Special K Diet Challenge: Does it work?
You’ve probably seen the Special K cereal advertisement for the Kellogg’s Special K Diet Challenge: 2 meals, 2 weeks, and lose upto 2.5 kg of weight!
What is the Special K diet? Does the Special K diet really help you lose weight? If it does, is the Special K diet really good for your health? And will the weight loss stay off?
Kelloggs Special K Cereal Diet (kelloggsuk@flickr)
We did the research, so read on.. Read more
Negative Calorie Diet Foods
All foods contain some calories, so calling something a Negative Calorie Food seems like an oxymoron. But negative calorie foods are for real. So we’ll tell you all about the benefits and side effects, along with clarifying others points around these negative calorie foods and negative calorie diets. Read on to know more about these negative calorie foods..
Lettuce- Negative calorie food (baostar@flickr)
What is a negative calorie food? Are they for real?
Simply put, any food that creates a deficit Read more
Is banana high calories & fat or healthy?
Because the banana tastes sweet, people commonly believe that a banana is high in calories. In fact many people avoid it like the plague, if they’re trying to lose weight. So does banana really make you gain weight? Is the banana really high in calories? Let’s find out here..
Does eating banana promote weight gain (drgori@flickr)
Let’s first analyze the nutrition in a banana. A medium banana contains about 100 calories. Before you think that’s a lot of calories, know that the average daily calorie intake ranges between 2000-2500. See this to know how many daily calories you need. Moving on from calories, one medium banana contains about 22-25 gm of carbohydrates, almost 0 gms of fat and 2 gm protein and 3 gm of fiber. Besides this, it also delivers 15% of your daily Vitamin C, a dose of Vitamin A, Vitamin B and Potassium, Calcium and Magnesium. Potassium actually promotes muscle growth and thus increases calorie burn. So, not only does a banana provide you with healthy nutrition, it is almost fat free, sodium free and cholesterol free! And you’re not sure if you should eat it!
See your daily requirements of vitamins and minerals.
So, is banana high in calories? No, a banana is not high in calories.
So, what kind of health benefits does a banana have? First, it contains Vitamin C, so it builds immunity. The Vitamin B helps your body metabolize food better and in turn increases your calorie burn. As we mentioned its fat free and cholesterol free. It also contains soluble fiber, that helps to reduce your cholesterol build up and clean out your arteries. Studies have shown that dietary calcium helps to reduce belly fat.
The complex carbohydrates are a great source of energy. Have one before your workout for energy, or start your day with one.
Does banana make you gain weight? No, bananas don’t make you gain weight. If anything, they are good for your health! Similarly, find out if milk and banana make you fat?
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Healthiest Wheat Biscuits in India
We’ve told you how biscuits are not healthy and can promote fat storage. But then there are those biscuits called ‘healthy biscuits- like wheat biscuits, high fiber biscuits, etc. So, we decided to find out two things. First, if these wheat, high fiber biscuits are really healthy, and which among them are the healthiest: Britannia Marie Gold, Sunfeast Marie Lite, Britannia NutriChoice and McVities (the original)
Photo- Healthiest Wheat Biscuits India (willow89@flickr)
All biscuits had very similar ingredients. Britannia Marie Gold was the lowest calorie count at 441 calories per 100 gm. This was slightly lower calorie count than Sunfeast Marie Lite. Highest fiber is Britannia NutriChoice- at 6 gm per every 100 gm, but had a high calorie count of 487 calories and double the fat content of the Marie biscuits.
Honestly, it was a tight race 
In general, biscuits aren’t exactly nutritious, so it was more a question of which wheat biscuits are the least harmful.
Fitho’s choice of the healthiest wheat biscuits is Britannia Marie Gold- With the lowest calorie count, its also fortified with vitamins (A, D, B, E) and calcium.
Funny note: Britannia Marie Gold says, 1 pack of Marie Gold contains the same amount of protein of 1 glass of milk. But one pack of Marie Gold contains 616 calories, whereas 1 glass of low fat milk is about 60-80 calorie. You decide your protein source
Below is the nutrition information of healthiest wheat biscuits in India (Note: All nutritional facts are per 100 gms of each product):
Britannia Marie Gold: 441 calories- 76.5 gm carbohydrates (27 gm sugar), 8 gm protein, 11.5 gm fat (5 gm saturated fat, 5 gm unsaturated fat), 48.6 mg calcium, Vitamin A 880 mcg, Vitamin D 5.8 mcg, Vitamin E 17.6 mg, Vit B1, B2, B3, B6, folic acid.
