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How High-Carb Diet Plans Treat Carbohydrates
By: Rick Trojan
A number of popular diets are focused on carbohydrates. Some demonize them. Then warn you against eating any carbohydrates. Others in fact, emphasize a high carbohydrate intake. Here is how high-carbohydrate diet plans treat carbohydrates. (Such as Ornish, Pritikin, and Food for Life)
For years you've been hearing that eating a healthy diet. Means cutting back on the total amount of fat. While eating more complex carbohydrates. Thousands of "low-fat" alternatives now crowd your supermarket shelves.
But is simply cutting back on fat. Then loading up on carbohydrates a healthy way to eat or to lose weight? Current research suggests that it isn't. Just like researchers have learned that not all types of fat are bad. They have also discovered that not all types of carbohydrates are good for you.
It's easy for you to fall into a low-fat trap. Gram for gram. Fat has more than twice as many calories as either protein or carbohydrates. Then it seems logical that choosing low-fat products will help you with your weight loss. However, all too often the low-fat products on supermarket shelves are packed with sugar. And highly processed carbohydrates. Making up for the taste that's lost when fat is removed.
These low-fat alternatives often contain just as many calories as the full-fat versions. Some may even have more! Another problem is that you mistakenly think that because a food is low in fat. You can eat as much of it as you want without gaining any weight.
As far as your body is concerned. Calories are calories. No matter where they come from. Eat too many calories (whether from fat, carbohydrates or protein) and you'll gain weight period.
Aside from weight loss. The popularity of low-fat food has broader implications for your health. Commercially prepared low- fat foods tend to be rich in highly processed carbohydrates. Thus causing big spikes in your blood sugar level. Over time this can increase the chances of you developing heart disease and diabetes.
For example, in a study of 80,000 nurses. Harvard researchers calculated that replacing a given number of calories from polyunsaturated fat. With an equivalent number from easily digested carbohydrates. Increased the risk for heart disease by over 50 percent.
Some other studies have found that a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet. Particularly one high in sugars. Can worsen your blood cholesterol and triglycerides levels. Both of which are risk factors for heart disease.
You can minimize or avoid any diet deficiencies associated with high-carbohydrates diets. When you approach your high- carbohydrate diet as an integrated part of your *-lifestyle-*, not solely an ingredient focus.
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This article was posted on October 05, 2004
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How to Benefit from the Mind-Body Connection
(excerpt)
You are about to gain insight into the
mind-body connection. The number of
people who truly understand these principles on our
planet are relatively few.
There is an undeniable connection between our minds and
bodies, you can learn
to use this fact to your benefit.
Dr. Bernie Siegel, author of "Love, Medicine and
Miracles" was once a
distraught cancer surgeon until he
began to understand the greater principles
of the mind-
body connection. He felt dragged down by the artificial
barriers
that existed between patient and doctor, and the
helplessness he often felt as
a result of his inability
to effectively serve those patients. Eventually, those
barriers
were disintegrated by Dr. Siegel's recognition
and growing understanding of the
mind-body connection and
how it could serve his patients and himself.
Dr. Siegel, or Bernie as he began to have his patients
refer to him, had some
startling realizations as a cancer surgeon. He found that
there were actually
quite a few people in the world that successfully beat
the statistics on cancer
survival. He began to recognize that a patient's ability
to defeat something as
serious as cancer had to do with the patient's mind and
attitude about their
disease.
If you would like to see the rest of
this article, please go here:
http://www.tobeinformed.com/repository/mind-body.html
copyright 2004 - David Snape
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