5 Mistakes Sabotaging your Weight Loss

While the weight loss strategy seems simple –consuming less calories than the body needs– dieting and food offer so many options that it can get confusing; and while your intentions of attaining a healthy weight are beneficial, making the following mistakes can be unhealthy or sabotage your weight loss goals:

1. Having too much Olive oil because it is health benefits. Olive oil offers Omega 3s, good fats that help increase your HDL Cholesterol, which is good for your health. But it’s still an oil—120 calories and 14 grams of fat per tablespoon.

Best approach: Measure out the oil you use or put it in a spray bottle so that a little will go a longer way.

2. Avoiding fruit because of the sugar on them. Fruits do have natural sugar, but fresh fruit comes with benefits like essential vitamins, minerals and fiber, which can help you feel fuller longer. The benefits are greater. Though, careful with fruit that has been juiced, it is lacking in filling fiber, and bottled juice often contains added sugar.

Best approach: control your portions. 2 to 3 pieces of whole fruit (1 cup of blueberries, raspberries or sliced strawberries) per day.

3. Going Gluten-Free (For No Reason). The gluten warning is specifically intended for those diagnosed with celiac disease, it is not a weight loss plan. Avoiding gluten means leaving out satisfying, heart-healthy whole grains and, worse, switch to food made from processed wheat rice, corn or soy flour. Commercial Non-Gluten products can be high in sugar and sodium, making them even more unhealthy.

Best approach: If you do suffer from celiac disease choose naturally gluten-free grains like amaranth, buckwheat, flax, millet, quinoa, and teff.

4. Eating Way Less and Exercising Too Much. When you drastically cut calories, you’re telling your body to lower your metabolism and slow down weight loss. Even if you drop pounds in the short term, you risk gaining them back as soon as you give in to satisfying your cravings.

Best approach: Consult a dietician to calculate the right number of calories per day that your body needs to lose weight in a healthy way.

5. Avoiding All Fats. Good Fats, such as Monounsaturated and Polyunsaturated -Omega 9 and Omega3- are not only an essential nutrient, but it helps filling fuller and satisfy cravings. The ones that should be avoided are Trans and Saturated Fats found in processed foods, chips, baked and fried foods.

Best approach: Just be mindful of portion size: A palmful of nuts or seeds, and portions the size of your palm of fish, avocado, a spoonful olive oil.

Remember that balance is always key to a healthy lifestlye!

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Detox and Cleanse

Detoxing was medical jargon for treating serious conditions, such as alcohol poisoning or kidney failure. Today it refers to a short-term solution for quick weight loss and miraculous results.

Most Detoxing and Cleansing plans are based in the idea of flushing toxins out of your system, often through a juice/smoothie-only diet, giving your digestive system a break from its regular role.

Listen Up: a few days of bottled beverages isn’t going to magically cure your health issues or make you 10 pounds lighter. Actually, giving your gastrointestinal system a break from digesting food isn’t beneficial in any way. After two or three days, surviving on so few calories, your body will become weak, or even put you at risk for malnutrition.

In most nutritional categories, juices fall short. Most of them lack protein, fiber, fat, and calories, which are all nutrients that trigger satiety, and help prevent overeating and weight gain. As soon as you go back to eating normally, you will gain any lost weight back.

Additionally, juices tend to be high on the glycemic index, which means your blood glucose levels will spike and then fall dramatically after consuming them. That can lead to fatigue and hunger.

If you really want to Detox and Cleanse: restrict processed foods, alcohol, sugar, simple carbs and trans-fats. In other words, EAT CLEAN.

Your body needs certain nutrients from foods to eliminate toxic chemicals. A quality, plant-based diet will always help promote your body’s natural detox system. The key is consuming a variety of these foods on a daily basis, not just seeking out detox foods following an indulgent holiday party.

Our bodies naturally detox themselves every single day. That’s why we have a liver and kidneys. Every time you pee, poop, or sweat, you’re getting rid of waste products that could otherwise harm your body.

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Understanding Metabolism

Metabolism refers to biochemical processes that allow people to grow, reproduce, repair damage, and respond to their environment. It is a common belief that slim people have a higher metabolism and overweight people have a slower metabolism.

But people’s body weight is a result of catabolism minus anabolism, known as metabolism. People understand this as the amount of calories you consume minus the amount of calories that you burn. But let’s understand this better and more in depth.

Catabolism creates the energy that anabolism consumes for synthesizing hormones, enzymes, sugars, and other substances for cell growth, reproduction, and tissue repair. The excess energy is stored either as fat or glycogen in the muscles and liver. Becoming overweight is a result of the body storing excess energy as fat, but sometimes, hormonal problems or an underlying medical condition may affect metabolism.

