The Holidays are coming fast! Halloween, Thanksgiving, then Christmas! Back-to-back, our lives will be filled with activity, family gatherings, celebrations and--the inevitable--issues that rise when families get together: old, unfinished business; unresolved conflicts; differences of opinions; new, added members struggling to get accepted and integrated, and so on.
If you want to explore a fresh, fun and effective way of enjoying stress-free holidays, try movies. They can teach you valuable lessons of how to deal with some of the perennial issues surrounding holidays. Here are three short lists of movies to watch and their immediate benefits:
1. Halloween: Learn valuable lessons from horror movies:
1. The Shining: Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) gets a job as the custodian of the Overlook Hotel, in the mountains of Colorado. The place is closed down during winter, and Torrance and his family will be the only occupants of the hotel for a long while. When the snow storms block the Torrance family in the hotel, Jack's son Danny - who has some clairvoyance and telepathy powers - discovers that the hotel is haunted and that the spirits are slowly driving Jack crazy.
Benefits: respect the energy of homes, trust your intuition, protect your creativity from negative energies, ask your children's opinions when you make big life decisions.
2. Rosemary's Baby: Rosemary and her new husband, Guy, move into a new apartment in New York, befriending an elderly couple who live near by. Guy begins to spend a lot of time with them and, soon after that, strange things begin to happen, until Rosemary falls pregnant and begins to suspect that her neighbors have special plans for her child.
Benefits: research your neighbors before you begin trusting them; trust your judgment when something in your life keeps going wrong; protect your creative project from everyone regardless of how close you feel to them until it's completed.
3. The Blair Witch Project: Heather Donahue leads film students Michael Williams and Joshua Leonard in the forests near Burkittesville, where they will shoot a documentary about a local legend, the Blair Witch. Many children have vanished in the 1940s and people still avoid going too deep into the woods. The group starts an adventure from which they will never return. One year later, the students' film and video is found in the woods, that shows what happened.
Benefits: know your limits when you embark on an adventure; be adequately prepared; don't trust blindly a leader (he or she may not know where he or she is going.
2. Thanksgiving: Learn how Thanksgiving is a great opportunity to build new family relationships:
1. The Ice Storm: Focusing on two families in particular, the Hoods and the Carvers, this is the story of rapid moral deterioration, as the characters shatter their social "roles" in pursuit of meaning and satisfaction, not considering the consequences. Once the "storm" hits, though, during Thanksgiving week, reality sinks in, and the severity of their situation becomes all too apparent in its bitter, and resonating aftermath.
Benefits: If you want to enjoy family bliss, you must work hard on building strong, healthy family relationships. Reconsider your family relationships, be authentic, express your needs, tell the truth to your children.
2. What's Cooking: In LA's Fairfax district, where ethnic groups abound, four households celebrate Thanksgiving amidst family tensions. Around each table, things come to a head. A gun, an affair, a boyfriend, and a pregnancy precipitate crises forcing each family to find its center.
Benefits: Embrace other people's differences and celebrate commonalities; see life as a feast that is to be cherished now.
Hannah and Her Sisters: A family of complicated and problematic New Yorkers comes together during a Thanksgiving dinner. The main characters are three sisters: Lee, who is unhappily married; Holly, who is always in search of fulfillment; and Hannah, the family jewel. She's f, beautiful, intelligent, successful, and a good mother, wife and sister. All is well until Hannah's sisters get involved in her life and threaten to shred it apart.
Benefits: Get to know the people in your family; get over your judgments about them; accept their shortcomings.
3. Christmas: Discover the spiritual messages of Christmas:
1. It's A Wonderful Life: George Bailey has spent his entire life giving up his big dreams for the good of his town, Bedford Falls. But today, on Christmas Eve, he is about to end his life out of despair, until he meets Clarence, his guardian angel. Clarence takes George on a tour to Bedford Falls as the town it would have been if George had not existed, teaching him--and us--a precious lesson about life's true meaning.
