9 More Reasons to Use DAILY Coconut Oil

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I’ve run across some VERY interesting studies recently on the relationship between coconut oil (or any type of coconut fat, includingcoconut milk and cream) and how it can affect your body fat…

The findings may surprise you!

A 2009 study published in the Journal Lipids consisted of testing the effects of either 2 tablespoons of coconut oil or 2 tablespoons of soybean on a group of 40 women over the span of 28 days.

Results showed that the group that ate the coconut oil had a decrease in abdominal fat, while the soybean oil group actually showed a slight increase in belly fat. Additionally, the group that ate the coconut oil showed increased HDL ‘good’ cholesterol levels, while the soybean oil group had decreased HDL cholesterol and increased LDL ‘ bad’ cholesterol.

The Journal of Nutrition published a study where researchers investigated all studies relative to medium chain fatty acids (MCFAs) that are abundant in coconut fat and weight management. The studies showed that diets rich in fats such as those found in coconut oilprompted a boost in metabolism, increase in energy, decrease in food consumption, reduced body weight and lower body fat mass. The study authors highly recommend using oils that contain MCFAs, such ascoconut oil, as a tool to drop extra abdominal fat, manage a healthy weight, and even as a way to treat obesity.

Yet another study that assessed body weight and fat storage relative to three different types of diets including a low-fat diet, high-fat diet with long chain fatty acids (LCFAs) and a high fat diet with MCFAs. In order to bring about weight gain, caloric intakes were adjusted for the diets. At the end of the research period (which lasted 44 days), the low-fat diet group stored an average of 0.47 grams of fat per day, the LCFA group stored 0.48 grams of fat per day, and the MCFA group only stored a mere 0.19 grams per day (despite purposely increasing calories). Those in the MCFA group (coconut fat) had a 60 percent reduction in body fat stored compared to the other diets.

Another added bonus of consuming organic coconut oil (and coconutcream or milk) is that it tends to make us feel fuller for longer. Studies indicate that MCFAs help increase feelings of fullness and lead to a reduction in calorie intake when compared to the same amount of calories from other fats. When MCFAs are metabolized, ketone bodies are created in the liver – these have been shown to have a strong appetite reducing effect helping you to lose fat faster.

If you thought from reading about how using coconut oil daily for helping to reduce abdominal fat is pretty incredible, you’re going to be blown away by the powerful health benefits of coconut oil on the page below…

>> 9 MORE reasons to use DAILY coconut oil (including benefits to thyroid, brain, skin, oral health, heart health, detoxing, cancer, and more)

To Your Optimal Health,

Your Optimal Life

Original Source:  The Alternative Daily

 

 

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Top 10 Ways to Reduce Sugar Intake

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ToxicEffectsofSugar

Ever tried to cut back- or even eliminate- sugar? It’s not so easy.

Nature gave us a sweet tooth for a reason- and it wasn’t just to frustrate our diet efforts!

We humans – unlike other animals- don’t make our own vitamin C. Vitamin C is most abundant in fruits. So nature gave us taste buds that would make these relatively sweet tasting foods desirable.

Unfortunately the whole system has become deregulated since just about everything you buy now has sugar in it, and there’s a huge disconnect between the purpose of our original wiring- to make sure we got enough vitamin C- and the way that wiring is used today (to make sure we get enough Krispy Kreme donuts!)

Giving up- or cutting back- on sugar is no picnic. But the rewards are tremendous. Eliminating (or even reducing) sugar can benefit your health in more ways than you can imagine.

Here’s a list of my Top Ten Ways to Start Reducing Sugar……..

