10 Diet Myths

by: Beatriz da Costa

Low-fat! Low-carb! Eat all day! Don't eat after eight! Finally, the honest to goodness truth about how to keep your weight under control

Myth No. 1: Don’t eat after 8 p.m.

The Theory: You burn up the food you eat earlier in the day, while late-night calories sit in your system and turn into fat.

The Reality: Calories can’t tell time. “Your body digests and uses calories the same way morning, noon, and night,” says Mary Flynn, Ph.D., a research dietitian at the Miriam Hospital, in Providence. They may sit around a little longer if you eat, then lie on the couch and watch Letterman, but when you move around the next day, your body will dip into its stores. That said, there are other solid reasons to avoid late-night snacking, not least of which is that snacks you grab when you’re tired tend to be unhealthy ones.

The Best Advice: If you often unwind before bed with a bowl of ice cream or buttered popcorn, try cutting the snack out. The calories saved may be enough for you to lose a few pounds a year. If you’re hungry, “eat something on the light side, like a piece of fruit or some cereal with milk,” says Ellie Krieger, a registered dietitian and the author of The Food You Crave (Taunton, $28., www.amazon.com). Night eaters tend to overeat (which leads to weight gain no matter when it’s done) because often they’ve been skimping during the day and come home famished. Being so hungry that you grab whatever is at hand means you’re more likely to make poor choices. “Don’t go longer than about five hours without eating,” says Jo Ann Hattner, a registered dietitian and a nutrition consultant in San Francisco. Just be careful to keep your meals and snacks small.

Myth No. 2: Eating small, frequent meals boosts your metabolism.

The Theory: If you keep adding small amounts of food to your fire (the fire being your metabolism), you will keep it going strong and burn more calories overall.

The Reality: Food intake has a negligible effect on metabolism. Some foods, including those with caffeine, may slightly and temporarily increase metabolism, but the effect is too small to help you lose weight. What most affects your basal metabolic rate (BMR), the rate at which your body burns calories at rest, is body composition and size. More muscles and bigger bodies generally burn more calories overall.

The Best Advice: Build up your muscles. A pound of fat-free tissue burns about 14 calories a day, while a pound of fat burns just two to three calories. And while that difference may not sound like a lot, it will certainly help over time. Remember, too, that when you lose pounds, part of that weight is muscle, warns Liz Neporent, an exercise physiologist and the president of Wellness 360, a New York City–based corporate-wellness-consulting company. That’s why strength training is even more important if you’re on a weight-loss mission. Try the seven-exercise Muscle Maintenance Workout. And if you hate lifting weights, you can instead maintain your muscles by going to a Pilates, body-sculpting, or power-yoga class two to three times a week.

Myth No. 3: Pasta makes you fat.

The Theory: When you eat carbohydrates, your body turns them into sugars, which are then stored as fat.

The Reality: Carbohydrates per se don’t make you fat; extra calories do, whether you eat them in the form of carbs, fats, or protein. Besides, carbohydrates include vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, which are important parts of a healthy diet. In short, the problem isn’t pasta but the sheer volume consumed. “Americans tend to eat too much carbohydrates, fat, and protein. But they overeat carbs most of all,” says Barbara Moore, Ph.D., a nutritionist in Clyde Park, Montana, and a spokesperson for the American Society for Nutrition. “You go to a restaurant and you’re served three cups of pasta with lots of sauce.” Those three cups of pasta can pack up to 600 calories without the sauce.

The Best Advice: Pasta in moderation is fine. Dietitians recommend two or three ounces of uncooked noodles per person — or half of a one-pound box to serve a family of four. This may look like a puny amount, but try thinking of “pasta as an ingredient, rather than as the basis of a dish,” says Mark Bittman, author of How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (Wiley, $35, www.amazon.com). “Start with a lot of grilled or sautéed vegetables and maybe a tomato-based sauce. Then add some pasta, sparingly.” If you want protein, add beans, chicken, or shellfish. (For some delicious pasta dishes, see Healthy Pasta Recipes. Make your pasta — or bread or rice or cereal — whole-grain, which has more vitamins and minerals than white pasta. You’ll also be getting fiber, which helps you feel full.

Myth No. 4: Coffee can help you lose weight.

The Theory: The caffeine in coffee acts as an appetite suppressant and a metabolism booster.

