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diabetic friendly snacks
30 Jul

Diabetic Friendly Snacks That Can Be Eaten without Worrying about Sugar Levels

It feels great to binge on sweet and savoury snacks that go perfectly well with tea or coffee. Not all these go-to-snacking choices are good for health. In fact, the fried and sugary snacks are unhealthy for normal people, let alone the diabetics. With sugar as a big “NO” for the diabetics, the snack choice becomes pretty limited to them. Fortunately, they still have a wider variety of snack ideas for their mid-meal cravings. These sugar-free varieties are equally good for the non-diabetics as well. Remember, one of the keys to stay healthy is to avoid sugary, fried and spicy foods.

In this article, we will talk about some common diabetic-friendly snacks that you can take bites off without worrying about your blood sugar level and overall health.

Hard-Boiled Eggs

Hard-boiled eggs are high in protein content and an excellent snack for diabetic patients. Protein works against blood sugar spike and keeps your craving at bay. Hence, it helps to control your weight as well. No preparation time and just a few minutes of cooking, that’s it!

Avocado

 Avocado is loaded with nutritional benefits. It is rich in fibre but low in carbohydrates. It regulates your blood sugar level and helps to manage weight as well. It has the best combination of healthy fats that help in regulating your cholesterol levels (condition largely present in association with diabetes) and your overall health and nourishment.

Almonds

Almonds are called superfood for the diabetic patients. Packed with nutritional ingredients, almonds help regulate and prevent diabetes. Several studies claim that almonds protect cardiovascular health in patients with type-2 diabetes. Diabetic people often suffer from magnesium deficiency. Taking almond, which is a rich source of magnesium, can address the problem in them.

Black Bean Salad

Black bean is another superfood for diabetes management. It offers several benefits. They have a good amount of magnesium and low glycaemic index, both of which help stabilise blood sugar. The rich fibre and protein content in them is good for your gut health. Beans have a versatile use. You can prepare salads or soups and also a comforting side dish with black beans.

Black bean salad is a great delicacy. Toss black beans, carrots, cucumbers and tomatoes in a small bowl.  Season it with your favourite salad dressing and enjoy! A salad full of colours is  a quick fix to satiate your cravings anytime!

Protein Bars

 Protein plays an important role in managing both weight and diabetes. In addition, protein-rich foods also boost up your energy level. Protein bars are an easy-to-go snack option whenever you feel like enjoying some goodness of crunches. Make sure to read the label as many protein bars use unhealthy ingredients only as flavour and taste enhancer. Avoid artificial sweeteners in your protein bars! Hence, be a little choosy when buying one.

Trail Mix

So easy to make and so delicious to taste! Prepared with super healthy elements such as, nuts, seeds and fruits, trail mix is a great source of protein. It is one of the best high-protein vegan snacks. There are glowing evidences from several studies that protein-rich foods lower blood sugar level and insulin dependency.

Wrapping Up

So, you see ‘No Sugar’ never takes sweetness away from your daily life. Diabetic foods, contrary to commonly believed notions, are not tasteless at all. They just score high on parameters of nutritional benefits while making sure to present themselves as healthy temptations for your taste buds.

Pro Tip: Do not stay hungry if you are a diabetic. Do not resort to quick energy bites too! High protein and high fibre snacks would be your saviours!

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benefits of seeds
26 Jul

What Are the Benefits of Seeds? How to Incorporate Them in Diet?

Seeds often receive step-mom like nonchalance from many self-professed health-conscious folks. But seeds are no less nutritious than nuts, their gorgeous and delicious superfood cousins. They are thick with nutrients and supply your body with complex carbohydrates, proteins and fats, necessary minerals and vitamins and dietary fibre. Here is how they benefit your health.

  • Seeds are a rich source of dietary fibre, which controls the rate of metabolism and thus, keeps your digestive system healthy and happy.
  • Seeds are dense with good fats, which nurture blood cells and help maintain brain activities.
  • Seed lowers inflammation in body, which slows the ageing process and also cuts down the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
  • Seeds contain phytosterols which that regulates bad cholesterol (LDL) and lowers cancer risk.
  • Seeds are a good source of magnesium, selenium, zinc and copper, which are essentials for our bodies.
  • Seeds, if consumed regularly, prevent weight gain.

How to Incorporate Seeds in Your Daily Life?

Birds eat seeds but so do we. In fact, humans need seeds just like they need nuts for their own health benefits, some of which have been summed up in the above section. They are little tiny bombs of nutrition to explode benefits incorporated in your daily diet. There are several varieties of edible seeds from sunflower seeds to chia to flax. They are good for your natural wealth i.e. health.

