"Learning how to understand and use the Nutrition Facts label can help you make healthier eating choices and identify nutrient-dense foods for a healthy diet. Here are some tips from the American Heart Association for making the most of the information on food labels."
Once again, slightly off topic. For those watching carbohydrate intake, dietary fiber is indigestible, so it doesn't contribute to calories from carbs. Therefore, Grams of Net Carbs (the ones that do add calories) = Grams of Total Carbohydrate - Grams of Dietary Fiber. This is an issue mostly for those following ketogenic or Atkins style diets.
Are you diabetic JP?
No, but I have been following a ketogenic diet since last April. Too many carbs will kick the keto dieter out of ketosis (using stored body fat as fuel for energy rather than carbohydrates). I generally stay at or below 25g of net carbs per day. I have also been following an intermittent fasting (IF) routine, eating just one meal ("dinner") per day.
The reason for IF is that it appears to keep the body from slowing the basal metabolism rate down. In a typical diet, the basal metabolism slows down because the "body" wants to keep the stored fat stored (just in case it is needed). That's why most diets work at first, then quit working. Intermittent fasting, for unknown reasons, seems to override this problem. It's also a lot more convenient than eating three (or more) times a day.
For those who might be interested, there are a lot of good YouTube informational videos on this topic by Dr. Jason Fung (who isn't really trying to sell you anything).
I have 2 sisters that do fasting and insist it works................for them.
I've always eaten very healthy(was a competitive body builder for decades) and was a dietary supervisor at the University of Michigan Hospital for a couple of years.
My problem is more keeping on weight and having bouts of hypoglycemia(low blood sugar).
My blood crashes if I don't eat numerous meals every day and decent amounts. Most of this is genetics that would have been a curse thru 99% of human history. During famines, when food was scarce, people like me would have been the first to starve to death.
People with "slow metabolisms" are more efficient with their bodies use of food. They can squeeze out every calorie and are sort of like a Mac truck that gets the best MPG of all the vehicles vs me, a much smaller model that gets 10 MPG.
Nobody in my family is heavy.
Another part of this is the way that I exercise. When I do strength training, which is only a few times a month, I ramp up the intensity to an extreme. The coach of our powerlifting team used to say that if you want to maximize the benefits, you need to "have a near death experience" every time you train.
I carry alot of muscle for my small frame. If you want to boost your metabolism..........gain muscle.......it will continue to burn more calories 24 hours a day., even while you sleep.
Of course I took this to such an extreme when younger, using very heavy weights and bad form that I greatly eroded my cartilige and have severe osteroarthritis and have had 18 surgeries(only around half from the weightlifting damage) so you can often take wonderful benefits to such an extreme that it becomes harmful.
So many people, however fail to take advantage of the tremendous benefits that "fairly high" intensity strength training has on the body.
I never tried fasting. I was so hungry so often as a young adult I never really thought about voluntarily not eating.
Periodic fasting is probably something I could do though. Great thread. Thanks for sharing.
Dr Fung on YouTube,
Thx!
Ps I look for fewer ingredients on the label - that’s the label reading short cut I use. Who can keep up with all those new and new and misleading naming structures. Hell, MSG has 40 different names (like natural flavors) it hides under.