Archive for the 'HEALTHY EATING' Category

Menus and advertising affect our emotions, and if we understand those emotions, we make better food choices, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

Authors Blair Kidwell, David M. Hardesty, and Terry L. Childers (all University of Kentucky) examined the “emotional intelligence” of consumers, including obese people.

They found that people who made the healthiest choices had high correlations between their emotional intelligence and confidence in their emotional intelligence - what the authors call “emotional calibration.”

“When perusing a restaurant menu, many consumers may not be aware of the subtle implicit feelings of arousal elicited by visually appealing presentations of unhealthy food choices,” the authors write.

Faced with choices between healthy food and unhealthy food options, individuals who are confident that they can appropriately interpret and employ their emotions, but who do not actually possess these emotional abilities, are likely to make low-quality decisions.”

In the first of two studies, the authors measured emotional ability, confidence, and nutritional knowledge. They asked participants to plan meals from a menu with a wide range of options - some healthier than others.

They found that people with emotional miscalibration chose foods higher in calories, even more so than people with low levels of nutritional knowledge.

Did you ever feel that stress is making you fat? Weight gain under stress is partly due to hormonal imbalances that can significantly make you to put on some weight.

When you frequently experience stress in your life, it can be quite difficult for you to maintain healthy eating habits.

Whether you are eating to fill your emotional needs or snack fast food as you find no time to prepare something healthy, it is believed that a stressed-out lifestyle is possibly unhealthy for you.

Cortisol hormone plays a critical role!

Cortisol is the stress hormone, which is responsible for various actions in your body. This stress hormone mainly stimulates your body fat and carbohydrates for metabolism process to release energy quickly.

It also stimulates insulin release and maintenance of appropriate blood sugar levels in your body. As a result of these actions, your appetite levels can increase.

When cortisol is excessively secreted during certain situations of psychological or physical stress, the normal pattern of cortisol function is altered. This excessive secretion of cortisol promotes weight gain.

Certain studies show that stress and elevated levels of cortisol mainly lead to fat deposition, particularly in abdominal areas of your body.

Portion sizes are getting larger - fast food super size options, huge popcorn tubs and fizzy drinks at cinemas and bigger ready meals.

This has been linked to rising obesity levels and increased risk of heart disease and stroke, but what can we do about it? What is an acceptable portion size?

It’s easier than you think to overeat protein sources - we should aim for 2 portions a day. One portion is a matchbox-sized piece of cheese, two sausages or a cut of meat the size of a deck of cards, one egg, 100g fish or 3 tbsp. pulses.

We need 4-6 portions of starchy foods a day, but this is soon reached, with portion sizes as little as 2 tbsp. cooked rice, pasta or noodles, 3 tbsp. cereal, a thick slice of bread or an egg-sized potato.

Getting our 5-a-day fruit and veg is also easy - a slice of large fruit like melon, one medium fruit like an apple or banana, two small fruits like plums, 1 tbsp. dried fruit or a glass or fruit juice counts as a portion, as does 3 heaped tbsp. cooked vegetables.

Overeating! This is the most common eating tendency that every one of you can experience at some or other point of your life. But, the problem arises if you do it regularly.

Once if you develop overeating tendency, it is difficult for you to get out of it and certainly it leads to many health problems such as obesity [obesity problem], emotional eating and many more.

Gaining will-power over the food you eat can become an uphill battle for you, but it is not impossible to do.

Reprogramming your every day eating schedule one step at a time is the main key for achieving success to overcome your overeating habit.

To come away from overeating rut, here are certain easy steps, which you can follow to avoid overeating tendency.

4 ways to overcome overeating tendency

Creating a perfect eating routine!

Take necessary help from any diet expert and make necessary changes in your eating routine. Initially, when you change your eating routine, you can feel that you are out of balance until your body and mind amend to new routine. So, never try to give up the healthy routine, as it can seem tough at the beginning.

Do you know what you should do to lose weight? Many people have different answers for this question.

But, the exact answer is to cut down the number of excess calories which you consume regularly and start burning those calories every day.

Calories are the amounts of energy present in the food you eat. When you eat more, your body uses required calories for its normal functioning and the rest of them are stored as fat deposits in your body.

So, the best way to lose weight is to consume fewer calories [low calorie diet] and burn all those extra calories by practicing regular body workouts and necessary physical activity in your routine life.

Also, it is very essential for you to eat sufficient amounts of food to provide energy for your body.

Cutting down the calories doesn’t essentially mean that you should reduce your food consumption level.

