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Information on weight loss, good nutrition and what we should and shouldn’t eat seems to change so frequently, it’s often hard to keep up with the latest research and ideas. There are definitely some very specific “trends” with relation to “diet and what to eat and not,” and some do have foundation and scientific basis – however, be careful of the ones that sound “too good to be true,” as they usually are.
Never before have the statistics on obesity been so high in New Zealand, with more than half of the adult population being either overweight or obese. When we look at this, we find that the New Zealand pattern is similar to the United States trend. On average, only three meals per week are cooked in the home and the average time spent cooking the main meal is only 30 minutes. Since the trend of frequently eating out is expected to continue, strategies to improve the diet are essential and must address our food choices when eating out, as well as when preparing and organising meals at home.
In today’s diets, researchers have found more and more of us are consuming far too many refined carbohydrates (white rice, pasta, bread, sugar) and too little protein (such as meats, fish, nuts and seeds). For the health professionals who are seeing these people, this is posing a real concern – especially as new research shows that some of our major health risks may be initiated by such diets.
Lets look at this a little closer. A too higher carbohydrate intake produces too much insulin. Insulin is the hormone that is produced by the pancreas when we eat sugar or foods that release sugar upon digestion, such as carbohydrates. Insulin enables our cells to absorb glucose from the blood. The cells process the glucose to make the energy they need to function. However, if you eat too many carbohydrates or sugar in proportion to your protein intake, your pancreas will pump out too much insulin. This can have many harmful effects.
The pancreas may, overtime, become fatigued and no longer able to produce insulin, leading to diabetes. The high level of insulin causes Insulin resistance. This means that there is so much insulin in the blood that the cell receptors may become exhausted or may not be produced in as great a number. The cell then becomes unreceptive or resistant to the effects of insulin.
The problem is that when cells become resistant to insulin, they lose energy and messages are sent out, which make the pancreas produce more insulin. This increases the levels in the blood, or hyper-insulinaemia, which lead’s to more resistance. This is a problem because Insulin causes the body to store carbohydrates as fat and stops fat being used as a source of energy production. So the high levels of insulin being produced by the over-consumption of carbohydrates (or eating the wrong type of carbohydrates) will not only make you fat but keep you fat. This process may be one of the major reasons why people are not able to effectively reduce their total body fat levels.
Many practitioners, who are working specifically with fat loss, are finding that when they are “measuring” people's total muscle mass, this is coming up well below the optimal amount for their height and age. This is of major concern, as we now know that maintaining a “positive” or active muscle mass is essential for good health, as well as longevity. Muscle mass is considered by experts, as our number one biological marker for aging. To maintain an active muscle mass and to stay anabolic (building of healthy cells), we need to consume more calories from low fat protein sources and less from starch-based carbohydrates. Typically, lean-body cell mass but especially muscle mass, declines with age. From young adulthood to middle age, the average person loses three kilograms of lean body mass per decade. This rate of loss accelerates after the age of 45.
Muscle is a key determinant of metabolic rate. A higher metabolic rate will typically result in more kilojoules being consumed per day and greater control over body fat mass. To achieve long-term weight control, muscle mass must be adequate. As well as this, a progressive reduction in basal metabolic rate is a recognised characteristic of the aging process and diminishing muscle mass may be largely responsible for this.
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