Benefits: The Essence of Abundance is in sharing love; we are here to do good--good depends on our actions; wealth is not just having a lot of money
2. Family Man: On Christmas Eve, Wall Street celebrity Jack Campbell gets a phone message from a woman he almost married 13 years before and who is moving to France. On Christmas day, Jack wakes up next to her, in some sort of parallel universe, in a 12-year marriage. Over the next few weeks, he gets a glimpse of what his life would have been like if he'd married her: completely different from the life he has now, but with a lot of love. What will Jack do once the dream is over?
Benefits: Follow your heart and marry the person you love before it's too late; professional success is great but emotional fulfillment is what makes us feel complete
3. Home Alone: When Kevin McCallister is accidentally left 'home alone' by his family, vacationing in France, he takes his house into his own hands and haves himself his own vacation. But his delight ends up crashing and burning when he comes into contact with two burglars who try to break into his house.
Benefits: When faced with life's unexpected challenges, trust yourself, be creative, and protect what's important to you; inner strength is some times more important than physical strength--you must develop it; be prepared for the worst; loneliness is sometimes a good thing--it forces you to stand on your feet.
Jumat, 27 Oktober 2017
Jumat, 20 Oktober 2017
Whirling Dervish Delivers Country Comedy Melodrama Sensation in One Fell Swoop
Caught momentarily in this northeastern city on the Hudson, author Joseph Yakel took a quick time out to give his reaction to recent comments that his literary giant, "The Legend of Juggin Joe", has essentially resurrected the American Classic Book from near-extinction and been cited by many as THE CATALYST for the triumphant renaissance of the comedy / melodrama story in international literary circles.
Without pause, Yakel said, "Certainly, I'll leave comments like those for others to orate, though I mightn't fault them for such comparisons. Sure, I'm aware that Juggin Joe is the kind of iconic literary work that somehow spans the ethereal boundary between the material and cosmic world. I would also agree that the precision of my writing serves as the delicate fulcrum balancing these two interwoven realities. How could I diverge with such appraisals? What it really distills down to is this: People know what they like."
Noting that the book is rooted in the Town of Westerlo, NY, and that the story centers around the life and times of a hilltown boy dubbed 'Juggin Joe', for his uncanny musical abilities with the jug, Yakel was asked if it is true he grew up in the same area. Yakel nodded, saying, "Of course, I have ties to Westerlo and the Capital region. I know the area well. In fact, plenty's the times I spent at Onderdonk, enjoying the varied refreshments the lake has to offer. The froggin' is especially good in that neck of the woods, but it's an attraction that most flatlanders don't have an appreciation for."
Pressed as to whether or not Juggin Joe and his antics are based upon Yakel's own amazing life, the author let out a laugh, and winked to those around him, but said nothing more.
So why was the book written entirely in a 'country speak' dialogue? Yakel said, "It's obvious that city slickers and hill folk don't talk the same way...mind you, those speaking differences don't amount to a hill of beans. In the end, folks understand one another, and the dialect just happens to be the way it is. What better way to convey the true sense of the story, and get inside the minds of the characters, than by writing the story the way it was meant to be read and spoken? To my knowledge, it's never been done before. Sure, with this crafted dialogue, I've broken new literary ground, but I'm used to such things. Look it, if you pick up this book, and begin to talk 'country' to yourself, by either replaying the words in your mind, or aloud, then congratulations, you've successfully bridged the material world we spoke of earlier, and can count yourself among those touched by Joe. He has that affect on people. It's what he does."
It's been duly noted that the book covers, which are front and back images of Juggin Joe on a hillside overlooking his cabin, are simply breathtaking creations of intricate detail. Many wondered what inspired Yakel to come up with the cover design. Clearly pleased with the positive response to the covers, Yakel said, "I wanted all people, wherever they happen to be from, to experience the wonder of upstate New York, and the real magic that only Juggin Joe can provide. The vision of Joe on the hills of Albany County was mine, of course, but I must tell you that the projection of my vision; the handiwork and mastery of the cover art, if you will, belongs to my friend, Jonathan Fesmire. He is simply brilliant at what he does in the computer generated graphics medium."
