Healthy Diet for Easy Weight Loss.

Now you excluded diseases to cause weight gain. It is time to start weight loss diet. Don't worry. It is easy and simple. I will tell you here how I eat. I will tell you the theory and principle. At first it is important to reduce or stop your alcohol intake. Your liver uses fat to produce energy. However, when you drink alcohol, your liver have to work a lot to remove alcohol. As the result, your liver can't use your fat enough to make energy. Therefore you can't lose your fat. Furthermore alcohol has 7 calories per gram. It is higher than carbohydrate (5 calories per gram) and protein (5 calories per gram) although it is lower than fat (9 calories per gram). Alcohol also stimulates your appetite. That's a bad cycle. You will gain weight more and more. Even Japanese heavy drinkers have big stomach fat (pot belly)! If you feel you are alcoholic, you should see medical professionals to quit drinking in order not to put you at a risk of alcohol withdrawal syndrome. Minimize to eat fried foods (especially fried fast food). Japanese don't eat potato chips and French fries very much. Try to eat raw foods. When you eat salad, use low-fat dressing or olive oil based dressing. You can eat carrots and celery without any dressing! American food are most likely sweeter than Japanese food. Eat natural sweets like fruits instead of cookies and cakes. Avoid cheese products (especially pizza) as much as possible. Cheese has a lot of saturated fat which causes weight gain although it is a wonderful source of protein, calcium, and phosphorus. Don't eat it too much. Or eat low-fat daily products. I believe Japanese people still don't eat pizza very much. My American friend's uncle got the prize to get free pizza for one whole year. But he had developed diabetes. Take meals 5-6 times a day instead of 3 times a day. But the amount of total foods must be same. 3-times-a-day diet make you increase blood sugar rapidly and you more hungry between meals than 6-times-day diet. The starvation makes you eat more foods (craving). For diabetic patients, physicians use 5 or 6-times-a-day diet to prevent rapid increase of blood sugar and starvation. Surprisingly always eating is not bad. a small portion each time, though! You should take 45-65% carbohydrates, 20-35% protein, and 10-35% fat. You need to take at least 1200 calories a day to avoid nutrients deficiency. When you take low calories like 1200, it is a good idea to take supplements like multivitamins and minerals.

I will tell you about my daily meals. Breakfast is two or three oatmeal bars (Quaker) or Cheerios. One of my patients asked me which cereals are good or bad. Click here to see the list. Lunch is a frozen food from Lean cuisine, Healthy choice, Eat smart, or South beach diet (They are around 300 calories. Daily calories for adult are around 1800-2000. But you need to calculate calories to lose weight. Some people don't like frozen food and want to cook. Important!-check salt content to eat it within daily range) and one & a half slice of whole grains bread with peanut butter from Costco but any brands, raw carrots & celery, blue berries(containing high antioxidants which protects from cancer & aging and probably oxidation of bad cholesterol LDL), and soy milk instead of water. Oxidation of LDL is highly related to heart disease. However it still needs more research to prove that antioxidant prevents oxidation of LDL in human body. The reason I eat healthy frozen plates is because I can calculate daily calories easily, the nutrition content is good, and the taste is not bad (Surprisingly they sometimes taste better than home cooked ones!). Although you may not think soy milk tastes good, recent soy milk tastes good. But avoid flavored ones (chocolate or vanilla taste) because they have more carbohydrate than plain one. Dinner is frozen food, soy milk, vegetables (carrots & broccoli, blue berries, one capsule of fish oil (Costco but any brands), one & a half slice of whole grains bread with peanut butter, turkey or salmon patties (Costco), a half of Avocado. Try to avoid red meat (beef and pork) as much as possible because red meat has more saturated fat than white meat (chicken and turkey). Avocado is an amazing fruit to reduce your cholesterol. It contains high quantity of unsaturated fat. Salmon also contains the highest amount of unsaturated fat and omega-3 in all fish. When I feel hungry, I eat apples or oatmeal bars. When I eat sandwich, I use avocado instead of mayonnaise. No cheese on it! Easy & simple, huh? Frozen plates save your time for cooking. When I go out for dinner, I try to eat fish (especially salmon). Does skipping breakfast make you leaner? The answer is NO.

I tell you the basic of nutrition although you may already know it. There are three components to produce energy in your body. Your body use carbohydrate , fat, protein in this order as source of energy. Vitamins are not source of your energy. But they help your body metabolize the three components and produce energy. Carbohydrate is a quick source of energy and is stocked as glycogen in liver when it is not used. But excess carbohydrate not used as source of glycogen turns into fat. This is the principle (less carbohydrate & fat and more protein) of Atkins and South beach diets. Don't eat too much carbohydrate. You need to take carbohydrate only when you need quick and more energy. The blood sugar spike level is different in foods even though the foods contain the same amount of carbohydrates. Glycemic index and glycemic load help you find what foods you should eat. Protein is not easy source of energy. When your body doesn’t need it, they are not stored and gone from your body. When you do exercise, proteins turn into your muscles. Fat is not always bad one. Fat is second source of energy following carbohydrate, an important source in your body to make cell membranes and steroid hormones. Like cholesterol, there are bad fat and good fat. Trans fat and Saturated fat is bad fat. Especially trans fat. They make your bad cholesterol (LDL cholesterol) increase and your good cholesterol (HDL cholesterol) lower. They are usually used for fried fast foods. You may remember that recently McDonald stopped using trans fat oil. Good fat is mono- or poly-unsaturated fat including omega-3. They reduce your bad cholesterol and increase good one. These good fats are very important to make your body healthy. The mechanism that unsaturated fat reduces bad cholesterol and increases good cholesterol is more likely due to redistribution of cholesterol between tissue and blood than degradation and excretion of cholesterol. In addition, you may hesitate to eat eggs, liver, shrimp, and lobster because they contain cholesterol. You don't need to worry to eat them because there is not much cholesterol in them if you are not diabetic. Click here to see normal cholesterol level.

What foods contain high good fat? I already mentioned some foods having it in the previous paragraph. Soy milk, avocado, salmon, and fish oil. Other fish (halibut, herring), Canola, olive and nuts (like almond), seeds, sunflower oil, corn oil, olive oil, too. Salmon contains especially high good fat. Avocados contain a lot of vitamins, anti-oxidants in addition to high good fat. I might say that avocados save my life. Japanese people eat a lot of fish (raw, grilled, stewed one) and soy products. So you can understand why there are not many overweight people in Japan and they live longer than people in other countries although they take high salt. But there is a tendency that recent western foods make Japanese children overweight.

I will tell you about the health benefits of dietary fibers including weight loss. They are neither digested nor absorbed by the body. That means no calories. A high-fiber diet has a lot of benefits such as fixing bowel movement problem (constipation and diarrhea), prevention of hemorrhoids and diverticular disease (click here to know what it is), lowering blood cholesterol levels, control of blood sugar levels, weight loss. Fibers are divided into two categories (insoluble fibers and soluble fibers). Insoluble fibers help the movement of foods in the digestive system and increase stool bulk. They are found in whole-wheat flour, wheat bran, nuts, and many vegetables. Soluble fibers can dissolve in water to become gel-like materials that help lower blood cholesterol and sugar levels. Oats, peas, beans, sweet potatoes, apples, citrus fruits, carrots, barley, psyllium are good source of them. How do they work for weight loss besides lowering cholesterol and blood sugar? When you eat foods containing high fibers, the fibers are swollen with liquids in the stomach, which makes you feel full. You will not want to eat more foods. If you eat high-fiber, water-rich foods, you feel more full with fewer calories compared to foods with the same volume without fibers and water. Recently I eat a whole pear. After I eat it, I feel full and give my dog an almost a whole turkey or salmon patty because I can't eat it. It has 50-100 calories. The daily goal of 38 grams for men and 25 grams for women. But you should slowly increase the amount and not take excessive amount because they cause bloating and gas. When you also eat foods containing high fibers without liquids, you should drink enough liquids. Otherwise you would have constipation or your constipation would be worse. Click here to see what foods contain high fibers.

Try my diet. You will find your body change soon after you start. It is simple & easy, isn't it?

Also check the new food pyramid created by the government. There is lots of information. Click here for the brief version I summerized.