Glycemic Load: What you should know

In my last post I explained that the popularity of glycemic index among dieters is based on myths about the affect of insulin on hunger, fat storage and weight gain. Glycemic index does have value however, just not what the fad-diet books claimed.

The glycemic index (GI) value of a particular food tells you how rapidly exactly 50 grams of carbohydrate from that food will move into your blood. The weakness of the glycemic index is that you don't generally eat food portions that provide exactly 50-grams of carbohydrate.

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Would your food log look like a crime scene?

 If you want to lose weight, but are avoiding keeping a food journal you may need to ask yourself why you’re avoiding that task? What you’re eating can all be healthy, while at the same time the amount you’re eating and drinking can be adding up to way too much.

Without keeping a food record it’s easy to not be fully aware of your portion sizes, and it’s easy to forget the extra calories in side items, between meal snacks, and beverages.

For example, years ago when I was a rooky health educator, a patient from the hospital-based weight maintenance program I was working in came to my office asking for help.

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6 Keys to Mastering the Evening Meal (Part 2)

Part Two: Keys 3 - 6

Yesterday we talked about planning ahead, and creating a cook-friendly kitchen, all in the effort to make getting a healthy and nutritious meal on the table easier than you believed is possible. Today we cover four more keys to that end.

3. Keep staples stocked. There are certain items that store well and that can be used in a number of dishes or that can make meals themselves (pasta, spaghetti sauce, rice, etc.). Having these items on hand can help ease nightly preparation, as well as serve as quick-fixes when in a pinch.  Here’s a minimal basic list of staples to start with, which you can add items to as you determine what best suits your needs.

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6 Keys to Mastering the Evening Meal

Part One: Keys 1 & 2

Mealtime, a once honored and treasured family experience, has become challenging with our demanding and fast-paced lives. Between the demands of work, time spent commuting, responsibilities as a parent, etc., etc.; it is often hard to find the time or energy for preparing a meal. Cooking, however, can actually be a pleasant way to unwind and can have, as its end, a nutritious and satisfying meal that everyone will enjoy.

If you buy into the goal of getting a healthy and nutritious meal on the table for your family, then let’s explore six keys (just the first two today) for making mealtime an experience that you’ll look forward to and enjoy.

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Information you can trust? Or, your daily dose of misinformation?

You probably already know that you can't trust what you read about weight loss, or dieting, and that has never been more true than it is today with the internet where anybody can write anything (and they do, every day)!

Combating the misinformation in this area could be a fulltime job! Here are two examples from this morning:

Misleading Article #1 - The best fat-burning breakfasts

This article misleads in two ways:

a. Does "eating breakfast really crank up your metabolism?" Any time you eat, the process of digesting what you ate, creates what is called the "thermic effect of food." The thermic effect of food amounts to an average of 10% of ingested calories on a balanced diet, or about 13% of ingested calories on a high-protein diet. There is however, no increase in your underlying metabolic rate, as the "eat breakfast and boost your metabolism" notion promotes. Eating breakfast has long been associated with lower BMIs (body mass index, a weight to height measure) however, researchers suspect that that's because people who eat breakfast have a generally more healthy lifestyle than non breakfast eaters. For instance, "night eaters" tend to eat one (huge) meal a day, and they don't eat breakfast.

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