Living Right - Losing Weight

People have been eating bread since before the invention of writing.
Bread is appreciated for it’s taste and texture,
And is included in the menu of many people.
We all eat bread. But is it good for our diets?
First, let’s discuss bread calories.

White bread calories count for 100 grams is approximately 220 calories.
This means that a bread slice has about 70 calories.
The same goes for pita bread calories.
White rolls have a bit more with 270 calories for 100 calories.
Now, here is a surprise.
Most of us know that whole wheat bread is better for your diet then white bread.
But a whole wheat bread calories count is100 grams of whole wheat bread has also around 220 calories, just like white bread.

Wait, what? Exactly like white bread?
So what makes whole wheat that much better?
Well, the benefit from whole wheat bread doesn’t come from a lower amount of bread calories, rather, it comes from the other nutrients in it.

Whole wheat bread contains complex carbs, in comparison to white bread that contains simple carbs.
Complex carbs are slower to break down into energy.
Making the 220 bread calories available throughout more time.
This has two advantages:
First, instead of an energy spike that fades quickly and leave you tired,
Complex carbs will supply you with a the same amount of energy spread longer.
When energy is not used properly it turns to fat.
And that is exactly why the whole wheat bread calories count of 220 is much better then white wheat bread.
Second, whole wheat bread will make you feel fuller – making you eat less of it.

But what about other foods that are rich with carbs?
Well white rice, for example, has about 250 calories for 100 grams. That is even a little more then bread.
It’s about the same with potatoes (baked, not fried).
Brown rice, on the other hand, has about 150 calories for 100 grams, so you can see there’s a big difference here.

So you see, bread calories count is pretty average considered to other carb rich food.
But unlike other carb rich foods, people eat bread throughout the day along with other meals.

My advice to you is to eat whole wheat bread, but eat it in moderation.
Keep a check on how much you eat.
Don’t eat bread from the basket in restaurants, don’t add bread to a full meal just because you’re used to it.
It’s ok to eat some when you are hungry (depending on your diet), but make sure to slice it thin!
Click Here to find out what’s wrong with your diet
Click Here to use your mind and make your diet easier

Good luck,

David H. Mason

When going on a diet we have to be more selective about the things we put in our mouth.
And if we want to lose weight we should be extra mindful on the amount of calories that we consume.
That’s why I want to talk about tuna.
Canned tuna fish has been around for over a century and quickly became very popular.
Nowadays, you can find tuna in other forms, like in sushi, but that is a different type of tuna fish.
The kind that I’ll review here is Albacore tuna which is regular white tuna you will find canned in the local grocery store.
Like other fish, tuna contains a high level of protein,
Which makes it a good substitute for fatty meats in your diet.
The major distinction you have to make is that there is a big difference between tuna canned in water and tuna canned in oil.
As you will see, tuna calories count is much higher when canned in oil.
Let’s review some nutrition data:
A serving of canned tuna in water has approximately 90 calories per can (which is 165g, making it about 55 calories per 100g).
Out of these 90 calories, only 10% come from fat and none of it is saturated
(Saturated fat is the kind of fat that you want to avoid in order to prevent heart problem and artery blockage).
All the rest of the 90% come from proteins,
About 20g of proteins in a can, which is important to keep your body healthy and functioning (especially if your working out).
Tuna canned in water has almost no carbs what so ever.
On the other hand,
A serving of canned tuna in oil has approximately 330 calories per can (about 200 calories per 100g) even after removing the oil.
This includes 14.4g of fat (about 20% percent of it saturated).
If this sounds not as good that is because that it really is not.
When canned in oil the tuna calories are much higher.
That is why tuna canned in water is much preferable for diet meal (even though it usually is a little more expensive).
Tuna calories count is also lower then other sorts of meat.
For example:
Fried beef steak fillet has 316 calories per serving (170g).
Grilled bacon (not even fried) has 260 calories per 100g.
Tuna, as well as other fish, have a relatively high mercury count.
But that shouldn’t concern you,
It’s much too low for it to be harmful (you need to eat more then 10 cans for it to be potentially harmful).
Also some tuna products are rich with omega 3 which is also good for you.
I won’t detail it here because it’s not our main issue,
But Omega 3 is used for many purposes and is considered to be very healthy.
Tuna can be eaten as a side dish alone, in a salad, and even made into a burger.
There are plenty of great recipes online that include tuna. Calories should be a concern of course.
Don’t use recipes that include fatty or calorie rich ingredients such as regular mayonnaise or white bread.
Conclusion: tuna calories count is low enough to be relevant for your diet. It also has other important nutrients that are important for a dieter. Just make sure you pick tuna canned in water!

