Finally! A diet I can follow. I am so sick of diets where you have to cut out the best things in life (i.e. cheese, bread, booze and chocolate). Keeping a healthy weight is about moderation and being active, not about depriving yourself. I was reading an outdoor activities blog and watching a clip from the Today Show where they interviewed Keri Glassman, a nationally recognized nutrition expert and published author. She has been a leader in advancing the “whole person” approach to health and wellness.
In Keri’s most recent book The O2 Diet: The cutting edge, antioxidant-based diet that will make you thin and beautiful, she takes complex scientific research on antioxidants and the ORAC scale and translates the information into digestible terms to help empower people to live a more nutritious life by combining a nutrient-dense, high antioxidant diet with the other components in her Nutritious Life Cycle.
You can find her books on her site, but first I’d like to outline her 5 counterintuitive dieting tips to get you started on a healthy weight loss plan:
1) To Lose Fat, Eat Fat
You need to eat 30-35 percent of your calories from fat. Fat helps you feel fuller so you won’t be hungry or craving food. Appease your stomach, don’t punish it. Clearly you want to be eating healthy fats like mono and saturated fats from things like avocado and olive oil because they have actually been shown to prevent belly fat. Salmon, walnuts are also a great idea as they help metabolize fat.
2) Sleep More
When you’re tired you actually crave more calories and carbohydrates. Your body is better off getting the 7-8 recommended hours of sleep. Researchers have found that if you’re sleeping 6 hours for instance, you can be increasing your chances of obesity by 23 percent. If you only sleep 5 hours, you increase your chances by 50 percent. The explanation is that by losing sleep you are increasing your hunger hormone ghrelin, and decreasing your fullness hormone leptin (plays a key role in regulating energy intake and energy expenditure, including appetite and metabolism). So make sure to take off your jewelry and get to bed on time and be active enough during the day so you have a full, good night’s sleep.
3)Say Cheese!
This is perhaps my favourite tip, add cheese to your diet. Recent research shows that women who ingest 580 mg of calcium a day versus 150 mg of calcium lost 12 lbs versus 7 lbs. You do have to be careful however because cheese is high in calories and also has some unhealthy saturated fat. The trick, enjoy cheese but control your portions.
4)Drink Alcohol
Moderate alcohol consumption of up to 1 glass a day of any kind of alcohol, for women can actually have health benefits and help you lose weight. Research has shown that women who consume moderate amounts of alcohol were 30 percent less likely to be overweight and 70 percent less likely to be obese.
5)Have Sex
Did you know you burn 150-200 calories per ½ hour when having sex? Sex doesn’t only feel great, it helps reduce stress levels, and you release a hormone called oxytocin, a feel-good hormone which also acts as an antioxidant. When you feel good you’re less stressed and thereby less likely to emotional eat.
Enjoy your new diet!
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