(Los Angeles) - Eat at home and tell calories instead of fat grams if you want to be thin, let's say scientists at Tufts University. In his studies, people who ate a low-fat diet ate as much as many calories producing fat as people eating a higher fat diet.
"What they find is what nutritionists have said to people for a long time: calories count," says Chris Rosenbloom, PhD, RD, who was not involved in the studies.
The amount of energy or calories packaged in food turns out as important as the amount of fat in food, according to Megan A. McCrory, PhD and colleagues who published their results in the February of Journal of nutrition. With the increasing popularity of low-fat foods, researchers wanted to determine whether people eating a low fat diet consumed fewer calories overall than people on a relatively high diet in fat.
McCrory and his colleagues decided to challenge the predominant wisdom that the fat content of the diet was one of the main determinants of being overweight. They found that, in general, people were choosing larger foods in calories, regardless of fat content, which could sabotage the diet of anyone who thinks they are cutting calories simply eating foods that are low. Higher foods in calories tend to be tastier, regardless of fat content.
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Researchers have also found that people who have consumed a low variety of sweets, snacks, condiments, entries and carbohydrates and a wide variety of vegetables were relatively thin. This can promote a long-term reduction in caloric intake and body fat without the need to resort to a conscious calorie restriction, according to the researchers.
and lastly, they saw that eating in restaurants was more likely to lead to obesity, probably due to the fact that the restaurant meals tend to be larger in fat and smaller in the fiber content and therefore , larger in calories than food prepared at home.
"cutting fat does not mean cutting calories," says McCrory, a search associate at the Human Nutrition Research Center in Aging in Tufts in Boston. She tells WebMD that the recommendation simply decreases dietary fat can be very simplistic. "Now we are realizing that many other things are important, such as variety and palatability, which have been ignored so far. ... The fat message did not work because people are still getting fat."
"The typical American response is to take the fat completely, and then we are starving all day," says Jackie Berning, PhD, Rd, a teacher of nutrition at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs. Berning, who was not involved in these studies, says that some fat is important because it carries certain vitamins, adds flavor to diet and helps people feel full. "The USDA is about to issue new dietary guidelines that recommend a diet that is moderate in fat, because fat is satisfactory."
"Take-home message is, you have to be careful with the total calories," says Rosenbloom, associate professor of nutrition at Georgia State University in Atlanta. It urges consumers to learn about control of portions and dense calorie food and tells WebMD that even salads as Caesar salads can have up to 1,000 calories. "A good way to decrease the calorie density is to eat foods in their" natural "shape, how to choose whole fruits instead of fruit juice. You can also buy cutting vegetables in the store, take them home, add a spoon of water soup, and cook them in the microwave, and no longer [than cooking packed vegetables]. It is simply a matter of changing your mindset. "
Berning warns against high protein diets like The ATKINS zone or diet. Instead, she recommends "a good portion control diet, as weight observers, because when you are controlling portions, you are controlling calories. Unfortunately, this is not very sexy and does not sell millions of books."
Berning and Rosenbloom make the following suggestions for cutting calories, especially when eating out:
- Order a plate of vegetables in the lunch.
- Keep all quiet drinks from calories. If you must have alcohol, ask for a wine spritzer: Half the calories of a glass of wine.
- Look for restaurants that feature "healthy" or "spa" kitchen. If possible, ask for an appetizer and an entry for two people and share them.
- Never skip meals.
- Part that all noodles, sauces and dressings are placed on the side. If possible, go to a local grocery store for lunch and have a sandwich, salad or yogurt container and a piece of fruit.
- Working in at least 30 minutes of exercising every day, even if it is only three walks of 10 minutes around the block
