Low Carb Mag October Issue
Green Tea Health Benefits
A cup of green tea is a good way to start your day.
“It’s the healthiest thing I can think of to drink,” says Christopher Ochner, PhD. He is a research scientist in nutrition at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “Green tea is beyond a super food.”
In the past 20 years, thousands of studies have shown green tea’s benefits.
Healthy cells
Why is green tea so good for you? “It’s all about the catechin content,” says Beth Reardon, RD, a Boston nutritionist. Catechins are antioxidants that fight and may even prevent cell damage. Green tea is not processed much before it is poured in your cup, so it is rich in catechins.
Healthy heart
Green tea has been shown to improve blood flow and lower cholesterol. A 2013 review of many studies found green tea helped prevent a range of heart-related issues, from high blood pressure to congestive heart failure.
Brain health
What’s good for the heart is usually good for the brain, and your brain needs healthy blood vessels, too. In one Swiss study, MRIs revealed that people who drank green tea had greater activity in the working-memory area of their brains. Green tea has also been shown to help block the formation of plaques that are linked to Alzheimer’s disease.
Exercise: Which Type and How Much?
If I had a pound for every time I have seen people at the gym slogging away on a treadmill, I would be a millionaire!
Ever wondered why the distance runner is usually built like a stick insect and the sprinter is mostly defined muscle. This is because chronic cardio over stresses the adrenal glands, which secrete excess cortisol in turn leading to muscle breakdown in contrast to high intensity training which builds muscle mass, provided you don’t train too much.
For overweight people who are also dealing with insulin resistance, will have to deal with excess glucose that is released from the liver due to the presence of excess cortisol, in turn making it harder to lose fat and even cause fat storage when doing the wrong training like cardio.
High intensity training forces the muscles to adapt by becoming bigger and stronger and more efficient at using glucose for fuel.
Burning calories through cardio is not the best way to burn fat because the actual caloric burn of aerobic exercise is minimal, coupled with the fact that there is no growth hormone, fat burning and muscle building effect that you get with high intensity training.
How exactly should people be training?
Short bursts of intense exercise like sprints and lifting heavy things like weights otherwise known as resistance training.
Why is less is more when it comes to high intensity? Read here
Spring clean your diet with these five foods
SPRING is in full swing so it’s time to clean up your diet. … Nutritionist and chef Zoe Bingley-Pullin has shared her five favourite ingredients to incorporate this season.
KALE
Kale has so many beneficial properties as it’s high in iron. It contains antioxidants such as such as carotenoids and flavonoids. It contains 10% of the RDA of omega-3 fatty acids, for beneficial anti-inflammatory.
Best used for: In replacement of spinach, added to juices and smoothie, finely chopped and add to foods.
AVOCADO
Avocados are a delicious winter fruit that are not only a good source of mono-unsaturated fats, they are rich in fibre and healthy fats while naturally low in sugar and sodium. They contain 5g of fibre (17 per cent of adult fibre needs) 5g of fibre (17 per cent of adult fibre needs), 36 per cent of the recommended dietary intake (RDI) for folate, 31 per cent of RDI for vitamin K, 24 per cent of RDI for vitamin E and 15 per cent of RDI for potassium.
Best used for: A replacement for high saturated fat dairy products, can be used for sweet or savoury cooking, can be baked on low temperatures, under 180C, and blended into smoothies or made into a creamy salad dressing.
EXTRA VIRGIN COCONUT OIL
Extra Virgin Coconut Oil is extracted from fresh white coconut flesh with no chemicals used during the production process. This gentle process allows the oil to retain all its natural goodness including fresh coconut essence, vitamin E and lauric acid. It is rich in medium-chain triglycerides which are easy to digest and do not raised cholesterol levels. The oil is not hydrogenated and contains no ‘bad’ trans fatty acids. Its smoking point is 177°C.
Best used for: Baking, sautéing food. Adding to food to get the delicious coconut flavour.
Too Much Medicine Is Bad for Our Health
“Medical science is making such remarkable progress that soon none of us will be well.” ~ Aldous Huxley
The just completed conference ‘Preventing Over Diagnosis’ was easily the most important meeting I ever attended. Sponsored by the British Medical Journal, Consumer’s Reports, and Dartmouth and Bond Universities, the goal was to identify the excesses in medical care and to figure out how to correct them.
The evidence is compelling that we in the developed countries (especially the US) are overtesting for disease, overdiagnosing it, and overtreating. Wasteful medical care of milder or nonexistent problems does more harm than good to the individual patient, diverts scarce medical resources away from those who really need them, and is an unsustainable drain on the economy.
The causes of medical excess are many and powerful. Here is a truncated list
5 Unexpected Sources Of Gluten That Aren’t Food
Even if you know to look for gluten in the less-than-obvious foods, gluten can sneak up on you in the most unexpected places.
A significant number of non-food products contain ingredients derived from grains that can be problematic with celiac disease or gluten intolerance. In fact, many are now being produced and marketed as gluten-free.
The ingredients in question are typically included as binding agents or fillers and are usually only problematic if ingested, experts told CBS News. For that reason, adhesive on envelopes and stamps used to cause problems, but today that starch-based stickiness comes from corn, Gluten-Free Living magazine reported.
Preliminary research suggests that merely coming into contact with gluten, say in the form of a hand lotion, could also cause adverse affects, Health.com reported. Plus, if it’s a little one you’re watching out for, you may need to be extra cautious, since kids will put just about anything in their mouths.
Obviously, food is more prominently labeled than non-food products when it comes to gluten, but that may be changing. Supermarket News reported a 43 percent increase in body care products being labeled and certified as gluten-free in 2012.