Balance Your Health

Artificial Sweeteners and Weight Control

Part of the nutritional theory about artificial sweeteners is that they were carbohydrate free and had no effect on how your body handles glucose or sugar. Now that theory is being tested. As reported in the December 2009 issue of Diabetes Care, published by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, researchers are studying the effects of artificial sweeteners on glucose, insulin, and glucagon-like peptide-1, GL-1, which is a hormone released from your digestive tract that signals a sense of fullness to the brain and helps to control blood sugar.

Although there is some evidence that artificial sweeteners my make you feel more full or fuller sooner but they warn not to start drinking or eating foods with artifical sweetener because even by itself it can cause some insulin release.

What is interesting, however, is that the use of artificial sweeteners has increased together with the higher rate of obesity in the U.S. The problem is that food sweetened with artifical sweeteners may still have calories in them such as diet cookies which contains fat among other ingredients. Thinking there is no sugar, people simply eat too many cookies and the calories increase. Also, you don't experience quite the same feeling of satiety as you do with a food that contains sugar which means you are likely to eat more.

If you are diabetic you may use artificial sweeteners because they make food taste sweet without raising blood sugar levels. But keep in mind some foods containing artificial sweeteners, such as sugar free yogurt, can still affect your blood sugar level due to other carbohydrates or proteins in the food. Some foods labeled sugar free may contain sweeteners such as sorbitol or mannitol which do contain calories and can affect your blood sugar level.

One disclaimer: although artificial sweeteners on the market are considered safe by the Food and Drug Administration, not everyone one believes there is enough evidence to make that statement. My advice is use the artificial sweeteners in moderation. If you drink diet soda you may want to put sugar in your coffee or tea.

Since there are no good rules, anyone have suggestions about what is a moderate use of artificial sweeteners?

To your well balanced health.

Ruthan Brodsky

Art Artificial Alternatives a Safe Alternative to Sugar?

Too much sugar will make you fat but too much artificial sweetener can kill you? Help you lose weight? Have no effect on you what so ever?

I had no idea that the first artificial sweetener was discovered in 1897 by a Johns Hopkins University scientist working on coal-tar derivatives but it makes for good trivia. It wasn't used much because it left a better taste but when cyclamate came on the market in 1951 it was touted as the answer to better teeth and weight loss because it could replace sugar.

In the late 1960s, studies were made linking cyclamate to cancer on chicken embryos being injected and rats getting malignant tumors. There's a law that says the FDA has to ban any food additive shown to cause cancer in humans or animals so cyclamate was removed from all food products. Saccharin was required to carry a warning label. In 2000 saccharin was removed from the list of suspected carcinogens.

More history. Back in 1981 the synthetic compound aspartame was approved for use and it became the leading additive in diet colas. Then in 1995 there was misinformation that linked aspartame to everything from multiple sclerosis to polio and it was plastered over the Internet. It is true that some people can't handle aspartame because they can't metabolize the amino acid phenylalanine; more than 200 tests showed at the time that Diet Coke was safe to drink. Nor have any health risks been detected for sucralose, a chemically altered sugar molecule found in food, drinks, chewing gum and Splenda.

It is amazing about all the misinformation that have targeted these artificial sweeteners. Another one is that they cause obesity. Not so. People believe they are not consuming as much sugar in food with artificial sweeteners so they consume more of that food and put on weight. Eating more puts on weight.

The general consensus is that saccharin, aspartame and sucralose are not harmful when consumed in moderation. Cyclamate is still banned in the U.S. although it is available in other countries. And low calorie additives won't make you thinner or curb your appetite but they do make unsweetened food taste better and they won't hurt you. Large amounts of sugar put on weight so do refer to sugar substitutes as a way to enjoy your food.

To your well balanced health.

Ruthan Brodsky

Less Sugar Equals Better Health

The average American consumes over 22 teaspoons of added sugar each day according to the American Heart Association (AHA). That equals about 355 more calories each day and has been linked with all sorts of negative health conditions including metabolic abnormalities and not eating enough of the right nutrients.

 

Not surprisingly, the AHA recommends that we cut back on the amount of added sugar in our diets. The reasoning is that if we concentrate on healthy foods there won't be enough room for added sugar and all the problems that go with it. Added sugars, which are primarily found in processed and packaged foods, take up too much space in a well-balanced diet.

 

The AHA says we should add no more than 100 calories per day of added sugar for American women and 150 calories for men.  Since each teaspoon of sugar is 16 calories that equals about 6 to 9 teaspoons of added sugar per day. This amount is determined after you meet your basic daily requirements of nutrients.

 

For instance, a 50 year old woman needs about 1,800 calories to maintain her current weight and probably has only a few hundred discretionary calories per day. The experts tell us that the majority of our calories should come from fruits and vegetables and lean proteins and low-fat dairy foods. However, alcohol, fats and added sugars account for most of the discretionary calories and those numbers indicate that we are going way beyond the number of discretionary calories recommended.

 

I suppose that is why so many of us are always dieting. High amounts of added sugar in our diet can lead t many problems including obesity. Let's face it most sugary foods are high in calories so that even if you are consuming a lot of sugary beverages you probably will eat more solid food since liquid calories don't satisfy you as much as calories from solid foods.