Before being whisked away, Yakel added, "It's true that I have been called a whirling dervish by some. I'm certainly not one to take such a profound compliment lightly. But really, who I am is who I am. Now then, it's always a pleasure to speak with my friends, but I must be going...Remember, if you keep on reading, the legend will live on forever." And with that, almost as quickly as he came, the great one, Joseph Yakel, was gone once more.
Without pause, Yakel said, "Certainly, I'll leave comments like those for others to orate, though I mightn't fault them for such comparisons. Sure, I'm aware that Juggin Joe is the kind of iconic literary work that somehow spans the ethereal boundary between the material and cosmic world. I would also agree that the precision of my writing serves as the delicate fulcrum balancing these two interwoven realities. How could I diverge with such appraisals? What it really distills down to is this: People know what they like."
Noting that the book is rooted in the Town of Westerlo, NY, and that the story centers around the life and times of a hilltown boy dubbed 'Juggin Joe', for his uncanny musical abilities with the jug, Yakel was asked if it is true he grew up in the same area. Yakel nodded, saying, "Of course, I have ties to Westerlo and the Capital region. I know the area well. In fact, plenty's the times I spent at Onderdonk, enjoying the varied refreshments the lake has to offer. The froggin' is especially good in that neck of the woods, but it's an attraction that most flatlanders don't have an appreciation for."
Pressed as to whether or not Juggin Joe and his antics are based upon Yakel's own amazing life, the author let out a laugh, and winked to those around him, but said nothing more.
So why was the book written entirely in a 'country speak' dialogue? Yakel said, "It's obvious that city slickers and hill folk don't talk the same way...mind you, those speaking differences don't amount to a hill of beans. In the end, folks understand one another, and the dialect just happens to be the way it is. What better way to convey the true sense of the story, and get inside the minds of the characters, than by writing the story the way it was meant to be read and spoken? To my knowledge, it's never been done before. Sure, with this crafted dialogue, I've broken new literary ground, but I'm used to such things. Look it, if you pick up this book, and begin to talk 'country' to yourself, by either replaying the words in your mind, or aloud, then congratulations, you've successfully bridged the material world we spoke of earlier, and can count yourself among those touched by Joe. He has that affect on people. It's what he does."
It's been duly noted that the book covers, which are front and back images of Juggin Joe on a hillside overlooking his cabin, are simply breathtaking creations of intricate detail. Many wondered what inspired Yakel to come up with the cover design. Clearly pleased with the positive response to the covers, Yakel said, "I wanted all people, wherever they happen to be from, to experience the wonder of upstate New York, and the real magic that only Juggin Joe can provide. The vision of Joe on the hills of Albany County was mine, of course, but I must tell you that the projection of my vision; the handiwork and mastery of the cover art, if you will, belongs to my friend, Jonathan Fesmire. He is simply brilliant at what he does in the computer generated graphics medium."
Before being whisked away, Yakel added, "It's true that I have been called a whirling dervish by some. I'm certainly not one to take such a profound compliment lightly. But really, who I am is who I am. Now then, it's always a pleasure to speak with my friends, but I must be going...Remember, if you keep on reading, the legend will live on forever." And with that, almost as quickly as he came, the great one, Joseph Yakel, was gone once more.
Kamis, 12 Oktober 2017
Is Avoiding Sweets Driving You Nuts? Put the Nuts to Work For You
You can overcome the desires of your sweet-tooth by incorporating some intelligent snacking. Sometimes dieting and weight control can drive you nuts -- well, we're going to put those nuts to work for us.
Many people believe that nuts are fattening and should be avoided if you are trying to lose weight and/or fat. The fact of the matter is that nuts -- in moderation -- can be a healthy and nutritious part of your daily diet, even to the point where they can help you to lose weight.
Nuts offer protein, fiber and minerals such as copper and magnesium, but remember, only one-third cup of nuts can contain around 270 calories! While nuts are high in calories and fat (the reason for moderation), the fact is that the fat is the "good type" and does not plaque your arteries.
