a full sandwich with side of carrot sticks along with some green tea. I was worried about the extra bread and eating a whole sandwich. But when I checked the nutrition label today turns out each slice of this nature's own 100% whole grain bread has only 12 g of carbohydrates per slice, which is not bad!
Compared to other breads that will have about 20-25 grams of carbohydrates per slice. So choose this bread when you are making a sandwich.
It also has whole grains and that will be a great source of fiber.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

FAD diets

There are many bogus diets out there. One diet that has me completely floored, not in a good way, is the HCG diet. This diet requires taking HCG (human chronic gonadotropin), which is a hormone, shots and limiting your calorie intake to 500 calories a day. This hormone injection apparantly aids in the fat burning process. Why should we rely on this hormone, rather than burn the fat by exercising?

Honestly, I am so disturbed that doctors are actually recommending this diet to their patients. As a nutritionist I feel this diet is not healthy for ANY patient. The big problem I have with this diet is the calorie restriction. We are supposed to be taking in about 1200 calories a day, that is the norm. Calorie intake can be different for men and women. Also calorie intake can depend on the person's height and built. Some people can handle more than 1200 calories and still be able to work out and lose weight. But the magic number is 1200. Restricting your calorie intake to less than 1200 calories can affect brain function and other processes in the body depend on food intake for them to take place. If our calorie is restricted these processes can still be achieved, but will rely on our fat stores that are already there.

Why is this detrimental? Is this not how we lose weight? These are some questions you are probably asking. When we eat a proper diet with proper calorie intake we are "refueling our body." We can still lose weight if we burn those calories the proper way through exercise. Processes can occur if our body is in starvation mode, but it will occur at the expense of other important processes that are lacking that energy coming from food. Make sense?

Another important factor to consider is vitamin deficiencies. If our calories are restricted this drastically, we will lose all the essential vitamins our body gets from food. We need these vitamins for our body to be healthy. So I 100% do not agree with this diet and do not recommend it to anyone.

healthy diet

It has been a long time since my last post! Why? Because nothing has changed!!! I am on track with eating right, but cheating sometimes because honestly I can afford it. So I chose to write today because I have been learning some interesting things on nutrition and health. I will post them under separate headings because they are two separate topics that are very important to know!