 

Sugar comes in many forms. Here are some to look for on ingredient lists.  I know you'll be surprised when you count the numbers.

• Sucrose
• Fructose
• Dextrose
• Lactose
• Maltose
• Maltodextrin
• Corn syrup High-fructose corn syrup
• Carob syrup

 

Many products will list the ingredients but they don't tell you how many calories. If the food product tastes sweet chances are the added sugar is a significant portion of the total caloric value of the product.

 

I don't know about you but I have been so busy paying attention to the fats in a product that I haven't paid much attention to the sugar content. It looks like I am just going to give myself more time when I go grocery shopping and do more reading.

 

To your success at balancing your health.

 

Ruthan Brodsky

Caloric Restriction with Nutrition

The Caloric Restriction Society or CR Society emphasizes the importance of preparing meals that focus on vegetables that are dense with nutrients, fruit, lean protein and healthy fat sources such as nuts and avocados.

I recently learned about the group, which is dedicated to promoting calorie restriction, when I did research on caloric restriction for this blog. What I also learned since I wrote the last post was that experiments on calorie restriction with animals actually began in the 1930s, 50 years earlier than I thought.

Is Calorie Restriction Healthy?

Calorie control isn't about just losing weight anymore. A relatively new trend Known as calorie restriction is in the news more frequently. It is a regimen that involves reducing the amount of food you eat to reduce the number of calories you take in over a period of time.

Cheese in Your Diet, the Good and the Bad

No matter what the season cheese seems to be an integral part of our meals. Cheese and crackers to munch on when friends meet, mozzarella and tomato as a salad, cauliflower casserole with cheddar cheese, grilled burgers with melted cheese, baked onion soup with cheese, cream cheese and bagel, and cheese cake. The list goes on especially if you watch the Food Network. There are hundreds of recipes that use a huge variety of cheese.

Cheese is regarded as healthy or unhealthy depending upon the kind of cheese you're talking about and how much you're using in your cooking. The kind of fat in a particular cheese depends on the source of the cheese which translates as how good was the cow which produced the mild product.

Cows were mean to be fed grass and be raised in free roaming pastures. Unfortunately, that's not the case with many milk manufacturers and cow farmers. It is cheaper and easier to feed their cows grain and raise them in very tight quarters than give them the nourishment and enough land to grow the way nature intended. As a result many cows become ill and require antibiotics to stay alive. These antibiotics end up in the blood stream and then in the cows milk which means they are in our in our milk and in our cheeses, yogurt and beef.

Certified nutritionist, Isabel De Los Rios, explains more about fats and other diet solutions in her easy to read eBook about her diet solution program.  Click on the link.  It's one of the most complete and honest books on dieting I've read.

Cows are also given growth hormones to speed their growth and development and those too end up in our beef and milk products. Conventional cheese from the poorly raised cows is high in Omega 6 Fats which we want to reduce and increase the Omega 3's in our diet. It can also be laden with antibiotics and hormones.

Organic milk and cheese, more available than before, do not have added antibiotics and hormones and they are also much higher in Omega 3 fats.

Many diet plans count cheese as a protein. I think of cheese as a fat option because I don't feel the protein content in cheese is high enough to qualify as a full protein. Cheese does have some protein but for blood sugar balancing purposes, it may not be enough for some people. Some people can have 2 ounces of cheddar cheese and a small apple and be great while others may feel sleepy after the snack.

It's all about proportion. You can add some cheese into a healthy weight loss meal plan by:

Sprinkling some shredded cheese on top of an omelet. The key word is sprinkle.

Combine cheese with an apple or pear and some raw nuts as a great 3 pm pick me up.

Melt some cheese over vegetables to get family to eat vegetables.

It only takes a small amount of cheese to add that extra flavor. You don't have to drown your salad, or omelet or meat with gobs of cheese.

I welcome your tips about including cheese in your meals without adding a huge amount of calories. Cheese is one of my favorite comfort foods but I do limit my intake. Type your tips in the Comment Window.

To your health and happiness in a balanced life.

Ruthan Brodsky

Weight Loss Means Knowing What Makes You Fat

Weight Loss Means Knowing What Makes You Fat

Common and highly advertised weight loss programs and products are not working. You don't have to be a genius to figure this out. Just think of all the products, the diet programs, the advertisements, the books and magazines that give us information about losing weight. Yet even with all this information close to two thirds of the US adult population and close to 20 percent of children and adolescents are overweight or obese.

Obviously, something is not working.

Part of the problem is that one size does not fit all. We are all different, have different lifestyles, different genetic propensities, emotional health and behavior patterns. All of which means we need to have a better understanding of ourselves and what is it that puts on weight.

In the last few years we have been bombarded with information about trans fats. Restaurants in New York and other states are prohibited from using trans fats in their cooking. Labels must include the amount of trans fats in their products and many companies have succeeded in removing them from their products.

Know your trans fats. They are even worse for your heart and blood vessels than saturated fats.

