2- Essential Vitamins for Women
3- Nutrition Tips for Women Over 50
4- Keeping Fit After 50
5- Maintaining Weight Loss
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1- Healthy Eating for Weight Loss
Healthy Eating for Weight Loss
Most health experts recommend that you eat a balanced, healthy diet to maintain or to lose weight. But exactly what is a healthy diet?
It should include:
- Protein (found in fish, meat, poultry, dairy products, eggs, nuts, and beans)
- Fat (found in animal and dairy products, nuts, and oils)
- Carbohydrates (found in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and beans and other legumes)
- Vitamins (such as vitamins A, B, C, D, E, and K)
- Minerals (such as calcium, potassium, and iron)
- Water (both in what you drink, and what's naturally in foods)
Dieting or not, everyone needs a mix of those nutrients, ideally from foods. A good general rule is to use MyPlate, which makes it easy to envision just how much of each food type to include in your meal.
Fill half your plate with fruits and vegetables. Split the other half between whole grains and lean protein. Stick to your calorie “budget,” because when you're working on losing weight, you need to burn more calories than you eat or drink.
Exactly how many calories you should get per day depends on your goal, your age, your sex, and how active you are. A dietitian can help you figure that out. Don't cut your calories too much, or your diet is going to be hard to stick with and may not give you the nutrients your body needs.
More tips:
- Choose nonfat or 1% milk instead of 2% or whole milk.
- Pick lean meat instead of fatty meat.
- Select breads and cereals that are made with whole grains and are not prepared with a lot of fat.
- You don't have to completely avoid all foods that have fat, cholesterol, or sodium. It's your average over a few days, not in a single food or even a single meal, that's important.
- If you eat a high-calorie food or meal, balance your intake by choosing low-calorie foods the rest of the day or the next day.
- Check the food labels on packaged foods to help you budget fat, cholesterol, and sodium over several days.
That's just the start of what you might want to know about nutrition for weight loss. Keep learning as much as you can, including the following terms.
Calories
Calories are a measurement, like an inch or a tablespoon. They note how much energy is released when your body breaks down food. The more calories a food has, the more energy it can provide to the body.
When you eat more calories than you need, your body stores the extra calories as fat. Even low-carb and fat-free foods can have a lot of calories that can be stored as fat.
Protein
Proteins help repair and maintain your body, including muscle. You can get protein in all types of food. Good sources include fish, meat, poultry, eggs, cheese, nuts, beans, and other legumes.
Fats
Your body needs some fat. But most Americans get too much of it, which makes high cholesterol and heart disease more likely.
There are several types of fats:
- Saturated fats: found in cheese, meat, whole-fat dairy products, butter, and palm and coconut oils. You should limit these. Depending on whether you have high cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes, or other conditions, a dietitian or your doctor can let you know your limit.
- Polyunsaturated fats: These include omega-3 fatty acids (found in soybean oil, canola oil, walnuts, flaxseed, and fish including trout, herring, and salmon) and omega-6 fatty acids (soybean oil, corn oil, safflower oil).
- Monounsaturated fats: These come from plant sources. They're found in nuts, vegetable oil, canola oil, olive oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, and avocado.
- Cholesterol: Another type of fat found in foods that come from animals.
- Trans fat: Some trans fat is naturally in fatty meat and dairy products. Artificial trans fats have been widely used in packaged baked goods and microwave popcorn. They're bad for heart health, so avoid them as much as possible. Look on the nutrition facts label to see how much trans fat is in an item. Know that something that says "0 g trans fat" may actually have up to half a gram of trans fat in it. So also check the ingredients list: If it mentions "partially hydrogenated" oils, those are trans fats.
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates give your body fuel in the form of glucose, which is a type of sugar. Adults should get about 40% to 55% of their calories from carbohydrates. Most Americans eat too many carbohydrates, especially processed carbs, leading to obesity, prediabetes, and diabetes.
Some carbs are rich in nutrients. Those include whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes.
Other carbs are sugary and starchy, and not high in nutrients. You should limit those, which include candy, pastries, cookies, chips, soft drinks, and fruit drinks.
Vitamins
Vitamins help with chemical reactions in the body. In general, vitamins must come from the diet; the body doesn't make them.
There are 13 essential vitamins. Your body can store vitamins A, D, E, and K, and it can be a problem if you get too much of them. Vitamin C and the B vitamins don't build up in your body, so you need to keep getting them regularly in your diet.