The Reality: While coffee may temporarily squelch your appetite, drinking a couple of cups a day won’t have enough of an effect to help you lose weight. Besides, pouring too much coffee into your system — drinking, say, four to seven cups a day — may lead to anxiety, sleeplessness, and an increase in heart rate and blood pressure.

The Best Advice: Enjoy a cup or two of coffee (or tea) every day, if you please. Just be sure that if you add anything to the brew — like cream, sugar, or cocoa powder — you take those calories into account. For example, a 16-ounce Starbucks café mocha can contain a whopping 330 calories (60 more than some chocolate bars). What’s more, those calories might not make you feel as full as the same number of calories eaten in solid form.

Another coffee concern: sleep disruption, which new evidence reveals is linked to weight control. “Every time people feel tired, they think, I have to have a latte,” says Liz Applegate, Ph.D., director of sports nutrition at the University of California, Davis. “They become addicted to caffeine on a higher level, and it takes four to six hours to clear out of the system. Sleep is not as good, and you’re tired the next day.” And probably hungrier, too. At least two studies have shown that when people are sleep-deprived, they produce more of the hormone ghrelin, an appetite stimulant, and less leptin, an appetite suppressant. Not to mention that your resistance to the doughnut’s siren song is a whole lot lower when you’re pooped.

Myth No. 5: Milk can help you lose weight.

The Theory: Calcium helps the body break down fat more efficiently, stimulating weight loss.

The Reality: Dairy doesn’t appear to have magic properties. A few studies from the mid-2000s concluded that dieters who consumed dairy lost more weight than dieters who did not. But other studies showed no effect, and still others showed a link between high milk consumption and eating more calories.

The Best Advice: Go ahead and eat dairy products, but stick with low-fat versions, which are lower in both calories and unhealthy saturated fats.

Milk products are loaded with calcium, of course, but how much calcium you need is a matter of debate. The government recommends at least 1,000 milligrams of calcium for adults under 50 years old (about the amount in three cups of milk) and 1,200 milligrams for people over 50; however, the Harvard School of Public Health holds that no one really knows the healthiest, safest amount of calcium that adults should consume. If dairy products don’t agree with you, you can get calcium from fortified soy milk; fortified orange juice; dark green, leafy vegetables, such as kale and collard greens; and certain fish, such as canned salmon.

Myth No. 6: Going on a diet is the best way to lose weight.

The Theory: Switching to a prescriptive plan temporarily is the smartest way to drop pounds.

The Reality: Short-term, you do lose weight on any plan that results in your eating fewer calories. But temporary changes don’t lead to permanent losses. “A diet won’t work if you think of it as doing a different thing for a while and then you’re going to stop doing it,” says Christopher Gardner, an assistant professor of nutritional science at Stanford University School of Medicine. “If you have a new way of eating and think, I’m going to eat like this forever, that’s the way to lose weight.” And keep it off.

The Best Advice: Don’t go on a “diet” — a quick fix that begins on New Year’s Day or before bathing-suit season. Instead, change the way you eat. Find a satisfying eating plan that you can live with long-term, and make sure you’re eating the right amount of calories for weight loss. Then, when you’ve taken off some weight, don’t go back to eating as much as you did before you cut calories. “To maintain a lighter weight, you have to eat a little less than you did to maintain your heavier weight before,” says Gardner.

Besides, dieting alone won’t work as well as dieting plus exercise — a little bit of exercise, or maybe a lot. Since 1994 the National Weight Control Registry has followed and analyzed the habits of successful weight losers (defined as people who have maintained at least a 30-pound weight loss for a year or more). Among its findings: Those who kept weight off exercised — with brisk walking or some other moderate-intensity activity — an average of one hour a day. “One of the most important aspects of weight maintenance is a high dose of physical activity,” says Rena Wing, Ph.D., a cofounder of the registry and a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the Warren Alpert Medical School, at Brown University.

Myth No. 7: Eating protein and carbs at different meals will help you lose weight.

The Theory: Protein and carbohydrates require different enzymes for digestion; if you eat the two separately, you improve digestion and further weight loss.

The Reality: Your digestive tract can handle a variety of food groups at the same time. There is no proof that eating protein and carbohydrates separately aids digestion or weight loss, says nutritionist Christopher Gardner. Indeed, it’s healthier to combine protein and fiber-filled carbs than to separate them. “The pairing of protein and fiber is what fills you up the most and gives you the most energy,” says Elisa Zied, a New York City–based registered dietitian and a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. “An apple is good, but an apple with peanut butter is more filling.” Also, some of the best foods for you — nuts, seeds, legumes — are made up of both protein and carbohydrates. “To people who say that you should separate protein and carbohydrates, I say, ‘Why did God make beans?’” says dietitian Ellie Krieger.