  1. Don’t add it to foods. This is the easiest and most basic way to immediately reduce the amount of sugar you’re eating. Biggest targets: cereal, coffee and tea.
  2. Don’t be fooled by “healthy sugar” disguises. Brown sugar, turbinado sugar, raw sugar … it’s all pretty much the same thing as far as your body is concerned.
  3. Make a real effort to reduce or eliminate processed carbohydrates. Most processed carbs — breads, bagels, most pastas and snacks — are loaded with flour and other ingredients that convert to sugar in the body almost as fast as pure glucose. That sugar gets stored as triglycerides, which is a fancy way of saying fat.
  4. Watch out for “fat-free” snacks. One of the biggest myths is that if a food is fat-free it doesn’t make you fat. Fat-free doesn’t mean calorie-free, and most fat-free snacks are loaded with sugar.
  5. Shop for color. The more your grocery basket looks like a cornucopia of color, the better. It usually means you’re getting more fresh vegetables and low-glycemic fruits such as berries and cherries.
  6. Become a food detective. This tip is from the wonderful author and nutritionist Anne Louise Gittleman, who adds, “To reduce sugar, you have to know where it is first.” Start reading labels.
  7. Beware of artificial sweeteners. Unfortunately, they can increase cravings for sugar and carbohydrates. They can also deplete the body’s stores of chromium, a nutrient crucial for blood-sugar metabolism.
  8. Do the math. Look at the label where it says “total sugars” and divide the number of grams by four. That’s the number of teaspoons of sugar you are ingesting. This exercise alone should scare the pants off you.
  9. Limit fruit. (Notice I didn’t say “eliminate.”) Fruit has sugar, but it also has fiber and good nutrients. Just don’t overdo it. For weight-loss purposes, keep it to two servings a day and try to make most of them low-glycemic (grapefruit, apples, berries)
  10. Eliminate fruit juice. It’s a pure sugar hit with none of the fiber and less of the nutrients that are found in the fruit itself.

Original Source

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How to Lose Weight While Staying Healthy – The Ultimate Eating Plan

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Here are three videos discussing “what you should eat” and general healthy practices by some top experts:

 

This video talks about why “sugar” is bad for you.  Highly recommended if you want to understand the mechanism.

WARNING:  Please consult your doctor before any drastic changes to your diet or exercise plan.  Also, let your doctor manage any weight gaining problems (hypothyroidism, weight-gaining medications [steroids, antidepressants, etc.], etc.) BEFORE you start this plan.

It appears that a lot of people want to lose weight, but don’t care much for exercise.  Although I recommend strength training and cardio as a part of any weight loss plan, these natural supplements can help you lose weight faster with minimal exercise.  The key is great self-control in what you eat.  I have done this and it works.  After researching many theories, listening to many experts, reviewing various diets, and my own experience, I find a clean diet and moderate exercise (with a focus on diet) works best.

Here is what you should AVOID:

1.  Basically any white carbohydrate:  pasta, potatoes, milk, rice, batter (fried foods), etc.

2.  Sugar beverages: soda, juice, sweet tea, gatorade, vitamin H2O (key is to avoid fructose + anything artificial)

Sugar snacks:  candy, pastries, desserts, ice cream

3.  Oils keep to a minimum (safe ones are olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil)

4.  No fast food or eating out as much as possible (not only does it make you gain weight, a lot of chemicals and artificial ingredients are used to cut costs and increase profits).  Also, even when you do go out YOU decide what you eat.  For example, some people avoid buffets because of all the unhealthy food.  No one forces you to eat all of it.  Every buffet has a salad bar and healthy selections.  I have gone to buffets plenty of times and have eaten as healthy as I can.  If you can’t resist the temptation, avoid the situation.

Here is what you should EAT:

1.  Meat: chicken, fish (avoid red meat if possible).  Hormone free chicken and wild caught fish.

2.  Vegetables, mostly green – kale, broccoli, spinach, carrots, peas; some different color vegetables have much more nutritional value (blue corn, purple potatoes, red bell peppers, etc.)

Fruits – if you need sugar, lower sugar fruits are good options (raspberries, blackberries, etc.).  Of course, you will get results much faster if you avoid the sugar.

