Healthy B.P.M.

Many Type 1 diabetic women suffer from Diabulimia…that’s a condition when you skip your insulin injections just to keep off the weight.

This dangerous trend is becoming a huge problem and just goes to show how much losing weight has become embedded in the psyche. Diabetics who do this risk a chance of coma and even an early death from diabetes-related complications.

Type 1 diabetes happens when your body’s immune system destroys insulin-producing cells in the pancreas . Without insulin your body will not receive the glucose it needs to survive and your cells literally starve.

If a diabetic forgoes shots, he/she will lose weight and have high blood sugar. That could damage the kidneys and have other implications that could make life so difficult. Before diabetic teens skip insulin to lose weight, they have got to understand that they could be losing more than just weight.

diabetes, diabulimia, anorexia

Portion control requires so much will power. Well not if you have a diet plate:)

The British Diet Plate is an interesting take on portion-control. You have calibrated dinner plates that are gender specific and you even have a magic plate for kids.

Canadian researchers have found that portion control crockery helps obese diabetes patients lose weight and they thus need less medication. So move away diet pills and enter diet plate.

diet, diet plate, portion control

I was scouting around for foods that burn the fat and came across some interesting links I want to share with you:

1.LadyThrill’s compilation of health foods. My favorites are cayenne pepper and ginger!

2.Tom Venuto’s tips are great! He’s classified his top 10s into starchy carbs, fruits, vegetables and lean proteins.

3. Have you tried grapefruit and black soya? Consider these foods to be your allies. Read this if you think that grapefruit is the fruit for you to stabilize your weight.

4.Learn to love foods that love you eg, fiber and more fiber.

grapefruit diet, weight loss, fat burning foods, fiber, calories, health foods

I liked this post Obesity: Fact and Fiction on the blog The- F-word.org.

“Martin poses a provocative question: with its proven high failure rates – a 97 percent recidivism rate, according to Susie Orbach – and overall ineffectiveness (as well as the health risks yo-yo dieting poses), can the diet industry be prosecuted into warning labels and public education efforts the way the tobacco industry has been?”

That’s an interesting question. The diet industry has many takers. You can’t blame manufacturers for coming up with more and more diet products, considering how obese the population is becoming. And yo-yo dieting could lead to eating disorders which could lead to body image perception problems then causing mental health and social ostracism issues. Everything is so viciously connected.
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A lot of the diets out there are difficult to live by. The reason that people gain weight in the first place is that over eating is becoming so easy. Go to the supermarket and load your trolley. Go to fast food joints at any street corner and gain calories. It’s so easy.

What people are looking for is something practical. What can you do to lose weight in a practical way? This is a forever method. There’s no leniency, no reward…I guess being healthy is the biggest reward any one could ask for.

1.Eat lesser smaller portions on smaller plates.

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The Size Police come in all shapes and sizes. You meet them in your extended families, in schools, in potential employers….and expectations of the perfect body are flaunted in gossipy magazines and Hollywood drama. Everyone secretly wants to be be perfect looking. Yeah I know they say “I’m happy with my body….” but there are moments when you wish or at least give up on wishing that you were perfect.

How do you deal with the Size Police?

Now if you are a certain size- be it fat or skinny- think about whether you are healthy or not. If not, then you have to work on yourself. Even if you are healthy, there is nothing wrong with leading a sensible enough healthy lifestyle. The point is your size is your problem. And if someone talks to you about the way you look like it’s a random topic(like the weather), I’d say pay no heed.

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“I think that in some cases there is nothing wrong with size zero. If you look good and are perfectly healthly then it is fine to be that size, some people may be naturally small and petite and shouldn’t be criticized as well.”

That’s what Holly said when she read my post Who wants to be size zero?.I absolutely agree. There’s nothing wrong with being smaller and more petite if you are healthy and happy.

But being thin has its setbacks. When you are in school you are called skinnny and flat. Then you when you are in college you wonder whether you should get breast implants and turn all Bootilicious like Beyonce. (more…)

I stumbled on to this excellent Book review on a book called RETHINKING THIN :
The New Science of Weight Loss — and the Myths and Realities of Dieting. You have to read it as the writer Gina Kolata looks at a lot of fat issues like

-The Thinness obsession:Kolata thinks that sometimes being fat is out of your control and that society is blowing body image perceptions out of proportion…I’d say shrinking it to size zero.

-The Weight Loss Industry that is making millions out of obese people’s heartaches.

-She tracks different dieters and fads and looks at fattening factors.

You can get an excerpt here.

Gina Kolata, fat, obesity, thinness obsession, weight loss, childhood obesity

I just can’t figure out how to eat with chopsticks. So this one is for me.How do you do it? It’s healthy and the most sensible way to have noodles.

I found a step-by-step instruction kit on the web:

-You pick up the first chopstick with the middle finger and thumb. Stiffen your hand for a firm grip. So the broad end of the chopstick lies on the part where your thumb and index finger connect. The narrow end of the chopstick is supposed to rest on the tip of your ring finger.

