Choosing the Right Low-Fat Products

Obese people, or other people with high fat and high cholesterol usually have to reduce their fat consumption, and this warning usually make people consider about buying "low-fat" or "fat-free" products. However, be careful, because not all of those products are healthy products like they advertise it.

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To keep the original taste in low-fat products, producers replace the fat content with huge amount of sugar. The results are, some "low-fat" products actually contain more calories than the "regular" products! Whereas, in a diet to lose some weight, carbohydrate consumption has to be reduced, especially simple/fast-absorbing carbs like sugar - which have high glycemic index (GI) - will be stored as fat anyway.

Besides that, some of those products also contain trans-fat, which not only increase the LDL (bad cholesterol) content, but also lower the HDL (good, protective cholesterol) content. Fact is, the increasing number of obesity in our society is one of the main factors of the proliferating low-fat products. The vigorous advertisements, especially the ones in TVs, make people think that consuming those low-fat products means they consume healthy foods.

Based on the facts above, you should carefully check the nutrition facts of the product that you're going to buy. Products with 1-2 grams of sugar is enough, but above that, it's too high for those of you who's been trying to lose weight.

For your diet, choose complex carbs such as brown rice, whole wheat bread, and oatmeal. Limit your fat consumption, and choose those that are good for you, like canola oil, olive oil, etc. If you want to lower your LDL consumption and increase the HDL, you also need fiber from veggies, fruits, beans, and also oatmeal. Remember to exercise regularly too!

How to Read Nutrition Facts

Prepare yourself, folks, this is gonna be another long - yet important - post.

In this post, I mentioned about reading nutrition facts. Well nowadays, food producers have to include the ingredients and the nutrition facts in their product. Those facts are a tool to help you choose the food that is good for you. This is why in this post, I will share the knowledge of reading these facts.


Reading the Ingredients
The ingredients list gives your the information of the foodstuffs, seasonings, and chemicals in that product. The ingredients are written in order of their weight. The most-used ingredient is the first in the list, and the least-used ingredient is the last. Avoid foods that state fat, oil, and sugar (or derivatives of those) as their most-used ingredient. And also, if you never heard of the ingredient, or you're having a hard time mentioning it, it's most likely chemicals, or unnatural foodstuff.


Reading the Nutrition Facts
This table will give you more details on the product. You will know the contents of that product, therefore you can choose the healthiest ones. When you compare some foods, make sure you compare them with the same amount of portions.

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1. Serving Size: shows you the recommended portion or serving size. If you're not used to measure or weigh food, measure it to a standard portion. If you eat less or more than the recommended portion, then the information on the Nutrition Fact will have to be adjusted to know the nutrition you consume. For example, if you eat it twice the size of the serving suggestion, then all the nutritional value will have to be multiplied by two.

2. Calories: shows you how much energy you'll get from one portion of that food. You have to remember that the number of portions you eat determines the calories you eat. For example, if you eat two portions of food, it means you consumes twice the amount of calories that are stated in the Nutrition Facts. One of the measurement that you can use as a base to assess whether it's high-calorie or not is from this:

• 40 calories = low
• 100 calories = average
• 400 calories or more = high

3. Calories from Fat: shows you how much calories that comes from fat. Every gram of fat worth 9 calories. It should be no more than 30% of calories a day that comes from fat. Therefore, it's best if you consume no more than 3 grams of fat or 30 calories of fat per 100 calories of food.

4a. Total Fat: shows you how much good fat is good fat (monounsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat) and bad fat (saturated fat and trans-fat) in a food. As stated before, it's best to consume fat no more than 3 grams per 100 calories. When you compare foods, see the sum of total fat, saturated fat, and their calories for each serving. Choose the one with the least amount of fat.

4b. Saturated Fat: bad fat or saturated fat can be found in many kinds of food such as butter, margarine, fat from beef and pork, full-cream milk, eggs, coconut and coconut oil, and also in fast-foods. It's better if you avoid or limit the food that contains saturated fat. The daily consumption of this kind of fat should not be more than 10% of the calories that you consume in a day (less than 1 gram per 100 calories).

4c. Trans Fat: trans fat are also bad fats that forms in the cooking process. This kind of fat commonly found in commercial food products and have to be avoided in diet.

5a. Cholesterol: the number of cholesterol shows the total amount of cholesterol, which consists of good cholesterol (HDL) and bad cholesterol (LDL) for each serving. It's better if your cholesterol consumption is not more than 300 mg a day. Choose the product that have the least amount of cholesterol.

5b. Sodium: shows the number of sodium in each portion. It's better if the consumption is not more than 2.400 mg a day. Choose the product with the least amount of sodium.

6a. Carbohydrate: shows the sum of carbohydrate in foods, including simple carbohydrates and sugar, and also complex carbohydrate and fibers. When your food contains carbohydrate, it's better if that carbohydrate contains many fiber.