According to the website Vegetarian Nutrition Info published by the Nutrition Department at Andrews University, nuts can assist in lowering blood cholesterol and preventing diabetes. Studies reported by their website came to the following conclusions:
- "Peanuts, or peanut butter, as part of a moderate fat diet produced a 14 percent drop in LDL cholesterol and a 13 percent drop in triglyceride levels in persons with normal blood cholesterol levels after one month. In another study, 1-2 ozs of peanuts a day for 6 months lowered the LDL cholesterol levels of postmenopausal women by 12 percent."
- "In the Nurses' Health Study, consuming nuts 1 to 4 times a week was associated with a 16% reduction in the risk of type 2 diabetes. Eating nuts 5 or more times a week reduced the risk of diabetes by 27 percent. Consuming peanut butter 5 or more times a week, reduced the risk by 21 percent."
I know, I know... enough of the health stuff... you want to know how nuts can help you battle the bulge. It seems that those nutty researchers at Purdue University took a break from basketball long enough to learn that people were able to lose weight by adding almonds to a calorie-controlled eating plan.
While the reasons are unclear, a few theories are "pecan" up over the top. The first one says that the substantial nature of nuts helps to promote a feeling of fullness, or satiety (think satisfaction), thereby allowing you to stop eating sooner. Another theory says that the protein found in nuts helps to burn more calories while you digest your food.
Whatever the reason, the bottom line is that we fat-fighters have to give up a lot, but nuts don't seem to be one of them! Nuts, a healthy calorie-controlled diet, and moderate exercise can lead to a lighter you.
Not only that, researchers have found that nuts have anti-cancer properties, and researchers have found a negative correlation between the consumption of nuts and coronary heart disease (that is -- the more days per week a reasonable amount of nuts were consumed, the LESS likely you are to suffer from heart disease or heart attack.)
Do your friends think you're a little nutty? Tell them that it's okay, it's just a part of your plan for a healthier you!
References:
win.niddk.nih.gov/index.htm The Weight-control Information Network,
American Dietetic Association,
vegetarian-nutrition.info Andrews University, Nutrition Department
Many people believe that nuts are fattening and should be avoided if you are trying to lose weight and/or fat. The fact of the matter is that nuts -- in moderation -- can be a healthy and nutritious part of your daily diet, even to the point where they can help you to lose weight.
Nuts offer protein, fiber and minerals such as copper and magnesium, but remember, only one-third cup of nuts can contain around 270 calories! While nuts are high in calories and fat (the reason for moderation), the fact is that the fat is the "good type" and does not plaque your arteries.
According to the website Vegetarian Nutrition Info published by the Nutrition Department at Andrews University, nuts can assist in lowering blood cholesterol and preventing diabetes. Studies reported by their website came to the following conclusions:
- "Peanuts, or peanut butter, as part of a moderate fat diet produced a 14 percent drop in LDL cholesterol and a 13 percent drop in triglyceride levels in persons with normal blood cholesterol levels after one month. In another study, 1-2 ozs of peanuts a day for 6 months lowered the LDL cholesterol levels of postmenopausal women by 12 percent."
- "In the Nurses' Health Study, consuming nuts 1 to 4 times a week was associated with a 16% reduction in the risk of type 2 diabetes. Eating nuts 5 or more times a week reduced the risk of diabetes by 27 percent. Consuming peanut butter 5 or more times a week, reduced the risk by 21 percent."
I know, I know... enough of the health stuff... you want to know how nuts can help you battle the bulge. It seems that those nutty researchers at Purdue University took a break from basketball long enough to learn that people were able to lose weight by adding almonds to a calorie-controlled eating plan.
While the reasons are unclear, a few theories are "pecan" up over the top. The first one says that the substantial nature of nuts helps to promote a feeling of fullness, or satiety (think satisfaction), thereby allowing you to stop eating sooner. Another theory says that the protein found in nuts helps to burn more calories while you digest your food.
Whatever the reason, the bottom line is that we fat-fighters have to give up a lot, but nuts don't seem to be one of them! Nuts, a healthy calorie-controlled diet, and moderate exercise can lead to a lighter you.
Not only that, researchers have found that nuts have anti-cancer properties, and researchers have found a negative correlation between the consumption of nuts and coronary heart disease (that is -- the more days per week a reasonable amount of nuts were consumed, the LESS likely you are to suffer from heart disease or heart attack.)
