Tag: Nutrition

Stay Fit Fridays-7 Dieting Mistakes You Should Avoid, By Dr. Anjali Hooda

Ever wondered why you don’t seem to meet up your weekly weight loss goals…. after having followed a not so tasty diet plan and almost draining yourself in those cardio/strength sessions. Every Monday morning you still fall short of few hundred grams of the expected weight loss…!!

Here’s how you could identify common glitches… correct them and find yourself more inspired and encouraged towards losing the remaining extra kilos…!!

The symbols of a healthy lifestyle - gymnastics, weight control, and fruits


Keep Eating a “Singular Activity

Eating in peace with all the focus on your plate helps you sense the feeling of fullness…. or what we call satiety. Watching television, talking over phone and working on laptop while eating…, can lead to improper chewing and eating more than required. Mindful consumption of meals favours sensitization of ‘satiety clues’ and you know exactly where to stop eating.


Don’t Purchase your diet… Prepare it…!!

Often in morning rush hours…, we choose processed/ready to eat foods like corn flakes, oats, whole grain bread, and sometimes even tea and crackers as breakfast options. Although these constitute a handy option and the nutrient content seems to be similar to home cooked foods but eventually they have a higher glycemic index and lower fibre and protein content. Try limiting these to 2-3 times per week and opting for simple home-made recipies that suffice your nutrient requirement.


Distribute your food evenly

The key to weight loss without loss of health lies in creating a balance of nutrients or types of food. The more balanced a meal, the better and steady is release of nutrients into the blood stream. One must include at least one combination of cereal and legume, cereal and pulse or cereal and milk for your main meals while keeping the raw fruit/vegetable portions for in between snacking.


Avoid eating and drinking at the same time

Glugging water and other beverages while eating or immediately after meals reduces the efficacy of digestion and absorption process due to dilution of the digestive juices released in stomach. Digestion becomes prolonged and the absorption is also not that great. Take plenty of fluids all the day round but remember to exempt from them during meals.


Drinking calories v/s eating them

Substituting your meals with a glass of milk or taking fruit juices in place of fruits don’t add much of a benefit to your health. Doing so, you might end up adding almost equal or even extra calories to your diet while going deficient in terms of other nutrients. A glass of 200ml 3% milk gives you almost equal calories as a well balanced meal and no where matches the satiety level of a meal. A glass of orange juice surely gives you higher amount of vitamins and minerals than a whole orange… but it also has sugars (fructose) from 3-4 oranges and absolutely no fibre…!!


Go individual

A universal diet or a diet that works for all is yet to be discovered. The fact that every individual is different and so is its response to any particular practice holds a lot of evidence. Identify your body’s responses and analyse them to understand what suits you the best. Diet and exercise regimes should be tailor-made…, not copied and followed simply because it did benefit your friend or relative.


Set realistic, “health-happy” goals

After having made one or all of the aforementioned corrections…, most importantly remember that there is a certain amount of weight that one should aim at losing over a period of time. Achieving jaw-dropping weight loss in a short span of time (10-12 weeks) might create a story line for you but the health risks it poses are too many…, plus the ‘yo-yo effect’ that makes you gain weight as quickly and more than you actually lost.


-Do it the right way.., as being slim has become a little outdated. Staying healthy is the new cool…!!

 

Stay Fit Fridays..SUGAR ADDICTION IS REAL. FIND WAYS TO QUIT by Dr. Anjali Hooda Sangwan

I come across so many people who always ask me doc can I eat some sweet post my meal every day? Or I have a sweet tooth and I can’t live without some sweet every day.

That sounds familiar?


Sugar is a standard term we use for table sugar, the white sugar. Simple sugar is made up of a monosaccharide example fructose, glucose; galactose. Table sugar is a disaccharide and is converted to glucose and fructose in the body. Our bodies cannot make fructose but can produce glucose from the stored glycogen.