-Grip the second chopstick with your index finger. Place your thumb over the second chopstick. The idea is to have a comfortable grip. The narrow tips of the chopsticks should be even with each other to help prevent them from crossing or being unable to “pinch” the food.

-Hold it steady. You hold the first chopstick steady and move the second (top) chopstick by moving the tip of your index finger up and down while the thumb remains relatively steady.

-Practice opening and closing the chopsticks and don’t stab your food. Never pass food with chopsticks as this is considered bad manners.

chopsticks, health, diet, Chinese

The food labels based on your average 2000 calorie diet are not working. People are still getting obese, in fact more now than any other time in the history of mankind. When you look at the label, you don’t really think about all the contents, do you? Plus do you know how many calories you need to burn when you have restaurant food?

Labeling isn’t working probably because:

-No one has the time to analyze the details.

-People eat out a lot.

-Physical activity is on the decrease.

-Reduced caloric intake doesn’t have the benefits of exercise.

This is a great read: Food Labels Won’t Cure Obesity

There’s a lot of interesting diet and health web sites out there.

Here’s one called FitDay. It’s completely free and some features include:

-Tracking your foods, exercises, weight and goals
-Viewing your calorie intake, nutrition, weight Loss and more

With a free online account, all you have to do is enter your daily foods and exercise and you’ll get an appropriate analysis. If you opt for the PC version you don’t have to do it online.

Now is entering all your meals into a software package easier than keeping a food diary? Once you get into the swing of things and set achievable targets, it may be a tech-savvy kind of way to get fit. Plus you get the information you’ve added analyzed which is something you won’t bother to do if you keep a food diary.

Check it out.

free online diet journal, diet, weight loss, calorie counter, health

I liked novelist India Knight’s story in the Guardian. Her book the Idiot proof diet celebrates her transformation from size 22 to size 14. She revels in her new identity and did not expect a feminist brigade to march down her door and protest over her perception of fat and thereby ugly.

That raises an interesting debate. If fat is beautiful, then is dieting ugly, a vampish anorexic urge to be perfect for the male gaze? Are women dieting for men or for themselves? Is it wrong to want to look slimmer and does slimming down make you feel sexier? Is being obese necessarily being healthy?

I come from a place where fat is considered beautiful. So anyone who is remotely thin has bleak chances of being courted…fat may be beautiful in some parts of the world.Perceptions are different and size zero may not be the ultimate ideal.But I don’t think being feminist means supporting unhealthy lifestyles.

Read It’s not unfeminist to go on a diet.

Would love to know what you think.

anorexia, diet, India Knight, fat, feminist

A couple of interesting questions I came across in The Diet Detective: Exercise daily, eat right to get healthy results:

-Diet or exercise?:Has to be both.You can’t really choose.

-Six meals a day?:That’s tricky. Those six meals have to be mini meals and sensible food. If you can’t go to the trouble of preparing three healthy meals a day, six would be far too ambitious.

-Weekend exercise or daily walk?:Definitely the daily walk.Even a day without walking can cause havoc with your metabolism.

You’ll love this:12 Diet Questions Answered

diet, exercise, fitness, walking, healthy food

Hunger pangs are a normal way of our body telling us it’s calorie-consumption time. What the D-word(or dieting) involves is how to suppress those hunger pangs. What kind of foods do you have when you are suddenly starving, say when you come from work? Do you gobble potato chips or gorge on ice cream thinking that it’s okay since you’re really hungry and you’ve worked hard enough to burn all those calories? Well you’re wrong there. Having potato chips just adds a 1000 calories so easily. You have to find foods that act as hunger suppressants.

Diet pills help but as we all know stopping diet pills brings the weight back. Then what kinds of foods help? Five appetite control foods that suppress cravings without adding calories is a great story outlining which foods you can safely have while staying away from adding calories at the same time. Having a big bowl of apples and stir fried vegetables(using water as a base) really helps you feel full and limits your calorie intake. Have you tried drinking a glass of water when you are hungry? It really kills your appetite. Having fiber supplements help too.

What no-calorie foods work for you?

diet, diet pills, appetite suppressants

Adults who have kids are more likely to eat fatty foods than adults who don’t. This is based on a University of Iowa study. The study doesn’t make a correlation between having kids and eating food but matching your food habits to those of your kid’s.

Kids are influenced by advertisements and they make their choices based on ad campaigns and on eating habits of their peers. So the soccer mom who has so much to do stocks her fridge and cupboards with ready-to-cook processed foods, junk food, cookies, hot dogs…..and she ends up having all that too. As a result, parents of kids who live on junk food consume an average of 2 gms of excess fat on a daily basis. This can lead to obesity-related problems and heart disease.

It’s a vicious cycle. Kids should have more access to healthy foods like fruits and vegetables and parents should put in that extra time to prepare healthy meals. You may not have the time to make sensible meals and may prefer junk food as a faster option. But remember, it takes ages to lose weight, so your time saved is your time wasted.

Read the article here.

junk food, soccer mom