Do your friends think you're a little nutty? Tell them that it's okay, it's just a part of your plan for a healthier you!
References:
win.niddk.nih.gov/index.htm The Weight-control Information Network,
American Dietetic Association,
vegetarian-nutrition.info Andrews University, Nutrition Department
Kamis, 05 Oktober 2017
Remembering The Titanic: Top Ten Weight Loss Mistakes Others Make But We Can Avoid
Patrick Henry once said, "I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I have no way of judging the future but by the past." Fortunately for us, there are millions of people who have gone before us attempting to lose fat and/or weight, each with varying degrees of success. We can learn from their collective experiences and gain enlightenment, or insight, into our own weight loss plans.
Over the next several paragraphs we're going to review things that have been reported as "weight loss mistakes". Take some time to read each one and compare/contrast them with your own personal weight loss plan.
Weight loss and fat loss success is the result of making the right adjustments and living with them. Quite possibly some of the adjustments you've made may need to be reconsidered.
Mistake #1: Expecting to lose weight too quickly. We've talked about this in earlier issues. We can spend years messing up relationships and expect them to be healed or repaired after sincerely saying, "I'm sorry." What is it about humans that we think that things should be a certain way just because we want it to be? It takes years to get out of shape and overweight. It will take a long time to lose the weight and get back into shape. Patience is a key to making life-long changes for the better.
Mistake #2: Adopting a plan that is not sustainable over the course of your lifetime. This mistake is two-fold in nature. The first aspect is creating a habit that is unreasonable to continue long term. Some examples would be the tabloid diets you read about in the line at the grocery store. Grapefruit diets, cabbage diets, chicken soup diets. We need variety in our lives. Thinking that we can forego that variety forever is a recipe for failure. The second aspect is thinking that the lifestyle that we are adopting is only short term and that we'll go back to our previous lifestyle when our weight is gone. Our previous lifestyle IS the problem; the new lifestyle is the solution. We need to adopt a lifestyle that will become, literally, a style of life for us.
Mistake #3: Neglecting to be quantity-conscious. This is really a huge issue. At every meal we need to scrutinize the amount of food we serve ourselves and limit ourselves to a single serving. If we put too much food on our plate, chances are we're going to eat it... whether we need it or not. Using smaller plates make it easier to avoid serving up too much food. Don't let someone else serve for you. Make sure you serve yourself so that you can control the quantity.
Mistake #4: Choosing the wrong places to eat out. Eating out is the "mine field" in the battle of the bulge. Every step you take needs to be measured and selected carefully. If you select a fast-food restaurant, make sure they have low calorie options available. A grilled chicken sandwich without mayonnaise, or a salad with a very light dressing and water can be a safe fast-food meal. Treating yourself to the "mega-burger" dripping with sauce and a small diet soda can set you back an entire week or two. Avoid a buffet or smorgasbord. It's human nature to overeat at one of those places. Enough said?
Mistake #5: Avoiding eating breakfast. Your body's metabolism goes to sleep at night when you sleep. While the alarm clock may wake you up, it is breakfast that wakes up your metabolism. It's easy to justify skipping breakfast if you think only about total calories over the course of a day. Unfortunately, what you burn is as important as what you eat, especially when you have excess fat to burn. Keep your furnace burning from morning to night by spreading the day's calories out over the course of the entire day.
Mistake #6: Being unaware of what you are eating. Be familiar with the ingredients and the way your food is prepared. A fried chicken breast, skin on, breaded and fried can yield about eleven grams of fat. The same chicken breast with the skin removed and no breading - but still fried - yields only two and a half grams of fat. The battered breast has about 220 calories, while the non-battered skinless version has less than 100. That's an amazing difference! Over two times the number of calories and four times the amount of fat!
Mistake #7: Making candy and snack foods a part of your hospitality. Bowls of M&M's are my personal weakness. I used to work in an office where my administrative assistant would keep bags of the variegated nuggets of pleasure ready. Every pass by her desk was rewarded with another handful of the miniature waistline destroyers. In retrospect, I can visualize a change taking place in my own physique. Make sure you aren't subverting your own attempts to control what you eat. Even seemingly innocuous snack foods can cause a world of damage. Try to keep fresh fruit available. Apples, bananas, oranges, pears, peaches and others are typically available nearly year around.
