Common dieting mistakes

By Dr. Victor Dumaguing  

To Your Health

Friday, February 7, 2014

IT'S February, the Love month. Probably, most of our readers and friends, whatever your age is, are now very much in the mood for love.

However, are you in top shape to be "lovable and huggable"? Probably, huggable, if you still carry that bulge in your abdomen or that "spare tire" in your sides.

Kidding aside, indeed, it is very difficult to dispose of that excess poundage after weeks of feasting during the longest Christmas celebration in the world.

At this juncture, it may be wise to pause and re-evaluate why despite that long list of New year's resolution topped by the promise to get rid of that avoirdupois and achieve a healthy weight, you have not succeeded, despite your earnest efforts.

One of the most common mistakes of weight watchers is they skip meals, especially breakfast. The author remembers the lecture of his biochemistry and endocrinology professor that the first step towards losing excess weight is to take breakfast.

In fact they added that you may eat your favorite tuyo, fried eggs with your sinangag (fried rice) with gusto in amounts your stomach can handle.
To us students, the statement then was not credible, until as we moved to our senior years in school, we realized a heavy breakfast tells the hunger center in our hypothalamus, that come midmorning, while the others scamper for snacks, you have yet the "still full" sensation, thus you don’t feel the urge to snack.

Another reason is if a person skips breakfast, at midmorning, there is that uncontrollable craving for easy-to-digest and easy-to-absorb carbohydrates.

In simpler terms, foods like cake, cookies, ice cream, soda or soft drinks or fruit juices sweetened with fructose become the tempting food to grab. As a result you load yourself with lots and lots of carbohydrates which inside the body, get broken down and converted to glucose.

Some of you might say, what's wrong with that? Nothing, at least at first, because the liver and the skeletal muscles try to store those excess carbohydrates to glycogen- the substance that provides you with energy for a while, if you fast or if you're in starvation mode.

However, it must be made clear that the amount of glycogen that can be stored in one day by the body is limited. Once the quota of stored glycogen is achieved, whatever excess carbohydrates-glucose there is in the blood, find its way to becoming fat. In other words, what makes you fat is not only fat; excess carbohydrates also contribute to that sagging fat in your body.

To avoid such scenario, the take home message is, do not skip breakfast!
Next week: Other Common Dieting Mistakes