THE humble banana has been hailed a health superhero - due to its potassium-rich content.

And now, a top dietitian has now claimed that we should be munching on the yella fella's SKIN as well - to reap the health benefits.

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Susie Burrell says that eating the fruit's peel can improve your sleep, enhance your skin and even boost weight loss.

She says: "Specifically, you will increase your overall fibre content by at least ten per cent as a lot of dietary fibre can be found in the skin of the banana.

"You will get almost 20 per cent more vitamin B6 and almost 20 per cent more vitamin C and you will boost both your potassium and magnesium intake."

Despite this, when it comes to eating banana skin, Susie does not recommend you just munch on the peel once you've finished its insides.

Instead, she suggests putting it in a smoothie, baked goods or a curry to boost your nutritional intake.

Writing in her blog, she adds: "Rather, cooking the skin to soften it will help to break down some of the cell walls within the skin, helping to make the nutrients easy to absorb.

"Next blending the skin into recipes or smoothies is the most practical way to use them.

"Here you will increase the volume and nutritional content of recipes with minimal change to taste and texture of the cooking."

Dishes that work well with banana skin included in them as well as smoothies are muffins, banana bread and curries.

And Susie also revealed that the particular banana skin you choose is important when thinking about the specific nutrients.

She says: "Specifically bananas with bright yellow skins have a higher proportion of antioxidants associated with anti-cancer effects while green skins (less ripe bananas) are particularly rich in the amino acid tryptophan which is associated with good sleep quality.

"Green banana skins are also rich in resistance starch, the special type of fibre known to benefit gut health.

The health benefits of a banana

Here, nutritionist Amanda Ursell tells The Sun why bananas are so beneficial when it comes to our health.

Kill a hangover:Bananascontain potassium - a mineral lost when we drink alcohol. It's important to replenish it quickly and potassium helps to maintain fluids in the body.

Beat stroke: Potassiumhelps to reduce the activity of blood platelets which cause blood to clot. Unwanted clots are responsible for a large proportion of all strokes.

Boost immune system: One medium-sizedbananaprovides around 25 per cent of our recommended daily vitamin C intake.

Fight cancer:Good and regular intakes of antioxidants alpha carotene and beta carotene have been associated with reducing the risk of lung cancer.

Lose weight:Bananasare rich in fibre - which will help to keep you fuller for longer - so they may fight obesity.

Fall asleep: The magnesium in bananas promotes better sleep and muscle relaxation, so eating one before bed could help you to nod off more quickly.

Healthy pregnancy: They also contain an impressive mix of B vitamins, including some folate. That is vital for pregnant women because it can reduce the risk of spina bifida in babies.

Boost brain: Again, this is down to the potassium, which helps to keep plenty of oxygen running through the brain.

Cut heart attacks: Bananas have been proven to help reduce the risk of a heart attack. They do this by reducing levels of "bad" cholesterol in the blood. This means your arteries don't get blocked.

Fight flu: This fab fruit also contains quercetin, a super-nutrient. The nutrient has been shown in lab studies to help kill off viruses such as the herpes simplex virus, which triggers colds and flu.

"As these skins are much tougher, they are definitely best consumed after boiling to soften the skins."

As well as their positive nutritional benefits, Susie points out that banana skins have several other practical uses in day to day life.

For example, she says cooking meat on top of them will help to boost the moisture content of any meal and they can help make a great vinegar.

It comes after it emerged eating bananas regularly can help prevent heart attacks and strokes.

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The potassium in the fruit combats the hardening and narrowing of arteries, scientists discovered.

The vital mineral which spuds, broccoli and sprouts are also rich in was found to aid blood flow to the heart and brain and reduce the risk of clots.

Its effect on the arteries emerged in US lab tests at the University of Alabama on mice.

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Weight loss: Eating banana SKINS helps you shed pounds, beat the bloat & sleep better, expert reveals - The Sun

To lag describes the fact that there is a delay between an action and a result. You most often hear the terms leading or lagging indicators when describing/predicting the behavior of financial markets.

A great example of lag would be when you just had a medical procedure where the doctor immediately tells you that it was a success. Yet honestly, you dont feel that way the next day. Because your body needs time to heal and for you to gain strength. You wont feel healthy again until many weeks later. Your return to health lagged the declaration that your medical procedure was successful.

A contrasting set of statements to this example might include: I fixed my bed today. I cut the grass, Cooked dinner. Washed our windows. Raked the leaves. In these very specific one step processes, there is very little lag between starting the chore and finishing it.

Reflect on the language we use daily in many situations. I joined a gym to lose weight. We instituted a marketing plan for our product. We introduce a new food policy for the organization. Our fundraising plan has been published.

Mistakenly we believe, far too often, that stating intention automatically equals achieving the outcome.As if by stating the intention, the outcome magically appears. But life doesnt work that way. I use the phrase of the natural law of lag in our lives for exactly this reason. For most everything we say we are going to do, there is a natural built-in delay between start and finish. For everything we hope to accomplish, there is this same delay between hope and outcome.

None of us can get away from this natural phenomenon. Realizing that there is this natural lag helps us temper our initial excitement while continuing to put in the work to get to the outcome we desire. The plan, the goal, the intent is only a starting point to many more things that need to happen to get to the result you envisioned.