3.  Plenty of water; tea (especially green tea  as it increases metabolism), coffee is ok with no added sugar and some milk alternative (almond milk, coconut milk, soy milk, etc.).  If you really need a different taste, I recommend squeezing some lemon juice into your water.

4.  Beans – black, red, pinto

5.  Nuts – walnuts, almonds, pistachios, pecans

You should follow this diet Monday-Friday and Sunday.  Take a break on Saturday and eat what you want within reason, but still try to avoid refined, processed, or artificial ingredients.

Remember, you can’t chose your genetics, but YOU can choose what goes in your mouth!  Plus, studies have show that changing your diet can “turn off” some of the genes that express some chronic diseases.

Now, go lose some weight without even exercising.  Exercise (cardio and strength training) to maximize results.

Comments?  Anything else you do to lose weight?

Post your results below if you try this.  You can see results as quickly as 1-2 weeks.

Please SHARE this with anyone your care about.  We can make a real change in people’s lives.

Recommended:

1.  The Simple Habit That Changed My Life

2.  3 Veggies that FIGHT Abdominal Fat

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11 Biggest Myths of Nutrition

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There is a lot of misinformation circling around in mainstream nutrition.

I have listed the worst examples in this article, but unfortunately this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Here are the top 11 biggest lies, myths and misconceptions of mainstream nutrition.

1. Eggs Are Unhealthy

There’s one thing that nutrition professionals have had remarkable success with… and that is demonizing incredibly healthy foods.

The worst example of that is eggs, which happen to contain a large amount of cholesterol and were therefore considered to increase the risk of heart disease.

But recently it has been proven that the cholesterol in the diet doesn’t really raise the cholesterol in blood. In fact, eggs primarily raise the “good” cholesterol and are NOT associated with increased risk of heart disease. This I learn by visiting websites and reading articles like jenny craig vs Nutrisystem.

What we’re left with is one of the most nutritious foods on the planet. They’re high in all sorts of nutrients along with unique antioxidants that protect our eyes.

To top it all of, despite being a “high fat” food, eating eggs for breakfast is proven to cause significant weight loss compared to bagels for breakfast.

Bottom Line: Eggs do not cause heart disease and are among the most nutritious foods on the planet. Eggs for breakfast can help you lose weight.

2. Saturated Fat is Bad For You

A few decades ago it was decided that the epidemic of heart disease was caused by eating too much fat, in particular saturated fat.

This was based on highly flawed studies and political decisions that have now been proven to be completely wrong.

A massive review article published in 2010 looked at 21 prospective epidemiological studies with a total of 347.747 subjects. Their results: absolutely no association between saturated fat and heart disease.

The idea that saturated fat raised the risk of heart disease was an unproven theory that somehow became conventional wisdom.

Eating saturated fat raises the amount of HDL (the “good”) cholesterol in the blood and changes the LDL from small, dense LDL (very bad) to Large LDL, which is benign.

Meat, coconut oil, cheese, butter… there is absolutely no reason to fear these foods.

Bottom Line: Newer studies have proven that saturated fat does not cause heart disease. Natural foods that are high in saturated fat are good for you.

3. Everybody Should be Eating Grains

The idea that humans should be basing their diets on grains has never made sense to me.

The agricultural revolution happened fairly recently in human evolutionary history and our genes haven’t changed that much.

Grains are fairly low in nutrients compared to other real foods like vegetables. They are also rich in a substance called phytic acid which binds essential minerals in the intestine and prevents them from being absorbed.

The most common grain in the western diet, by far, is wheat… and wheat can cause a host of health problems, both minor and serious.

Modern wheat contains a large amount of a protein called gluten, but there is evidence that a significant portion of the population may be sensitive to it.

Eating gluten can damage the intestinal lining, cause pain, bloating, stool inconsistency and tiredness. Gluten consumption has also been associated with schizophrenia and cerebellar ataxia, both serious disorders of the brain.

