John Aaron Wellness

So most fitness trainers believe that the only way to make certain you were eating the "right amount" of food was to count calories. And, in some respects (like competitive bodybuilding) this is true. However, it is not just the quantity of calories that is important, it's the quality of those calories consumed that really matters for overall health. The old adage "a calorie is a calorie" isn't true. A gram of fat yields more than twice as many calories as a gram of carbohydrates or protein - that's not new. What is new is that studies now indicate that calorie for calorie, fat is more fattening (duh). In one study, two groups of people were fed the same number of calories per day but with different amounts of fat. After several months, the group that was fed a larger percent-age of the calories from fat gained more weight than the group on the lower fat diet. The explanation has to do with metabolic efficiency. Since dietary fat is already fat, i...

So you may already know that a healthy diet contains 30 percent fat or less, but how can you apply this guideline when grocery shopping? Well, the choices you make at the grocery store are an integral part of your lifestyle.    And, like I mentioned previously, reading labels is the most helpful tool for determining the fat con¬tent of foods you see on the store shelves. However, food labeling practices have been inconsistent, leaving many consumers confused and frustrated. The components of food labels are required to include the following: Serving sizes that realistically reflect the amount an average person actually eats. Previously, a manufacturer could reduce the portion size to make a food qualify as low-calorie.   The number of calories per gram of fat (including a breakdown specifically for saturated fat), carbohydrate and protein should be listed as well as the number of grams of fiber.   The "% Daily Value" shows the consumer how thi...

Last time I wrote about the importance of using a grocery list to help you avoid the temptation for less than nutritious foods while grocery shopping. Today, I want to mention the importance of using a simple tool like foods labels to help you make informed decisions on what your product actually contains. Free: Generally means that the food contains no (or negligible amounts of) fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, sugar or calories Lean and extra lean: This is a term used to describe an item that has limits on the fat content of certain meats, poultry, seafood and game meats Light: Marketing that uses the term "light" or "lite" mean that the products' calories have been reduced by at least a third or the fat by at least half from original product Percent fat free: This is easily the most confusing term of the lot. Describes the percentage of a food's weight that is fat free; now this term may ONLY be used on foods that ar...