Counting Empty Calories

Counting calories has become a popular weight loss strategy, but are we missing the big picture?

Sure calories = lbs and therefore limiting your caloric intake should reduce your overall weight, but what if these calories we count are empty calories. An empty calorie is a calorie that lacks much if any nutritional value, and these empty calories are a plenty in the average American diet. We are probably the only obese starving nation, and obviously it's not calories we are deprived of but rather nutritional substance. So even though reducing your overall caloric intake will assist you in losing weight, it is rarely a habit that sticks and for good reason... our nation is starving for nutrients so we always feel hungry, and the hungrier you are the more chance you have of falling off the wagon.

Obesity is an epidemic in this country because our diets consist primarily of processed foods lacking nutritional value and resulting in empty calories. Since these empty calories do not supply our bodies with the nutrients it requires to maintain a healthy state they fall short at satisfying our hunger as well, which is why we turn to more food.

This creates an endless loop of craving more but supplying ourselves with less, nutrients that is. So if most Americans slightly and morbidly obese alike are starving for nutrients does it make sense to focus solely on the act of reducing calories?

It is important to understand that the quality of each calorie should be your primary focus. I can assure you that if you make each calorie count by consuming a diet that consists primarily of fresh organic produce, natural whole grains and legumes, you will begin to realize that your body will crave fewer calories.

Maintain a healthy diet and your body will maintain a healthy weight.

1 and 5 Teens... Unhealthy Cholesterol Levels

This is the headline of an article I found today (Original Article) and although not surprising to me, should be a wake-up call to our society. The article is informative and the last paragraph which reads...

"For all youth, healthy eating habits and physical activity are good ways to reduce their risk for abnormal lipids and heart disease in the long term."

...is the right advice, but I feel it stops short of explaining what a "healthy eating" is or should be. Most people feel that switching to an apparent healthier processed food is healthy eating; if it says low sodium or low sugar, or fat free, or low calories than it must be healthy, but this is not the correct approach to a healthier you.

A healthy diet, at its core, must revolve around fresh (organic when possible) fruits and vegetables, and natural whole grains and legumes. That's where a healthy diet starts. Fresh fruits vegetables and natural whole grains must be the foundation, with any and all red meats being grass-fed and poultry and eggs being free-range.

It doesn't mean processed foods must be eliminated all together, in today's world it's just not practical, but when you have a good foundation (to your diet) adding some 100% organic processed foods will not kill you.

Be smart... Start fresh and you'll end up healthy!

Super-Size This

When did our society become such gluttons when it comes to food? When did "more for your money" become such a huge selling point when it comes to food shopping? When did people start choosing quantity over quality? And when did our sense of "quality" get so distorted?

It's evident everywhere you turn from fast food joints to your local grocery store, gluttony has engulfed an otherwise starving nation... Starving of nutrients that is! But why is this so?

The only answer I can come up with is that we've been brainwashed into thinking "bigger is better" and "more for less" are good things, and by good I mean healthy, but healthy is not on most people's minds when food is. Not when hamburger joints are shoving 2, and 3 burgers into 1 sandwich to help it sell, and it works. Isn't it obvious that if it's cost effective for them to add more garbage to the "dollar menu" and sell it for less that it can't possibly be good for you... Haven't you ever heard of "you get what you pay for"?

It's not just the fast food joints though restaurants do the same; bigger portions sell. Look at the container of whatever packaged processed food impostor your local grocery store has to offer and compare it to the competing product next to it, and see if you can recognize what the biggest attention-getting best selling point that manufactures are dumping most of their money into. "More for less" definitely tops the charts.

They have been doing it for so long that "bargain shopping" has taken over food shopping, which has only made it easier for food manufacturers to easily come up with a handful of new deceiving marketing tactics that "Joe or Jane Public" just eat up with a spoon. How many times have you seen "Now with more flavor" on the package? What does that even mean? Have they figured out how to do what Mother Nature already does quite well, but only better?

Are the fruits or vegetables or grains that are supposedly in that box or bag or can of "food" grown in such a way that they actually contain more flavor, or are they the same pesticide grown overly processed nutrient deficient tasteless ingredients with even more chemical additives put in that make a glutinous misinformed society only think the product is "new and improved"?

I can tell you for a fact that most people in our society have either forgotten or have never known what chicken really tastes like, because that grain fed bird that has never seen daylight let alone felt grass under its feet, that you're buying at the grocery store or getting at a restaurant IS NOT CHICKEN!

It is time we start educating ourselves on what a healthy diet really means and stop listening to what large profit driven corporations want us to believe.

Eat Fresh Organic produce, natural whole grains, and grass fed beef or free grazed chicken instead of the science experiments that you currently call food. Sure, you will pay more for less, but you will get what you pay for and that's a healthier life.

Spaghetti Squash In Place of Pasta

Want some noodles to go with that chicken soup, but with a little more substance and more nutritional value than say that back of egg noodles? Are you looking for a pasta side dish, but without the refined carbohydrates?

Try Spaghetti Squash... it's a winter squash that when prepared looks like, well spaghetti.

*Cut the squash in half long ways and core the center by removing the seeds (save them if you want they are editable and can be toasted like pumpkin seeds).
*In a large pot place the squash halves face down and add about 1 inch of water, then steam for about 20-25min; until soft.
*Remove the squash (careful they're hot) and with a fork scrape out the insides over a plate.
*Simply run the fork on the inside, long ways, and the spaghetti strands will come out.
*Add some olive oil and garnish with parsley to taste.

Enjoy!