When one speaks of health and lifestyle, the first name that arguably comes to mind is Arnold Schwarzenegger. The 76-year-old has always recommended staying active and fit, and he is a living example of the same.
Along the same lines, in a recent edition of Arnold’s Pump Club, he discusses calories and how eating more of certain foods helps lose weight.
In the newsletter, Arnold mentions that all types of calories are not equal. According to some research studies, it suggests that, based on the type of food you eat, it helps you absorb fewer calories and lose weight. And since highly processed food items are digested easily and faster, calories are more likely to stick in your body and increase weight.
Less processed foods are much harder to break down than other food types. Arnold further mentions that recent studies show that people who ate less processed foods and more fiber still consumed the same amount of calories, but their bodies absorbed fewer calories (almost 115 calories less).
“Some individuals burned up to four times as many calories. Interestingly, these fiber-loaded carbs go on a longer digestive journey where your microbes — the healthy bacteria in your stomach — feast on the calories and burn more energy.”
Therefore, the Austrian Oak suggests specific carbohydrate foods to his fellow village members that can be consumed. For fewer calories, people ate vegetables, fruits, nuts, whole grains, oats, and brown rice. However, it wasn’t just the fiber-loaded food that helped burn down the calories.
“Large particle foods” also can trick your body into working harder and storing less.”
Arnold concludes that scientists are convinced that less processing of the food in the body means more fullness and better digestion. So, participants in the study ate pieces of steak instead of ground beef and nuts instead of nut butter, leading to lower calorie absorption. And an interesting finding remains that even though the high-fiber group absorbed fewer calories, they were not hungry.
In addition to this, Arnie also discussed how one can focus on maintaining better health with the help of easy dietary swaps.
Arnold Schwarzenegger shared about elevating health with dietary switches
Schwarzenegger, the revered 7-time Mr. Olympia has swooned everyone with his physical prowess. The star maintains a very conscious diet and has shared tips for his fans to achieve good heart health. He shared that you should not completely change your diet but rather give a nutritional fix – make small healthy swaps to bring down CVD and other lifestyle diseases.
“A new study suggests that eating more nuts, whole grains, and legumes could reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.”
Food impacts performance a lot, so he mentions replacing one serving of processed meat with whole grains and nuts. While this does not mean completely ditching red meat, the idea is to have a diet that is rich in fiber and protein. The icon once also revealed how caffeine-rich beverages can improve brain health immensely.
