Five Tricks for Fighting Stress

Signs That You Are Not Eating Enough Fibre

Does Eating Bread Make You Gain Weight?

Along some dietary concerns placing carbohydrates as a weight gain factor, bread has become a diet no-no among 43% of Australian women looking to lose those extra pounds. Other people however believe bread in itself or even pastry is not the sole weight culprit. A rising scale simply points to the excess calories you eat. So does bread or pastry really make you gain weight?

Calories In vs. Calories Out

The answer actually depends on how much calories you burn. If you burn more than you chew, the amount of bread and pastry you ingest won’t make you fat. What will make you gain poundage is the eating style of biting off more kilojoules than you expend...do this and almost any edible thing can just set up home in your thighs.

The measure of calories varies with each kind of food. Chocolate cake can be crammed with more kilojoules per slice than a piece of yoghurt cake, which goes to show that no two food kinds are created equal in terms of calories. The same reasoning applies to bread and pastries.

Generally, bread can make you fat if you consume more than you burn through movement or exercise. The ubiquitous white bread made from refined flour packs more calories than the fibrous, wholegrain brown bread; so eating white bread can increase your chances of gaining weight more than the wholemeal kind.

A Chunk vs. a Slice

Another factor to consider is portion size. Just how much bread or pastry are you eating? Munching through more than three thick slices of white bread in a day over a period of time may take your scale’s needle up a few notches if you don’t watch your calorie intake and expenditure. Multigrain breads made of wholemeal flour may afford you more slices but going overboard with it can still make you gain weight. Again you have to watch those calories.

Not All Carbs (And Calories) Are Created Equal

Many people tend to avoid carbohydrates while dieting to lose weight. This practice is not a very good idea as carbohydrates are an important macronutrient that supplies your body’s needs for energy.

Instead, know which carb laden food to avoid and what you actually need to chow down on. Complex carbohydrates from whole grain bread, brown rice, fruits, oats, and vegetables do contain calories but its fibre-rich content makes you feel full on small portions. Simple carbohydrates one the other hand is simply sugar... brown sugar, glucose, corn syrup, and the like. Simple carbs in foods such as soda, cookies, pies, cereal, and juice need to be eaten in large portion sizes to reach the eater’s satiety level. This carbohydrate type also triggers food cravings which make a person eat more than he should, drive up his calorie intake, and subsequently gain weight. Ditto on the third carbohydrate type, refined carbohydrates. Refined carbohydrates, of which white bread is a good example of, tend to drive up one’s weight with the same effect simple carbohydrates render.

So Do Bread and Pastries Make You Gain Weight?

If your bread or pastry is comprised of ingredients based on refined and simple carbohydrates, then the answer is yes, these can if you eat more than you should. The sugar and refined flour in white bread and pastries simply makes you crave for more high caloric foods, encouraging you to consume more calories than you eat.

White bread and pastries made of refined flour also contain high amount of calories for small portions (1 slice, 35 g. of white bread =82 calories; plain muffin, 65 g. =140 calories). In comparison, wholemeal bread and pastry made of wholegrain flour has slightly lower calories (1 slice, 35 g. Of wholemeal bread = 75 calories; wholemeal muffin, 65 g. = 129 calories).

In addition, the wholemeal variety is packed with more nutrients than its refined counterpart, making wholemeal breads and pastries the better choice.

Again, when it comes to weight gain, it is all about the calories. Whether you choose to eat white bread or wholemeal bread, these particular foods will not add to the pounds if you eat the portions within your caloric limit for the day. Increase your portion sizes and that’s when trouble begins.

Nutritionists however advocate consuming bread and pastry made from whole grain flour and less sugar as these pack more fibre, vitamins, and minerals per calorie than the common variety made from refined flour. In addition, bread and pastry made from whole grain flour meet one’s satiety with small portions and do not trigger food cravings which increase appetite and subsequently result in weight gain.

Boosting Your Motivation Towards Success

Many people have goals but few have the motivation and the smarts to reach them. Fewer still have the mental tenacity to claim their goals. Do you have what it takes to be a success?
To find out, you must be clear on what motivates you, what can hinder that motivation, and the possible ways to work around foreseeable obstacles.

What Makes You Tick?

