A nutritionist came in to our Alpha Phi meeting. Boy am I motivated to eat right now! She makes it sound so simple to eat healthy! What also motivated me to be more alert of what I eat is knowing the what the certain foods do to me. She says that if you can eliminate 3 things from your diet (difficult to eliminate completely, but should avoid when possible) is carbonation, white flour, and sugar. Carbonation travels to your intestines and sucks out vitamins from your intestinal membrane. If you take vitamin pills with soda, you lose about 50% of the vitamins (and you can?t just take double the pills either because your body can?t process that much at once). White flour is a simple carbohydrate that has a glycemic index of 100. What does that mean? Well, let me explain. Good carbs have a glycemic index of 50 to 60. The higher the index, the higher it brings you, but that means the more it?ll drop you (i.e. sugar highs? don?t last very long). It gives you temporary energy. An index of 50 to 60 will be a moderate high, so you?ll get the energy you need to get through they day, but won?t crash. Next, Sugar? Type 2 diabetes is generally known as the old person?s diabetes, but reality is that most of them have it because they ate too much sugar when they were younger. Besides that, sugar is also one of those things that only gives you temporary energy.

So how do you avoid these foods? Get whole grain stuff? but BEWARE, just cuz it says it?s wheat bread doesn?t mean it?s WHOLE wheat bread. Make sure it says ?100% WHOLE? wheat. You can also check the ingredients. For those who don?t know, ingredients are listed in order by which there are the most of. So, if the first item on your bread?s ingredients in bleached flour, that means that your bread is mainly comprised of bleached flour. Also, don?t be afraid of carbs? you need them. Some people go on protein diets to lose weight, but it?s REALLY bad for you. People lose weight when they go on protein diets because it takes 3 times as much water to digest protein than it does to digest carbs, so in the end, you are just losing water, not fat. Because it takes so much more water to digest protein, the water that circulates nutrients through your body went all into digesting, so you end up with liver and kidney problems.

Some random facts about nutrients in food? Leafy veggies have more nutrients than the so-called ?fresh? ones because with frozen ones, they are picked, packaged, and frozen whereas the ?fresh? ones are picked and left sitting there with all these other bacteria and stuff. And when cooking your veggies for the first time, you retain the most nutrients when you microwave them. However, when you re-heat them, the nutrient content will always diminish no matter how you re-heated it. A note on calcium? Dairy products aren?t that good to get calcium from because it?s so difficult for us to digest the lactose? try liver and salmon. Another random thing? if you?re an oatmeal eater like me, it?s interesting that slow cooked oatmeal has a glycemic index of 60, where instant oatmeal has an index of 100! I always got the instant ones cuz I don?t have the time? but hey, I?m reconsidering now. Another random fact? sweetened ice tea is equivalent to soda and unsweetened ice tea is equivalent to diet soda sugar wise? so I think I?ll just stick with water from now on.

Some simple tips? if you buy vitamins, make sure there is the USP label on it. If it doesn?t, and prolly has some blue seal or whatever on it, it hasn?t passed some regulations? I forget what, but there are a lot of them out there that has not passed. Also, breakfast should be your biggest meal and dinner should be your smallest meal. Between breakfast and lunch, you need a lot of energy to get through your day? you don?t need that much energy after dinner. Funny how most of us eat it reversed? small breakfast, huge dinner. To maximize your metabolism, eat more smaller portions? and a good way to do that is to buy smaller dishes so you don?t feel obligated to fill up your dish with food and then feel obligated to clean your dish. You can go to <a href="http://www.cyberdiet.com" target="_blank">CyberDiet</a> to find out more about the foods you eat. You can also contact <a mailto:ccook@uci.edu>Cindy</a> who is the nutritionist who came in today. Lastly, remember that each person has different nutrition requirements, and one good estimate of how much calorie you need is to add a zero at the end of your weight (if you're 140 lbs, then you need 1400 calories)... but remember, this is how much you need to survive provided that you just lay in bed all day. The more activity you do, the more calories you need.