Category: dietary supplements

Diet the Right Way

The word ‘dieting’ makes you visualize yourself bidding adieu to your favorite extra cheese burger or double chocolate cake and incorporating boiled vegetables and bland salads in your life! This is why we dread dieting so much. But actually we were not born with unhealthy eating habits. We craved for milk as babies and not carbonated drinks. It is because of all the food exposure that we had later in life which led us into unhealthy eating. And eventually we have no other option other than dieting!

Dieting is regulated intake of food to cut down extra calories in order to maintain or reduce your weight. This includes diet rich in healthy vitamins and minerals along with other nutrients. However, some people indulge in crash dieting which in turn ends up crashing their own health. This way of dieting can back fire some serious health issues such as malnutrition, weakness and low immunity. Hence, you have to diet for a healthy body too along with shedding weight.

Start With Some Mental Conditioning

The first thing you need to do before dieting is prepare yourself. If you start to diet in a haphazard way, you may end up losing interest soon. So, prepare a diet plan with the help of your dietician. Set an achievable target for yourself. Remember that your aim is to incorporate healthy eating habits in your routine and you don’t want to go back to square one after your goal is achieved. So make this regime as interesting as possible.

Welcome Fresh Veggies and Fruits in Your Diet

Fruits and vegetables contain some best diet vitamins. These vitamins not only boost your metabolism but also take care of the vital functions of the body. Being rich in fiber, these keep you full for long hours and also help to digest your food better. Also you get to add lots of natural minerals and vitamins in your diet. You must go for fresh fruits and vegetables as processed foods are loaded with sugar and are less nutritious as compared to fresh foods. Apples, bananas, watermelons, papaya, plums, grapes, peaches, avocadoes are some of the best fruits. For vegetables, avoid starchy potatoes and go high on beans, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage.

Say Hello to Whole Grains

Refined grains are low in fiber and nutritional value. Whole grains have more of essential diet vitamins such as Vitamin B and minerals attached to them. So swap your white rice with brown rice and white bread with multigrain one. Whole grains are rich sources of fiber and thus slow down the release of sugar in your bloodstream. This is highly desirable in dieting as instant dumping of sugar in the blood makes it difficult for your body to burn down the calories quickly. Look for whole grain variants in pastas, noodles and breakfast cereals too. Pop corns are a low cal way to include whole grains in your diet.

Stick To Small Portions

If you are hungry you tend to fill up your plate as much as possible in one go. This is the biggest mistake that you commit. As a result, you finish up everything that is on your plate not realizing that you are going overboard. Hence it is wise to serve yourself small portions of food. For this, use small bowls which fill up quickly and you don’t get tempted to take more. You may take several of such mini meals in a day. This will not only keep your huger satiated but will also improve the breakdown of food. Try to add more of B vitamins in your diet as they are major metabolism boosters.

Give Your Brain the Time to React

Overeating is the biggest reason of putting on extra weight and brain can help you deal with this problem. It just needs to be given more time! Confused? Actually, your brain takes about five minutes to make the stomach realize that it is full. So before you get up to take another serving, wait for a while. Your brain will automatically make you feel full and refrain you from taking more.

 Guzzle More Fluids

Ever noticed that you feel less hungry in summers? This is because the scorching heat compels you to stuff yourself with enough of fluids leaving hardly any space for solids. Follow this trick while dieting too. Water, juices, low cal shakes fill up your tummy and also provide you adequate amounts of vitamins in your diet. Some of the best diet supplements available in the market such as energy drinks and whey shakes, are also helpful to curb your hunger with minimum calories possible. Fortified juices are good sources of important diet vitamins and minerals.

Finally, along with all the above tips, you need to exercise regularly and sleep well to attain your desired weight. Believe it or not but a good sleep can help to bring down your hunger levels by curbing some hunger instilling hormones. So, the next time you feel like devouring a bowlful of potato chips, taking a nap would certainly be a good deviation.

