Fueling Fitness in the News!

Fueling Fitness is excited to welcome Registered Dietitian Maddie Kinzly to the practice!  Click the link below to read the full announcement published in the Shelburne News:

http://www.shelburnenews.com/2016/01/13/local-nutrition-and-fitness-counseling-practice-welcomes-new-addition/

Additionally, Marcia Bristow offers up some helpful tips on nutritious eating and the relationship between nutrition and health in an article published in the Shelburne News:

http://www.shelburnenews.com/2016/01/13/eat-and-move-in-the-right-direction/

Slim Down... With Tequila?

Submitted By: Amy Sercel

Edited By: Marcia Bristow MS RDN CSSD CD

Drink tequila to lose weight!  At least, that’s what the headlines said recently.  Even Time magazine suggested that drinking a shot of tequila could reduce blood glucose and help people lose weight. Unfortunately, this is not entirely true. 

In actuality, the health benefits come from a compound called agavins, found in the agave plant used to produce tequila. Agavins are a type of carbohydrate called a fructan, or a fiber that you cannot digest.  Instead, when you eat a food that contains fructans, they are broken down by the bacteria living in your large intestine.  This process results in the production of a little acid – not enough to cause discomfort, but enough to slow the growth of harmful bacteria and promote helpful bacteria instead. 

Researchers believe that the process also changes the types of hormones released by your digestive system, helping you feel full for longer and stimulating insulin release so that blood sugars go down.  In one study, mice that were given agavins in addition to their regular diet ate fewer calories and gained less weight than mice that did not receive any agavins.   The mice that ate agavins also had lower blood sugar, cholesterol, and triglyceride levels.

Although agavins are found in the agave plant, which is used to make tequila, tequila does not actually contain any of these health-boosting compounds. Agavins are broken down in the process of aging tequila, leaving the drink carbohydrate-free but a whopping 98 calories per 1.5-ounce shot. Rather than contributing to weight loss, it is likely that drinking tequila too often could actually lead to weight gain over the long term.

If you are interested in trying agavins for yourself, you might have to wait a little while.  The research on the health benefits of agavins for humans is ongoing.  It looks like researchers want to make an alternative sweetener using agavins, but this is not yet available in grocery stores. Instead, you can get similar benefits from foods that naturally contain other types of fructans, such as garlic, onions, chicory, and artichokes.  While it will be interesting to see whether anything comes from agavins in the future, for now it’s best to stick to whole foods!

Step Right Up… Onto the Scale!

Submitted By: Amy Sercel

Edited By: Marcia Bristow MS RDN CSSD CD

Did you make a New Year’s resolution to lose weight?  Or maybe you want to maintain the weight you’re at.  Either way, getting on the scale will help you reach your goal!  Many studies have shown that people who weigh themselves daily or every other day lose more weight than those who weigh themselves less often.  Frequent weighers are also more likely to stick to their dietary and fitness goals, and less likely to re-gain any weight they’ve lost.

If the advice to weigh yourself more often goes against what you’ve been told in the past, you aren’t alone!  It was previously thought that getting onto the scale more than once per week could lead to body image dissatisfaction and other negative feelings, especially if the number on the scale wasn’t what you expected.  Recent research has found that this is not the case.  People with higher BMIs did tend to weigh themselves more often and also have lower body image satisfaction than people in lower weight groups; however, when peoples’ body weights were not accounted for, frequency of weighing alone was not found to have any impact on body image.

It’s important to note that people of all weights will probably get onto the scale less often as time goes on. This might be because the numbers stopped going down as quickly, so people were less excited about weighing themselves every day.  One way to encourage yourself to get back onto the scale could be to keep a written record of your weight.  A visual comparison of your weights for the past week and your goal weight might be more motivating than one number on the scale!  If you don’t want to keep track of your weight by hand, you could purchase a digital scale that emails you a record of your weights.

You also want to weigh yourself at around the same time each day.  The clothes you’re wearing, the food you’ve eaten, and your hydration status will all impact weight and could cause a 1-2 pound change that does not reflect your body mass.  A consistent time, such as early in the morning or right before bed, will give you a more accurate picture of your weight status, and help you reach or maintain your weight-loss goals!

The Truth About Caffeine

Submitted By: Amy Sercel

Edited By: Marcia Bristow MS RDN CD

Did you have your fix?  If you’re like the majority of people in the world, you’ve probably eaten or drank something containing caffeine today. It’s true that there has been a lot of controversy about the health impact of caffeine, especially since a high intake can make you feel irritable or jittery and caffeine withdrawal can leave you with an unpleasant headache.  Recently, however, studies have shown that consuming caffeine may actually have some important health benefits.

Even though caffeine is found in sodas, teas, sports drinks, and certain medications, when people think of caffeine they usually think first about coffee.  Researchers have found that people who drink coffee are 27% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than people who do not. Furthermore, the research suggested that people in the study who drank the most coffee were the least likely to get Alzheimer’s disease.  Coffee has also been shown to help lower blood sugar levels, decreasing your risk of Type 2 Diabetes. However, caffeine alone has been found to increase blood sugars, so this benefit is likely the result of a different compound in coffee. 

For athletes, caffeine intake has been found to increase endurance and therefore enhance performance due to its effect as a central nervous system stimulant.  Female swimmers who were given between 170 and 280 milligrams of caffeine half an hour before a race improved their time by an average of 0.31 seconds; males improved by about 0.18 seconds. While the benefits to both health and athletic performance are significant, it is important to remember that caffeine can decrease iron absorption when consumed with food, and can also increase calcium loss in the urine. In general, limiting your caffeine intake to less than 400 milligrams, or about four cups of coffee, per day and enjoying your caffeine between meals will help ensure that you get the maximum benefit possible!