Healthy seeds include:

  • Pumpkin
  • Sunflower
  • Hemp
  • Flax
  • Chia
  • Sesame
  • Garden cress
  • Melon

Let’s now talk about how you can include these edible, nutritious seeds in your diet.

Make Smoothies with Seeds

A quick fix for your sweet craving! It is a delicious drink that you can incorporate in your breakfast menu or enjoy as a snack. Mix a tablespoon of chia or flax seeds into your smoothie to make it work like a real energy booster. For a sweet-tangy taste, try chia, fig or peach smoothie. Mix one teaspoon of flax seeds for strong nutty indulgence.

Take Bites off Energy Bars

Energy bars are great hosts for good seeds. With every crunchy bite, you will take in the goodness of the seeds which will keep your tummy full for long and give you an instant energy spike. The go-and-grab bars are great snacks at any hour whenever you feel hunger pangs.

Prepare Chia Pudding

Surprised? Till date, you have been familiar with egg pudding, chocolate pudding, rice pudding and the likes but none of these contains seeds. From now on, add chia seeds to vegan chocolate pudding or banana pudding. Feel the crunch; the delicious difference will overwhelm your taste buds.

Top Off Salads with Them

A fun way to use seeds and enhance the taste of your salad is to sprinkle your favourite seeds on the top. Pumpkin and sunflower seeds work as great toppings. Toast a mix of sesame and pumpkin seeds and use it as topping on a salad prepared with avocado, lemon, roasted carrot. Choose seeds according to your mood and flavour palette! The beautiful blend of soft salad and crunchy seeds, will keep you motivated to finish that bowl of salad!

Use Them in Desserts

Another easy way to incorporate seeds into your diet is to use them in desserts. From coconut pumpkin pie to vegan berry fruit tarts, options are endless in low calorie desserts! Not only do they add nutrition and taste, they also need to be given the credit for adding an amazing creamy texture to some desserts!

Pro Tip: Add 2 tbsp /day of seeds to your daily diet; your health will say “Thank You” to your choice.

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best detox drinks
23 Jul

5 Best Detox Drinks and Benefits of Detox Drinks

Detox drinks are becoming a favourite with the fitness fanatics. Though the world is yet to give a unanimous decision in this regard, those who have made detoxification a part of their daily routine, cannot help but sing paeans to its natural health benefits.

What is Detoxification?

The name drops a hint! It is actually a process of removing toxins from the body. Toxins are harmful and human body has some natural mechanisms to get rid of toxins through faeces, urine, sweats etc. In other words, toxin is actually a devil and our body has a natural passage for them to get out.

Due to urbanization and modern living style, we are now facing an all-time high exposure to chemicals, pollutants and many more which come under the umbrella term ‘TOXIN’. With the balance between toxin loads and natural excretion increasingly destroyed, we need some more powerful ways to fight out the devils. Detox drinks help us with toxin removal.

They also do us many healthy favours. Let’s talk about that!

Save You from Serious Illnesses

If toxins build up in cells and tissues, it harms your metabolic, cardiovascular, reproductive and even mental health. Studies show toxin development for years may even lead to malignancy. By detoxifying your body, these health drinks boost your immunity and prevent occurrences of many life-threatening illnesses.

Optimize Liver Function

Liver performs several important functions including detoxification. Detox drinks assist your liver in the process of detoxification and thus, help to optimize its performance.

Make You Feel Energetic

Have you become energy anaemic? Are you getting tired easily? This could be due to toxin overloads. It slows your natural agility. If toxic intake does not find ways for proper excretion, it creates major health issues such as, bloating, nausea, constipation, tiredness, dermatological problems, headaches and even bad breath. Want to force your energy meter up? Routine sips of detox drinks could be a quick fix for all these.

Promote Weight Loss

With more people getting drifted to unhealthy lifestyles, they actually end up torturing their liver and as a result, adding to their calories and kilos.  Detox drinks improve your digestive function and urination which, in turn, boost up toxin removal from your system. They filter out the bad elements from the food and drinks you consume and thus, contribute to weight loss and management.

Improve Skin Health

Don’t you love the ‘Evergreen’ tag? Detox drinks can help you retain the glow and glamour of your youthful charm for years. These laxative agents work as body cleanser from within. By removing the chemical deposits and environmental pollutants from your skin, they make you look like your sweet sixteen.