Copper Supplements and Allied Health Benefits

The amount of copper that we have in our body is around 50 and 120 mg-point that could even fit on the head of a pin. And, if we add the fact that this is an effective antidote to combat anaemia, especially severe in children, then we definitely follow this quest to boost its absorption and enjoy its benefits to the fullest. Copper is available in a wide variety of fresh or lightly processed foods, but mostly in animal foods such as meat, poultry and fish, especially, in organ meats such as liver (beef and chicken) and also in plant foods such as legumes (lentils, chickpeas, etc.), peanuts and chocolate. It is also present in small amounts in egg yolk and dried fruits such as plum and peach.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the daily copper intake for a normal adult (weighing 50 to 70 kg) should be 1.0 to 1.4 mg. The body cannot produce copper on its own, so that one must get it from foods or dietary supplements. The possible role of copper in the treatment of diseases is based on the fact that many enzymes cannot do proper functioning without the mineral. However, there is very little evidence that taking extra copper can actually treat any disease or not.

Role of copper

Certainly, copper is a multifaceted mineral that prevents anemia, being necessary for the processing of iron, it is also useful to thwart bone disease. It stops cell damage and promote proper fetal development. Copper consumption in humans is necessary for the proper functioning of some enzymes involved in processes such as growth of children, transportation of iron in the blood flow, strengthening bones, glucose and cholesterol metabolism; It is micro-constituent very beneficial for elastic hair and skin tissue. Copper supplements health benefits – helps in brain development and function of the heart, liver, nervous and immune systems.

Although, as we already said that the small amount of copper stored in the human body (50-120 milligrams) does not prevent this mineral powerful to perform impressive feats to promote optimal health. Although copper is in the furthest corners of the body, it tends to concentrate in the organs with high metabolic activity, including liver, brain, kidneys and heart. However, copper supplements, can also cause side effects and interact with medications, so you should consume under the supervision of a physician.

Requirements / Sources

There is a saying “Not all five fingers are equal”; similarly when it comes to the question of a person’s nutritional intake, you can come back with this, every time. Following are the official US recommendations for daily intake of copper, and you can clearly see the difference:

  • Infants

    • 0-6 months 200 mg

    • 7-12 months 220 mcg

  • Children

    • 1-3 years 340 mcg

    • 4-8 years 440 mcg

  • Men and women

    • 9-13 years 700 mcg

    • 14-18 years 890 mcg

    • 19 years and older, 900 mcg

  • Pregnant Women 1,000 mcg

  • Nursing women, 1,300 mcg

It should be noted that high intake of zinc reduces copper stores in the body; for this reason, if you are taking zinc supplements in doses above nutritional levels (for example, in the treatment of macular degeneration), you will definitely need extra copper. In short, if you are taking iron or large doses of vitamin C, you will need extra copper. Ideally, take copper supplements in such a way that you can maintain a gap of 2 hours with these the doses of iron and vitamin C. It is advised so, because it may cause interference with the absorption of these above mentioned nutrients.

Oysters, nuts, legumes, whole grains, sweet potatoes, and dark greens are good sources of copper. Drinking water that passes through copper plumbing is a good source of this mineral, and sometimes only this source is enough to fulfil the recommended amount of copper intake.

Dosages

For the various therapeutic uses described in the next section, copper is often recommended at a high (but still safe) dose of 1 to 3 mg (1,000 to 3,000 mcg) daily.

Therapeutic Uses

Copper has been proposed as a mineral for the treatment osteoporosis, based primarily on the studies that have found the benefit using combinations of various trace minerals including copper. However, one study found that copper supplements taken alone may not be useful for the treatment.

Researchers have stated in their published journals that the copper deficiencies increase the risk of increased cholesterol and heart disease, but have failed to supply any real evidence that this idea is true. A small, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of copper supplements to reduce risk factors for heart disease such as cholesterol profile found no benefit. For a long time, copper has been mentioned as a possible treatment for osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, but as yet no real evidence that it works.