New research big on Apples!
Modern weight-loss trends are typically yo-yo's where you lose the weight only to gain it back later on once you've resumed your 'normal' diet. We are all pretty aware that staying fit involves permenant life-style changes in diet. One thing that is less known is that in order to be MORE EFFICIENT at maintaining a healthy BMI (Body Mass Index; i.e.: percent of bodyfat as compared to lean muscle) you not only need to implement better dietary guidelines but you MUST increase your muscle mass at the same time. Only by building more muscle can you increase the rate at which you burn calories, thus ensuring that you store less of the food you eat and continue to get leaner... that is why the big humongo beasts that call themselves body-builders can get away with eating 8,000 calories a day while most of them only work out an hour or two a day.
New research is showing that we now have a new 'trick' to easily increasing muscle mass while decreasing bodyfat: APPLES!
After three weeks the rats given the apple-polyphenol diet gained 16 percent more muscle strength and lost 27 percent more organ fat than rats that ate ordinary food
NOTE: I am NOT suggesting we all continue to sit in front of our T.V.'s and computers eating nothing but diced apples, liquified apple drinks, baked apples, sugar-coated apples, pureed apples, apple shakes, and apple-cakes! I am not suggesting a new high-apple diet or anything. Just saying that the old adage "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" seems to have a bit of truth to it!
6 Comments:
That's very interesting! Too bad apples don't really fit into the low carb diet. :)
Oh yeah, that's true! Hrrrmmm... hadn't thought about that! :)
Yep, that's true that they're NOT on the "low carb" diet. However, they're "good" carbs, and if we eat one apple a day ----and cut down on all the other "bad" carbs, I can't believe it would do us any harm in weight loss (after the "induction" phase, anyways). After all, that's why we're told, "EVERYTHING IN MODERATION", right? :) (love mom)
Huurrrummmpphhhh... well, that SOUNDS true enough... guess what we really need to do is find out how many carbs 1 apple has in it and how it ranks on the glycemic index... then make a judgement call based on how much weight you still have to lose (or if you are at your desired weight, then I agree 1 apple a day would certainly not be bad for you!)
I looked up on the Atkins website how many carbs are in a medium sized apple and there are about 17.5 net carbs. That's a lot
Yeah, 17.5 is a little on the high-side and if you are trying to lose a good amount of weight (more than about 5-10lbs) then it is definitely too high!
However, I did a little research on www.glycemicindex.com and found that a "U.S. Apple" has a 40 on the glycemic index while anything below 55 is considered "low" (low being a good thing) on the glycemic index. They also rank said apple at only 14.6g of Carbs which is quite a bit lower than the 17.5g... granted, 14.6 is still too high for people trying to cut down more than 5-10lbs... *BUT* for someone only trying to "slim down" or who has been losing a lot of weight and is "almost there" it should be reasonable to introduce as much as 1/2 an apple but no more than 1 apple each day... and maybe not all at once. And for people in their ideal weight range, you should be able to eat plenty of apples without worrying about it as long as you continue to follow either a controlled-carb lifestyle or (maybe better) a Low-GI lifestyle.
So, it looks like Apples are plenty healthy, as long as you already have your weight at least mostly in-check! That's good news for many people... for me on the other hand... not a big Apple lover! :(
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