Catabolism is the breaking down of compounds to release energy. It provides the energy our bodies need for physical activity, from cellular processes to body movements:

• Polysaccharides are broken down into monosaccharides – starch is broken down into glucose.
• Nucleic acids are broken down into nucleotides – nucleic acids are broken down to purines, pyrimidines, and pentose sugars. These are involved in the body’s energy supply.
• Proteins are broken down into amino acids – protein is broken down into amino acids to make glucose.

Anabolism is the building of compounds, which uses energy. It allows the body to grow new cells and maintain all the tissues. Anabolic reactions in the body use simple chemicals and molecules for the growth and mineralization of bone and increases in muscle mass. Classic anabolic hormones include:

• Growth hormone – stimulates growth.
• Insulin – regulates the level of sugar glucose in the blood.
• Testosterone – strengthens muscles and bone.
• Estrogen – strengthening bone mass.

Factors that affect metabolism:

1. Body size and composition – A larger body mass requires more calories. People with more muscle in relation to fat will require more calories than individuals who weigh the same but have less muscle in relation to fat. Therefore, people with a higher muscle to fat ratio have a higher basal metabolic rate than people with a lower muscle to fat ratio.
2. Gender – men have a higher metabolic rate than women because their muscle-to-fat ratio is higher. Men will burn more calories than women.
3. Age – As people age, muscle mass drops, resulting in a higher fat-muscle ratio.
4. Hormones – men produce less testosterone and women produce less estrogen with age requiring less calories for anabolic processes that consume energy.
5. Menopause – There is a drop in hormones that normally promote energy use. Many women find it harder to lose weight during this time.
6. Physical activity – older adults tend to be less physically active requiring less calories.

Losing weight

Focusing on three crucial factors is the best approach; these are:

1. Getting enough sleep: Lack of sleep can contribute to a disturbance in neuroendocrine control of appetite, damaging the body’s ability to lower levels of leptin, the hormone that tells the body when it is full.
2. Getting enough exercise: Only a moderate amount of exercise is needed to show benefit.
3. Improving diet and nutrition: The best way to improve diet and nutrition is to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables. Managing the number of calories consumed each day is an important factor in weight control, especially if attempting to lose weight.

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Good Carbs vs Bad Carbs

Carbs are the raw material that power your body. You need them to make sugar for energy. They come in two types: simple and complex. What’s the difference?

Simple carbs are like quick-burning fuels. They break down fast into sugar in your system. You want to eat less of this type.
Complex carbs are usually a better choice. It takes your body longer to break them down.

Nutrition labels offer an easy way to spot added sugar, the source of simple carbs that you want to cut back on. Just look for words that end in “ose.” The chemical name for table sugar is sucrose. Other names you might see include fructose, dextrose, and maltose. The higher up they appear in the ingredients list, the more added sugar the food has.

Good news is, carbs occur naturally in some foods:
Fruit: They have simple carbs, but they’re still a healthy choice. They’ve got fiber in them, which helps slow the breakdown of sugar. Plus, nutrients like vitamin C and potassium.
Starchy vegetables: sweet potatoes, squash, and pumpkin are great sources of complex carbs.
Beans: Good complex carbs – kidney, white, black, pinto, lentils, split peas, or garbanzo, beans have lots of fiber.
Popcorn: is a whole grain and it’s got complex carbs and fiber. Your healthiest choice is air-popped, without any added fat and salt.
Grains: Quinoa, bulgur, and triticale, a hybrid of wheat and rye, are great sources of complex carbs too.
Rice: White rice is a “refined” grain, meaning it has lost some key nutrients during processing, like fiber. But brown rice is a whole grain, a good source of complex carbs.
Milk: and other dairy products contain lactose, or milk sugar which is a simple carb, you might want to have it with moderation.
Bread: made with whole grains -Barley, rye, oats, and whole wheat- are some top choices of complex carbs.

WARNINGS:

• Some drinks are a sneaky source of simple carbs. Soda for example, is often high-fructose corn syrup. It’s right there on the nutrition label, usually one of the first ingredients listed. Terrible choice. Leave it off your diet.
• Sweetening: Go easy on brown sugar, maple syrup, honey, and molasses. And don’t overdo it on sweeteners, like turbinado and agave nectar. They’re also sources of simple carbs.

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Sugar, your WORST Enemy

Whole foods like fruits, veggies, dairy, and grains have natural sugars. Your body digests those carbs slowly so your cells get a steady supply of energy. Added sugars, on the other hand, come in packaged foods and drinks. Your body does not need any added sugars, it has no nutritional benefit.

