TeamFLEX Newsletter

Weight Loss Spotlight

Weight Loss Food

While certain food is promoted as weight loss food, there is no food that will make you lose weight just by consuming it. However, to use food to help monitoring your weight is possible. Carbohydrates give you 4 calories per gram, protein 4 calories per gram and fat 9 calories per gram of fat.

To find the balance between your daily food intake, the source of your calories and your activity level in your daily life is the hard part in establishing a meal plan that work will for you in the long run. Some people metabolize some food better then others. Nor two people are the same when it comes to what food their body can handle and what food they gain weight from. However certain rules of thumb apply to everybody.

Food from carbohydrate sources will be stored as fat unless used up for energy production. Protein won't make you gain fat weight or increase your body fat. Some people can metabolize fat better then others but one rule applies to all regarding fat. Saturated fat is far more likely to be stored as fat mass then unsaturated fat.

The combination of food in each meal also makes a difference as far as how well your body absorbs the food and utilizes it. For instance, if you eat pineapple right after eating chicken, the protein in the chicken will be utilized far better then if it was consumed just by itself due to the digestive enzymes in pineapple especially designed to break down protein and make it available for your muscles.

There are many food combinations which are too hard for your body to digest at the same time which will result in the food not being metabolized properly which could lead to weight gain. Eating a meal both high in saturated fat and complex carbohydrates, requires a really fast working metabolism for all the calories to be utilized and not stored as fat.

A meal with the right combination of moderate carbohydrates, fat and protein will ensure proper digestion and absorption. Balanced eating in combined with exercise is the safest weight loss program available.

It is also important to be aware of the different glycemic indexes in foods. A gram of pasta is not being metabolized as fast as gram of white or brown rice. The past is more likely to be stored as fat because of its low glycemic factor. The slower burning a food is, the bigger the risk gets that your body won't be able to use up all the calories from the food.

Water is probably the best weight loss food there is available to us if you can call water a food. Water is a natural fat burner as far as increasing the metabolism of fat in your body.

When you eat what food during your awaken hours of the day are also very important when it comes to weight loss and the different foods. You do not want to consume a meal high in fat and carbohydrates later in the day because the likelihood of the calories from that meal, being completely burned off before you go to sleep is very little. If you are hungry late at night you don't have to go to bed starving but you should only have a smaller serving of some type of protein such as a can of tuna, egg whites or a protein shake with water. The protein can't be stored as fat so there is no risk of weight gain involved. Eating a little bit more protein then carbohydrates and fat is a good way of staying satisfied throughout the day and still cutting calories to increase weight loss.