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Consuming too much fructose will lead to conversion to fat and since the process takes place in liver, one can have a fatty liver. Sources of fructose include fruits, table sugar, added sugars to processed foods. Fruits usually can never be overeaten but you will be surprised when people will do that on all fruit fad diets, which includes fruit juices without any fiber.

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Every living cell has glucose without which survival is impossible.

Sugar is addictive and numerous studies have shown it to be very addictive.

Lot of people argue: but shouldn’t we eat sugar for energy, what do you mean give up sugar, how will we live? Almost all foods contain sugar in some quantity more or less. In addition to weight gain, excess sugar can also cause inflammation, have adverse effects on your heart, increase your risk for diabetes and possibly cause kidney damage. Giving up sugar now or never that’s how it works. One should learn the difference between natural and artificial sugar.

So if we consume lots of fructose then we can get numerous diseases like Insulin resistance, Diabetes, Cancers, Obesity, Heart disease. Addiction to sugar is real; sugar causes release of dopamine in brain (happy hormone) therefore more we eat more we want to eat. Although sugar per se doesn’t have a high glycemic index (Food effect on blood glucose) But addition of sugar to foods can cause the calorie intake to go high for the body.

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There has been conflicting studies regarding sugar intake but as far as data for obesity is concerned it’s a red alert and directly related to high sugary beverages.


I am of the opinion that moderation is the key, consuming high sugar foods and then adding an artificial sweetener to beverages is totally incorrect.

  • If you consume large quantities of sugar, try to give it up now. More you consume more you crave for it. It’s a condensed calorie so it will not fill up the stomach but will give a lot of positive energy balance.
  • Go easy in a party don’t let one night of fun ruin your sugar quitting, as party will end but cravings will not.
  • While buying, read food labels carefully, choose foods with less amount of sugar approximately 10 mg or less per serving.
  • Alcohol also contains sugar. It is called empty calories. Try to reduce or quit it.
  • Artificial sweeteners as low-calorie replacements have a variety of side effects.

Moderation is where the answers lie.

If you work on decreasing sugar in your diet you will develop a taste for low sugar intake. It’s a habit, which we have to work on. Choose your sugars wisely and decrease portion if you are going to have that scoop of ice-cream.


About Dr.Anjali Hooda Sangwan

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Dr. Anjali Hooda Sangwan, MBBS, MD (INTERNAL MEDICINE) (USA) is a veteran Obesity, Metabolic Medicine and Clinical Nutrition Consultant. She has an experience of, Hypertension, Cardiovascular Heart disease & PCOD. She is trained in Pre and Post Bariatric Management of Obese patients with and without complex Medical Issues like Thyroid Disorders, Diabetes Mellitus . She provides an advice on nutrition and offers people an opportunity to improve their health. She helps her patients achieving healthy weight loss goals with alteration of life style and pharmacotherapy and micronutrient usage.


Apart from designing the food plans, Dr. Anjali Hooda also teaches the residents about obesity and nutrition and its application in assessing the nutritional status of a patient and how to manage it. She also indulge herself into the development and teaching of medical students and house staff on the hospital consult service, reviewing common and uncommon diseases affecting nutrition and their effect on patient recovery in postoperative period and treatment of malnutrition including pharmacology.

She has developed an App for Preventive Health and Weight Loss – www.livenutrifit.com. She did her MD in Internal Medicine, Lincoln Medical Center an affiliate of Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, USA and also trained in Bio-Identical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT). She is a member of The Obesity Society, American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) and American Society of Parenteral & Enteral Nutrition (ASPEN), American College of Physician (ACP).

Despite designing food plans for several celebrities and other eminent personalities, Dr. Anjali Hooda Sangwan ensures she is accessible to all her patients and provides the best course of action to each one of them.


Specialities:

  • Medical Weight Loss
  • Age Management
  • Clinical Nutrition Support
  • Childhood Obesity Management
  • Metabolic Syndrome Treatment
  • Bariatric Surgery Services