Disease prevention requires proper nutrition along with exercise. Do you ask yourself: I want to lose weight? or I want to lose fat? Are you aware that both are not same! Weight loss includes muscle loss as well ! Or worse, weight loss can be loss of health! But fat loss is just fat loss !! So how could you avoid loss of health, vigor and muscle while you really want to reduce weight?
Effective health promotion and disease prevention needs an understanding of the various ways in which nutrition is related to human requirements.
Although nutrition means the food you eat and its utilization by the body, the requirements of the body are of nutrients. Particularly the requirement of essential nutrients.
Expressing the energy value of foods | |
|---|---|
Nutrient | Energy |
| Carbohydrates | 4 kcal/g* |
| Fat | 9 kcal/g |
| Protein | 4 kcal/g |
| *kcal/g is kilocalories per gram. Sometimes the term Calories/g is also used with “C” in uppercase. Both are correct and 1 kcal = 1 Cal. When we loosely say 1 Calorie, actually we mean 1 kilocalorie. | |
Protein is a general name of chemical compounds formed by combining the basic building blocks called amino acids in a highly varied and complex chemical manner. When proteins are mentioned, generally emphasis is given on the amino acid content rather than the calories. If you regard carbohydrates or fat as fuel, it’s ok, but not protein. We buy potatoes by weight, but not a microprocessor, for example! The role of protein is very important in the body, which cannot be played by any other nutrient. Likewise a protein’s amino acid content is even more important than the total amount of protein........ Read more about protein:
Sugar, glucose, fructose, maltose, lactose etc. are examples of simple carbohydrates. For health purposes and for disease control, it is better to avoid them, because the get quickly digested and cause weight gain (read fat gain!), rise in blood sugar in diabetes and rise in LDL cholesterol levels.
Complex carbohydrates are mostly starch and starch-like substances. Read more... Carbohydrates
Fats are sometimes called lipids. Chemically fats are called triglycerides because the fat molecules are composed of a glycerol molecule to which three fatty acids are attached. We saw in the table above that 1 gram of fat gives us 9 Calories—more than twice the calories given by the same amount of carbs or protein. For disease control less is better in case of fats! There are several categories of fats: The good, the bad and the ugly! Read more...
Fats For Health And Disease Prevention
Vitamins are a group of nutrients that are essential for maintenance of normal health. The regulate metabolism, growth and development, Vitamins mainly act as a catalysts in our body
All vitamins are natural organic compounds that are found only in living organisms: plants and animals. Except a few vitamins, our body cannot synthesize vitamins. Therefore vitamins have to be consumed via natural food or by taking dietary supplements. Read more… Vitamins
