Why? Colour not only brightens your mood ? but also your diet. Load your plate with fruit and veges like a box of crayons in colours such as red, yellow, orange, blue, purple, white and green and you'll also be filling up on power packed phytonutrients. Phytonutrients are naturally occurring chemicals which combat disease, including cancer.
Go easy on the beige and brown foods such as pasta and startchy carbs. When there are too many of these drab colours on your plate, weight gain is almost certain. That's because these beige foods often are high in calories and can leave you feeling hungry later. A cup of beige or brown beans can be over 200 calories....but a cup of red or green vegetables is under a hundred! Add fresh greens, deep purple-reds and bright yellow-orange to a meal, and water the nutrient content go up, while calories go down! Plus, you'll get more enjoyment from eating when there's a variety of colours and flavours on your plate.
According to Dr David Heber, M.D., Ph.D. and author of ?What Color Is Your Diet? the key to designing your colourful diet is to choose from a range of different colour groups:
Blue/purple fruits and vegetables contain varying amounts of health-promoting phytochemicals such as anthocyanins and phenolics. Choose from a range including blueberries, blackberries, eggplant, plums, raisins. These assist in memory function.
Green group includes broccoli; Brussels sprouts, cabbage, and bok choi. These foods stimulate the genes in your liver to turn on the production of enzymes that break down the cancer-causing chemicals in the body.
The yellow/green group includes green peas, avocado and honeydew melon. These promote eye health.
The yellow/orange group includes carrots, mangoes, apricots, rock melon and pumpkin. These contain carotenoids (beta carotene is one), fierce antioxidants that help prevent cancer and assist to lower heart-attack risk.
The white group includes bananas, white peaches, cauliflower, garlic, ginger, mushrooms and are helpful to maintain heart health.
The red group includes tomatoes, pink grapefruit and watermelon all of which contain lycopene. Lycopene is associated with a lower risk of prostate cancer and cardiovascular disease.
The red/purple group includes grapes, grape juice, prunes, cranberries, strawberries and red apples. These foods contain anthocyanins which have a beneficial effect on heart disease by inhibiting blood clot formation.
As a high school, college, master's and senior competitive runner, I used to often wonder why it was so difficult to lose extra weight as I grew older. Now I know why.
The scientific facts I am about to share with you are only intended for runners who are trying to shed extra pounds, and who are an O blood type. I know a lot about O positive blood types because I am one.
If your blood type is A, B or AB, then what I am sharing here may be the exact opposite for you, and therefore the knowledge I share should not be implemented by you unless you are an O positive or O negative blood type, and you have first consulted with your personal physician.
Believe it or not, your blood type is a more reliable measure of your identity than race, culture, or geography. It is a genetic blueprint for who you are, and a guide to how you can live most healthfully. Your blood type is older than your race and more fundamental than your ethnicity.
A single drop of blood, too small to see with the naked eye, contains the entire genetic code of a human being. The DNA blueprint is intact and replicated within us endlessly, through our blood. I was impressed to learn this fact.
More than 90% of all factors associated with your blood type are related to your primary type-O, A, B, or AB-and not whether you are positive or negative. Most of the distinctions between our blood types are found in our digestive and immune systems.
Like millions of Americans and especially those who pursue competitive running at any age, I have had trouble losing the "inner tube" around my waist.
Gaining excessive weight is a serious health risk, the details of which I do not need to mention here. Most overweight people know that the basic health risks are life threatening.
I am 5-foot-9 and my running weight in high school was 111 pounds and in college it was 118 pounds, the 7-pound weight gain was added muscle, not fat.
My weight a few months ago was 225 pounds with at least 65 pounds of that in my abdominal area, meaning a more reasonable weight for me at 63 years old would probably be 160 pounds.
That is where I am now headed since using science to develop a lifestyle plan that will shed my excess pounds in a prudent and healthy manner.
The reward for me personally is that not only will I become healthier and live longer, but I will become much more competitive as a middle distance runner in master's and senior competitions at both the local and national level.
Any serious runner knows that you cannot compete effectively if you are carrying an extra 50 pounds. It is like strapping a 50-pound bag of dog food onto your back and trying to run a race.
Runners know what I am talking about. There is a definite correlation between your weight and your cardiovascular efficiency; the less weight the better the cardiovascular efficiency.
When you have been to the top of the mountain (become a record-setting champion) you never forget, you want to remain on top, and no one ever-and I mean ever-can take away your feeling of winning and being a winner in life.
Becoming a winner again in competition offers me a lot more of an incentive to do what it takes to lose weight than just losing weight for health reasons, even though the latter can shorten my life.
Most of the competitions I have been in as a senior runner (50 and older) have found me unable to drop weight quickly and effectively without injuring my physical condition and general health.
That is why I feel so blessed to have read Dr. Peter J. D'Adamo's book Eat Right for Your Type which chronicles the four basic blood types, and why each thrives on a different diet, stress/exercise profile and personality type.
Dr. D'Adamo's clinical and laboratory results are facts based on science, not theory or speculation.
(Editor's Note: This is Part 1 of a 5-Part Article.)
Both Shashipal & Ed Bagley are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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