10 Diet Rules You Can Break

There are actually diet rules out there that are meant to be broken?

Yes, recently many dated diet guidelines and myths are up for speculation. You’ve probably heard all these silly rules before, but experts weigh-in on the worthiness of these supposed truisms – most of which won’t help you lose weight or make dieting any easier.

10 Food Rules You Can Ignore:

1. Eating at night will pile on the pounds. The total calories you consume over a 24-hour period or over a week is what causes you to gain weight, and when you eat these calories doesn’t matter.

2. It’s best to eat at the same times every day. Eat when you’re hungry, not when the clock says it’s time to eat.

3. Dieting with a buddy always makes weight loss easier. Common goals may pay off but weight loss is a personal journey.

4. Dietary fat keeps you feeling full longer, so you’ll eat less. Fat does take longer to digest, but it will not help you control your appetite. Foods likely to fight off hunger the longest are protein foods, followed by carbohydrates, then fats.

5. When you blow your diet, you might as well wait until the next day to get back on track. Nothing could be farther from the truth- always try to get right back on track with your next meal.

6. Refusing food at a party or when visiting is rude. Turning down food that you know will blow your diet is socially acceptable.

7. Skipping a meal every now and then will help you lose. Skipping a meal means you will be so hungry at the next meal that you are likely to overeat. This can also help lead to a slowdown of your metabolism.

8. Bread is fattening, nuts are fattening, pasta is fattening. Whole-wheat bread/pasta is a great source of nutrients, and it won’t make you gain weight more than any other food with the same number of calories.

9. All calories are equal. This is somewhat true, however; you’ll get more nutrients from a 100-calorie apple than from a 100-calorie portion of white bread. Choose healthier items if you are losing weight, or controlling your hunger.

10. If you don’t clean your plate, you’re wasting food. If you just don’t feel right leaving the table until you’ve cleaned your plate, underestimate your hunger and put less food on your plate to begin with, or you may overeat.

Don’t believe everything you hear! Much of it is just superstition. Now you can tell your friends the real truth. In the end, nutrition experts say, many of the food and dieting rules we hold dear are meant to be broken – without guilt!

10 Diet Rules You Can Break

Berry Time!

Long before winter comes, black bears in the forest spend all their time eating everything  

they can sink their teeth into. During the summer, bears eat and eat and eat, trying to get as fat as they possibly can, and when the weather turns cold, they look for a place to curl up and then they sleep the winter away.

Now, the habits of bears might not seem like something you should try to follow. After all, doctors are always warning us humans that we shouldn’t overeat, and that we shouldn’t spend all of our time lying around, doing nothing.

But there is one part of the black bear’s habits that you should actually try to imitate, because it would be good for your health.

Black bears eat a lot of berries, of many different varieties, such as raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries.

Berries contain natural sugars and wonderful flavors. Unlike many other foods that are really good for you, but which don’t taste good, berries taste great.

And unlike many foods that taste great but which aren’t good for you, berries are among the most health friendly foods you can eat.

It’s only been within the last decade that scientists have started to pay a lot of attention to the health benefits of berries. And what researchers are learning about the health benefits of berries has a lot of exciting potential for human diets.

One of the first major experiments on the health benefits of berries took place at Tufts University about ten years ago.

Researchers were working with a group of aging rats. They fed them diets of various foods to see what the effects would be. Among the foods they tested were strawberries, blueberries, and spinach.

Now these rats were fairly old in terms of “rat years”. In fact, their age was equivalent to humans about 70 years old.

The foods the scientists tested were all very high in beneficial antioxidants, so the scientists wanted to see if any of these foods would boost the physical and mental capabilities of these aging rats.

The researchers found that while several of these foods seemed to offer some antioxidant protection, the rats that had been fed blueberries were the only ones that actually improved in their abilities.

In fact, the rats which had been fed blueberries were able to perform like much younger rats!

This was a very exciting find, and the scientists then wanted to find what it was in the blueberries that produced this very beneficial effect.

It turns out that the chemicals responsible for making these aging rats act mentally younger and perkier were the pigments in the skin of the blueberries.

The compounds that give ripe berries their beautiful colors are the very substances that have such strong anti-oxidant powers. And antioxidants are compounds that help repair some of the damage that happens to our body cells every day.

Scientists have discovered that the darker the berry, the more health benefits it has! Eating two thirds of a cup of blueberries will give you as much anti-oxidant protection as five servings of apples or squash.

The dark pigments in these berries seem to offer protection against cardiovascular disease, degenerative eye disease such as cataracts, and may offer some help in preventing some cancers, and bladder infections.

If the exciting results of the rat studies turn out to also hold true for humans, it may mean that compounds in these dark berries may help protect brain cells from the degenerative diseases of aging.

You can get this fantastic antioxidant protection whether you eat your berries fresh, frozen, or dried.

You can eat berries raw, add them to your favorite cereals, or make a smoothie drink with various berries, fruits, milk and yoghurt. Get creative and find ways to mix berries into your favorite recipes.

In North America, blueberries are available fresh or frozen year round. If you can’t get fresh berries, dried berries are also filled with very concentrated levels of the valuable antioxidants.

If you live in a place where blueberries are not easily available, look for other fruits and berries that have very dark red or dark purple colors.

Foods such as pomegranates, bilberries, cherries, black raspberries, saskatoons or serviceberries also have high levels of these very beneficial dark pigments. These foods offer benefits similar to the benefits of blueberries.

So, think about incorporating at least one habit of bears into your lifestyle – and make berries a frequent part of your diet!

Berry Time!

Healthy Eating Tips For Busy Moms

Moms are constantly on the go.  Whether you are a working mom or a stay-at-home mother, it is hard to find the time to sit and eat a meal, let alone a healthy one.  Here are a few tips to sneak that healthy eating into the busiest of schedules.

Exercise is important but eating is the best way to get the nutrition that you need to keep the body healthy.  If your eating habits are poor, then the benefits of exercise are decreased.  In essence, you are working against yourself.

The world of work has necessitated the need for instant everything, including food.  If you don’t have time for breakfast, you grab a pre-packaged granola bar.  For lunch, you eat a frozen microwaveable meal and grab a soda from the vending machine.  Dinner comes from a fast food restaurant or other takeout place.

For a busy mom, this type of processed eating is not going to yield the energy she needs to make it through the day successfully.  These foods may be okay in a pinch, but they definitely should not be the rule of thumb.  Healthy eating habits for mom also translate into healthy eating habits for the rest of the family as well.

Let’s start with what mom needs to eat.  No more than twelve ounces of protein are needed per day.  People don’t realize that getting that much protein is not hard.  Usually we are getting too much protein which gets stored in the body as fat.  One or two servings of fruit and five to seven servings of vegetables are recommended each day.  Fats should be kept to a minimum with most being unsaturated oils.  Carbohydrates should come in the form of whole grains, beans, and legumes.  Very little processed sugar should be consumed.

The best way to achieve this is pre-planning.  The evening before, plan what you will eat the next day.  Package your snacks into portion sizes and put together your meals.

Weekends are a good time to cook several meals for the week ahead.  This way, the meals can be separated into containers and frozen to be warmed up later.  Because you have prepared the food, you know what types of ingredients are in it.

If you plan to be out during lunch, fix a salad or other meal that does not need refrigeration.  If it does, carry an insulated lunch bag with an ice pack.  This way, you are never without something healthy to eat.

A busy mother can still be a healthy mother.  Use weekends to prepare future meals.  Get the family involved to lessen the work and increase the variety of the meals.

Healthy Eating Tips For Busy Moms