Meat Consumption Linked with Weight Gain

A large study, published in August 2010 found that eating meat was linked with weight gain.

The research revealed that the biggest culprits are processed meats, such as sausages and ham.

Meat Consumption Has Been Linked to Weight Gain

The researchers looked at the links between weight gain and the consumption of red meat, poultry, processed meat and total meat consumption. Overall, they found that meat consumption was associated with weight gain, suggesting that eating less meat may be the key to keeping a healthy weight.  Study leader Dr Anne-Claire Vergnaud said: ‘I would recommend to control consumption of meat to maintain a healthy weight and good health in general.”

The Study entitled “Meat Consumption and Prospective Weight Change in Participants of the EPIC- PANACEA Study” followed a total of 103,455 men and 270,348 women (all between 25 and 70 years of age) in ten European countries for five years and was carried out by the Imperial College, London and several other universities and was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (August 2010)

Fruit and Veg Proved Champions Once Again in Preventing Diabetes

Leafy Green Vegetables Have Been Shown to Help Prevent Diabetes

 

An analysis report has been published which brought together the findings of six separate studies. Each of the studies tracked a group of people over a period of time, measuring their fruit and vegetable intake and any incidences of Type-2 diabetes.

The results once again show that lifestyle choices are important in the prevention of Type-2 diabetes. In particular, they support recommendations to promote green leafy vegetables in the diet.

The study entitled ‘Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Incidence of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis’ was carried out by Carter et al, and was published in the British Medical Journal (August 2010).

Cash to Lose Weight!

Results have been published today, of a trial that has been conducted to find out if paying people to lose weight is an effective way for people to achieve weight-loss.

Under the title ‘Weight Wins’, the NHS-backed scheme has seen rewards of £80 to £3,000 being paid to dieters. Bizarrely, dieters were not given much help to lose the weight, apart from the cash incentives. Participants were given monthly weigh-ins, but were largely left to their own devices to lose the weight, and were not given much in the way of dietary or fitness advice. The scheme focused on the cash incentives, paying according to the number of pounds lost.

Whilst this may seem like a dream come true if you want to lose weight, lets look at this a little more closely.

A sample of 745 overweight people took part in the trial. A control group of dieters were also studied for comparison.

For those on the incentive scheme, average weight loss was more than 14lbs. This was more than double that of the control group, who lost an average of 5.5lb. On these figures, the programme was deemed a success.

The founder of Weight Wins, Winton Rossiter said: ‘We are absolutely thrilled with these results, which suggest that long-term financial incentives could be the best single weapon in the war on obesity.’
However, what these results don’t show is that there was a high drop-out rate, and there was no way of telling if these people had been eating healthily. They may have starved themselves in order to achieve the drop in weight.

There is also outrage from taxpayers over this initiative. Chief Executive of the Tax Payers’ Alliance, Matthew Elliot, said: ‘The NHS shouldn’t be bribing people to lose weight. At a time when the government is talking about making huge cuts in public spending, there is not enough money for cash incentives in healthcare.”
But of course the big question is ‘is it truly effective’. The question should not only be ‘do people successfully lose weight’ with these incentives, but crucially ‘is it effective long-term?’.
What would the statistics be if these people were surveyed after a year or two? Would they have kept the weight off? It’s highly unlikely, because ‘bribing’ people to lose weight is only a temporary fix and does nothing to help build long term healthy lifestyles.
Sadly, all the evidence is that it is not an effective long-term strategy. It is the same with quitting addictions, such as smoking.. Unfortunately, this cash-for-weight-loss incentive is ill-advised, and is doomed to long-term failure. Even though there is a long-term element to the incentives, where dieters can receive a cash bonus if they keep the weight off, the evidence is that this won’t be enough to be effective.
The best way to lose weight and keep it off long-term has been shown over and over again to be to make a firm commitment to life-style changes, and stick to them. A cash incentive is not the answer, you have to have inner desire to make the changes.

Jennifer Aniston’s Secret to Looking Fabulous

Jennifer Aniston at 41 is looking gorgeous. She was recently reported to have been on the ‘baby food diet’ to shed a few pounds before filming her latest film Just Go With it. The Baby Food Diet was devised by trainer Tracy Anderson and the regime involves eating pureed food during the day, and then a healthy meal in the evening.

