Chronic Illness and Holistic Wellness

     There is a lot of misinformation about fat. The first common misconception is that eating fat, makes you fat. This is incorrect. Eating more calories than you burn is what causes weight gain. So while a food may be considered “fat free”, it may have a ton of sugar which can cause an overconsumption of calories. Swedish Fish for example, are considered fat free. However, one serving of the normal version (about 30 g or 5 pieces), is 110 calories and has 23 g of added (refined) sugar. Compare this to avocados (a fatty food), where 30g is about 48 calories.  All fat as been generalize to be bad. This is also misinformation. Oils are essential to several functions of the human body. There’s also different kinds of oils/fats. There are polyunsaturated and monounsaturated oils, which have good fats, or good cholesterol. There are also saturated and trans fats that are bad oils or bad cholesterol. You’re body has a certain amount of total cholesterol, the ratio is what...

 How Can We Maintain Our weight?      The amount of calories we burn in a day heavily impacts our weight. If we only burn 1,500 calories but eat 2,500 calories in a given day, that is an excess of 1,000 calories per day. 3,500 calories is 1 lb (2.2 lbs is 1 Kg). So over the next 3-4 days you would gain 1 lb. Over 1 year (365 days/ 4 days per lb) you would gain around 91 lbs.      So what is the best option? Moving more, trying to get at least 30 accumulative minutes of moderate to intense activity most days of the week, is the greatest predictor for maintaining weight loss. Moderate activity can be a brisk  walk, gardening, or taking the stairs. Accumulative means it doesn't have to be all at once, as long as each section lasts 10 min. So if you were to garden for 10 min, then take a brisk walk for 10 min, and then deep clean for another 10, your activity goal for the day will be met. Intense activity is things like a fast run, weig...

  How does nutrition affect health?  There is a range of health issues, ranging from purely genetic to completely diet based, with diet influenced genetic disposition in the middle. There are 5 components of a healthy diet. These five components are adequacy, balance, calorie control, moderation, variety. Adequacy means the food provides nutrients your body needs. These nutrients include carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals. Balance means consuming foods from all food groups. The food groups include dairy, fruit, vegetables, protein foods, and grains. Calorie control means to only eat as much as you burn. It is better to eat slightly under burned calories than to eat more, as obesity leads to many chronic health conditions. However, too little is also a concern and may be indicative of an unhealthy food relationship and will also lead to chronic health conditions such as anemia or osteoporosis. Moderation means not eating too much of one food, for example only...