6b. Dietary Fiber: shows the amount of fiber in each serving. This can be found on complex carbohydrate such as wheat and grains, fruits, vegetables, and beans. Try to consume 20 to 35 grams of fiber each day. The higher the amount of fiber in a product, the amount of sugar is lower.

6c. Sugar: this shows the amount of carbohydrates for each serving from sugar. The best way to choose the least amount of sugar is by looking at the total amount of sugar and the total of amount of carbohydrate. The closer it is the value to the total amount of carbohydrate, it contains less fiber.

7. Protein: shows the total amount of protein for each serving. It's highly recommended to keep the balance of protein, carbohydrate, and fat in food. If the food you choose does not contain protein, add another food with protein in it.

8. % Daily Values: shows the percentage of your daily nutritional adequacy from that product. Note that this based on 2000 calories diet. Generally, 5% of daily value is considered to be low and 20% of daily value is considered to be high.

9. Vitamin and Mineral: shows how many vitamins and mineral in each serving. You have to achieve 100% for all the required vitamin and mineral. You can also consume multivitamins to make sure you have enough vitamin and mineral for the day.

10. Recommended Amount(s): shows the recommended daily amount of each nutrition for 2000 calories and 2500 calories diet. If you need to consume more or less than 2000 or 2500 calories a day, the recommended amount of fat, carbohydrate, and protein also change.

11. Calories per Gram: shows the amount of calories in each macro-nutrients (fat, carbohydrate, and protein). It's better if you choose a balanced food, which contains all those nutrients.

After knowing how to read Nutrition Facts in foods, you can better the quality of the food you eat, now that you know how to choose the healthier foods :) 

12 Easy Steps to Lose Some Weight (Part 2)

Before reading this post, you'd better be finished reading the previous post. It's important to read it first, because you need to read it in order.

6. Choose a balanced menu. Never disregard one kind of nutrition. Fat is important too, but consume healthy fats such as fat from beans, fish, avocado, olive oil, or canola oil. Use supplements such as Omega 3 supplements to help you fulfill your healthy fat requirement. Besides its role in dissolving vitamins, fat are needed to balance your the hormones in your body.

7. Eat enough protein. Some of the sources of protein are chicken, fish, beef, tofu, tempe, egg (the whites), and beans. If you want to lose weight, and workout regularly, you have to consume large sum of protein.

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8. Some people still don't understand what carbohydrate is. Carbohydrate is the main energy source for our body, which also used as spontaneous energy in our body. To lose some weight, we have to know that while our body still use carbohydrate as its energy source, then the energy from fat only serves as energy reserves. Energy reserves won't be used as long as the main energy sources is still there. Therefore, lessening carbohydrate consumption usually works in weight loss.

NEVER substitute rice with noodles, because they're the same thing (noodles are carbohydrates too.....). What you need to know is it's important to have some carbohydrates after a workout. Not only it's important, but you HAVE to consume it immediately. You can also consume it after morning workouts, but choose only good carbohydrates.

9. Know your carbohydrates. Good carbohydrates are those that are slowly-absorbed, commonly known from its glycemic index (GI). You can click here for list of carbohydrate GI. If your carbohydrate is not on the list, you can also search it here. For a good diet, eat carbohydrate with less than 55 GI. If it's higher than that, eat it after a workout. However, a really high GI foods (such as sugar) should not be eaten while you're on a diet. In cooking, use other sweeteners other than sugar.

10. Consume enough fiber. It's better if you eat apple in its fruit form rather than blending it into apple juice. The blending process destroys the fibers in apples. Eat enough veggies too. Fibers are important for your digestive system, and also helps slowing down the calorie-absorption.

11. Drink enough water. Drinking 2,5 liters of water daily is compulsory.

12. When buying foods or biscuits, take a look at its Nutrition Facts. You don't want to destroy you diet, right? You have to look at the label of the food you're buying. Don't consume high fructose corn syrup because it has a really high GI. Make sure there's no hydrogenated vegetable oil too. Hydrogenated is a process of solidifying oil, and this will destroy your metabolism. For example, margarine and butter. Avoid these as much as possible.

After reading the 12 steps, analyze your activities and foods. Have you done any of those things?

There are some people that already know how to lose some weight, yet still underestimates them. For example, drinking 2,5 liters of water everyday. Many still don't understand why they have to drink that much, or they think they drink enough, when they still need lots.

My point is, you have to stick to those steps. It's the simplest summary to help you lose weight. If you still can't lose some weight, check the steps again, make sure nothing is missed.