But, Jennifer refutes this and says she doesn’t know anything about the diet. She said: ”Sorry but the last time I had baby food, I believe I was [a baby]. I’ve been on solids for about 40 years now”. Jennifer puts her stunning figure down to eating really well and working out. But she says that she also indulges here and there in what she fancies, such as a glass of wine and a coffee. She says “My advice: just stop eating s**t every day” Sounds very sensible to me, and it clearly works for Jen!

Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins a sad shadow of his former self

You may remember Alex Higgins, known as Hurricane Higgins, a snooker legend from the1970′s and 80′s. Apart from his fast snooker-playing he was known for his drinking and smoking, also women and gambling.

Being fond of women and gambling doesn’t necessarily pose a direct health threat but most health professionals would agree that heavy smoking and drinking certainly do.

Poor old Hurricane Higgins now looks close to death, and almost unrecognizable from the man that came to be a household name in his heyday. He is only 61, but in a recent photo in the news, he looks more like 101. He has lost a great deal of weight and his health is clearly fragile. He reportedly has now lost all his teeth after radiotherapy treatment for throat cancer. Clearly he is an example of how not to live healthily and what the consequences can be if you ignore healthy living wisdom.

News Story (Daily Mail)

Speed of eating ‘key to obesity’

New Japanese research suggests that wolfing down meals may be enough to nearly double your risk of being overweight.  Osaka University scientists looked at the eating habits of 3,000 people and reported their findings in the British Medical Journal.

Children should be encouraged to eat slowly

The latest study looked at the relationship between eating speed, feelings of “fullness” and being verweight.
Just under half of the 3,000 volunteers told researchers they tended to eat quickly.

Compared with those who did not eat quickly, fast-eating men were 84% more likely to be overweight, and women were just over twice as likely.
Those, who, in addition to wolfing down their meals, tended to eat until they felt full, were more than three times more likely to be overweight.

 
Professor Ian McDonald, from the University of Nottingham, said that there were a number of reasons why eating fast could be bad for your weight.
He said it could interfere with a signalling system which tells your brain to stop eating because your stomach is swelling up.
He said: “If you eat quickly you basically fill your stomach before your gastric feedback has a chance to start developing – you can overfill the thing.”
He said that rushing meals was a behaviour that might have been learned in infancy, and could be reversed, although this might not be easy.
“The old wives’ tale about chewing everything 20 times might be true – if you did take a bit more time eating, it could have an impact.”

In an accompanying editorial, Australian researchers Dr Elizabeth Denney-Wilson and Dr Karen Campbell, said that, if possible, children should be encouraged to eat slowly, and allowed to stop when they felt full up at mealtimes.
Dr Jason Halford, Director of Human Ingestive Behaviour Laboratory at the University of Liverpool, said: “What the Japanese research shows is that individual differences in eating behaviour underlie over-consumption of food and are linked to obesity.
“Other research has found evidence of this in childhood, suggesting that it could be inherited or learned at a very early age.”

Western diet ‘raises heart risk’

It was reported in the news today that the typical Western diet raises heart attack risk.  This is not news to me and is something that I’ve been saying for years!  Here’s the information from BBC news  

Swapping fried and salty foods for fruit and veg could cut the global incidence of heart attacks by a third, a study of eating habits suggests.
Researchers analysed the diet of 16,000 people in 52 countries and identified three global eating patterns, Circulation journal reports.
The typical Western diet, high in fat, salt and meat, accounted for about 30% of heart attack risk in any population.
A “prudent” diet high in fruit and veg lowered heart risk by a third.
The researchers created a dietary risk score questionnaire based on 19 food groups and then asked 5,561 heart attack patients and 10,646 people with known heart disease to fill out their survey.
People who ate a Western diet had a 35% greater risk of having a heart attack than those who ate little or no fried foods and meat.
The typical Western diet has been widely linked to heart disease. High salt in the diet can raise blood pressure and the wrong type of fat can clog blood vessels.
The researchers said their work suggested that the same relationships between food and heart disease that are observed in Western countries exist in other regions of the world.
Lead author Romania Iqbal, of McMaster University in Canada, said: “30% of the risk of heart disease in a population could be related to poor diet.”
Ellen Mason, a cardiac nurse for the British Heart Foundation, said: “This study shows that it doesn’t matter whether you live in Bolton or Bombay, or whether you like to eat British, African Caribbean or Asian foods.
“The vital thing is to reduce your intake of salty, fried, fatty food to a minimum but increase the amount of fruit and vegetables you eat.”