Mistake #8: Relying upon "fat free foods". A common mistake is to assume that "fat free" means that the item is good for you, healthy, or low in calories. Fat free simply means that there is no fat. Fat is usually pleasant in taste and adds a nice texture to food. If it has been removed, pause for a second to consider what has been put in its place. Is the fat replacement high in calories? Is it a chemical? Will my body be able to metabolize it?
Mistake #9: Dressing up the "right" foods with the "wrong" things. The classic example is the salad. The seemingly innocent plate of assorted greens couldn't possibly do any damage. Ah, but then we blanket it with mayonnaise or oil-based dressings, cheese, croutons, or bacon bits, and voila... we have created a monster. Salads are not the only well-intentioned meals that can stick around longer than we have planned. Low calorie sandwiches can become high-fat meals with the addition of only a modest amount of mayonnaise. A tablespoon of "light" mayonnaise can have as much as FIVE grams of fat!
Mistake #10: Not eating enough. This mistake is saved for last for a reason. Most of us are not in this category. We are not talking about skipping breakfast here; we are talking about starvation diets. This insidious type of dieting is both dangerous and counterproductive. The person using this method will typically see a quick loss of mostly water weight and get the feeling that they are doing the right thing. Unfortunately, the health risks are very severe. This kind of dieting can bring on cardiac damage, gout, gallstones, anemia and not only that... it actually slows your metabolism. When the starvation dieter finally gives up, the weight typically comes back with a vengeance!
Over the next several paragraphs we're going to review things that have been reported as "weight loss mistakes". Take some time to read each one and compare/contrast them with your own personal weight loss plan.
Weight loss and fat loss success is the result of making the right adjustments and living with them. Quite possibly some of the adjustments you've made may need to be reconsidered.
Mistake #1: Expecting to lose weight too quickly. We've talked about this in earlier issues. We can spend years messing up relationships and expect them to be healed or repaired after sincerely saying, "I'm sorry." What is it about humans that we think that things should be a certain way just because we want it to be? It takes years to get out of shape and overweight. It will take a long time to lose the weight and get back into shape. Patience is a key to making life-long changes for the better.
Mistake #2: Adopting a plan that is not sustainable over the course of your lifetime. This mistake is two-fold in nature. The first aspect is creating a habit that is unreasonable to continue long term. Some examples would be the tabloid diets you read about in the line at the grocery store. Grapefruit diets, cabbage diets, chicken soup diets. We need variety in our lives. Thinking that we can forego that variety forever is a recipe for failure. The second aspect is thinking that the lifestyle that we are adopting is only short term and that we'll go back to our previous lifestyle when our weight is gone. Our previous lifestyle IS the problem; the new lifestyle is the solution. We need to adopt a lifestyle that will become, literally, a style of life for us.
Mistake #3: Neglecting to be quantity-conscious. This is really a huge issue. At every meal we need to scrutinize the amount of food we serve ourselves and limit ourselves to a single serving. If we put too much food on our plate, chances are we're going to eat it... whether we need it or not. Using smaller plates make it easier to avoid serving up too much food. Don't let someone else serve for you. Make sure you serve yourself so that you can control the quantity.
Mistake #4: Choosing the wrong places to eat out. Eating out is the "mine field" in the battle of the bulge. Every step you take needs to be measured and selected carefully. If you select a fast-food restaurant, make sure they have low calorie options available. A grilled chicken sandwich without mayonnaise, or a salad with a very light dressing and water can be a safe fast-food meal. Treating yourself to the "mega-burger" dripping with sauce and a small diet soda can set you back an entire week or two. Avoid a buffet or smorgasbord. It's human nature to overeat at one of those places. Enough said?
