Simple Effective Ways to Health and Weight Loss Revealed Through Raw Foods
A key secret, and a major factor, to keeping your weight down and reducing your chances of diabetes and other diet-related health issues lies in eating foods low on the Glycemic Index (as most raw foods are).
Foods that are low on the Glycemic Index tend to be high in fiber as well and actually provide your body with slow, sustained energy throughout the day instead of sending it an energy burst that fizzles out and crashes an hour later.
The Glycemic Index is a system of ranking foods according to how they affect our blood sugar level, or insulin level within three hours after eating that food.
It was developed in the early '80s as a way to evaluate food and determine the affect on blood sugar for diabetics, but quickly became a useful tool for everyone because of the discoveries about how insulin raises in all people.
The index is an indicator of how different carbohydrates affect us, since not all carbohydrates are created equally.
We've learned in the study of nutrition that a calorie can be judged based on the quality that it contains, so all calories are not created equal, and neither are proteins, fats or carbohydrates.
Carbohydrates can be simple sugars, such as sugar, honey and syrup or complex sugars such as vegetables, beans and whole grains.
If we do not use all of the sugar (glucose) that the body has received, the extra stuff is stored to be used later in the liver and muscles and eventually, if we still don't use it all, it stores it in our fat banks.
Some of us have "fat banks" on our thighs and but, while others of us have them in the belly, arms chest etc.
We can't change where our body stores this extra "energy" but we can change how much it stores.
If you're not eating at least one raw food meal a day, that's a great starting point for a raw food transition.
Your daily meal can be something as simple as a fruit smoothie, or even some raw hummus with olives, carrot sticks and celery.
If you already are eating raw, start to look into Food Combining Principles to really fine tune where you're at and take it up a notch.
Frame your meals with vegetables and keep your concentrated protein, carbs or fat to one per meal.
You'll start to feel better and look better and this is a plan that you can live with!
Foods that are low on the Glycemic Index tend to be high in fiber as well and actually provide your body with slow, sustained energy throughout the day instead of sending it an energy burst that fizzles out and crashes an hour later.
The Glycemic Index is a system of ranking foods according to how they affect our blood sugar level, or insulin level within three hours after eating that food.
It was developed in the early '80s as a way to evaluate food and determine the affect on blood sugar for diabetics, but quickly became a useful tool for everyone because of the discoveries about how insulin raises in all people.
The index is an indicator of how different carbohydrates affect us, since not all carbohydrates are created equally.
We've learned in the study of nutrition that a calorie can be judged based on the quality that it contains, so all calories are not created equal, and neither are proteins, fats or carbohydrates.
Carbohydrates can be simple sugars, such as sugar, honey and syrup or complex sugars such as vegetables, beans and whole grains.
If we do not use all of the sugar (glucose) that the body has received, the extra stuff is stored to be used later in the liver and muscles and eventually, if we still don't use it all, it stores it in our fat banks.
Some of us have "fat banks" on our thighs and but, while others of us have them in the belly, arms chest etc.
We can't change where our body stores this extra "energy" but we can change how much it stores.
If you're not eating at least one raw food meal a day, that's a great starting point for a raw food transition.
Your daily meal can be something as simple as a fruit smoothie, or even some raw hummus with olives, carrot sticks and celery.
If you already are eating raw, start to look into Food Combining Principles to really fine tune where you're at and take it up a notch.
Frame your meals with vegetables and keep your concentrated protein, carbs or fat to one per meal.
You'll start to feel better and look better and this is a plan that you can live with!