Frequently Asked Dieting Questions

Diet And Nutrition Questions And Answers by Raymond Burton
1. Should you aim for zero fat in your diet?
No you should not aim for zero fat. Fat is essential for maintaining healthy skin and hair. It also acts as a transport for the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K. The deal with fat is that is contains 9 calories per gram, and this is why fat foods are considered high calorie. Despite its bad reputation, you do need between 15-20% of your diet to be comprised of fats to maintain health. Most of this will come indirectly through your regular eating and it's a fat chance (pun intended) that you're not getting enough already!
2. Can I eat carbohyrates at night time?
Yes, however you should make sure that the carbohydrates come from complex sources like brown rice, vegetables and salads.
3. What is the best diet to keep blood sugars normal for a Type II Diabetic?
The same diet that is best for everyone. A diet that is well balanced with all the macronutrients, low in simple sugars and full of natural vitamins and fiber. It's all about keeping the sugar levels stable while providing enough calories and nutrition through whole foods. Just like when we were cave women and men!
Everyone may want to take a look at tweaking the diet a bit if for instance you have food allergies or cannot digest red meat. But other than that the standard is always the same. I prefer a 20 percent fat, 50 percent protein and 30 percent carbohydrate myself.
4. If you already eat healthy with no real avail, than how can you trick your body into losing weight?
Check again to make sure that your standard of eating healthy jives with a nutritionists and if that is the case start working out harder.
5. Can a body-builder/weightlifter be a vegetarian?
Yes, there are quite a few people who have done it. It is especially easy to do if you allow eggs, milk and whey protein under the label of vegetarian. If you are going strict vegetarian it gets harder but comes down to some serious planning and using various foods to produce complete proteins.
6. What are some good sources of low fat protein for someone who doesn't really like meat or eggs very much?
Some good choices of low fat protein for someone that does not like or can not eat meat or eggs would be:
Low fat cottage cheese Skim milk, soy milk A variety of sea foods Beans and lentils Low fat yogurt Whey protein
7. What are bad carbs vs. good carbs?
Carbs are the preferred source of energy for the body. When you eat carbs your body converts them to blood sugar or glucose. This glucose is stored in your muscle cells and liver for use when needed (like training!). When weight lifting, it is mostly this stored energy that your muscles use for contraction fuel. As with any calories you eat, any excess carbs that can't be utilized are stored as fat.
Some sugars are more conducive to a good-looking physique than others. This is where the good carb verses bad carb comes into play. There are three kinds of carbohydrates:
Monosaccharides (one-sugar molecule) Disaccharides (two-sugar molecules) Polysaccharides (three or more sugar molecules)
Monosaccharides and disaccharides are called sugars or bad carbs while polysaccarides are usually called complex carbohydrates, glucose polymers or good carbs. This is where the real good stuff begins. Because the good carbs contain three or more sugar molecules, they take longer to break down. The longer it takes the body to break these carbs down, the more time it has to use them as opposed to storing them as fat. A good way to gauge the quickness of the break down is something called the glycemic index.
8. Can eating 5-8 healthy balanced meals a day cause diabetes in the long run?
I cannot find or have not heard any evidence that would support that idea. In fact during all my research I have found the exact opposite to prove itself over and over. Large infrequent meals put quite a load on the body and create large surges of insulin response. This as you may know over time is one of the factors that can lead to the onset of diabetes. There is actually a study done on older subjects that states A higher meal frequency acutely subdues glucose excursions and reduces insulin and FFA levels during the daytime in older Non-Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus subjects. You can find that study here: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
About the Author
Ray L Burton is the president of Recipes4Diets and author of the best selling ebook FAT TO FIT

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These questions and answers cover the majority of the common questions that are asked, however if there is something that you would like to know, feel free to leave a comment, and I will try and answer your question in a future post. Otherwise go to http://squidoo.com/health-fitness and have a browse on there!


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