Mar. 26, 2004. 01:00 AM
Modify your eating habits, says trainer
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co...ol=991929131147
An important change Barb and Vanessa have to make — besides sticking to their exercise routine — is to modify their eating habits, says their personal trainer Rick Linseman. This is more complex than it sounds.
"It means a big lifestyle shift for their families," he says. "There will probably be some resistance. You know, you can treat the symptom — weight gain — but you have to look at the underlying causes, the deeper worries and concerns. We see it all the time: People strive to improve their physical appearance when maybe it would work better if they also worked on the emotional and spiritual issues."
Barb and Vanessa agree: Getting healthy has "a lot to do with emotional stuff," Barb says. But there's another issue: After years of reading diet books, "I'm completely confused about what to eat."
In her new book, The Skinny On Fat, Sara Rosenthal, who has a Ph.D. from U of T's Joint Centre for Bioethics, observes that, "We in North America are so saturated with fat and diet information," so bombarded by conflicting studies and nutrition guidelines, "that we don't know how to eat anymore ... We're told there are good fats and bad fats," good cholesterol and bad, good carbs and bad, to the point that "we're afraid to shop for food."
In the weeks to come, we hope we'll diminish the fear of food. Today's food tip: Learn about the glycemic index (GI), which was developed at U of T to measure the rate at which various foods convert to glucose (sugar). "Planning your low fat diet using the GI can help to prevent the insulin spike that so many low fat dieters fall prey to," Rosenthal writes. "Use more foods with a low GI. In general, foods high in fibre have a lower GI."
Here's a sampling of foods with their GI rank (sugar is ranked 100): corn flakes 80, All Bran 51, carrots 92, sweet potato 48, instant mashed potatoes 80, lentils 29, white rice 72, brown rice 66.
Pure unsweetened fruit juice is "a potent source of sugar," Rosenthal notes. One reason complex carbohydrates — fruit, vegetables, whole grain bread and pastas, lentils — are good for you is that they digest more slowly, unlike fast-spiking high GI foods. Fibre also "delays the conversion of foods into glucose," Rosenthal writes, as well as forming bulk "so you can pass stools easily."
A warning about the Atkins diet: It can be life-threatening for some people, she says, especially obese people who show "signs of cardiovascular disease, including hypertension."
Judy Steed
"Modify your eating habits, says trainer"
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