Tag Archives: losing weight

Some Things You Can Do to Assist In Your Diet

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Want to lose weight, well there are 7 strategies you have to do to psychologically and physically set yourself up to lose weight!

strategy

1.   Organize Your Home: A disorganized home can interfere with achieving your health and fitness goals. Assess the mess in your home by going through every room and decide what needs to be dealt with (purge too), and then figure out a way to keep it organized permanently.

2. Shop Healthy: Stop buying junk foods and replace them with high-quality nutritious foods.  You’ll ultimately save on those doctor bills because you will get healthier. Cut costs by creating a weekly meal plan for breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, as well as snacks, and then tally up the ingredients you’ll need and prepare a shopping list.

3. Cook and Prepare Meals in Advance:  If a busy schedule is keeping you from making homemade meals, knowing that there is already something healthy in the fridge or freezer that you can simply reheat will help you resist fast food or other unhealthy dining options. Cook a few meals in advance each week to serve midweek or later. Soups, casseroles, and stews made with lean protein and plenty of vegetables and they can be frozen and used later on.  I cook things on Sunday and have them throughout the week.

4.  Take Time to Eat at Each Mealtime: Taking the time to savor your meals can actually aid your weight-loss. When you sit down to enjoy what you’re eating, thinking about every bite, you’ll feel more satisfied and eat less. Mealtime is also designed to give you a break from your hectic schedule and allow you to catch up on what’s happening in the lives of your family and/or friends. This is also good role modeling for your children.

5.  Healthy Snacks:  Regular mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacking can be a challenge, particularly when you’re on the go. But with some planning and preparation, you can put together a healthy assortment of snacks to help curb your hunger and prevent cravings. Bring a bag containing healthy options like part-skim mozzarella cheese sticks, chopped veggies, low-carb protein bars or shakes, measured out nuts or nut butter, hard-boiled eggs, and/or lean deli meats.

6. Prioritize Consistent Exercise:  I have classes and incorporate them into my weekly calendar.  I think of it as like going to my second job.  I just do it. Regular exercise can help keep your metabolism revved so you lose weight faster. In addition, exercise can also help prevent the onset of diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, by reducing belly fat, high cholesterol, and high triglycerides.  Get at least 20 minutes of either cardio conditioning or core-strengthening exercise on most days of the week. But you should also aim to move more every day. The smallest movements add up and will improve your weight-loss results.

7.  Get Sleep!  You can never be truly healthy if you don’t get enough quality sleep. Recent studies show that people who sleep less tend to weigh more. Being sleep-deprived can also increase your risk of diabetes, heart disease, and other health problems. Also, if you are groggy throughout the day, you are more likely to snack and therefore, mess up your diet. If you continue to have trouble sleeping, see your doctor about assistance.  Try taking herbal supplements and turn off the electronics a good 30-60 minutes before bed.  The light from these items can affect your sleep.

 

The Little-Known Hero of Weight Loss: SLEEP!

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More information is out about how sleep influences body fat composition.  The moral of this story is that a piece of the weight loss puzzle is that you must have a consistent bed time, a consistent wake up time and not get between 6.5 and 8.5 hours per day.

sleep-unsung-hero-fat-loss

http://www.elements4health.com/sleep-quality-and-timing-influences-body-fat-composition.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+elements4health%2FmTrh+%28Elements4Health+%29

The main findings from the study, published online in the American Journal of Health Promotion:

  • A consistent bed time and, especially, a consistent wake time are related to lower body fat.
  • Getting less than 6.5 or more than 8.5 hours of sleep per night is associated with higher body fat.
  • Quality of sleep is important for body composition.

It is important to go to bed and wake up around the same time daily.

  • Study participants who went to bed and woke up at, or around the same time each day had lower body fat. Those with more than 90 minutes of variation in sleep and wake time during the week had higher body fat than those with less than 60 minutes of variation.
  • Wake time was particularly linked to body fat: Those who woke up at the same time each morning had lower body fat. Staying up late and even sleeping in may be doing more harm than good, Bailey said.

“We have these internal clocks and throwing them off and not allowing them to get into a pattern does have an impact on our physiology,” Bailey said.

 

 

11 Ways To Deal With Cravings When On A Diet!

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I hear this all of the time and I went through it too. I sometimes still do. How do you get through cravings, especially at home at night. or mid-day?

11 Ways to get you through cravings:
1.  You have to set a goal.

I told myself every morning that I was on a MISSION and that mission had to be done, no matter what.  I set a goal to lose a certain amount of weight.

2.  Recognize that cravings mean something and fix the problem before it becomes a problem.

First off, sometimes you will crave things because you are deficient in a vitamin or mineral.  People who crave steak are low in iron, bananas–potassium,chocolate-magnesium, etc.  So, take a MULTIVITAMIN AND MULTIMINERAL all through your diet and after to help with unnecessary cravings.

3.  Go shopping and only buy the foods you are going to eat on the diet.  Do not buy junk.


Royalty-Free Stock<br /> Photography by Rubberball Oh, you have kids?
You want junk for the kids and you are afraid you will eat it too? Well, I have something controversial to say here. Screw that!
That junk hurts your body and mind, and it is not only BAD for your kids (they need white flour and sugar like a hole in the head), but you are also setting them up on a path of weight gain in their future too by allowing them to get hooked on pure sugar crap!  Teach them to enjoy healthy, tasty options for their snacks.  Nuts, fruit, cheese, protein bars.  The Nature Valley Protein Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter bar (for instance) or their other Protein bars or any of the Power Crunch bars are low in carbs, high in protein.  What the heck is wrong with those options?  Cheetos, Doritos, Tortilla chips, candy, cheese balls–are all BAD, BAD options and will only make you sick. Buy low-carb baking books, look it up online, buy low carb food books, buy low-carb options at the market or online at places like netrition.com or low-carb stores online.  Some items are at speciality stores.
low carb 4. Stop baking BAD stuff (look up better low-carb options online.

No more baking crap white flour nonsense in the house.  Just knock it off. You don’t need it.  Oh, your kid enjoys it?  Well, too bad.  You all need to find a healthier hobby or learn sugar-free options for baking and look at number one (set a goal) and go shopping (rule 3) and get new stuff to bake. Having bad food baking and wafting through the house is torture on a diet.  It will just pull you back into the dark side of bad fattening food. If it is made with white flour–NO! You or your kids have to find recipes using coconut, almond or flax meal and make those things.  Step outside of your fattening comfort zone and learn new tricks.  Teach your loved ones to eat better WITH you.

YES!  YOU WILL HAVE CRAVINGS THAT ARE DIFFICULT THE FIRST WEEK AFTER GIVING UP SUGAR AND SIMPLE CARBS.  IT IS THE BODY DETOXING.  YOU WILL GET THROUGH IT.  JUST KEEP DRINKING WATER (COFFEE WAS MY SAVIOR).  IT WILL EVENTUALLY STOP.  YOU WON’T DIE.  AFTER AWHILE, YOUR BODY WILL JUST CRAVE THE GOOD FOOD.  IT IS LIKE GETTING OFF OF ANY DRUG.  PEOPLE ARE ADDICTED TO SUGAR.  IT IS NOT GOOD FOR YOU AND IT IS MAKING YOU FAT AND UNHEALTHY.  GROW SOME BALLS AND DEAL WITH IT.  🙂

5.  Tape a picture of yourself looking fat on the refrigerator so that you will be reminded why you are on the diet in the first place.

6. Throw out the bad food or give it away.

If it is there, you are gonna eat it!

7. Drink water and have lots of sugar-free options to drink.

Drink every time you are hungry, to help stop cravings.

8.  If you are desperate and it is in between the time of 3-4 hours from your last protein meal (out of six for the day), then have a protein “hit.”

 

food-cravings –a piece of low-fat string cheese, a slice of turkey, an egg, a protein drink with few carbs in it–but have a protein “hit”, so you get through the cravings, until your next meal.

9.  Find a distraction.

Read, get online, call a friend, or go exercise.  Exercise or walking the dog helps me. Exercising at least 30 minutes a day, 3 times a week, not only burns calories, it helps reduce cravings. So, move!

10.  Find ways to de-stress.

Meditation, yoga, listening to music.  Anxiety can make people eat.  They have “emotional” eating.  Most emotional eating is from anxiety.  This is why I love yoga–between the exercise and the wind down meditative time, I am pretty chill. Take an L-Theanine 200 mg (a totally natural amino acid that
lowers anxiety like nothing I have ever tried and there are NO side effects.  Look it up.)

11.  Keep a diet journal showing what you ate and the number of carbs per meal and tally it all up daily.  Also, use that journal to write when you are emotional and try to process what is bothering you instead of eating.