The Best Advice: Eat protein along with carbs, but choose with care. The best protein choices are lean meats, poultry, low-fat dairy products, and tofu, because they have little (if any) saturated fat. The best carbs are whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, which offer more health benefits than refined grains. “Those foods take longer to absorb, so there’s a slower release into the body and a more steady energy source,” says Hope Barkoukis, an assistant professor of nutrition at Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland.

Myth No. 8: To lose weight, you need to cut calories drastically.

The Theory: Eat much less; weigh much less.

The Reality: Sure, if you subsist on 1,200 calories a day, you’ll take off weight, but it won’t be for long. Consider an analysis of 31 studies of long-term diets, where the diets averaged 1,200 calories a day. The report, published last April in American Psychologist, found that within four to five years, the majority of dieters in these studies regained the weight they had lost. “Psychologically, it’s difficult for people to adhere to strict diets over a long period because they feel deprived and hungry,” says Traci Mann, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis, and the lead author of the report. “Also, our bodies are brilliant at keeping us alive when we try to starve them.” Your body becomes more efficient at using the calories you consume, so you need fewer to survive. In addition, people who are put on a very-low-calorie diet (800 calories a day) have an increased risk of developing gallstones and digestive issues.

The Best Advice: Don’t starve yourself. “If you want to lose weight and keep it off forever, you need a modest calorie restriction that you simply continue and never stop,” says nutritionist Christopher Gardner. But what’s the right number of calories for you? Use this easy formula, a favorite of cardiologist Thomas Lee, editor in chief of the Harvard Heart Letter.

First find your activity level on the table below. Multiply your weight by the number indicated. (You may fall between two categories. If that’s the case, adjust the number by adding a point or so.) The result is the number of calories you need to maintain your weight. Let’s say you weigh 135 pounds and do light exercise one to three days a week. Multiply 135 by 13.5 to get, approximately, 1,800 calories. If you want to drop some pounds, try cutting out 250 calories a day, says Lee. In a year, if you make no other changes, you could be 26 pounds lighter. Exercise more and you could lose more, too.

And Your Number Is…

You Exercise: Almost never
Multiply Your Current Weight By: 12

You Exercise: Lightly, one to three days a week
Multiply Your Current Weight By: 13.5

You Exercise: Moderately, three to five days a week
Multiply Your Current Weight By: 15.5

You Exercise: Vigorously, six to seven days a week
Multiply Your Current Weight By: 17

You Exercise: Vigorously, daily, and you have a physical job
Multiply Your Current Weight By: 19

Myth No. 9: Diet foods help you diet.

The Theory: Low-fat, low-carb, and artificially sweetened packaged foods make losing weight painless.

The Reality: Low-fat and low-carb don’t always mean low-cal, and if you’re trying to lose weight, stocking up on these treats could undermine your efforts. In a series of recent studies, for instance, participants ate up to 50 percent more of foods that the researchers falsely labeled “low-fat” than they did of the same exact foods with real labels. “Consumers expect that low-fat M&M’s contain 20 percent fewer calories than their regular counterparts,” concluded the authors of the studies, Brian Wansink, Ph.D., and Pierre Chandon, Ph.D., in the Journal of Marketing Research, in November 2006. “Importantly, as a result, they expect that comparable increases in serving sizes are justified.” Some experts also believe that consuming artificial sweeteners might backfire. Two long-term studies looking at the drinking habits of thousands of people have found a correlation between drinking diet soda and being overweight.

The Best Advice: When you’re tempted by a snack food that’s labeled “light” or “low-fat,” check the nutrition label. Look at how many calories are in a serving, then compare that number with the calories in a comparable product that’s not making a label claim. And then consider having just a small amount of the real thing. You may end up consuming fewer calories with, say, a full-fat product than you would with a low-fat version, because fat tends to be more satisfying. And take care that you don’t decide — consciously or not — that substituting a diet soda for a full-sugar one gives you license to eat a box of Valentine’s chocolates instead.

Myth No. 10: Eating fat makes you fat.

The Theory: Fat has nine calories per gram, whereas carbs and protein have only four per gram, so to lose weight you have to avoid fat.

