The Thermal Effect of FoodWe talk about consuming more meals, and doing so consistently throughout the day, but you may be saying, Hey, I want to lose weight, not gain it. Won't more meals just make me fat? The answer to that question is yes, more meals will make you fat, if you continue eating the way you are eating now. But if you change the way you eat, by consuming more nutritious, energy yielding, clean burning foods, you will find that you may actually be able to eat twice as much food as you are eating now, and completely change the way you look and feel (for the better, smarty).
Certainly, from a true weight loss stand point, the calorie counting approach cannot be denied. Take the confusing science out of it and it becomes simple: Consume more calories than you expend (or even more elementary, eat more than you burn) and you will gain weight. And it's important to realize that a calorie is a calorie is a calorie, it doesn't matter whether that calorie yields from a protein, carbohydrate or a fat source. So, if you weigh 150 pounds and you begin eating the diet that Hulk Hogan used to build his 21-inch pythons, you will gain weight. It's fairly safe to say that a very high percentage of that weight will be in the form of adipose tissue, or fat.
Once again, it comes back to portion size. But there is another factor that must also be considered and that is food QUALITY. From a purely nutritional standpoint, the quality of the food you eat is probably more important to body fat/weight loss than any other factor, including food quantity.
The reason for this is that all foods possess a THERMAL EFFECT. A thermal effect is the percentage of calories (energy) that are burned off during the process of digestion of that particular food. All foods fall into the category of approximately 3-30%. Fat, refined and processed carbohydrates have the lowest thermal effect, weighing in at 3%, which means that if you ate a high fat meal or one heavy on processed carbs for example, only 3% of the calories of that food would be burned during its digestion. Complex and fibrous carbohydrates (oatmeal, yam, broccoli) yield about a 20% effect. Protein (chicken, fish, turkey) results in the highest thermal burn, with some sources topping out at 30%.
It's obvious that based on the thermal effect, better quality food results in a higher number of calories being utilized during digestion and further into a smaller percentage of calories being left over for potential fat storage. While all foods possess this thermal effect, some foods burn hotter. The key then is to fill your diet with foods that create the greatest thermal burn and eat them frequently. Those are healthy fats, complex and fibrous carbohydrates, and lean, high quality protein sources. It is no coincidence that foods of this nature comprise the menu selection list that can be found here: http://www.anthonyfalsone.com/fittips.asp?id=54
You can check out my personal training studio by hitting this link: http://www.anthonyfalsone.com/rof.asp
We're located in the River Oaks area in Houston, Texas (1950 West Gray). If you're in the area, come on in and visit, get a workout in, or just say hello. If you don't live in Houston, the airlines are offering great discounts this time of year. Fly in on the weekends!
Do it! Seriously...do it!
The Boston Celtics are off to a AWESOME start...7-0 as of today. Anyways, they're killing other teams by some crazy margins.
Now, I'm not one to root for other basketball teams, as I bleed ROCKETS RED...but my boy Tom Thibadeau is now an assistant coach for the "Green Machine" and I wanted to send a shout out to my guy.
In case you don't know "Thibs", he was with the Rockets the past few years and was Yao's personal basketball coach. And honestly, he is the guy behind Yao's steady basketball improvement. Now he's helping Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and others develop their game. Hopefully, if the Rockets get their job done in the west, we'll see "Thibs" and the Celtics in the NBA Finals.
If you're interested in following Thibadeau and the Celtics, hit them here: http://www.nba.com/celtics/
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