Consider therapy or a group like Overeaters Anonymous.  Or, if you must eat, follow rule number 7 and avoid so-called, “comfort” foods.  Those foods will only make you feel UNcomfortable tomorrow when you gained weight!  

Eating Eggs for Breakfast Makes It Easier to Lose Weight

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There is proof that eggs should be the first thing you eat every morning in order to be skinny.

There were a few studies on having eggs first thing in the morning. One study published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition determined that an egg the first thing each morning could help with limiting calorie intake throughout the day. The study reported that leucine, an essential amino acid that is found in high quality protein such as eggs, can give a weight loss advantage when dieting by helping to decrease loss of lean tissue, increase loss of body fat, as well as stabilize blood glucose levels.

study story

Breakfast Skinny Rules

If you eat 6 low-carb, protein meals per day, as part of the Skinny Rules, you should start your day with eggs. Until you reach maintenance, and you are still losing, stick to one egg in the morning or two egg whites, scrambled, omelette, etc. I put spinach and mushrooms in mine. I also get hard-boiled eggs and always have them available to pop in my mouth, if I am running out the door, with no time to cook.

What kind of Eggs?

There are many different ways to prepare eggs. frittata, scrambled, over easy or hard, omelette, and even deviled eggs. Here is the recipe for low-carb, delish devils eggs, poached, etc. You can double the amount of egg if you use egg whites. These are also sold, ready to our from cartons.

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a Couple of Good Low-Carb Egg Recipes

I just found a recipe for low carb egg muffins. They look fantastic and I hope to make them soon. If anyone beats me to it, tell me what you think.
egg muffins

The deviled eggs:
deviled eggs

Do You Know That Stress Can Make You Fat?

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What’s so bad About Stress?

Under normal daily stress conditions, normal cortisol levels (stress hormones) help the body control blood pressure, blood sugar levels, and even inflammation. But, in prolonged stress. When stress becomes chronic, too much cortisol in the body wreaks havoc.

cortisol-chart2 copy

Signs & Symptoms of a Cortisol Imbalance

Chronically elevated cortisol levels may contribute to:

  • Thyroid problems
  • Cognitive decline
  • Sleep disorders
  • Anxiety & depression
  • Compromised immune function
  • Increased blood pressure

Do you think you’re a  victim of increased cortisol levels.  Speak to your doctor, but the following questions may help you discern if you’re suffering from a cortisol imbalance.

  • Do you suffer from depression, anxiety, nervousness or irritability?
  • Do you struggle with sleep waking frequently in the middle of the night, unable to get back to sleep?
  • Do you feel light-headed when standing up quickly?
  • Do you crave carbs?
  • Do you struggle with weight gain?
  • Do you have high blood pressure?

If you answered yes to more than one of those questions, you may have a cortisol imbalance.

Your doctor can conduct  a 4-point salivary test.  Saliva has been proven to be a better source of cortisol testing over blood and offers concrete results.

Tips for Controlling Cortisol Levels

You should always consult your physician when it comes to achieving healthy cortisol levels.

However, these lifestyle changes may be of help when dealing with a cortisol imbalance.

  • Eat REAL food. Limit or avoid packaged, processed and non-organic foods.
  • Avoid additives and dyes. Additives, preservatives, GMOs, dyes, food coloring, hormones, pesticides, and antibiotics increase the toxic load to the liver – adding stress to the body.
  • Avoid sugars. Cortisol causes gluconeogenesis, the production of sugar from non-carb sources – elevating blood sugar levels. Avoid a diet heavy in starchy carbohydrates and added sugars to help counteract the response of cortisol.
  • Eat healthy fats and/or Take Omega 3 Fish Oil. Omega-3 fatty acids, are anti-inflammatory and help counter the inflammatory effects of cortisol. Try adding a quality omega 3 fish oil into your daily diet.
  • Drink water! Water will help hydrate cells and detoxify the body. Stay hydrated!
  • Get Your ZZZ’s. Sleep is the most important thing when it comes to reducing cortisol and restoring the adrenal glands. Aim for  7-8 hours of sleep. Have trouble falling asleep?  Turn off all artificial light. Artificial light tricks the body into releasing more cortisol, suppressing melatonin, making it difficult to fall asleep.
  • Take a multivitamin daily.

Your doctor can conduct a test, but there are some saliva tests you can do yourself through online services like this one.

http://www.redlinepharmacy.com/store/hormone-test-kits.html

“I don’t have time to exercise!”

