Weight Loss - Count Fiber, not Carbs!
High-fiber foods, such as fruits, vegetables and whole grain products, generally require a longer time to eat, since they require more chewing and give your brain's appetite center time to shut down early. Also, when fiber foods are combined with water in the intestinal tract, they become bulky and create a feeling of fullness, which again prevents you from overeating. However, when you eat low fiber foods, more food is ingested before a sense of fullness has been attained. Low fiber refined carbohydrate foods are usually eaten more quickly, and since they require less chewing and are not bulky, they enter the intestinal tract more rapidly, where they are quickly absorbed as sugars. This rapid rise in blood sugar causes a spike in insulin production, which stores more fat inthe body and then quickly drops the blood sugar, which in turn makes you hungry again. Therefore, since it takes a certain amount of time for nerve impulses to reach the appetite control center, the feeling of hunger is not shut off until excessive amounts oflow fiber refined carbohydrates are eaten. This is the primary reason that low fiber foods invariably cause weight gain.
Spinach and Dark Green Leafy Vegetables
These greens are low in calories and are filling because of their fiber content and their crunch factor. Crunchy fiber foods take longer to eat and help your brain's hunger mechanism to shut down quickly. Fiber also helps to prevent the absorption of fat from the intestinal tract by wrapping threads of fiber around the fat globules, thus preventing the fat's absorption into the blood and actually sweeping the fat through and out of the intestinal tract before it is absorbed.
Green leafy vegetables also contain many plant nutrients, antioxidants, and B-complex vitamins, which help to prevent cancer, heart disease, and degenerative neurological diseases.
Oatmeal
Fiber-rich oatmeal is nutritious, tastes great, and is slow to digest. The high insoluble fiber content of oatmeal causes your appetite mechanism to shut down early because of its slow rate of absorption from the intestinal tract. Oatmeal has also been shown to reduce your craving for high-refined sugar products and fatty foods.
Oatmeal is also high in soluble fiber, which helps to clean out the fat in your blood vessels by increasing the HDL cholesterol, which sweeps out the bad LDL cholesterol from the bloodstream. Oatmeal for breakfast every day has been recommended by theAmerican Heart Association as a great start for your day to reduce your risk of heart disease.
People who eat oatmeal, as well as other whole-grain bran-type cereals daily, have less than one-half the risk of developing obesity and diabetes as non-cereal eaters. High-fiber bran cereals help to regulate insulin production in the morning. This helps to control your appetite and reduce the risk of gaining unwanted pounds.
Bran cereals are also packed with magnesium, which is a mineral that can also reduce your risk of developing diabetes. Magnesium also helps to stabilize your blood sugar by preventing the overproduction of insulin by the pancreas. Oatmeal and whole-grain bran-type cereals are great way to start your diet every morning.