Do you know that starving or reducing the food consumption level can lead to fat accumulation in your body? Try to make it a point that you never reduce your food consumption level, rather try to eliminate unnecessary calories from your diet plan.

Do you know fast food can also become a part of your weight loss or healthy diet plan? Not regularly, but occasionally you can include fast foods in your healthy diet plan for weight loss.

But, here the main key is to make wise food choices.

So, if you really want to enjoy fast food in your regular weight loss plan, here are certain tips that can help you to make wise meal choices when you want to include fast food occasionally in your diet plan.

Look before you leap!

Most of the fast food restaurants often mention the nutritional information regarding their food offerings on their web-sites.

So, try to check them once. This can help you to avoid less nutritious and high calorie foods.

Eat consciously!

Develop mindful or conscious eating, which means try to pay more attention on what you eat and choose foods, which are both delicious and rich in nutrients.

Eating consciously helps you to relax yourself, which in turn helps you in better digestion and makes you feel much satisfied.

Choose grilled foods!

Almost every one of you, over eat at some situations in your life, which is quite common.

But, if you try to overeat regularly at certain situations like stress, anger or loneliness, then you might be suffering with emotional eating disorder.

Emotional eating is the practice of eating more quantities of food than usually required. It is considered as emotional response to your feelings instead of hunger.

Usually, people with emotional eating snack junk or comfort foods, whenever they lose their control over emotions.

So, if you are the one suffering with such kind of eating disorder, before exploring the exact solution for your problem, try to know the connection between mood and food.

How mood is linked with food?

Certain major life events such as health problems, divorce, traumatic events, unemployment and daily life hassles like stress at work, bad weather and changes in routine life mainly triggers emotions, which can certainly lead to emotional eating. But, why does this happen?

Some foods in your routine life might apparently have certain addictive qualities. For instance, when you eat certain tempting foods, such as chocolates, your body tends to de-stress your mood level and provides better satisfaction for you by simply elevating hormones. This example simply proves that the pleasure of having tempting or comfort foods usually offsets your negative emotions.

Does your neighborhood have a lot of fast food outlets, few sidewalks, and no parks? If yes, your physical neighborhood may be hampering your ability to be physically active and placing you at increased risk for obesity.

According to a research study conducted in Portland, neighborhoods with lower mixed-land use and higher densities of fast-food outlets were more likely to have residents who were overweight/obese.

In contrast, residents living in neighborhoods with higher mixed-land use, high street connectivity, better access to public transportation, and more green and open spaces were more likely to engage in some form of neighborhood-based walking.

“Findings from this study suggest the significant role that built environment plays in either positively or negatively impacting our health and/or lifestyle,” notes study lead Fuzhong Li, Ph.D. “34% of U.S. adults aged 20 and over are obese.

Part of the rise in this disease may be attributed to our surroundings — for example, increased accessibility to unhealthy foods.

The built environment is also creating barriers for our ability to exercise: many neighborhood areas lack parks and other recreational facilities and suburbs are often designed to discourage neighborhood walking.

While nothing beats an all-around exercise program and a sensible diet, there are a variety of little things you can do to help yourself along the route toward losing weight.

Did you know that if you chew sugar-free gum several hours a day by the end of month you could lose up to three or four extra pounds?

Here are a few ideas for very simple, even no-brainer, steps that you can take to maybe toss out another five to ten pounds a month.

Shop on a full stomach: Never go to grocery store on an empty stomach. That is such a no-brainer that you already know it, but you don’t follow it.

And you should because studies have proven that going to the grocery store on a empty stomach not only means bringing home more fatty food than you would have gotten if you had shopped right after eating, but you will also spend more money.

In fact, some studies have indicated that those who do their grocery shopping on an empty stomach can expect to spend up to 30% more than they would have if they’d gone shopping on a full stomach.

From curbside snack carts to four-star restaurants, New York City chefs have until next summer to rid their kitchens of trans fat.

It’s a bold move, but a necessary one, according to city health officials.

“When you look at the evidence, there’s no question artificial trans fat increases the risk for coronary heart disease,” says Sonia Angell, M.D., director of cardiovascular disease prevention and control at New York City’s Department of Health.

“The most conservative estimates show that the replacement of these fats with heart-healthy alternatives can decrease coronary artery disease risk by 6 percent, and it is likely even higher.”

In fact, a recent Harvard University study showed that women with low blood levels of trans fat are three times less likely to develop heart disease. .

The Big Apple’s impending trans fat ban is making other cities, food companies, and scientific experts pay closer attention to the increasingly complex relationships between dietary fat and health.

Here’s the latest on fats, including where each is found, what it does, and how much or how little to eat.

More information on Fats at CNN