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How many times have I heard that excuse? I used to use it myself. But, at some point, i decided that i had to take care of my body. wherever i went, my body had to take me there. not finding the strength to fight fatigue and pain only made my health conditions worse, which led to a decay of my physical body, my spirit, my home and my relationships. putting out the energy helps your body to make more, better energy.

Also, if you wind up with the consequences of being heavy, that will make your life even more difficult, so exercise is a preventative measure. How do you think you would do with diabetes, heart failure, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, gastric heartburn, clogged arteries, a stroke, death? Fix yourself before you can’t? If only James Gandolfini (Sopranos) took his weight and being out of shape more seriously. RIP.

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Starting is the hard part, so you need to start slow and easy. Don’t overdo it and then hate it. Just 15 minutes a day is a great start. it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. I started with light stretching and yoga once a week, then twice a week, then added in a little walking the dogs daily, then added in Pilates too and after a few years, I was walking on an elliptical and doing Pilates and yoga. Now, I try to walk an hour on the elliptical at least 4 days a week and I am writing my blog on the elliptical right now.

I had to schedule exercise in just like a J-O-B and make it a part of my daily tasks…because if you don’t, the reverberation effect of that is that you will start to feel like is crap (and l started to look like crap too).

I have seen men (visual creatures) not attracted to their wives anymore when they get too big (and vice versa on the genders), despite the fact that the woman usually got bigger taking eating junk shortcuts throughout the day, quick snacks and not exercising….and doing too much around the house and for the kids– FOR the man.

It doesn’t matter, no matter how you cut it, exercise is a natural need for humans and it is better for your psyche, mental health, physical health and your self-esteem to exercise and maintain a healthy weight. Diet is important, as I write about how to do it almost every blog.

But today, we will go over ways to find 10 ways to find time to exercise:

1. Log off of Facebook. Get in and out. Don’t spend all day in there and don’t play those addictive games. You need to move! Just 15 minutes of weight-bearing exercises, walking around the house or in the yard, or doing an exercise DVD–just 15 minutes a day adds up to 7 hours a month. Set a timer because the Internet can suck hours out of your day before you know it.

20130711-223101.jpg

(I use my IPad on my elliptical and therefore, I get an hour of walking in and that is when I do all of my email and Facebook stuff!–even Words with Friends. I stop at that game though, no time. I choose real Pilates over Candy Crush.)

2. Learn to JUST SAY NO!  Seriously, stop doing so much. Someone wants you to drive them somewhere or needs to bend your bear over their relationship that they have discussed with you over and over and over again–STOP wasting precious ME time on that. Schedule your exercise if you have to and tell everyone, don’t bug me between 7 and 7:15 or more because I am tied up at that time. Put yourself first, because no one else will do it! Some of the NICEST people I know are the biggest and most out of shape because they are TOO nice and hardly ever put themselves first!

3. Number 2 leads to –PLAN OUT your day. Make your plans of what you will do for the day and make exercise part of the daily time schedule. Maybe doing it early helps, or maybe late after the kids have gotten home and your spouse is there to help. If you like to socialize. Instead of meeting a friend for lunch, meet them for a walk. Whatever works for you. I have all exercise planned on my Google calendar. Put it down on a calendar and therefore, you will feel more compelled to do it.

4. Record TV shows and watch with the commercials zoomed out and save time.  Also, condense…..if you are watching more TV than you have time for and you find you can’t exercise, you are not taking care of yourself. You are being sucked into the tube. Sometimes, I exercise in front of my shows–then I feel like I kill two birds with one stone.

5. Don’t waste time on hobbies and unimportant projects to distract you until your home chores, time with family and your exercise are done. Exercise first and if there is time left over, then organize your wrapping paper or whatever it is you think you have to do. Chances are that if you exercise first, you will have more energy later to organize things. Many people think that they will be too wiped out after a workout. That lasts a short time, but the endorphins actually rev you up. I get more done after I have worked out than without working out.

6. Don’t be a perfectionist. You don’t have to have your house perfect or your workout perfect to out in -15 minutes a day. Even 15 minutes of light vacuuming can burn 50 to 100 calories, so for heaven’s sake…move your body. Challenge yourself and get a pedometer for a few bucks, put it on you and try to get in around 12,000 steps a day. If you only get 8,000–that is fine, just get started.

Exercise is a journey, it is the experience of doing it, not the destination that you should focus on!

The first thing people ever see is you (YOUR PHYSICAL BODY).  Most people will not even see the inside of your house, so what is the urgency to make IT look perfect and not have time for doing the same to your body!?