Motivation is that strong desire or interest to behave or do something in a certain way that would bring them towards achieving their goal. It is what keeps one’s interest and commitment to do things on the premise that such invested perseverance would lead them toward an end-goal fulfilment.
Does being in the roster of the top five fittest of a national Crossfit Throwdown been your personal goal? Bagging the bragging rights of being one of the best athletes in the country is your motivation to push yourself daily to improve your endurance, strength, and flexibility.
Motivation however can be derailed or even crushed when perceived insurmountable obstacles come its way. What can one do then to overcome a motivational decline and keep right on track towards success? In other words, what can beef up your mental tenacity towards goal achievement?

Bumping Up Your Motivation

Be Clear on Why You Want Your Goal

You want something but you are not clear if it’s worth all the bother. You want the trophy but just how much and why is it so important? Muddied reasons to these questions do not set you on a clear rainbow towards that pot of gold. Knowing the basis of your motivation will help you improve your mental toughness to keep on looking ahead. For instance, discovering that your motivation is actually fuelled by fear (fear of displeasing someone, fear of not belonging, etc.), will help you decide whether your end goal is actually worth all your time and effort.
Being clear on why achieving something has become your dream will help you acquire that extra mental push to face and surmount looming obstacles that inevitably fall on anyone’s path to real success.

Cultivate a “Solve the Puzzle” Attitude

When faced with a mountain of an obstacle, people simply look up to the top and imagine an arduous, almost impossible climb to get to the other side, enough to dampen most people’s gung-ho spirits. If you are not most people, however, you may choose to follow the motivational patterns of a Mt. Everest climber or be the smarter guy: find a way around the problem. Think out of the box or adopt the patience of a Rubik’s cube puzzle solver. Either way, you are most likely to get to the other side.
Your realities are what you think it is. If you think something is impossible, it will be. Tweak that thought into positive possibles and the probabilities for success will suddenly loom so much more real and attainable.

Build the Present

Look toward the future for the attainment of your goals; but, pour your attention on the present. The future will inevitably come but the present is what you will make of it. The present is what you have right now so make the most of it.
Be mindful of what you do now because every passing moment is all what you have to build on. Learn from your present experiences and interactions and...
“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.” - Eckhart Tolle, ‘The Power of Now’

Learn to Ask for Help

The way to success can veer into an advantageous shortcut if one can just learn to put pride or shyness away and ask for the right help. No one individual can know everything; so two heads, three...a hundred are so much more effectively helpful in getting to the endgame than going all solo.
Getting your dream may need you to give credit where credit is due. As the trite saying goes, “No man stands alone.” Well, unless he chooses to be...which gets him nowhere.

Choose the Company You Keep

People who get you down or always dwell on the negative belong to the wrong sort crowd to hang with if you are after goal achievement. If you can help it, ditch these toxic types and try to find like-minded persons with the same go-getter mentality as you have. This way, you can motivate each other towards your own successes.
If you cannot help but be stuck to family members with a crab mentality, the best way around the problem is to set boundaries as best as you can or simply say little about what you are doing. You will get enough doubts along the road to your goal. You do not need more naysayers to affirm these. What you need is a cheering squad that will push you on toward the finish line.
As long as you have a clear goal in sight, take care not to lose that motivation. Keep in mind that success is a mind game. You get what you believe you can.

What the Colour of Your Urine Says About Your Health

This may sound a little gross but you must check your urine every time you go to empty your bladder. This goes especially for you, ladies, who don’t get an immediate view as the men do. What you must watch is the colour and odour of your urine as these can give some indication of your health status.

If Colour Could Speak

Urine is liquid waste excreted by the kidneys. The bulk of urine is made up of water, salt, urea, and uric acid. Urine carries with it the toxins that have been filtered out of your bloodstream.

Pale Yellow

Healthy pee streams very light or pale yellow in colour. A yellowish tint means a well hydrated bladder. Your water intake is spot on right. On the other hand, if your urine looks like water or is too transparent, you are overdoing your hydration; so, simply reduce your intake a bit. Transparent urine can also be a reaction to a diuretic medication you may be taking.

Dark Yellow

Dark yellow urine indicates that you may not be drinking enough water which is around 8 glasses a day. The dark yellow shows more waste concentration instead of water in the urine. It also smells much more pungent than normal pale yellow pee.
If you are drinking enough and yet peeing dark yellow, look to the food you have been eating. Asparagus, for instance, tends to colour urine darker and lend a strong smell as well. Beets are another food that can turn urine dark yellow. In this case, darker coloured urine is not a problem if the taint is simply from food.
What could be a problem is if the dark yellow colour is a symptom of an illness. It can be a sign of hepatitis, a viral infection that inflames the liver. Blood stains can also darken the yellow colour. If dehydration or food is not the cause of dark yellow pee, see your doctor immediately.

