Articles
Successfully Treating Metabolic Syndrome
Metabolic syndrome is a the name given to a group of risk factors that increase the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. These factors include
Central obesity the spare tyre
High cholesterol and triglycerides
High Blood Pressure
Insulin Resistance
The metabolic syndrome factors are thought to develop due to genetics and lifestyle factors. Too much food and not enough exercise will certainly lead to the development of these risk factors. People with metabolic syndrome find it more difficult to lose weight. Many need a better understanding of the issues involved in order to succeed in their weight loss goal, and decrease their morbidity risk factors.
What you eat and how much you eat will make a difference when aiming for weight control.
There body had a preferential order of use when converting what we eat to energy. First the body metabolizes alcohol then carbohydrate then protein and finally fat. So why does the body choose to use these nutrients in this order?
Fat and alcohol are more concentrated forms of energy. Fat gives 36 KJ or 9 Calories per gram and alcohol gives 28 KJ or 7 Calories per gram. Carbohydrate and Protein give 16 KJ or 4 calories per gram. Protein and carbohydrate are less energy dense.
The body is very efficient in turning the fat in food into stored body fat with a loss of only 3% of energy. On the other hand if the body wants to turn excess carbohydrate eaten into fat stores, it has a loss of 23% energy. In terms of efficiency, it is better for the body to turn eaten fat into body fat stores, and use the carbohydrate eaten as the energy source. In addition, the body can increase the energy expenditure of carbohydrate through oxidation but this does not occur with fat. There is no capacity to store alcohol so the body oxidizes it and uses it as energy first. If the alcohol intake is high, there is little or no chance of burning up the fat and very little chance of burning the carbohydrate.
Weight control is easier with low fat, moderate carbohydrate intakes for those active people who are moderately overweight and not insulin resistant. Replacing fat, especially saturated fat with carbohydrates can reduce the risk of many diet related diseases while providing appetite satisfaction, fibre and nutrients.
Weight Control with Insulin Resistance
With insulin resistance, high carbohydrate, especially high GI increases insulin levels in the blood making the person more hungry and preventing fat burning. People with insulin resistance find it very difficult to lose weight even keeping to low fat intake and doing moderate exercise. Low Fat, lower carbohydrate and higher protein works better for these people.
Many people usually understand where fat is found in food and find it easy to decrease the amount of fat in the diet. However, carbohydrate can be confusing to many. People may have heard the term low GI and think they should eat more of these foods, but not understand the reasoning or the process behind it. Just because something is low GI (or low fat for that matter) does not mean you can eat it in large amounts. Moderation is important for everyone, whether you are on a low fat, low GI, high protein or no diet at all!
At the Perth Diet Clinic, we teach balanced nutrition including adequate dairy and a range in fruit and vegetables. We emphasis 2 fruit and 5 vegetables (2-1/2 cups).We watch the extras that are high in fat and carbohydrate such as biscuits, cakes and high fat snacks along with too much bread, potatoes, rice and pasta. When clients are asked to keep the carbohydrate down they are taught in terms of equivalent slices of bread and how to read labels. This is combined with a moderate increase in lean low fat protein that increases satiety and as high exercise as possible. Clients are also encouraged to have healthy carbohydrate snacks between meals so they dont get hungry and binge. We have found this approach to give the best weight loss results.
We find our clients lose weight, increase energy levels, are not hungry when they develop a new level of understanding of what they are doing. They can also maintain the weight loss over time. For this reason, we are successful with clients that have struggled to lose weight in the past. As well as weight loss, our clients benefit from lower insulin levels, lower cholesterol and lowered blood pressure.
Added to site on : Tuesday, 18 January 2011