A steady stream of research suggests that nuts such as macadamias, almonds and pecans can promote cardiovascular health and lower the risk for heart attacks and strokes. "If you like nuts, I say help yourself," says Frank Sacks, M.D. Associate Professor of Medicine at HarvardMedical School. "Forget the percentage of calories from fat. Yes, nuts have a lot of oil. They also happen to have a lot of nutrients essential to a healthy diet."
Why are nuts so beneficial? In fact, monounsaturated-fat molecules in nuts contain two less hydrogen atoms and are liquid at body temperature. Eat nuts rich in monounsaturated oil and your liver membrane will tend to become more fluid, allowing (bad) LDL cholesterol to pass more easily into your liver and out of your body.
A diet rich in monounsaturated fats can pay
enormous dividends such as:
Stronger Heart: In 1993, The Iowa Women's Health Study showed that women who ate nuts more than twice a week cut their risk of heart trouble by 60 percent! A ten year Loma Linda University, California study of 25,000 Seventh-Day Adventists found that those eating nuts often—five or more times per week, were half as likely to have a heart attack or die of heart disease as people who rarely or never ate them. In fact eating nuts just one to four times a week cut the heart risk by 25%!
Looser Pants: Nutritionists at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston found that amongst two groups of people who had lost an average of 11 pounds, those who had eaten a diet high in monounsaturated fat were still slim 18 months later, while their cohorts on a low-saturated-fat diet quickly regained weight. “Participants on the high-mono diet reported they didn't feel as if they were dieting," says Kathy McManus, one of the study authors.
Hunger Relief: A new study found that when scientists substituted monounsaturated cooking oil for polyunsaturated fats, diners felt full longer. S.E. Specter of Pennsylvania State University and French colleagues recruited 12 healthy young Parisian men into the study. Once a week for 4 weeks, they served the volunteers identical breakfasts, followed a few hours later by lunch. The volunteers were fed lunches containing high-mono oil or polyunsaturated oil. Rating their desire to eat hourly, the men eating high mono oil consistently proved less hungry.
Eat nuts rich in monounsaturated oil and your liver membrane will tend to become more fluid, allowing (bad) LDL cholesterol to pass more easily into your liver and out of your body.
Bigger Muscles: Studies have shown that men who eat more monounsaturated fat have higher testosterone levels, although researchers don't yet know why. The more natural testosterone you produce, the more easily you'll gain muscle.
Faster Thinking: Italian men whose daily diets included about 75 grams of monounsaturated fat scored better on cognitive tests than men who ate less than that. In fact, those who consumed the least scored the lowest! "As we age, the neuronal cells in the brain require more monounsaturated fatty acids to keep their membranes strong," says Dr. Antonio Capurso, the study author.
1. Jaret, Peter, Good News in a Nutshell, Health Magazine, July/August 1996.
For example, if a serving of almonds has four grams of dietary fiber and five carbohydrates, you can assume there is only one gram of bad carbohydrates in that serving. Dietary fiber is not thought of to raise blood sugar.
If four out of five of the carbohydrates are non-blood sugar raising carbohydrates, then what would there be to worry about? Try this theory out for yourself. Like I’ve mentioned before, all people react differently to these things. Feel out what works best for you…
Also, I believe, that as time goes on your body will become less familiar with what to do when blood-sugar level raising foods enter your body.
It appears to me that the longer my body gets used to burning fat for energy, the more apt it is to ignore carbohydrates and all things that would normally raise my blood sugar levels.
I would give this new way of life about a month before adding the good stuff to your regimen. Let your body completely realize that it burns fat for energy these days - not carbohydrates anymore.