Ingredients: Wheat flour (58%), sugar, edible vegetable oil, milk solids, invert syrup, butter
Sunfeast Marie Lite: 446 calories- 76.3 gm carbohydrates (19.2 gm sugar), 8.4 gm protein, 11.9 gm fat (5.8 saturated, 6.1 unsaturated), 3.4 gm fiber, 0 cholesterol
Ingredients: wheat flour (66%), sugar, edible vegetable oil, wheat fiber (0.13%)
Britannia NutriChoice (high fiber digestive): 487 calories- 58 gm carbohydrates (15 gm sugar), 7.5 gm protein, 25 gm fat (12 gm saturated fat, 12 gm unsaturated fat), 6 gm dietary fiber, 0 transfats, 0 cholesterol.
Ingredients: wheat flour (41%), edible vegetable oil, whole wheat flour (19%), sugar, wheat bran (4.5%)
McVities (the original digestive): 478 calories- 6.7 protein, 63.4 carbohydrates (16 gm sugar), fat 21.9 gm (10.4 sat), 3.4 gm fiber
Ingredients: Wheat flour (56%), vegetable oil, sugar, whole meal (13%)
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Healthiest Chocolate in India
We all love chocolate, but do you know- Which is the healthiest chocolate? which is the lowest calorie chocolate? which chocolate has the highest fat? which is the highest calorie chocolate?
Healthiest Chocolate India (stevehopson@flickr)
Fitho has done an analysis of the popular chocolate bars and has all the answers for you. So, which are the popular ones that we considered: Kitkat, Mars, Snickers, Cadbury Dairy Milk, 5 Star, Munch, Twix and Gems
As a standard, all these chocolates have sugar as first ingredient. Most of them have another form of carbohydrate or fat as the second ingredient as a second ingredient. Snickers had peanuts as its second ingredient! (We really liked that) Understand why order of ingredient listing matters!
The standard favourite of all kids- Cadbury Dairy Milk came out with the highest fat content at 29 gm of fat, per 100 gm of chocolate.
Snickers had the lowest carbohydrates. So, if you’re watching your diet intake of carbs, Snickers is your best choice. It had a high fat content from its peanut content. And we all know how nuts are good for health.
One of the biggest suprises was that Kitkat uses hydrogenated vegetable oils. As a result, Kitkat contains trans fatty acids! Note that Gems, Munch and 5 Star also uses hydrogenated vegetable fat. Normally that leads to trans fatty acids, but Gems did not list the details of fat content.
The lowest calorie chocolate and lowest fat content was Gems surprisingly, at 390 calories and 13.4 gm of fat.
So, what is Fitho’s choice of the healthiest chocolate- Snickers! Even with a high calorie content, we liked that it had the lowest carbohydrate content, and that it contained lots of peanuts! Quality of ingredients is always a key factor.
Read about chocolate health benefits and know the healthiest among dark, white and milk chocolate. Regardless of which chocolate you eat, they’ve all got lots of sugar and fat, so its best to share your chocolate. Win favours and avoid the extra calories!
Below is the nutritional information for leading 4 chocolates in India:
Kitkat: 486 calories, 6.5 gm protein, 60 gm carbohydrates, 24.5 gm fat, 23.5 gm saturated fat, 0.5 unsaturated fatty acids, 0.5 gm trans fatty acids, 192 mg calcium
Ingredients: sugar, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, milk solids, wheat flour, cocoa solids
Mars: 455 calories, 4.3 gm protein, 68.5 gm carbohydrates (sugar 62 gm), 18 gm fat (saturated fat 8 gm), 1 gm fiber
Ingredients: sugar, glucose syrup, whole milk powder, cocoa butter, vegetable fat (palm oil), cocoa mass, skim milk powder, whey powder
Snickers: 506 calories, 9.5 gm protein, 55.4 gm carbohydrates, 27.4 gm fat
Ingredients: Sugar, peanuts, glucose syrup, skim milk powder, vegetable fat, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, whey powder
Cadbury Dairy Milk: 529.7 calories, 10.2 gm protein, 59.7 gm carbohydrates (sugar 56.5 gm), 29 gm fat
Ingredients: sugar, cocoa butter, milk solids, cocoa solids
Cadbury 5 Star: 440.6 calories: 3.9 gm protein, 72.3 gm carbohydrates (sugar 52.3 gm), 16 gm fat
Ingredients: Liquid glucose, sugar, hydrogenated vegetable fats, milk solids, cocoa solids,
Munch: 480 calories: 5.9 gm protein, 64.6 gm carbs (sugar 27.5 gms), 21.5 gm, trans fatty acids: 0.1 gm, calcium 106 mg
Ingredients: sugar, wheat flour, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, milk solids, cocoa solids
Twix: 492 calories: 4.8 gm protein, 64.0 carbs, 24.1 gms fat
Ingredients: sugar, glucose syrup, wheat flour, vegetable fat, skim milk powder, cocoa butter
Gems: 390 calories: 4.8 gm protein, 64.4 gm carbs (60.1 gm sugar), 13.4 gm fat
Ingedients: Sugar, milk solids, hydrogenated vegetable fat, cocoa solids
Note: All weights and nutritional analysis is per 100 gms of each product.