I recommend cutting sugar all the way from your diet, though that can be a real challenge, unless you eat raw all the time. Here are the Harms of consuming it:

1. Weight Gain: Sugar-sweetened beverages are a big source of added sugars. If you don’t trim calories elsewhere (exercising for example) you’ll gain weight. Putting on too much weight can lead to problems like diabetes and some cancers.
2. Heart Disease: Extra sugar raises your blood pressure or releases more fats into the bloodstream. Both can lead to heart attack, stroke, and other heart diseases.
3. Diabetes: When sugar stays in your blood, your body may react by making less of the hormone insulin, that deficiency is called diabetes.
4. High Blood Pressure: Usually, salt gets the blame for this condition, but sugar raises blood pressure by making your insulin levels spike too high. That can make your blood vessels less flexible and cause your kidneys to hold onto water and sodium.
5. High Cholesterol: Sugary diets causing over weight hike blood fats called triglycerides and hinder the work of the enzyme that breaks them down.
6. Liver Disease: Your liver turns added sugars into fat. Tiny drops of fat build up in your liver, called non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
7. Cavities: Sugar feeds the bacteria in your mouth, which leave behind acid that wears away your tooth enamel.
8. Poor Sleep: Too much sugar can mess with your blood glucose levels and cause energy spikes and crashes, causing you to sleep when you need to be alert, and to be hype when you need to sleep.
9. Gout (form of inflammatory arthritis): When your body breaks added sugar down, it releases a chemical called purines. That can make uric acid build up in your blood, which in turn forms hard crystals in your big toe, knees, and other joints.
10. Kidney Stones: You get these when chemicals (added sugars) in your pee turn into solid crystals.

I hope you consider this information seriously and start reducing the amount of sugar on your diet!

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Gut Health to Control Your Weight

The composition of your gut microbiome is a crucial factor in gaining and losing weight.

Most of your gut microbiome, or your intestinal flora, is dominated by two classes of bacteria—firmicutes and Bacteroidetes.

Bacteroidetes are the ones we want to have more of. They specialize in breaking down bulky plant starches and fibers into energy that the body can immediately use, so that it’s not stored as fat.
Firmicutes on the other hand, convert food to energy, promote the storage of fat in the body, and also help produce serotonin, the feel-good hormone. Then, that the more you eat, the more your fat-storage-promoting firmicutes flourish, generating more serotonin, therefore more cravings too.

When you change your diet over the long term, you can change your gut bacteria. Here’s how to help your gut help you achieve, or maintain, a healthy weight.

Eat your greens, Bacteroidetes feed on fiber and resistant starches—a.k.a. vegetables. Studies have found that eating a plant-rich diet increases bacteroidetes and reduces firmicutes, while a typical meat-heavy diet does the opposite.

Consume probiotics, they indirectly encourage weight loss by helping block fat absorption. Find it in yogurt, greek preferably, or fermented foods such as: kimchi, kombucha, sauerkraut, kefir.

Avoid unnecessary antibiotics, they wipe out all your bacteria, the good and the bad.

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20 Snacks Under 100 Calories

Often, snacks aren’t eaten because you’re hungry, but because you are bored. Though, snacking smart helps you keep your metabolism running and burning calories, and choosing right will give you the vitamins and nutrients that your body needs. Optimize the timing of healthy snacks between your meals:

• 1 cup of Blueberries: antioxidants
• 1 Hard-Boiled Egg: 6 gr. protein
• 1 Orange: fiber
• 1 Cup of Strawberries: antioxidants
• 1 piece of String Cheese: 8 gr. protein
• ½ cup of oatmeal (cooked with water): fiber and protein
• 1 handful of almonds: protein and good fats
• ¼ cup of dried cranberries: antioxidants
• 8 baby carrots with 1 tablespoon of dip (hummus, tzatziki, etc.): vitamin A
• 1 slice of raisin (whole wheat) bread: fiber
• 1 cup of whole wheat cereal (no sugar): fiber
• 1 berry smoothie: vitamin A
• 1 cup of fresh melon: fiber
• 20 pistachios: good fats
• 3 cups of air popped popcorn: fiber
• Cut vegetables and 2 tablespoons of low fat ranch dressing: fiber, vitamins
• 2 tablespoons of hummus: protein
• Small latte with skim/vegetable milk: protein, calcium
• ½ cup of cottage cheese with cucumbers: protein, fiber
• Nonfat greek yogurt: protein
• Basically, any fruit. 1 piece or 1 cup

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Beat Belly Fat

Fat that accumulates around the vital organs and around the mid- section is known as visceral fat. It’s the most harmful type of fat because it produces inflammation, which affects the rest of the body and leads to a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

To reduce weight in this area, it’s important to go on a diet that includes plenty of fruits and vegetables, lean protein, low-fat dairy, and whole grains, and to reduce portion sizes and therefore caloric intake.

To hasten the movement of visceral body fat, it’s also important to exercise — aerobically and with weights, cardiovascular exercise with resistance training. This will help you build lean muscle and lose as much fat as possible. Abdominal exercises will help tone your muscles but won’t help you preferentially lose fat from the belly area.

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