food

To vegan, or not to vegan, that is the question.

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vegan

Ok, this week I will be taking a look at a very interesting and at the same time a controversial diet. And the reason why I’m saying this is because Vegan is a few steps further for the purpose of not feeding on animals.

Let’s start by looking at the word on the dictionary:

VeganDefinition
Definition of the word Vegan from Dictionary.Com

Yes, we already knew the first definition, but what about the next one? or the example below the third definition?  Seeing this encloses the word in something more than health.  Being Vegan comes with social implications.  And going back to the diet, you would not tell a vegetarian that she is cheating at her diet protocol if she drinks milk or has an omelet, right?  Well, a vegan person does not want cows to be milked and less to eat unborn chicks. So there you have it.  In a nutshell, no animals or animal-derived food or products (clothes, shoes) if you want to go the whole nine yards.

A very interesting point of the Vegan Diet is that is 100% Ok with a lot of forbidden food on many other diets. As long as it doesn’t come from an animal, we’re good.

If you can’t live without Bread, Pasta, Rice and the rest of Carb based food, maybe this Diet is for you. Take into consideration however that a big amount of vegetables will be mandatory to try to cover your daily quota of nutrients.  Just so you know, this is one of the big complaints about this diet.

If you are interested, you can continue right where I stopped.  Since I have the condition known as “Insulin Resistance”, I can’t go with a free pass on Carbohydrates, I must control my insulin spikes instead of increasing the frequency.  That is why a very low carb diet like the ketogenic diet is better for me.

It was very interesting, and a lot of people swear by the results of this diet. But as I already said, it is not aligned with the results that I am searching for.

So, I won’t be a Vegan.
In fact, not even an Ovo-Lacto Vegetarian (Milk and Eggs allowed).

But maybe you can…

Today you are allowed to “Eat/Say Goodbye” to some type of food

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fastfood

Wait a minute… Are you actually suggesting we eat something off protocol today!? 

Let me put it this way…  I am a junk food regular, Diet Coke addict and a sworn salad hater that is about to embark in a journey into the unknown starting tomorrow.   So, YES, I want to say goodbye to some of my regular food, the same way that I would say goodbye to a friend.  Only time will tell if that long-lost friend ends up badmouthing me, revealing that he was not such a good friend after all.  

With that being said, excuse yourself today and eat away some of what has been until now your favorite food, because tomorrow, they will be gone. No harm done today, just savor the moment.  

Happy forbidden meal!

Ok, Let’s see what is out there…

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encuesta

Some people think that selecting a diet is an easy task. And I believe it is, but when others decide for you. That is, in other words, you go to the doctor to get fix, sorry, to get fit.

If you want professional help on deciding what to use as a diet, I will recommend that you put yourself in the hands on a good “Dietitian”.  Please note that I said “Dietitian” and not “Nutritionist”.  The first one requires a bachelor’s degree in nutrition and dietetics while the later can be achieved without formal qualifications. Is not my intention to degrade nutritionists, as I know that many of them have some kind of degree in nutrition or related fields, is the lack of curriculum standardization that work against them.

Let me give you an example of what a dietitian would do in a hypothetic case:

Patience with a severe case of NAFLD (Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease) walks into our dietitian’s practice and asks for a diet to put him on the right track to lose weight.

Do you think that is a good idea that our dietitian includes fruits as part of the diet?
Why not? Fruits are a common denominator in just about every balanced diet and the fiber would be of great help to our patience.

Image result for Wrong Sign Transparent Background (imagine the Buzz sound of a wrong answer)

Fruits contains two types of sugar: fructose and sucrose.  sucrose can be broken down by just about any cell in our body. In contrast, fructose has to be managed by the liver exclusively. If our patience already has an impaired liver because of NAFLD, adding extra work with fructose process is not doing anyone a favor. Therefore, a dietitian would possibly wait to correct some degree of NAFLD before recommending fruits.

Do you understand?  Is not that I am saying that fruits are a bad choice for a healthy diet, only that it may not be the best choice for someone with a condition like NAFLD. And that is a kind of choice that a dietitian would do.

Let me end this post by saying that in my opinion diet is easily 75% part of the formula for health. Yes, I know, exercise is important too, but you simple cannot exercise out a bad diet, you simple can’t.  But don’t worry, we don’t plan to only go for the top tier option.  Exercise is also part of the solution.

Now let’s go to work!  You have a few days to search for diet options.  I will do the same and on the next post I will introduce my winner and maybe also the runner-up.

Until our next post and have a good time researching!