For other posts concerning food that is right for your diet and information about nutrition – you can use the navigation categories and look around.

Bon-appetite!
Click Here to find out what’s wrong with your diet
Click Here to use your mind and make your diet easier

Good luck,

David H. Mason

The general discussion regarding carbs is very conflicted,
The case of Bread carbs is no different.
Bread is always a big deal for people on a diet,
Some never eat it, some try to avoid it.
But most people will tell you that bread is bad for your diet.
Though you might think that all bread carbs are to be totally avoided,
It is not necessarily the case.
It is partially true when speaking of white bread.
Whole wheat breads and some kinds of grain bread are different.
You see, the real issue is the kind of carbs that you should keep your distance from,
And these carbs are the simple carbs.
Simple carbs, in comparison to what is called complex carbs, are much lower in nutrients such as fiber.
The problem with white bread carbs is that they are the simple and cheap carbs.
And this is the reason people are so afraid of bread.
White bread is calorie rich, and yet it’s quite hard to eliminate all bread from your diet.
Bread is almost irreplaceable.
Don’t get me wrong, you can go on a diet and decide to never eat bread again.
But my point is that it’s really hard and not really necessary.
In my opinion, carbohydrates are vital for any diet.
Low carb/no carb diets are actually really dangerous.
Carbohydrates are the main glucose supplier for your body,
Cutting your carbohydrates will cause your body to go to “starvation mode”.
It is entering a state called ketosis, and it is very unhealthy.
So if you eat carbohydrates you might as well eat bread carbs.
Just try to make sure you eat foods with complex carbs.
And which food is that?
Whole wheat bread.
This type of carbs is slowly releasing glucose to your blood stream.
As opposed to simple carbs this kind of carbs is very good for you.
Giving a balanced supply of energy to your body is exactly what you need.
Whole wheat bread is also heavier than white bread so it makes you feel fuller.
So not only do you eat a better type of bread carbs,
You also eat fewer calories.
This is win-win situation.
The same goes for many different types of complex carbohydrate breads.
There are a lot f them out there,
All you need to do is go and find them.
Look for the word “whole” or “full” on the label,
The bottom line is don’t let the general “bread carbs are bad” idea make your diet harder.
Just find the right bread with the right bread carbs and you’re good to go.
Click Here to find out what’s wrong with your diet
Click Here to use your mind and make your diet easier

Good luck,

David H. Mason

P.S
Please share your thoughts and comment

Chicken eggs have been a human food since prehistoric times.
Throughout this time, we have learned a great deal about eggs and why are good or      bad for us.
I want to talk about eggs as part of your diet,
Detailing on calories, fat, cholesterol, proteins and vitamins.

First, let’s start with egg calories.
Then sum of calories in an egg depends on the way you cook it.

Fried Egg, calories count: 92
The fried egg is very popular,
The only problem with it is the frying.
Oil is not so healthy and frying is usually the fattest type of cooking.
You may want to choose a different way to eat your eggs.

Scrambled Egg, calories count: 100
The scrambled egg is my favorite egg dish.
However, it’s also the fattest.
In contrast to the fried egg, calories are added due to the oil that is added to this kind of egg.
In the fried egg version you can get rid of a large percentage of the oil.

Hard-Boiled Egg, calories count: 76
The hardboiled egg is a great supplement of proteins to any meal.
You can add it to your salad,
Put it next to your meat or even eat it between meals.
I strongly suggest you have some hardboiled eggs ready in the fridge,
It’s much better than eating fatty snacks.

