All you lose with healthy eating is body fat!
When you walk the path of good health by eating healthy and exercising regularly, you will initially see a drop in your body fat. Your weight too will drop but to a minor extent. When you crash diet, you lose a lot of weight because your lean body weight reduces whereas your fat content remains the same (often in crash diet, fat content actually goes up). Fat occupies a lot of volume (hence the round shape of our belly and butt) but weighs very little. Muscle on the other hand, is dense and weighs a lot. Think cotton and iron. A cotton pillow has hardly any weight yet occupies a lot of space. If you take an iron bar of the same weight as cotton, it won’t even occupy a square inch.
Your body weight is made up of 2 parts; fat on one side, muscle and bone on the other.
Therefore, judging the state of your health on the basis of what you weight or your BMI (Body Mass Index) is pure rubbish. The best way to measure our body composition is through dual energy x-ray absorptionmetry or DXA. DXA will not only indicate the quantum of fat, it will also indicate the bone density. DXA facility is available in most multi-specialty hospitals in the US.
| BODY FAT TABLE | ||
|
Description |
Women |
Men |
| Essential fat Athletes Fitness Acceptable Obese |
2~15% 16~20% 21~24% 25~31% 32%+ |
2~5% 6~13% 16~17% 18~25% 26%+ |
If 25% of your body weight comes from body fat, than you are okay. Anything over 25% and you really need to pay extra attention to my blog posts.
Let’s talk about some myths regarding low fat and sugar free alternatives.
Many companies are cashing in on people’s fear of oil by promoting baked products such as baked chips. If you think baked chips are healthy, conduct a simple experiment: take a baked chip, crush it in your hand and throw away the crushed chips. Now look at your fingers – feel them. Do they feel greasy? Low fat snacks like so called baked cookies, fat free creams, ‘diet’ colas, fiber loaded biscuits, etc. are nothing but junk food loaded with misinformation, misdirection and some very sharp marketing.
The worst thing about these low fat products is that they use Trans fat.
Trans fat provides the right taste, texture and more importantly, increases the shelf life of the product. However, to your heart, trans fat is like gooey glue that lines the arteries and within a few short years, starves your heart of vital blood leading to a heart attack.
The bitter side of sugar free alternative
Sugar free alternatives have become fashionable. It is used by diabetics as well as healthy people wishing to avoid empty calories. So why am I against it? Judge for yourself. Sugar free alternatives make your drink or snack zero on calories. When your body detects something sweet it expects to encounter calories. When your system encounters zero calories, it gets confused and in the confusion, demands calorie dense food. You in turn, order for a pizza or a burger that you would not normally have asked for. Another issue that for obvious reasons has received low publicity is the fact that sugar free alternatives have been linked to increased occurrences of cancer, thyroid malfunction, memory loss, acidity and obesity. So is this ‘alternative’ really an alternative?
In my next blog I write about food and fruit juice and myth surrounding fruit juice. Subscribe to our RSS feed to not miss any new articles from us 😉
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BODY FAT TABLE |
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|
Description |
Women |
Men |
|
Essential fat Athletes Fitness Acceptable Obese |
12~15% 16~20% 21~24% 25~31% 32%+ |
2~5% 6~13% 16~17% 18~25% 26%+ |