I hope it helps :)

12 Easy Steps to Lose Some Weight (Part 1)

Here's a post that you have to read carefully, because it will answer the questions that people ask relentlessly: what do I have to do to lose weight? What kind of sport do I have to do? What kind of diet that I should do? I've done my diet, but why do I get ulcers instead of losing some weight?

That was just some of the questions that I get from the people around me, or in some social medias where people complain about their weight or imperfect body parts. So here I'm going to give you the steps on what you have to do to lose some weight.

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1. Take notes on your body's initial status. Measure your waist, thighs, arms, and chest. Weigh your weight, and find out the fat percentage in your body. This sounds silly, but it's actually important to keep track of your progress, and to evaluate the mistakes.

2. Make a realistic goal in your first month, such as losing 2 to 3 kg. Don't expect to lose 10 to 15 kg in your first month of dieting. The more realistic your goal is, the more motivated you are when you achieve and reaching the next goals.

3. Start working out. Whatever the sport is, it's better than just sleeping at home. For those who really want to lose weight, start investing your time to achieve your goal. When you want to lose weigh, don't EVER say that you don't have the time to workout. It's like saying you want to buy a car, but you don't want to work to get it. You have to fight for it! How you manage your time is up to you, because different people have different priorities in their life.

What is the sport to lose some weight? Any sport will do! But if you really want to lose some weight, it's best to lift weights, and end your workout with cardio in a treadmill. I will post some more about this later. Whatever sport you want to do, DO IT SERIOUSLY. Don't just join a gym to sit around, playing with your phone, and lift some weight occasionally. Work your body out, and mean it!

4. Review your menu. This is the most important part. How many times do you eat in a day? Many people think it's best to eat less when they should've consume less calories. For example, when you usually eat 2500 calories a day, lessen it into 2000 calories. It's better than lessening it into 1000 calories. Calorie deficiency will make your body turn into "survival mode", and won't burn your fat.

How many calories you have to consume can be calculated using the BMR calculator. Our body lower its metabolism when we're trying to eat less than a day (i.e. from 3 times a day into twice a day). We'll get hungry at first, but after 1 or 2 weeks, we'll get used to it, and won't get hungry even if we only eat twice a day. Hunger disappearance is a sign that our body burns less calories. The longer we're getting used to it, our body will adapt, and it will be harder to lose some weight.

5. Eat 5 or 6 times a day. Normally people eat 3 times a day, when in fact, our body was designed to eat more than that. When we have breakfast at 7 AM and eat lunch at 1 PM, we'll get hungry at 10 AM. When you have lunch at 1 PM and eat dinner at 7 PM, at about 4 PM we'll get hungry. This "hunger" usually be filled with junk foods (high-calorie foods, but not very filling because they contain minimum nutrition, thus making us fat).

Fill these in-between meals with high-nutrition snacks, such as apples and skimmed milk, or almonds and apples. In total, you'd eat 6 times, with 3 meals and 3 snacks. This is a sure way to stabilize your metabolism and will surely burn your fat faster. When you want to lower your calorie consumption from 2500 into 2000, divide the 2000 calories into 6 meals. Once again, to lose some weight, you lessen the calories, not the eating frequency. You can see the meal plan here, for an example of eating 6 times a day.

Count Your Calories

To this point, I've posted a lot about diet and how to live a healthy life, while mentioning a lot about calories. So now, I'm going to post about what are calories and how it work.

Calories work like fuels for your body, where it burn food in forms of calories so that it can produce energy. Nutritionists measures the sum of heat that our body produces from food metabolism in a unit called kilo-calories (kcal). For example, there are 105 calories in a banana. Therefore, our body can produce 105 calories of energy to do some activities.

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At this point you'll probably wonder which food can be regarded as a high-calorie foods. The answer is based on what kinds of nutrition are in those foods. In example, 1 gram of carbohydrates contains 4 calories, 1 gram of proteins contains 4 calories, and 1 gram of fat contains 9 calories.

In other words, one gram of protein or carbs gave more than half of calories in 1 gram of fat. This is why high-fat foods such as fried foods contains more calories than low-fat foods such as vegetables and fruits.

But still, it's not easy to calculate the calories, because foods usually contains many kinds of nutrition. For example, a skinless chicken breast and a burger both contains high protein. However, 100 grams of chicken breast has 140 calories while 100 grams of burger contains 270 calories.

All foods has calories, and all calories produces energy. However, not all calories carry good nutrition such as amino acid, fatty acid, fiber, vitamin, mineral, etc. Some foods even regarded as "zero calories". It's a term for calories with little or no nutrition at all, like granulated sugar and ethanol (aka alcohol in alcoholic drinks). Sugar and ethanol can give some energy, but contains no nutrition whatsoever.

Be wise in choosing your healthy and right calories for your body. If you want to lose weight, the number of calorie-intake should not be more than the energy you use, because the excess calories will be stored as fat. Start counting your calories now!