Types of Fat

A much maligned part of our diet is fat, but not all fats are the same. Focusing on more favorable while reducing unfavorable fats from your diet is a wise choice.

Dietary Guidelines for Americans suggest that less than 10% of calories a day should be from saturated fats. The American Heart Association suggests a goal of 5% to 6% of daily calories from saturated fats.

Fats are easily categorized by their food chemistry - with "saturated" fat carrying the weight of most undesirable - coming mainly from meats and even coconuts. Included here are whole milk products and other high-fat dairy goods, and most notoriously baked or fried foods prepared with saturated fats.

Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are the more favorable fats, the former found in various plants foods and oils such as avocadoes, almonds and other types of nuts and seeds, the latter most popularly in fish and fish oils. You may have heard of omega-3 and omega-6 oils, you should strive for a favorable ratio of these, as omega-3 tends to be underrepresented in many diets.

Balanced Diet

The important point about diet is proper amounts, favoring healthy fats over unhealthy fats, and consuming high fiber foods like fruits and vegetables to help you feel full and improve your microboime.

[E]ach gram of fat has 9 calories. That's true for all fats. So calories can add up quickly, even with healthy fats. For example, walnuts are a healthy snack high in polyunsaturated fats. But just a dozen walnut halves contain about 160 calories — more calories than in one large apple.

Some simple rules, starting with favoring plant based food sources, with the complication of heating oils is they can in turn produce trans-fats which are most harmful of all.

• Choose olive oil to saute vegetables
• Consider canola oil for searing and stir frying.
• Favor "oily" fish over meats, or choose lean meats (remove skin etc)
• Select low-fat dairy products.
• Fill up on whole fruits and vegetables, even as snacks

Watch out for processed foods, which often contain saturated fat, and read nutrition labels of "low-fat or fat-free" items which may instead have sugar and other artificial ingredients.

Lose Weight

Work with Dr Oksana Aron to develop a proper diet for you: Visit her practice website to learn more about how medical weight loss can help you reach your weight loss goals.

Sources: Mayo Clinic

Labels: diet, easy weight loss, omega 3 fatty acid, red meat

Dream Meme

A new study in the journal Obesity looked at what happened to sleep quality when healthy young men ate nutritious meals vs. junk food. Even though both groups slept the exact same number of hours, eating junk food disrupted the quality of deep sleep—making it more shallow and less restorative.

Short-term consumption of a more unhealthy diet alters sleep oscillatory features that regulate the restorative properties of sleep.

This matters because restorative sleep is necessary for hormone production, a healthy metabolism, graceful aging, brain function, mood, and more.

Low fiber and high saturated fat and sugar intake is associated with lighter, less restorative sleep with more [disruptions].

Health Benefits Add Up

Diet and health in public health posed by the U.S. Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and Health and Human Services (HHS) affirmed:

Strong and consistent evidence demonstrates that dietary patterns associated with decreased risk of cardiovascular disease are characterized by higher consumption of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, low-fat dairy, and seafood, and lower consumption of red and processed meat, and lower intakes of refined grains, and sugar-sweetened foods and beverages relative to less healthy patterns.

Considerable evidence supports the stance that proper diet matters, and you can make simple and meaning changes to your health by making the right food swaps in your daily diet.

Randomized dietary intervention studies have demonstrated that healthy dietary patterns exert clinically meaningful impact on cardiovascular risk factors, including blood lipids and blood pressure. Additionally, research that includes specific nutrients in their description of dietary patterns indicate that patterns that are lower in saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium and richer in fiber, potassium, and unsaturated fats are beneficial for reducing cardiovascular disease risk.

Looking to Improve Your Health?

Schedule a consultation with Dr Oksana Aron via her practice website, Dr Aron Medical Weight Loss Center and find how you can lose weight easily via physician supervision. Her clinical evaluation and guidance can help you improve your fundamental health metrics in the course of participating in her medical weight loss program.

Labels: diet, dieting, low fat, nutrition, sleep, sugar

Healthy Weight Loss

Losing weight doesn’t mean starvation and suffering. Real weight loss requires that you maintain proper health and nutrition every day. Finding the proper balance of nutrition and calories is key to success. Include a medically proven diet plan as part of your way to weight loss success. -Dr Oksana Aron

What you eat is more than just calories and nutrition, it also can affect systemically many aspects of your body and health. A key component to this is keeping your digestive tract healthy and replete with healthy bacteria, or microbiome.

There are more than 40 trillion bacteria in the body, essential for everything from digesting food to protecting against infection… We need a diverse microbiome to improve our gut health and have a healthy gut … ‘One way we can encourage this microbial diversity is by consuming a varied and colourful diet, and avoiding eating the same thing every day, even if it is healthy…’

Gut-Healthy Options

1. Fermented foods such as sauerkraut, kimchi, and kefir, along with tempeh and miso and kombucha offer support for favorable bacteria.
2. Avocados are a popular staple and for good reason, they source 13g of fiber and healthy vegetable fats providing good balance for your diet.
3. Asparagus is a good source of vitamin K, and prebiotic fiber - also found in garlic, onions, oats and artichokes.
4. Chia and Flax seeds both very popular sources of soluble fiber, easy to include into your diet via toppings on yogurt or mixed into smoothies.
5. Oats has shown good support in many forms, with 5 grams fiber per 50 gram serving.
6. Pears host pectin which binds to cholesterol in the gastrointestinal tract and slows glucose absorption by trapping carbohydrates.
7. Lentils and other legumes including peas, chickpeas, and kidney beans are another vegetarian fiber source, with one cooked cup of lentils yielding 15 grams fiber.
8. Strawberries, Blueberries, Blackberries and others are rich in antioxidants and fiber, plus effortless to add to your diet either on their own or added to just about anything.
9. Ginger offers anti-inflammatory properties stimulates improved digestion.
10. Inulin, a natural source of plant fiber, is recognized by the FDA as a natural food additive to boost dietary fiber.

Best Diet for Gut Health

From the list above and more, include high fiber and plant-based foods into your diet, looking at 30g fiber per day. Balance out the above with vegetables, fruits, nuts seeds, whole grains, legumes and of course salads. Also look to lower inflammation: manage stress, and avoid processed foods, refined sugars and excess fats.

Importance of Gut Health

Digestive health is more than just calories and nutrients, your body reacts to everything you consume. Serotonin and immune responses, as well as sleep quality are found to have links to your digestive system. More obviously, weight gain and other inflammatory responses are the counter to good health. With proper high-fiber diet, you will find need to snack and binge will be greatly reduced, and your body will also be better able to focus on nutrient absorption and clearing out waste.

Medical Weight Loss

Dr Oksana Aron specializes in medically supervised weight loss programs to help patients lose weight where other methods have failed. Visit Dr Aron Medical Weight Loss Center website to learn more and schedule your initial consultation.

Labels: diet, nutrition, vegan, vegetarian