Poached Egg, calories count: 76
The poached (cooked in water without the shell) egg doesn’t really differ from the hard-boiled egg, calories wise.

No matter how you like eating your eggs,
The important thing is that you eat them and not other sorts of fatty foods.
Egg calories are not a burden on your meal plan.

Also, like any other food in our diet,
There are many nutritional concerns about the egg, Calories are not the only thing that matters!
The egg in general is a high protein food.
Egg protein is very valuable to building muscle and you should eat eggs after every muscle building workout.
They supply a good protein addition and the low egg calories that you “pay” for them is really worth it.
In addition eggs also supply the body with other nutrients.
Vitamin A, for example, is very effective in improving your vision and also helps with skin health.
Vitamin B7, also called Biotin, strengthens your hair and is a natural preventer of hair loss.
The only problem with eggs comes from high cholesterol.
For 100g of egg there are 424mg of cholesterol and 10g of fat (but only 27% of the fat is saturated).
There is an unconcluded discussion whether or not egg consumption can induce heart problems with people already prone to it.
If you do have high cholesterol then you should consider eating only the egg whites every other day instead of the whole egg. Only the egg yoke contains cholesterol.

The last use of the egg is as a substitute or even an addition to meals in your meal plan.
The bottom line is: you should include eggs in your diet.
Egg calories are low, proteins are high and vitamins and minerals are plenty.
Eat at least one egg (preferably boiled or poached) a day.
If you don’t have high cholesterol, you can eat afford two.
Click Here to find out what’s wrong with your diet
Click Here to use your mind and make your diet easier

Good luck,

David H. Mason

P.S
Please share your thoughts and comment

Chicken calories: is chicken good for your diet?
Believe it or not, chicken was not a very popular dish not a long while ago.
It was only during World War II and due to a shortage of beef and pork that people started to raise chicken for their meat.
All of this is great for us: chicken calories count is generally lower then other sorts of meat which makes it much better for people on a diet.
Chicken is one of the leanest meats that you will find out there (the Chinese people have been eating chicken for ages and they are much skinnier then we are!).
For example:
In 100 grams of pork chops you will find 260.0 kcal and 16 grams of fat.
In 100 grams of lamb chops you will find 246.0 kcal and 18 grams of fat.
In comparison, chicken calories count is113.0 kcal and 3.2 grams of fat for chicken breast fillet.
Also, chicken is a good source of proteins.
In 100 grams of chicken breast you have more then 27.0 grams of protein.
But you should not go to the shop just yet,
You have to know how to make the chicken in order for it to fit your diet.
For example:
Skin and bones add fat and calories to your chicken calories count,
So you should find the right recopies for skinless chicken.
Also, when preparing to cook your chicken, calories count rises when you fry it in oil or use a fatty sauce.
Fried chicken calories count is more in the vicinity of other sorts of meat (about 250.0 or more kcal for 100 grams)
So get used to baking or grilling your chicken instead of frying it (my grandma is polish, and she used to just boil it in water with no spices what so ever, that’s also a good option if you don’t mind your chicken tasteless).
Another thing good about chicken is that it can be served with just about everything.
For example, grilled chicken (calories count also about 110 kcal for 100 grams) can be served with salad, steamed vegetables, rice (make sure it’s full rice) or in a sandwich.
In conclusion: chicken is a good meat source in your diet.
You should definitely try to replace beef, pork and lamb meat consumption with chicken.
Chicken calories and fat per gram is much lower then other sorts of meat, but make sure you prepare it correctly.

