Just Like Mom Said

My Numbers Early in the Morning:

• Fasting Blood Glucose:  100 mg/dl.
• Weight: 189ish.
• Exercise:  45 minute bike ride.
• Mood:  7.5  Friday Eve, good, tax preparation night, bad.April 15 is this weekend.

Menu:

•  Breakfast: Fruit medley of a banana, grapefruit and strawberries, oatmeal with craisins. 
• Lunch: Leftover Southwest Four Bean Chili and brown rice from last night.
• Pizza (Our Thursday night tradition).
• Snacks:

Big Diet News
Eating less, low fat and exercise is probably the most effective weight loss program, just like Mom said.  Go figure.  Popular diets (like Adkins?), over-the-counter diet pills, liquid diets, diet food and products were not effective as ways to lose weight.  The article also notes that a structured approach, such a diet program from Weight Watchers, helped a lot.

Gee, effective, safe, inexpensive, simple, common sense.  How do you make any money off of that?

Low Energy Foods are Best Foods to Lose and Keep Off the Weight
In a related story, research shows that the best way to lose and keep the weight off is to eat low energy density foods.  Low energy density foods are fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low fat animal protein sources. You know, the usual healthy foods that are low in fat, saturated fat and sugar, just like Mom said to eat.

Cheap, High  Calorie Food is Linked to Obesity
And more from the Common Sense Department, eating a lot of highly fattening foods will make you fat.

Read the article here.  Is this the beginnings of refutation of Adkins-type diets?

This article delves into the neuroscience of why tasty and cheap foods appeal to our brains.

Maybe because they are cheap and tasty?

10 Super Foods for Diabetics
I generally don't buy the super food bit.  Anything that fits the profile of a food for a healthy diet, diet as a regimen, what we should eat as a matter of course, could be considered a super food. That said here are 10 Super Food for Diabetics. All fall into the low fat,  low energy density category. 

I just wish Doritos fit the profile of a healthy, low fat, low energy density food.  Didn't seem to cause the inventor of them, Arch West,  any harm.  He ate them every day and lived to be 97. That's one year longer than Jack LaLanne who seemed to eat a lot of low fat, low energy density foods.

I Needed Frank Sinatra

Rainy this morning with the promise of getting wetter later on in the day.  I can't say getting worse because we need the rain.  I had a distinct lack of motivation or interest this morning.  I would have rather stayed in bed, yet I got for what felt like my morning drudgery, not a health giving cardiovascular session.

Even whenI got on the bike (attached to my trainer) I struggled to stay motivated, which is unusual for me.  Once I am on the bike and the heart starts to pump, my mood usuall brightens considerably. Not this morning. It was a struggle to not give into the urge to give it up this morning and 45 minutes of pedaling seemed to be verging on the point of forever.

So now, as I so often do when needing a major mood change, I put on some Frank Sinatra. Just hearing his version of "Come Fly with Me" brightened the mood.  Shower, shave, breakfast, with Frank swinging the morning away put me a mood to go out there and get 'em.

Thanks, Frank.  

My Swingin' Numbers for Today:

• Fasting Blood Glucose Level:  112 mg/dl.  
• Weight: 190 lbs  Down a pound
• Exercise:  45 minutes on the trainer
• Mood:  8.5.  A FS induced high. 

My Swingin' Menu for Today:

• Breakfast:  Tofu quiche with tormatillo sauce and a fruit salad of a banana, grapes and a Texas Rio Star ruby red grapefruit, the finest in the nation.
• Lunch: A chicken sandwich and an apple.
• Dinner:  Stuff and stuff.  It's our way of getting rid of a little bit of this and that in the fridge. 
• Snacks:  A small bowl of left over beans from last night and a few almonds.  Almonds and a glass of water do take away the hunger.

Big Time Diet News:  Fried Foods Do Not Cause Heart Attacks.

Most likely. Maybe.  With in reason. 

An article published in the British Medical Journal, based on a study in Spain, could find no evidence of a link between fried foods and heart disease. There are two caveats with this.  The oils used were olive and sunflower, oils typically used in Mediterranean diets and whether the same oil was more than once.  It doesn't say this, but I think this implies that oil used more than once is bad.

So much for fries at McDonald's.  

The British Heart Foundation also commented that olive and sunflower oils are typical of a Mediterranean diet which is considered more healthy than the typical British diet.

The Charming Ms SWMBO and I use olive and canola oil.  So how does canola oil compare to olive oil?  According to WebMD, it's better: Less saturated fat than in sunflower oil and and higher in Omega-3 fatty acid alpha-linolenic acid (ALA).  ALA is good for it's positive effects on blood pressure, cholesterol and inflammation.

That sounds good. WebMD also notes that about 1 1/2 tablespoons is all that is needed.  There's that moderation thing again.

Canola oil also compares favorably to olive oil as a good oil to use. It's higher in Omega-3 fatty acids, but also higher in Omega-6 fatty acids, which maybe good, but not as much Omega-3.

Olive has also may have some inhibit development of colon cancer, at least in rats.

Need I remind anyone people are not rats?

So, will I start eating fried food again.  No. The stuff usually gives me indigestion, at least when I get it from a restaurant.  I think it maybe a case of too much oil in some foods and oil that has been used repeatedly in a deep fat frier.  I don't like to fry much at home because it makes a bit of a greasy mess.

Back in the 1980's fat is bad, all fat is bad.  Now, not so much.  Woody Allen may be more prescient than he realized.  From his movie Sleeper:
 


I can't wait until hot fudge is considered  a vital part of a healthy diet.  I bet hot fudge sundaes are not part of a Mediterranean diet.