Bottom Line: Grains are relatively low in nutrients compared to other real foods like vegetables. The gluten grains in particular may lead to a variety of health problems.

4. Eating a Lot of Protein is Bad For Your Bones and Kidneys

A high protein diet has been claimed to cause both osteoporosis and kidney disease.

It is true that eating protein increases calcium excretion from the bones in the short term, but the long term studies actually show the opposite effect.

In the long term, protein has a strong association with improved bone health and a lower risk of fracture.

Additionally, studies don’t show any association of high protein with kidney disease in otherwise healthy people.

In fact, two of the main risk factors for kidney failure are diabetes and high blood pressure. Eating a high protein diet improves both.

If anything, a high protein diet should be protective against osteoporosis and kidney failure!

Bottom Line: Eating a high protein diet is associated with improved bone health and a lower risk of fracture. High protein also lowers blood pressure and improves diabetes symptoms, which should lower the risk of kidney failure.

5. Low-Fat Foods Are Good For You

Do you know what regular food tastes like when all the fat has been taken out of it?

Well, it tastes like cardboard. No one would want to eat it.

The food manufacturers know this and therefore they add other things to compensate for the lack of fat.

Usually these are sweeteners… sugar, high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners like aspartame.

We’ll get to the sugar in a moment, but I’d like to point out that even though artificial sweeteners don’t have calories, the evidence does NOT suggest that they are better for you than sugar.

In fact, many observational studies show a consistent, highly significant association with various diseases like obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, heart disease, premature delivery and depression.

In these low-fat products, healthy natural fats are being replaced with substances that are extremely harmful.

Bottom Line: Low-fat foods are usually highly processed products loaded with sugar, corn syrup or artificial sweeteners. They are extremely unhealthy.

6. You Should Eat Many Small Meals Throughout The Day

The idea that you should eat many small meals throughout the day in order to “keep metabolism high” is a persistent myth that doesn’t make any sense.

It is true that eating raises your metabolism slightly while you’re digesting the meal, but it’s the total amount of food that determines the energy used, NOT the number of meals.

This has actually been put to the test and refuted multiple times. Controlled studies where one group eats many small meals and the other the same amount of food in fewer meals show that there is literally no difference between the two.

In fact, one study in obese men revealed that eating 6 meals per day led to less feelings of fullness compared to 3 meals.

Not only is eating so often practically useless for most of the people out there, it may even be harmful.

It is not natural for the human body to be constantly in the fed state. In nature, we used to fast from time to time and we didn’t eat nearly as often as we do today.

When we don’t eat for a while, a cellular process called autophagy cleans waste products out of our cells. Fasting or not eating from time to time is good for you.

Several observational studies show a drastically increased risk of colon cancer (4th most common cause of cancer death), numbers going as high as a 90% increase for those who eat 4 meals per day compared to 2.

Bottom Line: There is no evidence that eating many small meals throughout the day is better than fewer, bigger meals. Not eating from time to time is good for you. Increased meal frequency is associated with colon cancer.

7. Carbs Should Be Your Biggest Source of Calories

The mainstream view is that everyone should eat a low-fat diet, with carbs being around 50-60% of total calories.

This sort of diet contains a lot of grains and sugars, with very small amounts of fatty foods like meat and eggs.

This type of diet may work well for some people, especially those who are naturally lean.

But for those who are obese, have the metabolic syndrome or diabetes, this amount of carbohydrates is downright dangerous.

This has actually been studied extensively. A low-fat, high-carb diet has been compared to a low-carb, high-fat diet in multiple randomized controlled trials.

The results are consistently in favor of low-carb, high-fat diets.

Bottom Line: The low-fat, high-carb diet is a miserable failure and has been proven repeatedly to be vastly inferior to lower-carb, higher-fat diets.

8. High Omega-6 Seed and Vegetable Oils Are Good For You

Polyunsaturated fats are considered healthy because some studies show that they lower your risk of heart disease.