..
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How many Calories do I need?
Do you know your body’s daily calorie requirement? All labels provide exact calorie counts and fat content in food servings. You know how many calories in your drinks. You might also know how calories you burn through exercise. But do you know how many calories you should be eating to lose weight, or how many calories you should eat to maintain your current weight, or even gain weight? How to calculate your daily calorie needs? Most people have no clue, so we’ve got a really fast and easy way to know that.
Daily Calorie Requirement Calculator (thermophle@flickr)
There are many ways to calculate your daily requirement- also known as your basal metablic rate (BMR) or resting metabolic rate. For really accurate estimates, you need fancy equipment and fancy mathematics. just need an estimate, since we don’t So, for most of us, a fast and easy method to determine calorie needs is to multiply you total current body weight by the multiplier provided below:
Calorie intake for Weight loss = 25 - 29 calories per kg of body weight
Calorie intake for Weight Maintenance = 33 - 36 calories per kg of body weight
Calorie intake for Weight gain = 39 - 42 calories per kg of body weight
Due to an average lower body weight, women will require fewer daily calories than men. This is a very easy way to estimate caloric needs, but there are obvious drawbacks to this method because it doesn’t take into account activity levels or body composition. Extremely active individuals may require far more calories than this formula. In addition, the more lean body mass you have, the higher your total daily energy requirement will be, so you will need more calories for maintenance than this formula might suggest. Because body fat percentage is not accounted for, this formula may greatly overestimate the caloric needs if someone is extremely fat.
Calculating calories from packaged food is easy, since they have clear nutrition labels. Knowing the calories for home cooked food requires some home work, but its possible- read here.
As mentioned above, this is not the most accurate method of determining your metabolic rate, but its an easy and fast way to guess your daily calorie requirement.
..
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Healthiest Chocolate Biscuits India
Kids and adults are both fans on chocolate biscuits! But are they good for health? As we’ve told you before, biscuits are not diet food, but if you can’t stop eating them, then you should know which chocolate biscuit is the healthiest? Which biscuit one has dangerous trans fats? And which choco chip biscuit has the lowest calories?
Healthiest Chocolate Biscuits India- Parle, Britannia, Sunfeast
We’ve done a nutritional analysis of the leading chocolate biscuits in the market- Britannia Good Day Chocolate Chip, Parle Hide and Seek, Britannia Bonbon, Sunfeast Tasty Choco cream.
One of India’s oldest chocolate biscuits, the Britannia Bonbon came out with the highest sugar content at 39 gm of sugar per 100 gms of biscuit. This was 25% more sugar calories than the others, that were all around 31 gm of sugar.
The lowest calorie count came out to be Britannia Good Day Chocolate Chip. Per 100 gms of biscuits, it came in at 461 calories. This was slightly lower than the other that ranged from 470 to 480 calories, per 100 gm of weight.
The protein content in all the biscuits was all around 6 gm of protein per 100 gms. Clearly, biscuits are not exactly a protein source The fat content in all these ranged between 15-19 gms. The lowest was Sunfeast Tasty Choco Cream at 15.4 gm of fat, but this one had trans fats! Clearly, we don’t recommend this one. Trans fats are harmful fatty acids. Many cities and countries have banned the use in food (not India). They are created by hydrogentation of vegetable oil used in food processing and production.