7. You have too much housekeeping to do because you are a working mom? I hear that all of the time, but if you have money to go out to eat or drink, or have new cars or toys, then you need to budget it out to have a cleaning service come to your house at least twice a month and remove that burden of deep cleaning. You will gain 2 weeks worth of 15 minutes of exercise a day for not having to clean your tubs, toilets or sinks!

If you are super broke, then you need to ask for help. Tell your husband or wife that you need to work out and you need their help. Give your kids chores. I see way too many kids not doing anything, which will then lead to their laziness and weight gain too. Tell everyone, let’s all clean 15 minutes a day together. More will get done fast and you can all burn calories and fat. Four people at 15 minutes of clean up after dinner a day, five days a week equals 5 hours of cleaning the house each week.

8. Be more organized and find a place for everything so you don’t waste precious exercise time constantly looking for things that are misplaced. This also feels better mentally too.

9. Get up 15 minutes earlier to exercise.

10. Set out your workout clothes the night before to be ready and give you motivation to workout.

And say what you will, but nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels…but also, if you show love to yourself, it shows on the outside and your partner also sees it in more than a physical level. It shows up mentally and spiritually too. There is nothing sexy about a clean house, dinner on the table and a wife who has let herself go for those things to look good. So do average on the home and take that time for yourself physically. Because no one cares what level you are at on Candy Crush or WWF(are you addicted?) But, you won’t like clothes shopping or bikini season, when the time comes.

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How to Count Calories

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I prefer to count carbs and watch my portion control.  I eat 50-100g of carbs per day, have 6 small portions of proteins a day, four small servings of veggies and two small servings of fruit each day, two small salads per day, watching what choices I make on all of them.  However, some people want to know how to count calories.  Here is how:

    1. Determine How Many Calories You Should EatHow many calories you need to eat to maintain your current weight depends on factors such as your gender, age, height, weight, and activity level. Your body uses about two-thirds of the calories you consume each day just to keep its systems functioning — your heart beating, your muscles moving. The rest of your calorie intake, according to My Calorie Counter, fuels everyday activities.To find out your ideal caloric intake, start by calculating what’s known as your base metabolic rate (BMR):
      • Women: Multiply your weight by 10. Men: Multiply by 11. This is your BMR.
      • Now add to that 20 percent of your BMR if you have a sedentary lifestyle; 30 percent if you are somewhat active; 40 percent if you are moderately active; or 50 percent if you are very active.
      • The number you get is how many calories you need to maintain your weight.

1.  Count How Many Calories You Actually Eat and Burn

You can track your calories online at MyCalorieCounter.com or their app.  Also, you can list how many calories you burned.

You can easily cut 500 calories by making small diet and exercise changes throughout your day. Here’s one approach:

      • Breakfast: Drink water instead of orange juice (calories saved: 117)
      • Snack: Have sliced cucumber and a tablespoon of hummus instead of a bag of chips (calories saved: 119)
      • Lunch: Swap out your salad’s creamy ranch dressing for fat-free Italian (calories saved: 66)
      • Dessert: Eat half of a cup of strawberries instead of a half of a cup of chocolate ice cream (calories saved: 118).
      • Exercise: Stroll at a moderate pace for 30 minutes (calories burned: 125 for a woman weighing 145)

2.  Get Portion Saavy.

In a world where SUPERSIZED is the new normal, these tips can help you recognize what a healthy portion looks like, which can help you keep calories in check:

    • Think of a tennis ball. It’s the equivalent of one cup of food, which is the recommended portion for such foods as pasta, cereal, and yogurt.
    • Don’t eat straight out of the container or bag. It’s a recipe for mindlessly overeating. Instead, measure a serving size of whatever you’re noshing on — almonds, soy chips, or other snacks — and put it on a plate or in a bowl.
    • Use smaller plates. Trick your mind into thinking that you have more food by downsizing your large dinner plate for a smaller salad-sized one. A healthy portion can look teeny on a huge plate but will seem more normal when you shrink its surroundings.
    • Spoil your appetite with nutritious food. Try eating celery sticks with peanut butter an hour before mealtime.

Remember to keep portion size in control and count calories and/or carbs!  Read labels!

counting-calories

Proof Why Fad Diet Don’t Work and Why You Have to Cut Carbs and Learn Portion Control

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http://www.elements4health.com/cutting-calories-changes-the-way-the-brain-makes-food-choices.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+elements4health%2FmTrh+%28Elements4Health+%29

Results suggest that restricting food intake increases the reward value of food, particularly high-calorie, appetizing food , and that the more successful people are at caloric-restriction dieting, the greater difficulty they will face in maintaining the restriction.  Additionally, abstaining from food intake for longer durations of time also increases the reward value of food, which may lead to poor food choices when the individual eventually does eat.

