by David Garred,
Club Manager Dusit Resort Sports Club.
Last week we looked at “Smart Shopping”, how to read food labels and make
informed choices for healthy eating. I hope that you noticed I did not say
“Informed choices for a good diet”, the reason being that world wide 95% of
people not only fail to stick to a diet but they actually gain more weight
than they lost whilst on the diet. Yes, this is a proven statistic. So why
go on a diet when you are 95% sure of failing? Why set yourself up for
failure in the first place? Instead, why not look at your overall lifestyle
and make small “healthy changes” to it?
More on that later.
Now that we can really read the Nutrition Information; Why is choosing
low fat foods preferable to counting calories?
Until recently, it has been believed that the only way to make certain that
you were eating the “right amount” of food was to count calories. Recent
research, however, has shown that although the quantity of calories is
important, its the QUALITY of calories consumed that really matters for
overall health. The old adage “a calorie is a calorie” apparently is not
true at all.
A gram of fat yields more than twice as many calories as a gram of
carbohydrate or protein - that’s not new. What is new is that studies now
indicate that calorie for calorie fat is more fattening.
In one study, two groups of people were fed the same number of calories per
day but with different amounts of fat. After several months, the group that
was fed a larger percentage of calories from fat gained more weight than the
group on the lower fat diet.
The explanation has to do with metabolic efficiency. Since dietary fat is
already fat, it converts to body fat much quicker and more easily than does
carbohydrate and protein.
Evolution has primed our bodies to store fat as a survival mechanism. In
fact, we can store enough fat to provide for 2 to 3 months of starvation. On
the other hand, our bodies store enough carbohydrate to last a few days at
the most.
Most health professionals recommend that you keep your fat intake below 30%
of total calories. Learning to read labels helps you to determine what the
fat content of food is. With this knowledge, you now can choose a better
QUALITY of calories for consumption.
6 SUPERMARKET STRATEGIES:
1. Have a mental map of your store so you can go directly to the
products you need.
2. Walk past the “end-of-the-isle” displays of food samples, they are
usually higher in fat.
3. Beware of products at eye level. High fat, high profit items are often
placed here to encourage impulse buying.
4. Stick to the perimeter of the store. The outside isles contain the
healthiest items, such as breads, meats, dairy products and fresh fruits and
vegetables — usually.
5. Don’t buy high fat treats “for the kids”. If you want to wander, do so
without guilt.
6. Check your supermarket for free nutritional pamphlets and services.
THE NEW LABEL GLOSSARY:
FREE: Contains no (or negligible amounts of) fat, saturated fat,
choles-terol, sodium, sugar, or calo-ries.
LEAN & EXTRA LEAN: limits the fat content of certain meats, poultry,
seafood and game meats.
LIGHT: Calories have been reduced by at least a third or the fat by
at least half from the original product.
PERCENT FAT FREE: describes the percentage of a food’s weight that is
fat free; now this term may only be used on foods that are low fat or fat
free to begin with.
The arsenal for fighting the war against fat is starting to overflow, let’s
put some of these weapons to good use. Seize the day.
Yours in fitness.
David Garred
Club Manager
