- Make It Yourself Lavender Heart-Shaped Bath Bombs!
- 20 Things You Never Knew About “Down There”
- 12 Best Foods For Those Suffering From Arthritis Pain
- 12 Personal Hygiene Mistakes Almost Everyone Makes (Mom Never Told You About #4!)
- 15 Medicinal Plants And Herbs From The Cherokee People
- 12 Mind-Blowing Benefits Of Drinking Coconut Water During Pregnancy
- 12 Outstanding Winter Foods That Won’t Fatten You Up Like A Christmas Turkey
Lose Weight Fast By Adding This One Thing
Photo credit: bigstock.com
In an effort to lose weight, many of us make the mistake of focusing on exercise and perhaps cutting back on sweets, but we don’t take a good hard look at our diets.
Mother Nature has placed plenty of healthy, weight maintaining foods at our disposal. You don’t need a special machine, diet pill, or magic drink to lose weight. You only need to find which foods naturally help people to lose weight and add them to your diet.
Oats are one of the best choices you could make. This whole grain fights obesity and helps the body to shed weight naturally.
There are plenty of good reasons to lose weight. Obesity leads to numerous health problems, including diabetes and cancer. It also increases the risk that you will develop a disease called endothelial dysfunction in which the inner lining of the blood vessels inside the heart stop working the way they should. This disease contributes to higher cholesterol levels and high blood pressure, and is perhaps one of the biggest contributors to heart disease.
It’s interesting to note that, in one study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine in 2001, adults who consumed oatmeal after eating a high fat diet had improved blood vessel function.
Approximately 1/3rd of all American adults are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
If you have been putting on weight and are looking for a miracle cure, well, this isn’t exactly it. Losing weight will require commitment and dedication, but if you truly want to lose weight and be healthier, can help you get there.
Incorporating oats into your daily diet is one positive step that can make a big difference in your weight loss efforts.
Keep reading and find out how oats can help you to lose weight and why you should add them into your diet plan.
1. Oats Have Little or No Sugar
Since one of the things you will need to cut back on to lose weight is sugar, it’s good to know that oats have little or no sugar. Those little ready to eat packages that are so popular have tons of sugar, so you should avoid those at all costs. However, 100 grams (about 3.5 ounces) of rolled oats have only 0.99g of sugar and steel cut oats contain no sugar.
Continue to Page 2
Photo credit: bigstock.com
2. Healthy Whole Grains
One of the great things about whole grains is that they release sugar into the bloodstream very slowly. This will give you steady and reliable energy for long periods of time. Sugar does provide energy to the body, but when there is too much, your body simply stores it as fat. Whole grains are a terrific food that can prevent this from happening. For lowering body fat, you will need a controlled calorie diet with plenty of whole grains. Whole grains are also important because, unlike refined grains, they will not deprive the body of necessary nutrients.
3. Helps With Your Workouts
Oats are rich in soluble fiber, protein, and complex carbs that gradually release energy so that you never run dry. As a pre-workout food, oatmeal can’t be beat. One 2001 study, published in the journal Metabolism, found that male athletes who ate rolled oats with water about an hour before exercising had increased carbohydrate metabolism, kept normal glucose levels much longer than normal, and showed increased levels of performance duration. Oats contain powerful antioxidants that can help to protect the energy reserves of the body from free radicals that would use that energy instead. The B vitamins in oatmeal are also a great source of energy.
Continue to Page 3
Photo credit: bigstock.com
4. Super Source of Fiber
Don’t discount the important of fiber if you are trying to lose weight. The soluble fiber in oatmeal turns into a gel-like compound once it hits the digestive tract and this regulates digestion. By keeping you feeling fuller for longer, it will inhibit hunger pangs that will make you eat more than you planned. The Journal of Nutrition published a study in 2000 that found that fiber prevents obesity by controlling the appetite and by regulating the fat absorption from food so it is not used up quickly. This means you should eat less. Another study, published in Food and Nutrition Research in 2015, found that children between the ages of 2 and 18, who were studied over a 10-year period, were able to lower their risk of obesity and abdominal fat by eating oatmeal most days.
5. The Perfect Diet Food
Oatmeal is low in both calories and fat, so it only makes sense that oatmeal is considered by many to be the perfect food for dieters. You need to burn 3,500 calories to lose one pound of fat. One cup of oatmeal has only 106 tiny calories. It also has 11g of fat, but this is very low in saturated fats, which means that it encourages weight loss and lowers the risk of heart disease.
6. Loaded with Beta Glucan
Beta glucan is a natural compound that is found in the cell walls of certain plants, such as barley and oats. Oat bran has the highest concentration of beta glucans. Why should you care? Because beta glucans inhibit blood glucose levels, this means that your body will use the glucose in the blood and not store it as fat. One study found that people who consumed more than 5 grams of beta glucans (such as from eating muesli) at least 4 hours before eating consumed 95 fewer calories in their next meal.
Continue to Page 4
Photo credit: bigstock.com
7. Great Source of Protein
One cup of steel cut oats has a whopping 26 grams of protein. Eating a protein rich diet with 25 to 30 grams of protein at each meal improves satiety as well as weight management. Proteins are more difficult for the body to break down than fats or carbs, which means the body uses more energy to process protein. This can supercharge your metabolism!
8. Oats Are a Complex Carb
Complex carbs, like the ones found in oats, convert into sugar at a much slower rate than simple carbs such as white bread or pasta. When the body releases sugar into the blood all at one time, which is what happens when you eat pasta or bread, some of the carbs are used as energy, but other carbs are simply stored as fat. The gradual release of sugar means that your body can use it as it needs it, rather than storing it. The Journal of American Medical Association published a 2003 study that found that subjects who consumed diets with complex carbs lost significant amounts of weight, had lower BMIs, lower blood pressure, insulin, and triglyceride levels than the control group. The group that lost weight did not follow a specific diet but were simply encouraged to add plenty of complex carbs to their diets.
READ ALSO: This One Kitchen Spice Can Help You Lose Weight, Fight Alzheimer’s, and More
This means that adding oatmeal to your diet can help you lose weight without making major sacrifices while it improves your overall health!
So although oats might not be the magic pill you were looking for, they certainly come close. Try adding some to your diet and see the amazing results!
References:
