Patricia Thompson - NUTRITION TALK DO YOU feel deprived when dieting? Do you feel as if you hardly eat anything and yet your weight is not budging?
So many persons claim that they do not eat much and yet they gain weight. Perhaps the problem is in how you interpret 'much'. You may think it is the number of food items on your plate or even the quantity or weight of the food. But how fattening a food is, really depends on the amount of calories it contains in the quantity eaten and unfortunately, you cannot see calories.
Foods high in calories, called calorie dense, may be high in either fat or carbohydrate or protein or alcohol. All these substances provide calories and it is the balance of intake in the diet relative to your activity level that will determine whether you lose weight.
EATING LIGHT
Many persons eat a cooked lunch at work then claim to eat 'light' in the evenings consuming sometimes up to a whole pack of crackers with cheese. But are you aware that a small pack of light crackers has the same calories as seven slices of bread or 450 calories and the cheese may run you into another 150 calories? This is the same as if you had a medium-sized cooked meal. 'Dry' foods often weigh less than 'wet' foods because the water is removed but the calories are still there, only more concentrated.
CHANGING THE TYPE OF FOOD
Some foods are promoted as being healthy because of the dietary fibre, minerals and vitamins they contain but this may have little effect on the calories or their fattening potential. Brown bread for instance has the same calories as white bread; whole soya milk is just as fattening as whole cows milk and the same goes for yogurt; vegetable fat has the same calories as animal fat; chicken with the skin and fat has the same calories as medium fat beef; commercial orange juice is just as fattening as soft drinks; a tin of sardines in oil has the same calories as four ounces of red meat. To reduce the calories, fat and/or sugar must be removed to produce a reduced or low calorie product.
MISSING MEALS
Some persons often miss meals in an effort to cut out excess calories. This may, however, have the effect of increasing your appetite so that when you do eat, the size of the meal only compensates for the one eliminated. If you miss meals because you are too busy you may find it convenient to grab a can of nourishment in place of a meal. These products are often low calorie with about 200 calories as compared to the 600 calories of a full meal so your overall calorie intake is lower. However, if they are used as snacks in addition to the regular meals, then you are only adding calories to your usual daily intake and will gain instead of lose weight.
HOW TO LOSE WEIGHT
To lose weight, you need to reduce your caloric intake below your output of calories. This means becoming familiar with calorie density of foods which can be very tedious. Nutrition professionals have simplified this into a system of food portions which allows you to eat your usual familiar foods but in quantities and combinations to match your caloric and nutrient needs. To follow a structured plan, you will need to learn these dietetic portion sizes and how to combine them into meals and snacks.
Patricia Thompson M.Sc., Registered Nutritionist, The Nutrition Centre, Eden Gardens.