The Reality: Fat is not the enemy. Although fat-laden products can be full of calories, a modest amount of fat may help you feel full (so you eat less overall) and make healthy foods, like vegetables, taste better (so you may eat more of them). Fat also helps with the absorption of certain vitamins and phytonutrients, which are compounds in plants that are thought to promote health.

The Best Advice: Eat fat, but don’t go overboard. And think about which fats you do eat, as some are better for you than others. Choose monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, found in liquid oils such as canola, safflower, and olive; most nuts; and fish. These fats don’t raise blood cholesterol levels and may reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease. The fats to limit or avoid are saturated fats, found mainly in beef and dairy products, and trans fats, which are in a lot of packaged foods, fried fast foods, and margarine. These are no more caloric than the good fats, but they are less healthful, as they increase the risk of heart disease. The Institute of Medicine, which advises the government on scientific matters, including health, recommends that when it comes to saturated fat, cholesterol, and trans fats, you eat as little as possible. If we’ve learned anything as we’ve swung from low-fat to low-carb and back again, it’s this: There’s no need to eat dry salad or forgo any food you adore. Most everything in moderation will keep your weight where it belongs.

Source: real simple

Younger Women Often Miss Signs of Heart Attack

Many younger women ignore or simply don't recognize the warning signs of a heart attack, often because it doesn't resemble the typical "Hollywood heart attack."

So say the authors of a study being presented Friday at the American Heart Association's annual Scientific Forum on Quality of Care and Outcomes Research in Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke, in Baltimore.

"So many women said, 'We wish we had a better stereotype, you never see anything in the media,'" said study author Judith Lichtman, an associate professor of epidemiology and public health at Yale School of Medicine. "I personally would love to see some cutting-edge TV series of, for example, a young person having a heart attack with atypical symptoms."

"The classic image of someone having a heart attack is someone like John Belushi. It's a heavy man clutching his chest. We never think of young women as having heart disease, so the image is not part of their consciousness," added Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, director of Women & Heart Disease at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "It's so important that we not only tell women that heart disease doesn't necessary have to look like [a Hollywood script], but they have to understand what makes them at risk."

Heart disease is the leading killer of American women, claiming almost half a million lives a year, or about one death per minute. According to background information from the authors, 16,000 young women with heart disease die every year and 40,000 are hospitalized.

Last year, a study from the same group of researchers found that women under the age of 55 often fail to recognize the symptoms of a heart attack until it's too late.

Eighty-eight percent of women in that trial reported traditional symptoms of severe chest pain. Yet only 42 percent suspected something was wrong with their heart.

Only half of the women experiencing heart attack symptoms sought care within the first hour, apparently because they thought their symptoms weren't real or weren't serious.

For this study, researchers conducted in-depth interviews with 30 women aged 55 and older a week after they had been discharged from the hospital following a heart attack.

Many didn't realize the symptoms were due to a heart attack. For example, one woman said she was told she was experiencing symptoms of acid reflux. Others attributed symptoms to fatigue, overexertion or stress.

Often, the symptoms just didn't line up with how heart attacks are presented in the popular media.

"I [had] probably seen a show or something with somebody having a heart attack," said one woman. "And they fall. They grab their chest. And then they grab their arm... I mean, you don't see anybody saying I have pain in my jaw or especially a heart attack, you don't see them vomiting . . . I did not know that and it's probably because of television, I would say is why I thought it would just be in the chest."

Similarly, another woman told investigators, "It's like... I didn't have any of the typical heart attack symptoms that you always hear about on TV and the ER hospital shows."

Some delayed treatment because symptoms went away for a while, or because they were too busy or had experienced prior, negative encounters with the health-care system (" . . . they throw you out, you know," said one woman. "If you don't have the money right there, then in two days you're gone").

One woman said she called her doctor about chest pains but was scheduled for a regular appointment in five days. Another woman who went to the emergency room spent an hour trying to find a supervisor to help her after a "rude" nurse just kept telling her to have a seat.

"A lot of women were triaged for a regular visit or, even in the ER, were being looked up for a lot of things other than a heart attack," Lichtman said.

Ironically, for some women, it was actually a relief to know that they were having a heart attack, that finally the mystery was over, Lichtman said.

Lichtman and her colleagues will be looking at this issue in more depth in a U.S. National Institutes of Health-funded study enrolling 2,000 women under 55 and 1,000 men in the same age range.

"A little bit of empowerment goes a long way," Steinbaum said. "Knowing your risk and knowing the potential for heart disease, seeking early care for symptoms that are really unclear and then saying, 'I am at risk for heart disease, please help me' becomes important in the paradigm of how this needs to develop."

from everydayhealth.com

New Stealth Chemicals Hidden in Your Food

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If you pick up a can of soup and find that the sodium levels are lower than you expected, or that a food item advertises it has “less sugar” or “no MSG” ... then there may be cause for alarm.

Perhaps one day we can all simply eat cans of mush, and it won’t matter because they’ll contain chemicals to block and alter all of our taste receptors! This is an example of malicious brilliance at its finest.

Processed foods, by their very nature, do not taste good unless they have loads of artificial colors and flavoring agents, salt, sugar and often MSG added to doctor up the flavors.

In fact, most processed foods would taste incredibly bitter if they weren’t doctored up because of things like their extremely hot cooking processes and added caffeine (in soft drinks).

So what do food companies like Nestle, Cadbury Schweppes, Campbell Soup, and Coca-Cola do?

They hire Senomyx, a biotech company that can skillfully manipulate your taste buds with synthetic chemicals.

The company has already developed several chemicals that, although they contain no flavor of their own, activate or block receptors in your mouth that taste. The chemicals can mimic or enhance savory, sweet and salty tastes, and are intended to reduce the use of sugar, salt and monosodium glutamate (MSG) in processed foods.

One of Senomyx’s chemicals even causes a “cooling” taste, and we have only just begun to hear about the “innovations” that come from this company.

Senomyx already has 113 patents, and 371 more pending, in the United States, Europe and elsewhere in the world.

A Brief Lesson About Your Taste Buds

When you were in grade school, you were probably taught that certain areas of your tongue can taste different flavors. The “sweet” taste buds, for instance, were said to be at the tip of your tongue, and the “bitter” ones in back.

This taste-bud tongue map is still being taught today, but it has been known for decades to be entirely incorrect. In reality, each one of your taste buds contains 50 to 100 receptors for each taste. This means that you can taste every flavor there is with every taste bud on your tongue.

And, along with the standard sweet, sour, salty and bitter tastes that everyone has heard of, your tongue can also taste a fifth basic taste: umami (the taste of glutamate, which is found in many Japanese foods, bacon and also MSG).

It is also being debated whether or not there is actually a sixth taste receptor for fat on your tongue as well.

Of course, your taste buds are not only there for pleasurable purposes. They also help you determine if a food is spoiled, unripe or otherwise unsafe to eat, which is why you’re probably better off leaving your taste buds as nature intended them to be: in fully functioning, tasting condition.

Your Taste Buds May Already be Deceiving You

Nestle is already marketing products that contain one of Senomyx’s savory enhancers.

But you would never know it, because the chemical compounds are lumped in with an ingredient that’s already listed on most processed foods: “artificial flavors.”

I did a little digging and found that the first product sold by Nestle that includes these “savory flavor ingredients” is bouillon used as a base to make soups and stews. So if you are using one of theirs that lists “artificial flavors,” I’d be very suspicious.

Meanwhile, because the compounds are being used in small amounts (less than one part per million), Senomyx did not have to go through the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approval process typically necessary to release food additives. Instead of the lengthy FDA process, the company only had to be classified as "generally recognized as safe" by the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association -- a task that took less than 18 months.

And as for safety, well there was that one three-month rat study. That’s right: one three-month long study is apparently enough for major food manufacturers to decide that a never-before-used chemical is safe for you and your family to eat.

Unfortunately, for now it appears that these taste-bud-altering chemicals are here to stay, as earlier this month both Coca-Cola and Nestle extended their research agreements with Senomyx.

If You Want Chemical-Free Food …

It is becoming more important than ever to avoid processed foods. At the very least, boycott any product that lists “artificial flavors” as an ingredient.

You can tell a real food from a processed food because real foods are:

* Grown, not processed
* Messy, not neat and convenient
* Of variable quality, not always the same
* Prone to spoiling, not “forever” fresh
* Vibrantly colored and textured, not dull and bland
* Naturally flavorful, not artificially flavored
* Strongly connected to the land and culture

Real foods have flavors that your taste buds won’t want to miss, so take a break from the grocery store and take advantage of your local farmer’s markets. There you’ll find fresh, whole foods that your taste buds will be happy to recognize.



Sources: Dr. Mercola.com