Few days
ago, I posted on this blog on WHY you need to learn how to control your blood
sugar level if you want to lose fat from "special" areas of your
body! And this has a LOT to do with eating carbohydrate foods, which is WHAT
our Nigerian foods and recipes are mainly made up of. Now I’m not saying
carbohydrate is bad itself, there are just different kinds of carbs, the good
and bad ones. The good carbs are called fibrous carbs and the bad ones are the
simple carbs of which our "9ja" foods are mainly made with.
In order
to lose belly fat and get rid of excess body fat, you need to KNOW how to keep INSULIN
working for you and not against you. When you eat a bowl of pasta, chunk of
bread, white rice or ‘swallow’, it gets broken down quickly into sugar. This
causes your blood sugar level to rise. When this happens, your body then produces
the hormone INSULIN to remove the excess sugar. Insulin is a TWO-FACED hormone
which acts a GOOD guy one minute then switches into your WORST nightmare in
terms of losing belly-fat and weight loss.
Insulin’s
job is to reduce the blood sugar level in your body and it does this in two
ways:
1.
The GOOD Guy insulin takes the sugar in your blood released from
food and converts the sugar into glycogen and stores it in your muscles and
liver. Glycogen is like the battery on your mobile phone, the more you use your
body the more energy your body needs. If you don’t use your mobile phone it can
remain fully charged on standby for days! So when your blood sugar level rises
as a result of eating lots of processed carbs, insulin tops up your ‘internal
battery supply’.
2.
The BAD Guy insulin: Once your batteries (glycogen stores) are
filled up, what happens to any sugar that is left over? Insulin converts the
excess sugar into fat and stores it as FAT. It would store it in your belly,
chest, arms, thighs, face, etc. The real problem we are facing now is that we
now have more sugar and grains in our Nigerian diet. I mean check out what you
eat in the last 3 days….. its loaded with mainly carbohydrate foods, right? Now
don’t get me wrong, carbohydrate is not bad in itself, like I said before, there
are just different kinds of carbs, the good and bad ones.
Here are
5 tips you can use right away, to help you manage your blood sugar level:
1.
Eat smaller meals more often, 5-6 small meals and snacks a day.
2.
Have protein with each meal, this slows down the rate at which
your blood sugar level rises. Protein is actually a fat-burning nutrient.
3.
Eat more fibrous vegetables (cucumber, cabbage, lettuce,
"green", "ugwu", spinach, okro, etc). This slows the
digestion of other carbs you eat,
4. Reduce and even remove breads, pasta, rice and potatoes from your
diet especially in the evenings when insulin tolerance is at its lowest, if
belly-fat loss is your goal.
5.
Make sure to ALWAYS eat Breakfast. No matter how late you are for
work or business, DO IT.
Take home point:
You can
also lose belly-fat weight IF you are prepared to change your eating
habits, which is why I 100% recommend you getting a copy of the 101 Flatbellyand Fat Loss Nigerian Cooking Recipes.
See
details ==> here
Written
by our own Nigerian Fat Loss Coach, A Nutrition Biochemist, Dr. Ela Maris.
To your
health,
Grace
No comments:
Post a Comment