Click Here to find out what’s wrong with your diet
Click Here to use your mind and make your diet easier

Good luck,

David H. Mason

We’ve been talking a lot lately about what can go wrong with your diet, but one of the most obvious things I intentionally left out until now is avoiding the wrong food.
In any diet, you should have a good and organized meal plan,
But aside of the meal plan, you should be aware of the foods which can really harm your diet.
There are two main categories of wrong foods: The obvious ones and the ones you don’t know of.
With the obvious ones, there is the fast foods, the sweets, the snacks etc.
The problem with fast food is not the type of food you eat but the quality of the product and the way it is being cooked.
For example: eating a big hamburger in a whole meat bun, if you cook the hamburger in the oven instead of frying it, you use fresh lettuce and vegetables and you don’t use a lot of gravy, you have got a decent meal.
I’m not suggesting eating such a meal every day, but it is definitely a legitimate meal.
On the other hand, when you eat the same meal “fast food style”, you get a lot more calories, much more oil, lesser quality vegetables and white bread.
And this is how you turn a not-so-bad meal to a calorie bomb.
You have to really understand this concept of fast food and avoid it at all costs.
The problem is that consuming fast food is easier then cooking your own meal.
It’s not easy to change, but this is something you must cross it of your list.
The same goes for sweets and snacks. There are good substitutes for those, use them!
Energy bars, granola snacks and all kinds of low fat snacks are everywhere,
You just need to get those available to you when you crave a snack.

As for the wrong foods you don’t know about: this is a much bigger problem.
During a diet we sometimes need to improvise, especially when we’ve been at it for a long while.
You find yourself improving your meals and switching some ingredients around.
While this is a good idea which can help you enjoy your diet,
You have to be very careful with it.
There is always a good reason to why a meal plan is the way it is - so pay good attention to what you are adding and how it affects you meal or your entire meal plan.
For example, some people love eating everything with ketchup,
It’s not a problem as long as you know how many calories it adds to your meal.
I once found myself eating a specific sauce which that was as high in calories as a third of my main meal.
It took me a month to realize that I’m eating a lot more calories than I planned.

To sum up, try to be very aware of what you’re eating so you won’t make you diet harder with no good reason,
In a diet, the right information is priceless.
You can read more about dieting psychology HERE
Good Luck,
David

As an overweight person, I often asked myself if I am a food addict.
Treating yourself as an addict has its pros and cons
But is food really an addiction we can’t get rid of?
Well, in some ways – it really is.
Not only does our body need food for sustenance,
But specific kind of food can cause different physiological effect - almost like drugs.
When what you eat or the actual act of eating gains an emotional value,
You can definitely call it an addiction.
But this kind of connections often happens with specific foods as I said before.
Chocolate, for example, contains low levels of serotonin and dopamine – chemicals that might alleviates our mood.
When first we ate chocolate our brain learned about its effects and remembered them.
This kind of learning is subconscious and has to do with neural connection in our brain.
That’s why we sometime feel an uncontrollable and unexplainable urge for chocolate – especially when we’re moody.
The same goes to many other kinds of foods: sweets, fast food, coffee etc…
These sorts of foods are sometimes referred to as “Emotional Food”.
The problem is that when we start eating emotional food when we feel bad – the wiring in our brain becomes even stronger (meaning that there are more neural connection).
We get emotionally attached to food.
When you are emotionally attached to food (or to anything else for that matter) – it’s much more difficult to stop eating it.
Think about a favorite toy or item from childhood.
No one wants to through these things out – even if they do clutter up the house.
Emotional attachments to food can be very specific and they can be very general. Are you connected with that big slice of apple pie because it was your favorite growing up food?
You may have an emotional attachment to the foods.
If you love your mashed potatoes loaded with gravy, sour cream and butter just because you love the taste, that’s a different story.
Emotional food is what our brain tells us to eat when we feel stressed or upset.
Our diet efforts and goals are not always as strong as those mental cries for relief; that’s when we break our diets – and that’s when the vicious circles of low self esteem can begin.
So what should you do?
Ideally, you should never use food to comfort yourself mentally.
It’s just like cigarettes, it becomes a bad habit of smokers to smoke when they are stressed out.
So if you ease your stress with food it becomes the equivalent of a cigarette.
In any case you need to do some damage control,
You should try to substitute the sweets with low fat snacks,
At least while you are working on getting rid of your addiction entirely.
Good luck
David H. Mason