Protein 101

Today I’m going to finish up my post on the macronutrients by talking about protein. Protein is important regardless if you’re trying to lose weight, or trying to gain weight. Protein helps you recover from a workouts, give your body the proper materials to produce hormones and enzymes, and it even influences your metabolic rate.

High-Quality Proteins:

All protein is are long chains of amino acids. There are a total of 20 different amino acids and 8 of them are essential (meaning your body cannot produce it so you must consume it).

While there is no “bad protein” or “good protein,” you should aim to try get your protein from sources that gives you good nutrients. For example, instead of getting your protein from a hamburger, try to get your protein from fish to get the omega-3’s (not to mention you’ll be avoiding a lot of saturated fat).

Some good sources of protein comes from sources such as:

Skim milk	Eggs	Pork
Fish	Chicken	Legumes
Peanuts	Nuts	Seeds

Try to avoid getting protein from red meats and high fat dairy sources (such as whole milk).

Other Sources of Protein: 

It is recommended to eat 0.8-1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight depending upon how active you are. If you’re not as active, 0.8 grams per kg of bodyweight should be sufficient. It should be easy to eat enough proteins in your diet, but if you are still having trouble consuming enough protein, you should try adding it from food sources before resorting to protein shakes.

Getting your protein from dietary sources such as nuts, seeds, and fish also give you healthy fats as an extra bonus. If you’re running late and need some quick protein, just drink a cup of milk which has 7 grams of protein. Getting protein in your diet through food sources is also a good way to save money. If you just finished a weight lifting session, of course drinking a protein shake would be more convenient than stuffing down egg whites. I personally use protein shakes but only after a weight lifting session (and occasionally as meal replacements if I am going to miss a meal).

Fats 101

Back again today to talk about fats! Lets start. There are many kinds of fats but like carbohydrates, we split them into good fats and bad fats. Bad fats are the ones that increase your cholesterol and increases your risk of certain diseases. Good fats does the opposite, it protects the heart and support overall health. I will split up this blog post by explaining what good fats are and what bad fats are (and what they do):

Good Fats:

Good fats are monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats because they help with heart health and help manage cholesterol and overall health. The best source of healthy fats are from omega-3’s from fatty fishes.

Good fats helps the body by lowering the total bad cholesterol (LDL) and increases good cholesterol (HDL). LDL is the cholesterol that is more associated with heart diseases and strokes. HDL is actually good for the body and help against diseases.

Some benefits of omega-3’s includes:

-       Reduce symptoms of depression

-       Protects against memory loss

-       Lowers the risk of heart diseases, stroke, and cancer

-       Help with arthritis, joint pain, and inflammatory skin conditions

Keep in mind that the human body cannot produce Omega 3’s so it is important for us to consume it. Lets look at some sources where we can get the following fats (check out website at the end of post to see source):

M0nounsaturated Fat	Polyunsaturated Fat
Olive Oil	Soybean oil
Canola Oil	Corn Oil
Sunflower oil	Safflower Oil
Peanut Oil	Walnuts
Sesame Oil	Sunflower, sesame, and pumpkin seeds flaxseeds
Avocados	Fatty fishes (salmon, tuna, mackerel, herring, trout, sardines)
Olives	Soymilk
Nuts (Almonds, peanuts, macadamia nuts, hazelnuts, pecans, cashews)	Tofu
(Natural) Peanut butter

Bad Fats:

Bad fats are saturated and trans fats. The general guideline is to (obviously) eliminate bad fats from your diet, especially trans fats.

Both saturated fats and trans fats raises your blood cholesterol. But trans fats in particular are worse because they raise your bad cholesterol (LDL), but lowers the good cholesterol (HDL).

Make sure you start reading labels, and just because the box says there is no trans fat, make sure to read the ingredients. Anything under hydrogenated or partially-hydrogenated oils are trans fats. Just because there are a small amount in the serving size (under 5 grams), they do not have to post it up in the nutrient label. This means that if there is 3 grams in each serving, if you eat 5 servings, you will have eaten 15 grams of trans fats!

Of course, we need to know where they are from to avoid them, lets look:

Saturated Fats	Trans Fats
High-fat cuts of meat (beef, lamb, pork)	Commercially-baked pastries, cookies, doughnuts, muffins, cakes, pizza dough
Chicken with the skin	Packaged snack foods (crackers, microwave popcorn, chips)
Whole-fat dairy products (milk and cream)	Stick margarine
Butter	Vegetable Shortenings
Cheese	Fried foods (french fries, fried chicken, chicken nuggets, breaded fish)
Ice Cream	Candy Bars
Palm and coconut oil
Lard

Changing Takes Time:

If your still having hard time eliminating bad fats from your diet, just try substituting bad fats with good fats. For example, start cooking with olive oil rather than butter. Try to consume more nuts as healthy snacks and mix in some olives. Switch from whole milk to 1% or skim milk. The list goes on for what you can do to lower your fat intake. There are many small changes you can make in your daily schedule that will ultimately help you with your dietary change.

Please check out this website for more information

Carbohydrates 101

Hello everyone! Today my post will focus primarily upon the macronutrients: Protein, Carbohydrates, and Fats. You learned from the last post that you should not avoid any one of these macronutrients in your diet (if you have not read it, please go check it out really quick now). But while you shouldn’t remove macronutrients completely from your diet, you should know that not all macronutrients are created equal.

Today I will talk about carbohydrates:

There are healthy carbohydrates (known as complex carbohydrates) which includes whole grains, beans, fruits, and vegetables. Healthy carbohydrates digests slow which will keep you full longer.  This is largely due to the fact that it keeps your blood sugar and insulin levels low (which is good when it comes to staying full). I would recommend you to consume whole wheat over white, brown rice over white rice, and choose millet, quinoa, and barley.

Unhealthy carbohydrates are the simple carbohydates which are refined sugars, white flour, and white rice. Simple sugars have most of its nutrient contents removed and the fiber content severely reduced (making it easier for the body to digest). Simple carbohydrates will digest quickly and cause spikes in blood sugar and energy levels. This means that simple carbohydrates will not keep you full as long and the fall in insulin levels in cause you to become faster.

If you are having trouble satisfying your sweet tooth and crave for simple sugars, try eating fruits such as grapes and mangos since they have some beneficial nutrients compared to simple sugars.

Good luck on your weight loss goals! Next post I will talk about healthy and non-healthy fats so make sure you look out for it.

Also, check out my LinkedIn page: here

Best weight loss tip: Controlling Portion Sizes

Been away for awhile, but summer just started so expect more consistent updates as well as progress pictures! :)


Also, I've been working on my blog at wordpress for my computer applications class and I'm going to start posting up things both on that site and here. So check it out! :)


Click here to view

What is the one thing that all diets have in common? Portion sizes. If you want to lose weight, you have to control how much and what you eat. Simple right? Not really.

Most people who tries to lose weight follow diets that goes to the extremes. "Cut all your carbohydrates." "Fats are bad and should be avoided." All sounds familiar? These diets are most likely to plateau and rebound to where you started (or maybe even more). I have tried these diets myself. Unfortunately, their impressive short term results were met by nasty weight gains faster than you have lost it.

To understand portion sizes, visit: This Website

A safe diet should have (by the end of the day):

45-65% of your calories from Carbohydrates

10-35% of your calories from Protein

20-35% of your calories from Fat