Combining different foods

Is it true that you can eat more and lose weight by combining different foods?

No. People say that there are certain foods that take more calories to burn than they provide or that certain food items are going to cause more calories to be burned. It is a misconception and I can fully understand why people think the way they do.

People don't want to put the time and the energy or the money into losing weight. It is a lot of work. People want to lose weight and they know that some of the food they eat is unhealthy and
they don't want to put the time and energy into changing things.

It takes planning and time. Instead of visiting the fast food restaurant on the corner on the way home you go to the produce aisle in the grocery store. It might take you a little more time and cost you a little more money but it's worth it.

You know the fast food restaurants super size everything. The artists and executives that design the ads know that our mentality is that the more food we can get for our buck, the better we are going to like it. It wasn't so long ago that you would go in and order a pop and you would get 8 oz or 12 oz and now it's not uncommon to get 24 or 36oz because they super size everything.

Tell me are there any specific foods that burn fat?

No. Basically, if you want to burn fat or lose or maintain your weight everything comes down to energy balance.
Researchers are constantly looking for foods that could burn fat. Some of them concentrate on milk and dairy products that have been theorized to burn fat through increasing inadequate calcium intake. Some concentrate on finding a specific diet that will burn fat like a high protein diet. While there is evidence for and against - it has never been proven beyond a doubt that there is any one type of food or type of eating that can burn fat. When it comes down to it, it is a marketing myth that just got so large that everyone started to talk about it, and pretty soon, people started to believe that food could burn fat.

In reality food provides energy and nutrients, but cannot burn fat. You can read more at the website about this subject at Savvy Fat Burning Food.

Then what should we be counting? Should we be counting calories, carbohydrates or fat?

If you look at carbohydrates and fat, it is the same scenario. Each gram of carbohydrates contains 16 kcal of energy, while fat contains 37 kcal of energy. This is why watching how much fat
you're eating is so important. It is almost twice that of protein and carbohydrates.

Much of the research on low carb diets such as the Atkins diet found that people lost more weight initially and that the diet was more effective than the other diets.   Research has also found that people who are on high protein diets also experience higher satiety levels, that is, they are not as hungry. One of the main reasons that low carb diets induce weight loss is because of the simple fact that they are just consuming less calories, but more protein and fat than carbohydrates.

What it seems to boil down to is that some low carb diets restrict your intake to mainly fat and protein, by eliminating carbohydrates from the diet. This has the effect of taking away so many of the food choices that are available, as well as vital nutrients that your body needs.

You know, even lovers of protein and fat, find that the variety and choices are taken away and what you are actually doing is actually limiting your caloric intake. So it works initially and that is one of the reasons why people are so attracted to it.
The fact is however that 95% of diets fail and what it really comes down to is if you want to lose weight, lifestyle change is the only way. A diet is only temporary, you go on it and you lose weight.

But what are you going to do eventually?   You are going to go off it.

In my definition, that is not a lifestyle change that is a temporary fix. That is human nature. You go on the diet and eventually you are going to go off it and revert back to your old eating habits and gain the weight back.

It all comes down to understanding a little bit more about the foods that you are eating and a choice to make a lifestyle change. Also almost all of these diet plans introduce a new way of eating, a way that is abnormal to the way that you are used to eating and we are creatures of habit and we like the foods that we are used to.

Because we are creatures of habit we don't adapt very well to
changes like that. We can go on it for a while and because it is so abnormal it just doesn't fit. It all comes down to the fact that you have to make a decision that you are going to change the way you eat.

One of the things that I have noticed is that if you do something as simple as go out and walk 15 minutes a day, it will be easier for you not to be tempted by unhealthy food. The healthier your lifestyle choices, the easier it will be to stick to your healthy food choices.

It's almost like the unhealthy choices don't fit anymore. They are incompatible with the healthy choices. You know, I have quoted that adage that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Well it's almost the same applied to health and nutrition.

As I kick around health and nutrition with people that are into it like I am, I find that if you do exercise and have more muscle mass you burn more calories when you are at rest. Lean muscle mass has a higher metabolic requirement. When you are just sitting around doing nothing and your body has more lean muscle mass you are going to burn more calories than if your body
contains fatty tissue.

It's kind of a cruel injustice but the fitter you get even at rest, you are burning more calories.