Minerals
Minerals, like vitamins, must come from the diet. Your body needs them, but it can't make them.
You need more of some minerals (such as calcium, potassium, and iron) than others. For instance, you need only small amounts of the minerals zinc, selenium, and copper.
What About Water?
Water has no calories or nutrients, but it keeps you hydrated. It also makes up 55%-65% of body weight. You can drink water or get it from foods that naturally have water in them, like fruits and vegetables.
2- Essential Vitamins for Women
Vitamins Women Need
It's a message you've probably heard before: Keep yourself healthy with the right mix of vitamins. But which ones, you wonder, and should I pop pills or get the nutrients through the food I eat?
The best thing to do is to keep up a balanced diet. But supplements can be a good way to fill in the gaps when they happen.
Antioxidants
This group includes vitamin A -- retinol, beta carotene, and carotenoids --, vitamin C, and vitamin E. They appear to play a role in protecting you from tiny particles your body makes, called free radicals, that can tear cells apart.
Antioxidants may lower the risk of some health problems and slow aging. Some researchers also think they help boost the immune system, your body's defense against germs.
Antioxidants include:
Beta-carotene. Your body changes it to vitamin A, a nutrient that helps eyesight, soft tissue, and skin. You'll find it in apricots, cantaloupe, carrots, guava, kale, papaya, peaches, pumpkins, red peppers, spinach, and tomatoes.
Vitamin C. You may also hear it called ascorbic acid. It heals wounds and helps your body make red blood cells. It also boosts levels of the brain chemical called noradrenaline, which makes you feel more alert and amps up your concentration.
Studies show that when you're under a lot of stress, or as you get older, your levels of ascorbic acid go down. You can get vitamin C from broccoli, grapefruit, kiwi, oranges, peppers, potatoes, strawberries, and tomatoes.
Vitamin E. It's also known as tocopherol and includes related compounds called tocotrienols. Your body needs it to keep cells healthy. It may slow signs of aging, too. But you raise your risk of bleeding if you take too much of it every day. You can get this nutrient in foods like margarine, corn oil, cod-liver oil, hazelnuts, peanut butter, safflower oil, sunflower seeds, and wheat germ.
B Vitamins
There are a few types of these nutrients, and they're all good for your body. But three of them -- vitamins B6, B12, and folic acid -- are especially important.
Vitamin B6 is also known as pyridoxine. You need it to keep your brain working well and to help your body change food into energy, which is called metabolism. It can be toxic if you get too much of it at once, so your best bet is to eat foods that have this nutrient in it. Try fish, potatoes, chickpeas, avocadoes, bananas, beans, cereal, meats, oatmeal, and poultry.
Vitamin B12 is also important for metabolism, and it helps your body make red blood cells. You can get it from cheese, eggs, fish, meat, milk, and yogurt. Older adults, people with anemia, vegans, and vegetarians should work with a doctor to make sure they get enough of it.
Folate (folic acid). It helps build a healthy brain and spinal cord. It also makes DNA and RNA, the building blocks of cells, and prevents the changes in DNA that can lead to cancer. Adults and children need it to build normal red blood cells and prevent anemia. But it's especially important for pregnant women because it helps prevent birth defects like spina bifida.
Foods high in folate include spinach and leafy greens, asparagus, citrus fruits, melons, strawberries, fortified grains, legumes, chickpeas, black beans, kidney beans, eggs, and liver.
Vitamin D
It may be called a vitamin, but it actually works as a hormone. It helps to move calcium and phosphorus -- important minerals for keeping bones strong -- into your bloodstream. When your body doesn't have enough vitamin D, it will take calcium and phosphorus from your bones. Over time, this makes them thin and leads to conditions like osteoporosis, which puts you at risk for fractures.
You can get vitamin D if you eat eggs and fish, especially salmon, mackerel, and sardines. Many middle-aged and older adults, though, might need to get what they need from "fortified" foods, which have the nutrient added by the manufacturer, or from supplements.
Because calcium and vitamin D are closely linked, many doctors recommend that older people, especially women who have been through menopause, take a supplement that has both nutrients.
Vitamin K
It plays an important role in keeping bones strong and helping blood clot for older people. The best food sources include green leafy vegetables, soybean oil, broccoli, alfalfa, cooked spinach, and fish oil.
Foods vs. Supplements: Which Is Better?
Most dietitians say it's better to get key vitamins from foods without relying on supplements. But talk to your doctor to see what’s right for you. Follow his directions so you don't take more than you should.
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