Articles

Low-Fat Weight Loss Myth - Mediterranean Diet Tips

By Dr. Shaul Eger

As the healthy lifestyle is gaining popularity in modern society, demand for healthy products is constantly on the rise. Millions of global consumers are showing higher awareness of the foods they are eating and nutrition is becoming a major issue.

Those interested in living a healthier lifestyle, now realize that food quality is the single most influential factor affecting our health. This has led manufacturers to offer a wide variety of “healthy food diets," which supposedly help improve the quality of food.

Low-fat weight loss – the myths

Fat is as essential components of human diet as protein and carbohydrates. However, in today's Western society, foods containing fat are regarded as a serious risk factor resulting in weight gain. As a result, many adopt low-fat diets.

Such low-fat diets are usually high in calories originating from available carbohydrate sources. The unexpected result is an expanding weight-gain epidemic accompanied by metabolic disorders and related diseases, like: hypertension, Atherosclerosis, heart disease, diabetics type 2 and stroke.

The main reason for this is that contrary to the general perception, in order to be healthy, 25-30 percent of our daily calories must be of oil origin.

Balanced diet

Every live cell in the human body contains fat and optimal cell functioning depends on the inclusion of fatty acids.

In addition to the supply of the optimal amount of fat, our daily diet must also include an exact combination of saturated, mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated fatty acids. The consumption of poly-unsaturated fatty acids is essential, as the human body must receive them externally and cannot produce them.

Clearly, industrialize produced food is directly responsible for an ever-growing number of health problems in Western countries. What we can learn is that Mediterranean countries have fewer cases of obesity, cardio-vascular diseases and cancer diseases due to also higher ratio of oil consumption.

Mediterranean diet

By adopting the “Mediterranean diet” lifestyle, characterized by the consumption of the much healthier olive and fish oils, people can substantially improve their health and quality of life.

These oils should ideally be cold pressed. A balanced consumption of fatty acids should include: 10-15% poly-unsaturated fatty acids (Omega 6 and Omega 3), 10-15% saturated and 65-75% mono-unsaturated fatty acids (Omega 9), of the total calories from oils.

These fatty acids can be found in extra virgin olive oil, cold pressed flax seed oil and fish oil.

A diet based on the consumption of 2,100 calories should include:

- 360 calories (4 tablespoons) of extra virgin olive oil.

 - 90 calories (1 tablespoon) of cold pressed flax seed oil.

 - 27 calories (3 capsules) of fish oil .

 - 223 calories of oil derived from fish, meat, nuts, almonds, baked products, and others.  

Healthy Eating Tips

Through the daily consumption of four tablespoons of olive oil every morning one can suppress appetite for 8-10 hours. This is the minimum intake required to maintain the cells’ membrane flexibility and functionality both internally and in the skin.

A balanced fatty acids composition is essential at any stage of our lives. It is crucial especially for pregnant women, breast-feeding mothers, babies, sportsmen, and people older than 50.