Trans fats are a type of mostly man-made fat that the food industry loves because food does not spoil as easily as foods processed with, for example, liquid vegetable oil. They also can withstand repeated heating without breaking down. As a result trans fats became a mainstay in margarines, commercially baked goods, and snack foods. Way back when saturated fat was identified as a contributor to high cholesterol, companies such as McDonalds and Dunkin Donuts switched from beef tallow to partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, or trans fats, for frying French fries and donuts.

Today we know that is worse.

Take the advice of medical experts and your motivation to lose weight by avoiding trans fats. Look for products that do not contain any in the label. It is harder to avoid trans fat in restaurants because they are not required to provide nutrition information about the food they serve, so avoid anything deep-fried since many restaurants continue to use partially hydrogenated oils in their fryers.

Let us know if you have tips about what you do to avoid transfats. Scroll down to comments and type your comments in the blank window. We are all open to learning.

To your success at a balanced life.

Ruthan Brodsky

P.S. I am hosting a series of free teleseminars focusing on staying healthy and being productive from middle age and beyond. Check it out and get access to a free recording about the brain.

Body Contouring Surgery After Major Weight Loss

There’s this gal I know from a women’s business group who was very overweight when I met her about 5 years ago. She was short, very pleasant, a great sense of humor, very bright, and successful in a large corp.

She actually is a very petite woman but you wouldn’t know that when she was so heavy. I think it was a combination of getting close to 40 and deciding she needed to change and make a better life for herself. She wanted to like herself when she looked in the mirror and she wanted a more fulfilling social life. She had taken on so much responsibility of caring for her parents and siblings she had no time for herself. To say it another way, she was looking for a more balanced life.

She had bariatric surgery (weight loss surgery on the stomach and/or intestines) and managed to lose over 140 pounds. She maintained that weight loss and even lost a bit more over a 6 month period. What I didn’t know about was the surgery she would need following the weight loss to get rid of the loose skin that had enveloped her 175 pounds ago.

Close to 2 years after her weight loss she announced she was having surgery. She told me she would look in the mirror and see the folds as a constant reminder of where she was. She wanted to get rid of them so she could move forward – including buying clothes that fit properly.

It was a huge amount of skin that had to be removed and the folds covered more than one part of her body.

Weight Loss - Keeping it Off

Five strategies were described in a recent research project which studied American adults who had lost at least 30 pounds and kept their weight off for at least a year.

There were 2 consistent themes. The first was that losing weight doesn’t come easily. Most of the 5,000 participants had tried to lose weight before and failed. And secondly, there was no one strategy that worked for everyone. For instance about half lost weight on their own. The other half had help through a weight loss program, a doctor, or nutritionist.

Here are the 4 strategies:

Eating a low-fat, low-calorie diet.

Some people restricted the amount of food they consumed. Others restricted certain foods like pasta or pies. Most counted total calories. In fact, most of the participants figured out some way to reduce their calorie intake.

Increasing their physical activity

Over 90 percent of the participants incorporated physical activity into their weight loss plan. The average time spent was about 1 hour a day and most of them included walking. Other activities were also added such as aerobics, and bicycling and strength training.

Began their day with breakfast

Nearly 80 percent made sure they ate breakfast daily. Cereal and fruit were two of the more common breakfast foods.

Using the scale

Over seventy-five percent said they weighed themselves at least once a week. Interestingly, 60 percent said they weighted themselves daily.

The participants kept the weight off by keeping to their new strategies and being consistent. If they found they were going back to gaining weight, they didn’t wait more than a few pounds and got back on track.

The study points out that when people maintain weight loss for at least 2 years, they reduce the risk of regaining weight by 50 percent.

I have no idea whether these strategies will work for you. So much depends on your motivation. Most people are motivated to lose weight because of health concerns. They want to lose the weight and change their lifestyle and living habits.

Do you have any strategies you’d like to share with us? Maybe your idea will be helpful to someone else.

To a healthy and balanced life.

Ruthan

Ruthan Brodsky helps entrepreneurs and healthcare professionals market their services and products with content marketing and information products.

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Reduce Metabolic Syndrome with Small Lifestyle Changes

Losing a few pounds and adding some daily exercise can reduce your risk for diabetes and heart disease. A new Finish study found that even small lifestyle changes helped reduce abdominal obesity and metabolic syndrome – waist size, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels.

Half of the study’s participants received regular, individualized advice to lose weight by increasing their intake of whole grains, vegetables, fruits and low fat dairy and meats. They were also told to exercise for 30 minutes daily – walking, swimming, aerobics.

The other participants were given written and oral counseling about diet and exercise at their annual check ups only.

Participants were followed for 4 years. Participants who received more individual advice and follow up reduced their abdominal fat and metabolic syndrome occurrence by 15%. This was very significant because this group was showing signs of increased risk for diabetes.

Those who received general advice didn’t reduce and only decreased their metabolic syndrome slightly.

The results: the power of making even small lifestyle changes and having follow-up can reduce the risk of heart disease in the long term.

Let us know if you've made any changes in your lifestyle during the last few years to lower your risk of heart disease later in life.  We'd like to share your experiences with our readers.

To your successful health.

Ruthan Brodsky

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