Showing posts with label eating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eating. Show all posts
7 Things You Should be Eating Right Now
Sunday, February 20, 20111. Bananas
So obviously I had to start with the food that inspired me to write this. Bananas are high in potassium, which aids in the regulation of blood pressure. Lots of other fruits and vegetables contain potassium, but it’s especially high in bananas.
In addition to stress benefits, bananas can also relieve heartburn and keep your blood sugar levels up.
2. Salmon
Salmon is high in omega-3 fatty acids, which elevates your mood, thereby helping you to better cope with the aftereffects of a really tough day at the office. These fatty acids aid with brain function, meaning that you’ll have the mental acuity to keep your head when everything is going crazy around you.
3. Broccoli
Broccoli contains folic acid. In addition to being essential for pregnant women, folic acid is also very helpful for lowering stress levels and preventing irritability. Other foods rich in folic acid include asparagus and orange juice.
4. Sugar
And you thought this article was gonna be all about healthy foods.
Foods that are high in sugar cause your body to produce fewer hormones linked to anxiety. When you ingest sugar, your body creates a hormone that counters stress reactions, called glucocorticoid.
So, while you should make sure to only eat sugar in moderation, a small taste of ice cream, cookies, or chocolate can help you to lower your stress levels almost instantly. Just be careful not to overindulge, or else you might just end up in a sugar coma.
5. Black Tea
One study conducted in England revealed that people who drank 4 cups of black tea per day for at least 6 weeks saw a marked decrease in the amount of cortisol their bodies were producing. Cortisol is a hormone linked to high stress levels, so anything you can do to limit cortisol production will help you to deal with the stumbling blocks that life puts in your way.
6. Whole Grains
A diet rich in complex carbs and whole grains encourages your body to produce increased levels of serotonin, a feel-good hormone that improves your mood and produces a sensation of relaxation.
7. Chicken Breast
Everyone knows tryptophan as a buzzword you hear a lot around Thanksgiving. But believe it or not, chicken breast actually contains a higher level of tryptophan than turkey. That means eating some chicken after a particularly stressful day can help you to get more restful sleep, a very useful benefit if you often find yourself tossing and turning when you have a lot on your mind.
A Heavy Issue
Monday, November 30, 2009
Weight has always been one of those touchy subjects that have two extremes and no in between. You either condemn the overweight for being greedy and living unhealthy lifestyles or you are one of those people that feel pity for emotional eaters. I, as always, find myself on the fence. I can understand emotional eating, admittedly I do it all the time (I'm one of the fortunate people who have a fast metabolism), but I can't understand how someone could allow their weight to balloon to an extent that their health would suffer severely? And this brings me to a point that everyone seems to feel strongly about, how far should we go, as a society, to accommodate the obese?
By now, you've seen the picture I've attached, it was taken by a flight attendant appalled at the fact that an obese man had to squeeze himself in one seat and obviously for safety reasons this posed quite a problem. Now some airlines have a policy that state a person that cannot fit in one chair will have to pay the cost for two seats and if the plane is fairly empty they will receive a refund on the extra seat they paid for. If that is not accommodating, I really don't know what is.
After reading the article, I scrolled down the page to find the comments of people who had just read what I read and I was shocked at how expressive some people can be when it comes to their opinions. Needless to say, there wasn't very much room for sympathy or understanding. However, I tend to agree with some of them. I can't for one second, understand what they are going through or how hard it must be to lose weight that can be so easily picked up, but I can say that accommodating the obese is only making it easier. If I were overweight I would want someone to be honest with me, to tell me that it's unhealthy and I need to make some serious life changes.
This applies to the other end of the scale, I think the media perpetuates the lie of perfection if you are skinny to the point of a skeleton. Kate Moss recently said "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels", I can say with one hundred percent certainty that is the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard and she should be ashamed for even saying that. I think we should be promoting HEALTH, it's not actually an issue about skinny or fat, it's an issue of living a full and happy life. Bombarding our bodies with junk food or forcing ourselves not to eat is a serious issue, which we would have to deal with in different ways. it's about health people and either way it's an issue that cannot be ignored.
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