Mistake #5: Avoiding eating breakfast. Your body's metabolism goes to sleep at night when you sleep. While the alarm clock may wake you up, it is breakfast that wakes up your metabolism. It's easy to justify skipping breakfast if you think only about total calories over the course of a day. Unfortunately, what you burn is as important as what you eat, especially when you have excess fat to burn. Keep your furnace burning from morning to night by spreading the day's calories out over the course of the entire day.
Mistake #6: Being unaware of what you are eating. Be familiar with the ingredients and the way your food is prepared. A fried chicken breast, skin on, breaded and fried can yield about eleven grams of fat. The same chicken breast with the skin removed and no breading - but still fried - yields only two and a half grams of fat. The battered breast has about 220 calories, while the non-battered skinless version has less than 100. That's an amazing difference! Over two times the number of calories and four times the amount of fat!
Mistake #7: Making candy and snack foods a part of your hospitality. Bowls of M&M's are my personal weakness. I used to work in an office where my administrative assistant would keep bags of the variegated nuggets of pleasure ready. Every pass by her desk was rewarded with another handful of the miniature waistline destroyers. In retrospect, I can visualize a change taking place in my own physique. Make sure you aren't subverting your own attempts to control what you eat. Even seemingly innocuous snack foods can cause a world of damage. Try to keep fresh fruit available. Apples, bananas, oranges, pears, peaches and others are typically available nearly year around.
Mistake #8: Relying upon "fat free foods". A common mistake is to assume that "fat free" means that the item is good for you, healthy, or low in calories. Fat free simply means that there is no fat. Fat is usually pleasant in taste and adds a nice texture to food. If it has been removed, pause for a second to consider what has been put in its place. Is the fat replacement high in calories? Is it a chemical? Will my body be able to metabolize it?
Mistake #9: Dressing up the "right" foods with the "wrong" things. The classic example is the salad. The seemingly innocent plate of assorted greens couldn't possibly do any damage. Ah, but then we blanket it with mayonnaise or oil-based dressings, cheese, croutons, or bacon bits, and voila... we have created a monster. Salads are not the only well-intentioned meals that can stick around longer than we have planned. Low calorie sandwiches can become high-fat meals with the addition of only a modest amount of mayonnaise. A tablespoon of "light" mayonnaise can have as much as FIVE grams of fat!
Mistake #10: Not eating enough. This mistake is saved for last for a reason. Most of us are not in this category. We are not talking about skipping breakfast here; we are talking about starvation diets. This insidious type of dieting is both dangerous and counterproductive. The person using this method will typically see a quick loss of mostly water weight and get the feeling that they are doing the right thing. Unfortunately, the health risks are very severe. This kind of dieting can bring on cardiac damage, gout, gallstones, anemia and not only that... it actually slows your metabolism. When the starvation dieter finally gives up, the weight typically comes back with a vengeance!
Rabu, 27 September 2017
Diet Soda - New Study Shows Relationship Between Diet Soda and Weight Gain
A very interesting story was reported recently by WebMD. A report was made at the annual scientific session of the American Diabetic Association by Sharon P. Fowler, MPH, of the University of Texas Health Science Center School of Medicine in San Antonio, Texas.
Fowler collected data on over 1,500 people aged 25 to 64 over nearly an eight-year period. At the beginning of the study, 622 people were of normal weight. Over the course of the study, roughly one-third of them became overweight or obese. A correlation was found between increased soda consumption and the risk of becoming overweight or obese.
This in itself is not surprising to most people. What is surprising, however, is that there is a greater risk among diet soda drinkers than among regular soda drinkers. Here are the numbers:
The risk of becoming overweight or obese for regular soft-drink consumers:
26% for up to 1/2 can each day
30.4% for 1/2 to one can each day
32.8% for 1 to 2 cans each day
47.2% for more than 2 cans each day.
The risk of becoming overweight or obese for diet soft-drink drinkers:
36.5% for up to 1/2 can each day
37.5% for 1/2 to one can each day
54.5% for 1 to 2 cans each day
57.1% for more than 2 cans each day.
For diet soda consumers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese increased by 41% for each can of diet soda consumed in a day. With that said, there is a saying among statisticians that goes like this: "Correlation does not mean causation."