Fruit and veg are the healthy choice

Parents ‘wrong’ on child weight

Many parents overlook their child’s unhealthy weight because they believe it is normal, research suggests.
Data on 2,100 Australian children found 40% of parents with an overweight or underweight child had not spotted this.
The University of Melbourne researchers said parents would not act to help their children gain or lose weight if they did not see the problem.
Child obesity is thought to be increasing fast in many countries, and experts are hunting for effective ways to intervene, both at school, and home.
The Australian research shows just how hard it could be to challenge parents’ perceptions of their children.
The Melbourne researchers analysed the 2,100 children using both Body Mass Index and waist circumference, to try to establish which fell into the “underweight”, “overweight” and “average” groups.
They then compared these results with the recorded perceptions of their parents.
In total 43% of parents of overweight or underweight children placed their child in the “average” bracket.
For overweight children alone, this rose to nearly half. Remarkably, a very small percentage of parents had even more extreme views, assessing an overweight child as underweight, or vice versa.
The parents of boys were less likely to make a correct assessment.
When the children themselves were asked, six out of 10 underweight girls and half of underweight boys did not assess their weight correctly.
Big society
Dr Pene Schmidt, who led the research, said: “Parents are more likely to take the necessary preventative actions if the perception of their child’s weight – whether underweight or overweight – is correct.”
Tam Fry, from the National Obesity Forum, said that the results were “unsurprising”.
He said: “There was recent research in this country which showed that a similar proportion of health professionals were unable to make the distinction.
“We live in a society where being big is becoming far more common, and is seen as normal.”
He said that it was hard for health visitors and doctors to intervene if they were likely to meet a hostile response from the parent.  

Many parents do not realise their children are overweight

‘Credit crunch insomnia’ syndrome emerging

Concern about the economy and personal finances is keeping about half of people in the UK awake at night, an online poll has revealed.
Nearly half of the 1,000 men and women in a recent survey by NetDoctor said they were sleeping worse now than a year ago.
One-fifth of those surveyed are regularly getting fewer than five hours sleep a night and a quarter wake up more than three times a night.
Stress was cited as a major factor, with two-thirds blaming money and work worries for their insomnia.

One in 10 said it takes two hours or more for them to get to sleep each night.  And of those who wake during the night, 63% find it hard to get back to sleep.

Jessica Alexander from The Sleep Council said other organisations had noticed similar trends lately.
“Sleep problems have seemed to increase in line with these current financial worries…Worry and stress affects people’s sleep”

Author of ‘Powerful Sleep’ Kacper Postawski Says: “Energy deprivation, insomnia, and sleep problems have become so common, you could literally call it an epidemic.”

In his publication Powerful Sleep, Kacper Postawkski can’t solve your finacial problems, but he does have the answer to getting sleep so deeply restful and restoring that you can feel a constant cycle of energy from the time when you get up to the time you begin to wind down at night to go to bed.  With poweful sleep at your command, how much more would you be able to achieve?

For a free report that shows you how to get 1 to 3 extra free hours every day, and also doubles your energy, starting your very first night, click here: Powerful Sleep

Powerful Sleep can give you extra time and energy

Muesli recipe

Just used up the last of the muesli so made up some more.  I used to buy Alpen no-sugar-added ready made muesli.  I like the taste but it is expensive, and I don’t like the fact that it contains whey, so I now make my own.  Here’s the recipe I use:

12oz oats
450g (about 16oz) pack of Grape Nuts cereal
3oz roasted hazelnuts, chopped up small (or use nibbed nuts)
3oz mixed seeds (I used a mixture of sunflower seeds, pumkin seeds, sesame seeds, linseeds, hemp seeds)
6oz raisins

Muesli

 Put all ingredients together and mix well.

This morning I served two scoops of muesli with a fresh banana and soya milk.  Delicious, filling and good for you )