Oh sugar! I don’t know you but your killing attitude murdered me 1000 times!!!! There are trillions of people who are being soft target of soft calorie each and everyday without knowing it. This article is all about to reveal their secrets. So what is soft calories? Soft calories supplies energy to your body and no sufficient other nutrients such as protein, dietary fibre, vitamins, minerals etc.
Foods like alcoholic beverages, beer, cake, candy, cookies, fruit-flavored beverages, gelatin, high fructose corn syrup, ice cream, margarine or shortening, other fats and oils, soft drinks, sweets, wine gives each other a tough competition in the world of soft calories. Now question is how this can be evil? Well, an uncontrolled intake of soft calories makes you fat, overweight, obese and morbid obese!Just as you go for saving your excess money in bank, your body also goes for saving your excess calories and that too in the form the fat in body. It is naturally a storage process and that is not bad as sometimes you need money as you don’t have it in your pocket and you need to withdraw from bank. So when your body requires energy and there is not much in blood they withdraw it from your body. But if it is an addiction! Your body produces alotof insulin to incorporate them into cell in the form of fat. Due to immediate storage again your sugar level goes down and your craving fuels your body up again. So there should a limit. How much? As per recommended dietary allowance an Indian [reference man (60kg) & woman (55kg)]can have a maximum of 20 gm of sugar or 4 teaspoon full of sugar each day. If you are advised for weight loss you should avoid soft calories. Now you should ask yourself how much you are eating? You must read about the food label and the nutritional value written on every sugary item you buy. Divide the quantity of sugar by five. Now you get actually how many teaspoon of sugar you are consuming. So now are you guilty of being addicted towards sugar and want a quick solution? Well the quick tips of avoiding soft calories might help you!
QUICK TIPS TO AVOID SOFT CALORIES
| AVOID | CHOICES |
|---|---|
| Alcoholic beverages | Iced Tea, Black Tea |
| Cookies | Oats/multigrain Biscuit |
| Alcoholic beverages | Iced Tea, Black Tea |
| Fruit juices | Lemon water with artificial sweetener |
| Ice cream shake | Cold coffee with skim milk and artificial sweetener |
| Fruit Salad with cream | Fruit salad with yogurt |
| Soft drinks | Iced Tea, Black Tea, Flavoured tea |
| Sweet | Scrambled Paneer with artificial sweetener |
Also remember the food is combination of nutrients like Carbohydrate, protein, fat, vitamins, minerals, fibre among which the first three has calorific value.
Be very choosy about the carbohydrate. A Carb steady diet to keep your blood sugar steady! Both the quality and quantity influences your blood glucose level. So no sugar and liberal brown rice will not bring a solution to you until you control the serving size.While choosing type, always go for complex carbohydrate rich foods. Forget about alcoholic beverages, refined sugar and its products and choose complex carbohydrates. The simple carbohydrate joins together and forms a complex structure. Whole wheat, bran, whole grains, mature vegetables, fruits with skin, Oats, legumes, guar, barley are some of them which contain a variety of complex carbs. The fibre in them binds with ingested glucose molecules resulting in production of chelating compound which restricts glucose level to rise by slowing its absorption. They are also prebiotics which are food for good gut bacteria. They are also utilized as fat replacer so helps to regulate your cholesterol level. Fruit is a natural sugar source. Most of our patients ask about fruit. Which fruit is good or bad? Well the ICMR recommendation for fruit is 250gm per day. Now the available soft calories in fruit depend upon the amount of carbohydrate present in it. Here the glycaemic load concept enters above glycaemic index. Let us take a look at a list of some fruits which need to be taken in safe limit to keep blood glucose in steady level. But remember whole fruit & NO JUICES!
| FRUITS | SAFE LIMIT (GM) |
|---|---|
| Raisins | 25 |
| Dates | 25 |
| Dates fresh | 30 |
| Kiwi | 30 |
| Banana | 70 |
| Black currant | 90 |
| Custard apple | 90 |
| Mango ripe | 120 |
| Litchi | 150 |
| Pineapple | 150 |
| Grapes green | 160 |
| Sapota | 170 |
| Apricot | 170 |
| Jack fruit | 200 |
A recommended dietary allowance for fat are beneficial for growth and development of body, for providing oil soluble vitamins, hormone production. Both the visible & invisible fat in food performs those tasks in your body. The recommendation of visible fat i.e. the fat we can see while cooking or eating like butter, oil, margarine etc. is 20-25gm (4-5tsp) for reference man or woman. But the fat that is not visible and almost cannot be separated is invisible fat. Like a bite of cheese gives you equal amount of fat & protein. Here is a list of..
Fat content of some common foods (Source: Krause’s Food & Nutrition)
1-3gm [Eat as per day allowance by your health guide]
Low calorie salad dressings
Baked beans
Whole wheat bread
Fishes without skin
Cottage cheese made from skimmed milk
Yoghurt
0gm/100 gm – Eat liberally
Whole fruits
Veggies
Skimmed milk
Curd from skimmed milk
7-10gm [Occassionally]
Cheesee, cheddar
Milk, Whole cream
Sausage
Steak
Potatoes, frenchfried
Chowmeinhakka
Chocolate candy bar
Corn chips
Doughnut
Mayonnaise
4-6gm [Eat in strict moderation]
Cheese Mozarella
Chicken baked or roasted with skin Egg, scrambled
Muffin
Pizza, cheese
Brownie
Butter
French dressing
≥15gm [Avoid]
Hot dog
Pork chop, broiled
Cheesecake
Lasagna with meat
Jng about protein, the protein requirement for a person depends upon her/his body weight. The recommendation is 1gm/kg body weight/ day. So basically if you weigh 60 kg you need 60gm protein. Protein rich food can also be fatty and gives a high calorie. Hence while choosing you must need to check fat content of that food.
High biological value protein must need for body but in case you are a vegetarian then too the same can be done by mixing rain with pulses are milk products. These types of foods are known as complementary foods. So it canbe eaten with such combination.
Some of the high protein foods with content…
| FOOD | PROTEIN CONTENT (G/100 G) |
|---|---|
| Fish | ±18-20g |
| Chicken | ±10-17 |
| Cheese | ±24 |
| tofu | ±7 |
| Milk | ±3.2 |
| Yoghurt | ±17 |
| Soybean | 46.2 |
| Egg | 13.3 |
| Nuts | ±33 |
| Pulses | ±25 |
Here also the hidden fat gives you more calorie so just cut that part off! Go for lean meat all mixed dieters! Instead of choosing whole cream milk just go for product of skimmed or double tonned milk. Have protein supplements only when your health professional prescribes you.
So this way you can cut down the soft calories and extra calories from food. It is basically like a sound equaliser where you must know the tricks to master the diet equalizer.
Check here some delicious diet recipes which will help you to lose your weight.