Archive for July, 2011

I don’t count calories. Calorie counting I find to be both counter productive and an impediment to a healthy diet. It has taken some years to come to this conclusion. It’s not that calorie counting is not only useless it can be dangerous. Personally I have no intention of drinking Diet Coke or using artificial sweeteners. The question is do I want to poison myself to cut calories. Neither will I opt for a low fat variety of a whole food product. When calorie count mentality is out for the count health will win out.

Main Stream Diets

This is what I have against most main stream diet plans. They go with the flow and use  America’s perception of what getting slim is about. We would be a slim nation if we just ate whole unadulterated food.

What I find is that the popular diets get repeat business, by using the wrong guidelines, calories in and calories out. Weight management in this country is counter intuitive. It is becoming more and more desperate as people balloon off the charts.

Calorie Counting isn’t a Promising Solution

Bariatric sugery, and gastric bypass are drastic attempts to fix a problem that is so out of control. Part of the reason things have gotten to this point is we are relying on the calorie content of foods. Some of the heavily looked up terms are calories in strawberries, calories in apples and fruit calories. These terms get anywhere from 75,000 to 240,000 of look ups per month. Look where this information has taken us. We now can eat less fruit and vegetables and substitute them with 100 calorie snack packs of cookies.

Count Nutrients

Instead of counting daily calories a far better approach would be to count the nutritional content of the day’s food. Weight management should be about much more than calories. It shouldn’t be about how slim we can get, but on how healthy we can become. With that as a goal we will be able to maintain our idea weight. What we should want is a incredible body that functions incredibility.   

This is another way to look at what we do to ourselves, that no other species does.

 Can you give me the calorie count, before I indulge in some nutrient dense food?

Calorie counting is going off the deep end in American culture. Calorie counting is not benefiting the American public. Calorie content of food is not an indicator of the amount of weight you will gain. The amount of weight you gain will depend on your choice of food, and the amount. To many this may seem like calorie counting.

Calorie Counting Fails

Calorie counting is not functional when you consider the deeper meaning of food. That is because our concept of calorie counting in not rooted in nature. Calorie counting has become popular with consumers because of how food is sourced.

The aesthetics of the packaged food is more of a problem than calories. What is in the packaged food is responsible for mitochondrial decay and aging, cellular degeneration, cardiovascular disease, and the obesity epidemic. The calories provided are a mute issue.

Plenty of people who counted calories wind up with a gastric bypass. It isn’t because they couldn’t count it is precisely because they could count. They most likely were told to count the calories.  Most people are looking at the wrong numbers. When they consume food they are looking at calories and not necessarily nutrients. When your body has adequate nutrients it stops feeling starved and the craving subside.

Nutrients Count

According to Bruce Ames who developed the Triage Theory of Aging, obese people are hungry all the time because the body is craving missing nutrients such as magnesium. Dr..Ames is emeritus professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of California, Berkeley. In the Life Extension Magazine dated August 2011 he states that Americans are filling up with junk and are wildly deficient in vitamins and minerals. No where in the article does he blame obesity on too many calories.

People who opt for gastric bypass have bypassed the laws of nature. They weren’t getting enough nutrients to support their body. These surgical interventions for obesity are not reserved for only morbid obesity, they are now being approved for people who are overweight and tried everything else.

Macronutrients

To run your metabolism you need the basic macronutrients and these come from fats and carbohydrates. Every metabolic pathway requires micronutrients to supply the calories. Low fat, no fat and no calorie sodas are not the solution but the problem. We are a society obsessed with the calorie count of every morsel of food we put into our mouths.

Metabolic function depends on how we prioritize what we consume. If calorie counting is on top of the list we will suffer an alarming rate of both obesity and chronic health problems. So far that looks like the course of action America has taken to fight the rising rate of obesity. Calorie counting is more that a phrase or faze we are going through, it is what is blatantly touted as a cure for the obesity epidemic.

The reason for the title BMI BMI is because it is a subject that calls for a double take. You hear this term all the time, but what does it mean?

What is BMI?

The body mass index (BMI) is an amazing tool. It is one of the easiest weight assessment tools. This is the good news, it is essentially the fastest way to find out where you fall in the weight scheme of things. It was invented in the 1840’s and has been used ever since. Body mass index is a number calculated from a person’s height and weight.

BMI is a starting point in determining if an individual is too thin or too heavy. It will not tell one if they are made up of more fat than muscle. However, it is a great starting point. Once you know your BMI you will have an idea of what your weight is and what it should be.

Body Mass Index

Is the body mass index (BMI) a powerful indicator of health? The answer is yes. Of course it’s not a guarantee of perfect health; it is a means to better health. It is a test that tells you if you have a serious weight issue. It does not tell you your overall body composition, how much of your weight is lean body mass and how much is body fat.

This point is brought up by detractors of this method to determine optimal weight. It has some merit, but the healthiest thing you can do to ensure physical health is keep your weight in check. The real point here is how you choose to manage your weight, if it is just about starvation diets than the body compositions will be unhealthy. Cutting out whole groups of foods and subsisting on coffee and toast is not how you deal with a weight problem.

BMI Calculator

A healthy weight is of the utmost importance throughout life. Obesity reduces life quality and expectancy. Regardless of all other tests your BMI is a strong indicator of overall health. Aiming for a healthy BMI can turn the page and help launch a simmer you. 

There is a good BMI calculator on the website: www.metabolicway.com that is more fun than the usual ones. For women it provides a way to see what their weight looks like. Let me know what you think.