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Low Calories and Low GIWhy should we care about low calories? Take a look around, listen to the news. We are faced with a health epidemic of a weighty kind. Looking after your health is for life, but our lifestyle almost encourages us not to - working long hours, less time for family, watching TV, convenience of buying take away. Just what are calories? Calories (also known as kilojoules) are units of energy in food and drink that we consume. We need this energy to keep us moving. We burn calories when we’re active and we store calories as fat when we’ve had more than we need. This table on calorie intake shows the amount of calories needed per day.
The trick is to balance what we eat with the amount of activity we do. To get an idea of the calories you burn with different types of exercise, see this table. We also need to eat foods with low calories and with fibre. Here are some weight loss tips. We know that fast foods like hamburgers, chips, meat pies, sweet pastries have high levels of calories. As these are heavy with transfat (see information below), we try to avoid them. But there’s another reason why we should avoid them. These foods tend to have a high glycemic index (GI) – high in calories, very little carbohydrate, and very little fibre. High GI foods are quickly digested and absorbed. Low GI foods are slowly digested and absorbed, and for this reason keep us going for longer with less need to snack. The danger with high GI foods is that they trigger more insulin (a hormone) which increases the risk of heart disease and hypertension. Another risk is developing type 2 diabetes. Ok, so what are the low GI foods, that contain low calories and high fibre? Think grainy breads, lots of fruits and vegetables, and lots of pasta and legumes (beans), variety of grains. Foods high in carbohydrate have half the calories of fat, so it is better to eat carb rich foods. Aim for carb 40-50 % of calorie intake, fat 30%, protein 20-30% of cal intake. See http://www.glycemicindex.com/ for more information about GI.
Trans fats are food in deep fried fast foods and processed foods made with margarine or shortening. These are created by a process called ‘hydrogenation’ used by food manufacturers. This process keeps vegetable oil stable and it converts liquid oils into solid fats, so that foods, such as cakes and pastries, have the right consistency. The Institute of Medicine, of the US National Academy of Sciences, says that there is no safe level of trans fat. The US now has a regulation that food labels have to show the level of trans fat. In Denmark, food products containing more than 2% of trans fat in the total fat content are banned for sale. Labels may have the word ‘hydrogenated’ or ‘fractionated’ which is the term used for trans fat. You’ll typically find these terms on the labels of biscuits, cakes, pastries. These do not have low calories. Try to find a non-hydrogenated table spread and use good oils, such as olive oil, sunflower, or nut oils. Here's some idea of how much exercise you need to do to burn off calories. Even if you did this exercise to counteract eaing fast food, there are other health problems that come with a diet of fast foods. Eating one large hamburger and fries ... 176 minutes of walking at 5km/hr Eating fried fish and chips ................... 114 minutes of walking at 5km/hr Drinking 1 glass red wine .................... 19 minutes of walking at 5km/hr Eating 1 T-bone steak ........................ 55 minutes of walking at 5km/hr Eating 1 brownie ................................ 49 minutes of walking at 5km/hr Go for low calories, exercise, low GI foods, plenty of fibre to keep you healthy.
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