What this means is that simply finding a statistically significant correlation between A and B does not mean that A causes B. It could very well be that similar lifestyle choices or decision-making patterns among diet soda consumers are creating similar weight-gain circumstances.
If you are old enough to recall the late '80's or early '90's, you may remember when a correlation was discovered between oat bran consumption and lower cholesterol. Once the relationship hit the press, it was several years before it could be reported that consuming oat bran could actually help to lower cholesterol in the blood.
The original assumption was that those consumers who were "likely" to consume foods containing oat bran would also be more likely to live a lifestyle that would result in lower blood cholesterol.
A similar phenomenon could be taking place with the diet soda metric as well -- but then, maybe not. Recalling a scene from Alice In Wonderland where Alice is offered tea and then offended because she is given none, Fowler posits that the body may be baited into thinking that a high calorie beverage is being consumed (because of the sweetness of the diet soda) only to find none. In support of this idea, Fowler mentions a recent study in which rats fed artificial sweetener craved calories to a greater degree than their sugar-fed brethren.
So what is a diet soda drinker to do? Well, the simplest thing to do is to stop drinking diet soda. In fact, stop drinking soda altogether. The next thing to do is to contemplate your lifestyle. Consider your caloric intake and whether you tend to justify consuming things you should leave alone. Are you active enough to burn the calories you consume? Do you tend to purchase and consume "low-calorie" or "diet" foods and beverages?
Research that provides results that cause us to ponder our own lifestyles is invaluable. Creatures of habit, as we are, need to have our world rocked occasionally.
Fowler collected data on over 1,500 people aged 25 to 64 over nearly an eight-year period. At the beginning of the study, 622 people were of normal weight. Over the course of the study, roughly one-third of them became overweight or obese. A correlation was found between increased soda consumption and the risk of becoming overweight or obese.
This in itself is not surprising to most people. What is surprising, however, is that there is a greater risk among diet soda drinkers than among regular soda drinkers. Here are the numbers:
The risk of becoming overweight or obese for regular soft-drink consumers:
26% for up to 1/2 can each day
30.4% for 1/2 to one can each day
32.8% for 1 to 2 cans each day
47.2% for more than 2 cans each day.
The risk of becoming overweight or obese for diet soft-drink drinkers:
36.5% for up to 1/2 can each day
37.5% for 1/2 to one can each day
54.5% for 1 to 2 cans each day
57.1% for more than 2 cans each day.
For diet soda consumers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese increased by 41% for each can of diet soda consumed in a day. With that said, there is a saying among statisticians that goes like this: "Correlation does not mean causation."
What this means is that simply finding a statistically significant correlation between A and B does not mean that A causes B. It could very well be that similar lifestyle choices or decision-making patterns among diet soda consumers are creating similar weight-gain circumstances.
If you are old enough to recall the late '80's or early '90's, you may remember when a correlation was discovered between oat bran consumption and lower cholesterol. Once the relationship hit the press, it was several years before it could be reported that consuming oat bran could actually help to lower cholesterol in the blood.
The original assumption was that those consumers who were "likely" to consume foods containing oat bran would also be more likely to live a lifestyle that would result in lower blood cholesterol.
A similar phenomenon could be taking place with the diet soda metric as well -- but then, maybe not. Recalling a scene from Alice In Wonderland where Alice is offered tea and then offended because she is given none, Fowler posits that the body may be baited into thinking that a high calorie beverage is being consumed (because of the sweetness of the diet soda) only to find none. In support of this idea, Fowler mentions a recent study in which rats fed artificial sweetener craved calories to a greater degree than their sugar-fed brethren.
So what is a diet soda drinker to do? Well, the simplest thing to do is to stop drinking diet soda. In fact, stop drinking soda altogether. The next thing to do is to contemplate your lifestyle. Consider your caloric intake and whether you tend to justify consuming things you should leave alone. Are you active enough to burn the calories you consume? Do you tend to purchase and consume "low-calorie" or "diet" foods and beverages?
Research that provides results that cause us to ponder our own lifestyles is invaluable. Creatures of habit, as we are, need to have our world rocked occasionally.
Langganan:
Postingan (Atom)