The implications of this imaging study show that if people want to lose excess weight, it would be more effective to consume healthy, low-fat/low-sugar foods during regular meals, rather than go for long periods of time without any caloric intake.  So, for those who do the cleanses, HCG drops, Protein Shakes all day long type of dieting, they are more likely to gain their weight back than those who do slower low-fat and low sugar/carb diets, which involve regular daily meals.

My daily food plan involves 6 protein based meals a day, with two small salads, four small servings of vegetables (not starchy ones) and two small servings of low carb fruits a day.  I also exercise.  I have maintained my weight loss for over a year now.  This way of dieting is way more successful.  It isn’t  really a diet, it is just a new way to eat outside of the old stupid way that I ate, which got me fat in the first place.  You just have re-train your brain to eat the right and healthy way.

dietsucks

Non-Starchy Vegetables vs. Starchy Vegetables

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When wanting to lose weight and maintain your weight,  you need to be conscious of how many carbs you get into your diet daily.  YES, you want vegetables, but many people mistakenly think of potatoes of any kind as an innocent vegetable.  You need to get 4 small servings of vegetables a day (about half a cup of each serving), but if it is a STARCHY vegetable, not so much.  You need to cut down the serving by half if it is carrots and you have to be aware that I gave up starchy vegetables altogether.  Now, you can have them if you like, especially in maintenance, but be aware of what they do to your body.

First, the good they do.  Potatoes are a very good source of vitamin C and potassium and a good source of folate, vitamin B6, and manganese. They also contain a fairly high concentration of antioxidant phytonutrients.

The problem with potatoes is that they are high on the glycemic index.

Estimated Glycemic Load of Potatoes

  • ½ cup diced raw potato: 6
  • 1 medium potato (2½ to 3½ inches in diameter; about 7.5 oz):17
  • 1 large potato (3 to 4½ inches in diameter; about 13 oz): 29
  • ½ cup mashed potato made with milk (no butter): 8
  • ½ cup mashed potato made from dehydrated (instant) potatoes with milk: 7
  • The glycemic index gives us an idea of which foods raise our blood glucose fastest and highest.
  • BY COMPARISON:  one serving of broccoli is 8, one serving of cauliflower is 1 , and spinach is 0.

  • Why is this important?

    Many people have problems processing large increases in blood glucose.  Having blood glucose that is too high, is on the road to diabetes and the way to correct this is to cut carbs and eat foods lower in glycemic index numbers.

  • Eating pure glucose is given a ranking of 100 — all other foods are in relation to this. So a food with a glycemic index of 95 raises blood sugar almost as much as pure glucose, but a food with a glycemic index of 20 doesn’t raise blood sugar much at all. It’s important to keep in mind, though, that the glycemic index does not take portion size into account. The actual amount any food raises blood sugar has to do both with how glycemic it is, and how much of it you eat. The glycemic load attempts to combine these concepts, and some diets are using the glycemic load for this reason.


 lowcarbveggies

Vegetables LOW in carbs:

  • Sprouts, alfalfa and other small seeds (sprouted legumes have more carb)
  • Greens – lettuce, spinach, chard, etc.
  • Hearty Greens – collards, mustard greens, kale, etc.
  • Radicchio and endive count as greens
  • Herbs – parsley, cilantro, basil, rosemary, thyme, etc.
  • Bok Choy
  • Bamboo Shoots
  • Celery
  • Radishes
  • Sea Vegetables (Nori, etc)
  • Mushrooms
  • Cabbage(or sauerkraut)
  • Jicama
  • Avocado
  • Asparagus
  • Okra
  • Cucumbers (or pickles without added sugars)
  • Green Beans
  • Fennel
  • Cauliflower
  • Brocolli
  • Peppers
  • Zuchinni
  • Summer Squash

So, eat your VEGGIES and choose wisely.

P.S.  The carb content of the above mentioned items per serving:

cauliflower, brocoli  1-3g of carbs, spinach is 0-1 g of carbs and a potato is 35g for a medium potato.  See the difference?  If you want to stay skinny, you can’t have more than 50-100g of carbs a day.  35g is a lot for ONE item for the day.