Sound Bites for Weight Loss

Sound Bites for Weight Loss

Each day we are presented some type of nutrition information, which gets are attention to improving some aspect of our health… As a nutritionist, I’m all for educating my clients about their biology, and the role nutrition plays managing it… The challenge is how to implement the information in a way to accomplish our goals…

The media is quick to offer sound bites or key phrases, which at times is somewhat miss leading and at times puzzling… My role with my clients is to help take this knowledge and fit the pieces of the puzzle to each individual… An example recently Dr Oz reported the fat burning effect of coconut oil… I would be willing to wager coconuts were flying off the trees and inventory of coconut oil quickly depleted… However will it have a major impact on the obesity epidemic in our country?

So lets start with how does coconut oil improve ability to shed unwanted body fat… Yes eating certain dietary fats helps reduce body fat, when kept in balance with other macronutrients… The key understanding is when balanced nutrition is practiced… So why is coconut oil, making news as a partner in the battle of the bulge? Nutritionist’s have know about its positive benefits for quite some time…

Coconut oil is from a group of fats, which sound bite mentally painted as bad… Coconut oil is a saturated fat, and saturated fats are known being bad for heart and circulatory conditions… Well not all saturated fat is bad and eliminating it totally from your diet is a mistake…

Over the last 30 years, I have seen so many shifts in our perceptions of fats re-guarding weight management, and it a mistake to say they are either good or bad, because they are both… Why such a focus on carbohydrates, and fats, because they brake down faster than proteins… Poor management of carbohydrates and fats quality and quantity will have a negative effect on our weight and many conditions related to our health…

Carbohydrates were once thought of as either simple or complex, then a shift to high or low glycemic drastically changed are view and use in our daily routines… Fats were placed into saturated or unsaturated, but now term like short, medium and long chain triglycerides are a much better ways to distinguish good or bad fat…

Coconut oil is a medium chain triglyceride, unlike processed vegetable oils and other hydrogenated fats, which are long chain triglycerides... In simple terms medium chain triglycerides are utilized more efficiently by are bodies and less likely to be stored as fat, or negatively impacting blood vessels, which lead to cardiovascular or circulatory problems…

The weight loss benefit of coconut oil occurs from increase in metabolism... This is due to its healthy effect on thyroid which is important especially when calorie are reduced during periods of weight loss…

So if using coconut oil as your major weapon in your weight loss fight you will probably be discouraged in the outcome… However as part of a balanced approach where calories, portion and quality of protein, carbohydrate and fat, hydration and exercise, it can be part of a winning combination…