Orange

Food like rhubarb, blackberries, beets, and senna herbs can turn urine orange. Dyed foods and medications can also tender the same effect. When urine colour is caused by food, the colour stays for a day or two at most. When it stays longer than this, you could have some health problems.
Orange may indicate that the body is too dehydrated. You may be drinking too many diuretics like soda or coffee and not enough water. Orange can also be symptomatic of hepatitis or jaundice. In this case, bile from the liver is what causes urine to turn orange. Urine that continues to show orange for a couple of days should be seen by a specialist.

Pink, Reddish, or Dark Brown

Again, food or medications may be the culprit behind this discolouration. Carrots, blackberries, and beets can taint urine, pink. Expect the following drugs to colour urine as well:

• Laxatives
• Anisindione --- anticoagulant sold as Miradon
• Warfarin -- an anticoagulant sold as Coumadin, Jantoven, Marevan, and Waran
• Cerubidine --- chemotherapy drug
• Prochlorperazine - an antipsychotic with brand names: Buccastem, Compazine, Phenotil, and Stemetil
• Rifampin - an antibiotic
• Pyridium -- can taint urine orange as well
• Vitamin B -- incorporated in many supplements. This can also turn urine orange.
• Tranquilizers -- some of these have dyes which changes urine colour

Aside from food and medications, a more sinister cause of the pink, reddish, or dark brown colour is the presence of blood. Blood in urine may indicate a urinary tract infection (UTI), a kidney disease, a prostate problem, and even a tumour. If you experience pain during urination and urine comes out in the above colours, seek medical professional attention as soon as you can.
Pink, reddish, or dark urine may also be a symptom of chronic dehydration. Chronic dehydration happens when there is a gradual loss of water from the body everyday. The problem could stem from drinking too much diuretic drinks like soda and energy drinks. When it comes to hydration, no beverage can adequately substitute for water; so be sure your intake is adequate everyday.

Blue or Green

As strange as this may sound, yes, some people have peed in tinges of blue or green. The colours may be attributed to food dyes or certain medications like the anaesthetic, propofol and the allergy medicine, promethazine. Because of its blue dye, Viagra has also been behind some blue-tinged pee.
Porphyria can also be the unfortunate cause of blue or purple urine. Porphyria is a group of rare disorders that can cause skin and nerve problems.
Greenish urine may also be caused by food and medications; but illnesses may contribute to its phenomenon as well. Bile from a liver problem, diarrhoea, and pus from a urinary tract infection may turn urine, greenish.

Black

Peeing black is truly a terrifying experience. Anyone peeing black instinctively knows something is very wrong. Granted, a copious ingestion of food dyes can turn urine black. So can eating a lot fava beans and sorbitol. Black urine may also indicate that there is too much medication or chemicals being ingested by the body or that these medications may have harmful chemicals when taken for long periods of time. The first thing to do is stop taking the medicines and see a doctor.
Black urine may be a symptom of health problems, ranging from not dangerous to very dangerous. Muscle damage, for one, is not fatal but really dark urine warns that you have been working out too much. A muscle injury can release myoglobin which can stain urine a very dark colour.
Black urine is also symptomatic of a dangerous illness called Blackwater Fever. It is a complication born out of malarial treatment using quinine. Urine turns black from the presence of a lot of haemoglobins. Blackwater Fever virus literally tears the cells apart so that haemoglobin in them leaks out into the bloodstream. If left untreated, this disease can eventually cause kidney failure and then death.

If Odours and Appearance Could Tell a Tale

Healthy pee smells pungent but it should not be overwhelmingly so. Should it smell heavily of ammonia, it is warning you of high bacterial action so a urinary tract infection may be looming up ahead.
Regular foamy urine may signal excess protein in the body so have your kidneys checked.
Like it or not, our body always tries to tell us what’s wrong or going to be wrong. We need to be in tune with our body and act on changes that seem out of the ordinary. Make it a habit to observe your wastes, urine and fecal matter, as these are good “weather signals” of your system’s health.

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