Are Eggs Bad For You?
Are eggs bad for you? The easy answer is no. Twenty years ago, people with cholesterol were told to stay away from eggs, today, nutritionists and doctors look at eggs a bit differently. If the other foods in your diet are low in cholesterol, eggs are a good source of protein for most people. Should you eat them with bacon, ham or breakfast steak every day and expect to get a rousing round of applause from your doctor or great blood profiles? Absolutely not. You need some cholesterol in your diet, but you can also get too much of a good thing.
Recent studies show that eating up to 12 eggs a week wasn’t bad for diabetics and prediabetics.
In a recent study on people with prediabetes or type two diabetes, increasing egg consumption to twelve eggs a week did not increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. However, the subjects were also following a healthy diet. A Chinese study found an egg a day lowered the risk of stroke and heart disease. The participants in this study, however, were eating a traditional, not a Western, diet.
Your body makes cholesterol if you don’t eat enough.
If you consume foods with cholesterol, your body doesn’t have to make as much. Yes, you can overdo a good thing, which is why it’s important to look at the other food you eat, besides just the eggs. An egg or two a day won’t bump up cholesterol levels if the rest of your diet is healthy. Cholesterol is important, since it is necessary to make cell membranes, testosterone, estrogen and cortisol.
Eggs may increase cholesterol levels, but new studies show it’s the good cholesterol.
In one study, there were two groups. One group at one to three whole eggs a day and the other ate no eggs or egg substitutes. The group that ate real eggs did increase cholesterol levels, but it was the HDL cholesterol, the good one. The LDL, bad cholesterol, was unchanged. Eggs also provided other benefits to the group that consumed them. It helped improve blood levels of zeaxanthin and lutein. Both are antioxidant carotenoids. Eggs contain omega-3 fatty acids which lowered triglyceride levels that may increase the risk of heart disease.
- Eggs provide a feeling of satiety and keep you feeling fuller longer. Having a hard-boiled egg for a snack is quick and simple, plus it comes in its own container so it transports easily.
- As a breakfast, eggs provide far more protein than toast, cereal or pancakes, yet often is far more inexpensive. When you consider the cost of meat substituting eggs for meat products is like getting protein at a discount.
- Some recent observational studies showed that those who consumed eggs were no more likely to have a heart attack than those who didn’t eat eggs. Some of those same studies also show that eating eggs may actually lower the risk of stroke.
- If you have high cholesterol or other serious condition, always discuss any change in your diet with your health care professional. Each person is different, so always listen to your health care professional.
For more information, contact us today at Next Level Fitness
Some foods we list on healthy meal plans at Next Level Fitness in Irvine, CA, contain trans fat. Don’t let that scare you. There are two types of trans fat, and they react in your body quite differently. One is naturally occurring trans fat created by bacteria in the stomach of ruminants like sheep, cows and goats. It may have heart healthy benefits. The bad type of trans fat was initially created in a lab to extend the shelf life of oil. This hydrogenated fat was a cheaper alternative to fats like butter and it was used in many products. Artificially created trans fats have a negative effect on health and cholesterol profile.
Eating a small bowl or a few spoonfuls of ice cream won’t hurt you. However, eating a gallon a day can really pack on the pounds. That’s a bit of an exaggeration to show how much portion size can affect your weight loss program. With most healthy eating programs, vegetables like celery and fresh fruit portion isn’t a problem. They’re packed with fiber, so it’s difficult to eat many calories, since they fill you up without adding a ton of carbs or calories. Nuts, sweet potatoes avocados and olive oil may be healthy, but here, their high caloric nature means you have to pay closer attention.
Every day, there’s something new that is supposed to be a healthy option. One of the latest is to add collagen to coffee. Why? The answer is simple. Collagen is healthy and important for every part of the body. As you get older, you produce less collagen. While collagen is important for connective tissues, joints and ligaments, will extra collagen reduce wrinkling, joint pain and the signs of aging? Those are just a few of the reasons for the latest fad of adding collagen to coffee.
Maybe you love your job that involves hours of research on the computer, but you need even more. You need to sweat! Sweating can occur if you have a fever that’s breaking, with the sweat flushing out bacteria as it cools the body. It can happen when you’re simply too warm. However, the best type of sweat occurs when you workout. Clients at Next Level Fitness in Irvine, CA understand that and love the benefits they receive from breaking a sweat in the gym. It’s actually not about sweating, but upping the intensity, which makes you sweat that provides the benefits.
No matter what activity you’re doing, your core muscles are involved in some way. Even sitting involves core muscles. They’re the muscles of your torso that start right below the pecs and continue right beneath the abs, which includes the muscles in your back. Strong core muscles affect how all the other muscles function, which includes how you walk. When they’re strong, core muscles provide stability and improves balance. The stronger your core muscles are, the stronger and more powerful you’ll be.
If you’ve tried finding healthy snacks and settled on the ease of small bags of trail mix, make sure it’s the right type. That’s extremely important if you want a healthy snack that will benefit your body, help you lose weight and keep you fill you up, not out. Commercial trail mix isn’t necessarily the healthiest of snacks, particularly if you choose one that has M&Ms or other types of candy as the primary ingredient. So which type of trail mix should you choose?
Snacking plays an important role in your diet. It can help keep the fires of your metabolism burning strong, keep you working out at your best and help you feel fuller so you don’t eat as much at your next meal. That doesn’t mean just any snack will do. You need a healthy snack that is lower in calories and provides many of the nutrients you need each day. Many people have found that granola bars are their go-to snacks. They’re portable and often quite delicious, but are they good for you? The answer is yes and no. It all depends on the granola bar and how many you consume.
It’s two in the morning and suddenly, you find yourself unable to sleep and craving sweets. You go through the cupboard and refrigerator to find something, anything, to satisfy that urge. Finally, in desperation you throw a burrito shell on a hot buttered griddle, heat one side, flip it and sprinkle on cinnamon and sugar. Your urge is satisfied and you now can go to sleep. That’s not a story I made up, but one that a client at Next Level Fitness in Irvine, CA, told me. Together, we found the cause for that craving. It’s not just late at night that cravings come. You may find yourself snatching the last bit of candy from your child’s Easter Basket or stock up on sugary treats at the gas station.
If you’ve noticed, coconut water has become quite popular. One reason is that it’s touted as being quite healthy. Before we go into whether it’s really that good for you, you need to know what coconut water is. It’s actually not water, but the juice that comes from the coconut. When you combine that juice with freshly grated coconut, you get coconut milk. Many people use coconut water to replace sports drinks, since it contains natural amounts of electrolytes, such as calcium, potassium and sodium, but some people feel that plain water is just as good for rehydrating.