Last but not the least, we always consider ingredients. Parle Hide and Seek came out on top in this one. All the biscuits used Wheat Flour as their first ingredient. The second ingredient was sugar for most, except Parle Hide and Seek that used chocolate chips
So, which chocolate biscuit is Fitho’s choice? We have two winners. Our top choices are Britannia Good Day Chocolate Chip for their lowest calorie count, and Parle Hide and Seek for the taste as well as their ingredients, since they used more chocolate chips than others as part of ingredient list. Britannia Bonbon was 3rd, and Sunfeast was at the bottom of our list, since it contains trans fats! Read about chocolate health benefits and know the healthiest among dark, white and milk chocolate.
Below is the nutritional information for all the 4 chocolate biscuits for India:
Britannia Good Day Chocolate Chip: 461 cal, 68.5 carbs (32 sugar), 5.7 gm protein, 18.3 gm
Ingredients: wheat flour, sugar, chocolate chips (14.5%), edible veg oil
Parle Hide and Seek: 481 calories, 73 gm carbs (32 gm sugar), 5.7 gm protein, 18.5 gm
Ingredients: wheat flour, chocolate chips (27%), sugar, edible veg oil
Britannia Bonbon: 470 calories, 69 gm carbs (39 gm sugar), 5.8 protein, fat 19 gm
Ingredients: Wheat flour, sugar (36%), edible vegetable oil, milk solids, starch, cocoa solids
Sunfeast Tasty Choco cream: 470 cal, 6.1 protein, 76.7 gm carbs (31 sugar), 15.4 gm fat (trans fats)
Ingredients: Wheat flour, sugar, edible vegetable oil, hydrogenated vegetable oils
Note: All weights and nutritional analysis is per 100 gms of each product.
..
- Get your Weight Loss Diet: call (0)98108-20937 or email neha@fitho.in
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Mistakes in Common Weight Loss Diet Plans
Previously, we told you why self made or free diet plans are not effective at weight loss. There are plenty of mistakes that people make in diet plans. See what’s keeping your diet plan from helping you lose weight effectively!
Photo- Free Diet Plans Fail (arkworld@flickr)
Fruits Only Diet: The most common mistake people make is eating only fruits in their diet. The fruits provide vitamins and carbohydrates, but there is no protein and fat in your diet. Without protein, your muscles will shrink. So, you will lose weight, but it will be valuable muscle weight, not fat that you lose. Also, removing fat from your diet, will reduce the absorption of nutrients in your digestive system. Besides, lack of healthy fats in your diet, promotes skin wrinkling and other unhealthy side effects
Early Dinner Diet: The other pitfall is eating dinner to early and skipping breakfast. If you eat dinner over 3 hours before you sleep, then sleep for 8-9 hours, then have breakfast 1-2 hours after waking up, that can be a 14 hour gap between meals. With such long gaps in your meals, your body goes into starvation mode, and it starts storing more fat.
Fat Free Diets: Many diets focus on low fat foods. Most low fat foods besides depriving your body of its daily fat requirements, use processed products, that increase carbohydrate content in the processed food product. As a result, your body gets excess carbohydrates and stores them as fat! See why fat free foods can be unhealthy.
Diet Foods Diet: Diets that have a lot of diet foods using sugar substitutes can be very harmful. Many sugar substitutes are being promoted are healthy replacements for sugar in our diets, but with all the chemicals used in production, they can have serious side effects in the long run. See our study of the healthiest sugar substitute.
So, what is healthy weight loss?
Healthy weight loss is losing weight from reducing the fat in your body. If you can increase muscle in your body (for both men and women), it will only help further in reducing fat. See our list of eating habits for weight loss.
For a balanced and effective weight loss diet plan, come to Fitho. Our dieticians and weight loss specialists can help you lose weight in a healthy and effective way. For diet plans in Delhi, call us at 98718-00943, or email at neha@fitho.in. For diet plans in Kolkata, call 98310-33262.
..
- Lose weight with diet plans: call (0)98108-20937 or email neha@fitho.in
- See Fitho’s weight loss success stories- lose weight, look younger & healthier
- For quality whey protein powder, weight gain supplements, email order@fitho.in
- For fitness tips on email: Simply register, or email thelist@fitho.in, or use our feed!
- Got specific questions on heath/fitness- Get health/fitness answers from experts
- Meet experts and discuss health, weight loss, muscle in our discussion forums
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