But there are many types of polyunsaturated fats and they are not all the same.

Most importantly, we have both Omega-3 fatty acids and Omega-6 fatty acids.

Omega-3s are anti-inflammatory and lower your risk of many diseases related to inflammation. Humans actually need to get Omega-6s and Omega-3s in a certain ratio. If the ratio is too high in favor of Omega-6, it can cause problems.

By far the biggest sources of Omega-6 in the modern diet are processed seed and vegetable oils like soybean, corn and sunflower oils.

Throughout evolution, humans never had access to such an abundance of Omega-6 fats. It is unnatural for the human body.

Research that specifically looks at Omega-6 fatty acids instead of polyunsaturated fats in general shows that they actually increase the risk of heart disease.

Eat your Omega-3s and consider supplementing with cod fish liver oil, but avoid the industrial seed and vegetable oils.

Bottom Line: Humans need to get Omega-6 and Omega-3 fats in a certain ratio. Eating excess Omega-6 from seed oils raises your risk of disease.

9. Low Carb Diets Are Dangerous

I personally believe low-carb diets to be a potential cure for many of the most common health problems in western nations.

The low-fat diet peddled all around the world is fairly useless against many of these diseases. It simply does not work.

However, low-carb diets (demonized by nutritionists and the media) have repeatedly been shown to lead to much better outcomes.

Every randomized controlled trial on low-carb diets shows that they:

1.Reduce body fat more than calorie-restricted low-fat diets, even though the low-carb dieters are allowed to eat as much as they want.

2.Lower blood pressure significantly.

3.Lower blood sugar and improve symptoms of diabetes much more than low-fat diets.

4.Increase HDL (the good) cholesterol much more.

5.Lower triglycerides much more than low-fat diets.

6.Change the pattern of LDL (bad) cholesterol from small, dense (very bad) to Large LDL, which is benign.

7.Low carb diets are also easier to stick to, probably because they don’t require you to restrict calories and be hungry all the time. More people in the low-carb groups make it to the end of the studies.

Many of the health professionals that are supposed to have our best interest in mind have the audacity to claim that these diets are dangerous, then continue to peddle their failed low-fat dogma that is hurting more people than it helps.

Bottom Line: Low-carb diets are the healthiest, easiest and most effective way to lose weight and reverse metabolic disease. It is a scientific fact.

10. Sugar is Unhealthy Because it Contains “Empty” Calories

It is commonly believed that sugar is bad for you because it contains empty calories.

It’s true, sugar has a lot of calories with no essential nutrients. But that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Sugar, primarily because of its high fructose content, affects metabolism in a way that sets us up for rapid fat gain and metabolic disease.

Fructose gets metabolized by the liver and turned into fat which is secreted into the blood as VLDL particles. This leads to elevated triglycerides and cholesterol.

It also causes resistance to the hormones insulin and leptin, which is a stepping stone towards obesity, metabolic syndrome and diabetes.

This is just to name a few. Sugar causes a relentless biochemical drive for humans to eat more and get fat. It is probably the single worst ingredient in the standard western diet.

Bottom Line: The harmful effects of sugar go way beyond empty calories. Sugar wreaks havoc on our metabolism and sets us up for weight gain and many serious diseases.

11. High Fat Foods Will Make You Fat

It seems kind of intuitive that eating fat would make you get fat.

The stuff that is gathering under our skin and making us look soft and puffy is fat. So… eating fat should give our bodies even more of it.

But it isn’t that simple. Despite fat having more calories per gram than carbohydrate or protein, high-fat diets do not make people fat.

As with anything, this depends on the context. A diet that is high in fat AND high in carbs will make you fat, but it’s NOT because of the fat.

In fact, diets that are high in fat (and low in carbs) cause much greater fat loss than diets that are low in fat.

Original source: Authority NutritionFacebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail