Do You Know These Surprising Benefits of Eating Eggs?

Check out these benefits of eating eggs.

Weight Loss

• There have been some studies that show that eating eggs can be a great help in losing weight. One study by the Rochester Center for Obesity Research discovered that a breakfast of eggs helps to reduce calorie intake for the day by at least 400 calories. One possible reason for this is that with an egg breakfast you don't get hungry so soon, thereby avoiding the trap of snacking on junk food during the day.
  
  
• Another study from Louisiana State University compared the weight loss results of women who had 2 eggs for breakfast with women who ate a bagel breakfast of similar calories. Over an eight week period the women having 2 eggs for breakfast lost 65% more weight and had an 83% greater reduction in waist circumference. They also reported greater improvements in their energy levels.
  

Breast Cancer Protection

• Another interesting piece of research discovered that women who ate at least six eggs each week reduced their risk of getting breast cancer by 44% compared to women who ate two eggs or less each week.

Eyes, Skin and Hair

• Egg yolks contain the antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin. These antioxidants are better absorbed by the body when they come from eggs rather than vegetables. They protect the eyes from ultraviolet rays, help guard against macular degeneration and may also help to lower the risk of developing cataracts.
  
  
• The high sulphur content along with the large variety of vitamins and minerals found in eggs help hair and nails to be stronger and healthier.

Eggs have long been one of my favorite staples. My most common breakfast is 2 eggs on toast. With all the good things about eggs I don't plan on changing that any time soon.

Enjoy your food
Jocelyn

Healthy Lifestyle - Putting It All Into Practice

Recap - Make a Healthy Diet Plan

Over the last few posts I have been discussing a range of things that can help in the quest towards good health. Just to quickly remind ourselves of the main points, eat healthy, natural food such as fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole grains, meats and seafoods.

Remember that it is easier to get the all important vitamins and minerals from fresh, natural foods. Try to keep processed foods to a minimum, especially those that contain additives like colours and preservatives.

Healthy diets don't just happen by themselves, make a healthy diet plan. It is a bit like a road map. It shows the direction you want to go.

Eating foods that provide the nutrients that our body craves for, not only brings good health but makes it a lot easier to lose weight and to maintain a healthy body weight.

Adding herbs and spices to our diets helps to provide nutrients and contributes to good health. Some spices, such as cinnamon, have a reputation for assisting weight loss and also in helping control blood insulin levels. See my posts on Cinnamon and also Weight loss? for further details.

Then there are things like walking or other regular exercise, staying hydrated and getting enough sunshine to keep our Vitamin D levels up. There really are many things that contribute to being in good health.

Know what to do but it still doesn't happen?

Information like this, and then putting it into practice, is really important. However, many times people find that when it comes to putting it into practice is where it all falls down.

It is easy to know what to do but you get results when you know how to do it.

That in a nutshell is where the problem lies. We might know what we need to do but knowing how to do it is another story altogether.

Some of the answers to this lie in how we think, our attitudes and beliefs about the issue or topic.

For example, if a person feels as though they are missing out because they are not eating cream cakes, donuts and lollies they are much more likely to break out and fill up on those things than a person who believes that eating fresh fruit and nuts for snacks is delicious and exactly what they want.

The battle is largely won or lost in our brains. Reframing our questions or thoughts, evaluating our attitudes and beliefs go a long way towards being able to do what it takes to live a healthy lifestyle.

Ask yourself questions like does this serve me well? Is this useful to me? Is there another way to do this? How else could this be done?

Ask how can I do this? It is more beneficial than saying I can't do this.

Perhaps asking questions like this can help us to know how to do what we know we need to do.

I hope you have great success as you begin to sort out which attitudes and thoughts serve you the best.

Jocelyn

Can Fruit and Vegetables Help Weight Loss?

A recent study in Brazil says yes. The study was published in Nutrition Research, Issue 28, 2008. Over a six month study period they found that increasing the fruit, vegetable and fibre content of the diet resulted in greater weight loss than the control group. They also found that an increase in intake of vitamins C and B6, B-carotene and folate were also associated with weight loss.

Other benefits besides weight loss

Fruit and vegetables are packed full of nutrients that your body is crying out for. Eating the right amounts of fruits and vegetables help to prevent:

• stroke
  
• heart disease
  
• hypertension
  

They also

• improve vascular function
  
• promote weight loss
• improve blood pressure
• reduce risk of diabetes
  

Statistics published in a British medical journal, The Lancet, show that eating 3 -5 servings of fruit and vegetables per day give an 11% reduction in the risk of stroke over people who eat less than three servings. Those who eat more than 5 servings per day have a 26% reduction.

Undoubtedly there are other benefits than those I have just listed. Although, even if that were all, it would be enough to take notice and think about how much fruit and vegetables we really eat.

Use fruit for snacks

If you are trying to lose weight you will not want to just add extra fruit and vegetables to what you are already eating. Think about which foods you are eating that have empty calories. That is, for the amount of calories that they add to your diet, they are low on nutrients. Some examples of this would be chips, soft drinks, lollies and sweets, cakes etc. You get the idea? Eating fruit and vegetables instead of this type of food is a good start to a healthier life.

Feel like a snack? Have a bowl of fruit handy.

Hints of adding more fruit and vegetables to your diet

• Keep fruit and vegetables where you can see them easily.
• Use frozen vegetables and precut, prewashed fresh produce if it makes it easier.
• Experiment with sauces, dressings, spice blends and nuts to go with them.
• Try fruit smoothies, juice, banana or fresh fruit in cereals for breakfast.
• Add vegetables to casseroles and soups.
• Drink vegetable juices
• Create salads. Use tomatoes, red peppers, carrots, and other brightly coloured vegetables to go with the leafy greens.
• Berries, fresh or frozen are a great dessert.

The list could go on. There are so many ways of enjoying fruit and vegetables. If you have a favourite recipe or way of using fruit or vegetables please share it with us by leaving a comment.

Eat you way to good health

Jocelyn

Some Benefits of Walking

After writing about weight loss, I began to consider, what were the benefits of walking? Are there benefits from walking other than losing weight? I found quite a few that make walking sound like a not to be missed activity.

A few benefits of walking

• Protects the heart and circulatory system by raising HDL, the good cholesterol, and keeping weight down.
• May help prevent cancer by, among other things, beneficial effects on the immune system and hormone levels.
• Decrease the risk of glaucoma. Exercise also lowers the pressure for those with glaucoma.
• Decreases risk of diabetes
• Helps with efficient metabolism
  

Steps per day

When healthy young men dropped their daily steps from 6,000 or 10,000 steps down to 2,000 steps it took only two weeks for their metabolism to show problems. Their body was no longer processing energy from food efficiently. This caused a large increase in insulin circulating in their blood. It also caused a 7% increase in abdominal fat even though there was no weight gain. An increase in heart disease risk factors was also noted.

2000 steps is equivalent to about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers). It is surprising how many steps per day we can add just by parking the car a bit further away or taking the steps instead of the elevator. I am sure that most of us can think of ways to add extra steps in our day. Most of us would need to add a 30 - 60 minute walk to achieve a goal of 6,000 to 10,000 steps per day.

Just 30 minutes of walking a day gives as much risk reduction for heart attack as higher intensity exercise.

Speed

What is the best speed to walk? That depends on why you are walking and what you are able to do. If you are primarily walking to lose weight, walking at an easy pace, where it is easy to carry on a conversation, is best. This gives the body time to release and burn stored sugar and fat, rather than burning only available sugars and muscle.

There is very little difference in calories burned per mile walking at speeds between 2.5 (4 km) and 4 miles per hour(6.4 kmph). The more you weigh, the more calories you burn at any speed. However it is not worth the injury risk to carry extra weight. It is easier to walk an extra 5 minutes. A walking speed of 5 mph (8 kmph) or 12 minutes per mile brings you to the top calorie burn per mile and is the same as that achieved by jogging. Runners don't get any calorie burning benefit by going faster than 10 minutes per mile or 6 mph (9.6 kmph).

Increase your distance slowly

The greater the distance you walk the more calories you burn. The only benefit in walking faster is that you can go further in the same time. Only do what you are able to do and build up. If you are only able to walk 100 meters at first, do that for two days and then increase the distance by half. Do that for two or three days and increase by half again. Continue increasing like this until you can walk the desired distance. It is not necessary to run unless you enjoy it.

Another point about speed is that slower strolling reduces the loads on the knee joints by 25%. This is important to consider if you have quite a lot of weight to lose. Also walking with fitness poles has the effect of burning more calories per mile while taking pressure off the knees and joints.

Make sure you have shoes that fit you well. If your climate doesn't lend itself well to walking outdoors, try walking in a large enclosed shopping mall.

So for both preventing ill health and improving your health status, start walking.

Be in good health

Jocelyn

Weight Loss?

Did you find that you needed to lose weight?

Have you tried and tried before with little or no success?
The last thing you want to do is lose some weight only to put it back on plus more. This is exactly what happens to most people when they diet. That is because after they have done the work they reward themselves by going back to how they ate before. The problem with that is if you do what you did before you will get the same results you got before. If we want different results we have to continue doing what gives us the results we want.

Whatever It Takes

It is very discouraging when we try to do something and never get there.
We can end up feeling as though it is no use trying again.
However when your health is at stake, giving up is not an option.
In my family we have a saying "whatever it takes".
When something is important the motto is to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes.
The secret to success with this is to have people around you who are supportive of what you are doing and will encourage you.

Steps To Take

• Make a strong determination in your own mind that you are going to lose weight. If it is going to be it is up to me.
  
• Assess your past attempts. Did you do anything to sabotage your success? If so find out why and sort out those issues. Ask for help. Sometimes we need to talk it out to work out what is going on.
• Determine to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes. Hint: If one thing doesn't work find something that does.
• Keep a food journal for a week or two (or longer if it works for you). This will identify exactly what you are eating. It puts you in the driver's seat. You are in control. You can then decide which of the things you are eating are beneficial to you and if there are other things you would rather eat than some of what you did eat.
• Decide what method or steps you are going to take to achieve your goal. Write them down. Tell your support people all about it.
• If you have a lot of weight to lose or other health issues talk to your health professional about what you want to do. Get their advise but in the end it is you who is in control and makes the decisions.
• Plan. What type of exercise? How much? When? What will I eat? How much? When? Note: you do not have to starve yourself or do excessive exercise. Be kind to yourself

Other Ideas

There has been some research that indicates that Vitamin D can assist obese people who are deficient in vitamin D to lose weight. If you live in a sunny climate it is easy to get vitamin D by exposing your skin to the sun for 15-30 minutes each day. In tropical areas be sure to do this in the early morning before the sun is hot enough to make you burn. The studies also found that it is common for obese people to be low in vitamin D.

In my post about cinnamon, I noted that one of the uses for cinnamon was to use with honey for weight loss. I was just looking around and people have had mixed results with this. Some people report great results and some don't. Some like the taste and some don't.

Here is the recipe in case you would like to try it.

Pour 1 cup of boiling water on to 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Leave it to steep for about 15 minutes. Add 1 teaspoon raw honey and stir. Drink one cup on an empty stomach about 30 minutes before breakfast and another cup in the evening before bed.

This article is not intended to be a complete resource of everything you need to know. If it can inspire you to begin to take control of your own health, or if it can give you an idea or two that helps you to achieve your goal, then it will have served its purpose.

You are in control of your destiny. Take steps today to achieve your health goals. Only you can set it in motion. Others can help but you are in charge. What questions do you have regarding losing weight? Leave a comment to let me know.

Good health and success

Jocelyn