5 Best Detox Drinks

Tender Coconut water is a great detoxifying agent and a good source of several nutrients. This health drink is refreshing, and keeps you hydrated especially during the summer time. Coconut water helps your skin and hair to glow.

Cucumber water is rich in potassium, magnesium, vitamin B and satiating fibre. This low-in-calorie drink has amazing cleansing qualities. It promotes weight loss by curbing appetite.

Orange water is rich in vitamin C which is good for skin health. This zesty fruit plays a role in fat-to-energy conversion.

Jeera Water has strong antioxidant properties. It flushes out toxin loads and keeps your body healthy from inside. It boosts your digestive power and helps your body maintain a healthy metabolic rate, which irons out extra weight.

Infused Green Tea is the king of all detox drinks. It is most popular as well. Green tea is dense with health benefits. It promotes weight loss, lowers blood sugar and cholesterol, enhances liver health, prevents hair loss and helps new hairs grow, improves oral health, boosts up brain activities, works against allergies and makes your skin glow.

Pro Tip: Drink a glass of the Detox water empty stomach in the morning and step into an energetic & happy day!

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weight loss
05 May

How Low-Calorie Protein-Rich Diet Helps to Lose Weight

There is no denying the fact that dieting plays a key role in your journey from flab to fit. These days, every health-conscious person adopts a healthy diet and lifestyle to stay in shape and good health.
If you are overweight or obese, a Balanced Diet is the best way to lose weight. What makes a proper Balanced Diet? It definitely contains cereals, fresh fruits, vegetables, eggs, fishes, lean meat, nuts, healthy protein snacks and other foods which have some natural fat in them. The idea behind healthy diet is to take a full-of-nutrition and balanced meal so that it helps to lose weight and promotes good health.

Protein-Rich Diet

Protein intake is highly important for our health. You should consume the right amount of protein every day to meet the needs of your body. An average adult requires an approximate of 1g/kg body weight protein intake to sufficiently perform the bodily functions. Contrary to the misconception, low-calorie diet does not necessarily mean a low-protein diet. In fact, the dieticians assert that a low-calorie and high-protein diet does the magic of shedding a few pounds while supplying the right amount and kind of nutrients and energy to your body.
There are strong evidences to suggest that a high-protein diet not only helps in weight loss but also offers other health benefits.

Importance of Protein

A human body needs three types of macronutrients – Carbohydrates, Fat and Protein. Protein performs the following roles:
Repair and Maintenance: Bones, muscles, hair and skin have protein as one of their constituents. Protein regularly repairs and replaces these tissues.
Enzymes: Enzymes, which are mainly protein-based, are responsible for thousands of chemical reactions occurring in your body.
Hormones: Hormones are also called chemical messenger that trigger communication between cells.
Storage and Transportation: Some proteins combine with other components and transport important molecules between places.
Protein is composed of 22 amino acids and 9 of them come only from food because human body cannot produce them.

How Protein-Rich Diet Promotes Weight Loss

According to researches, increasing daily protein intake may produce remarkable and sustainable result on your appetite and metabolic rate that will show through your weight loss.
It Will Make You Feel Full
Consuming more protein may lower your appetite and hunger by keeping you full for hours after eating. Protein boosts up production of PYY and GLP-1 hormones, both of which keep you full for a long time. It also lowers the level of ghrelin, known as the “Hunger Hormone”. As a protein-rich diet curbs your appetite by creating a sense of fullness for hours, it eventually works on your extra pounds.
It Enhances Metabolic Rate
A higher protein intake results in burning of more calories by increasing metabolic rate by 20-35%. This is why, high-protein low-calorie foods work so fast on your extra weight. When you cut on calorie intake but not protein consumption, the double-way sword produces an impressive and quick effect on your weight.

High Protein Foods

High Protein Foods include dals and pulses like legumes, moong, moth, rajma, chola, etc.; Milk & Milk Products like curd, paneer, chena, cheese, etc.; few nuts & seeds like Pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, sunflower seeds, almonds, walnuts, etc. Try to include these items in any form in your diet in atleast 3 meals each day and you won’t have to worry about your protein intake anymore!!

Final Words

The established evidences suggest that protein’s ability to promote fullness, suppress hunger and enhance metabolism accelerates fat loss, which results into loss of weight. Taking a protein-rich diet is the most natural way to get back to your slim avatar while receiving essential nutrients for your body and stay healthy.

Pro Tip: Include a high protein snack in your diet and see the difference!!

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