This is why weight loss, organizational change, company strategy, acquiring new skills or training, settling into a job, mastering a hobby or musical instrument, implementing a new marketing or fundraising program, and so onare so difficult to implement and achieve. They all follow the natural law of lag.

It is this lag that is most difficult for us to navigate. For we tire and lose interest quickly. Our focus gets distracted too often for us to get things done. We become frustrated where nothing immediate happens and so we quit.

The stories we tell ourselves and others about our intentions or goals are crafted only to romanticize the big steps. Little steps each day, with little evidence of progress, do not give us or our egos enough content to create stories that others would marvel. Sadly, keeping our own selves in the dark. Discouraged & impatient, testing our will to persevere when things dont readily seem to be coming together.

Making it imperative for us to make time and patience be our friend instead of our fleeting enemy. While understanding that the lag in our lives has nothing to do with our ability but with our lack of self awareness of how life really works.

The natural law of lag brings so much meaning and focus to the journey of our lives rather than its outcomes. For its during the lag, that the thorns and obstacles in our life test us. Making us stronger and wiser each time, regardless of the outcome.

This piece was originally published ongtathought.com

More here:
The natural law of lag in our lives - Ladders

A young woman shed an incredible eight stone in just 12 months so she could be the best mum possible to her newborn daughter.

Rhiannon Roberts, from Dinas near Tonypandy , decided to join a slimming group when she tipped the scales at an unhealthy 23st.

And after sticking religiously to her diet plan and taking up exercise the 28-year-old lost nearly half her body weight.

"I was completely shocked at how quickly the weight came off," she said. "It worked wonders for me and I'd recommend it to anyone."

Rhiannon, who works as a care assistant, said before her weight loss she would frequently gorge on takeaway food, pizzas, and sugary snacks.

"I was never unhappy when I was big but I didn't really like seeing photographs of myself. I looked like a right state," said Rhiannon.

She said her true inspiration for losing weight was her baby daughter Alexis who she had given birth to in late 2017.

"I didn't want her to be embarrassed by me at the school gates every day," she admitted.

In January 201, Rhiannon joined a Slimming World group in Tonypandy with her dad David Roberts, her mother-in-law, and two sister-in-laws.

"We would compete against one another a little bit to see who could lose the most weight each week," she added.

"In my first week alone I managed to lose 8lb. I just listened to what I needed to do and I stuck to it."

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Slimming World allocates a "syn" value to food high in certain fats and sugars while group members can eat as much "syn-free" food as they want.

"I kept losing quite big amounts of weight each week," added Rhiannon. "I then began to exercise too. I went to aqua aerobics and the gym."

In the 12 months at Slimming World Rhiannon went from 21st to 12st 13.5lb while her dad David lost four stone over the same period.

The pair were awarded Slimming World's 'Miss Slinky' and 'Mr Sleek' on the same night. However shortly afterwards David suffered a heart attack and died.

"Obviously this was heartbreaking and I took a bit of time off from the group but not long after I found out I was pregnant again so I knew I needed to stick to the diet," Rhiannon added. "I knew my dad would have wanted me to carry on."

Rhiannon, who now has a six-week-old baby boy called Jaxon, said she would recommend Slimming World as a great social way of shedding the pounds.

Read the original here:
'I lost 8st in a year so I could be fit and healthy for my newborn daughter' - Wales Online

In my last article, I explored the reasons why overweight persons may not be losing weight even though they think theyre on a diet. But for the morbidly obese, with a BMI greater than 40, the calorie-in minus calorie-out equals weight change may not necessarily hold true as it does in the overweight.

I recently got into an argument with one of those Instagram weight-loss gurus over this fact.

The statement over 95 per cent of dieters fail was the genesis of the conflict. This statement was popularised by those with the perfect solution to solve the problems of frustrated dieters of all sizes.

Come to me all who labour in vain and I will lose the weight for you and it will be easy.

Great marketing but absolutely no substance to it.

My IG foe was bashing this false narrative about the failure rate of diets when I pointed out the nugget of truth within: When you have a BMI of over 40, your chances of losing weight and keeping it off in the long term is less than five per cent.

This did not sit well with someone who made his money off selling hope to the very people who are likely to fail on his diets.

The response to me providing the evidence from a high-quality long-term study with up to 20 years of follow-up was, of course, to bash the study and present an inferior study with four years of follow up.

But the data I dug up was even more damning than I originally thought. Morbidly obese patients who are put on diet and exercise programmes can lose anywhere from zero to one per cent of their body weight over 15 to 20 years. Those are depressing stats for anyone. More so for morbidly obese persons who are desperately trying to lose weight. But why is this so?

Fat cells are looked on as storage bins that fill up and expand as you eat more calories than you burn. But fat cells are much more complex than this. In fact, there are some scientists who believe that fat should be looked on as an organ just like the liver and heart. Fat produces hormones and other substances that play a role in regulating metabolism and gene expression across the body. Fat actually changes your hormones and genes! Then there are the hormones produced by the gut.

As you begin a diet, your stomach begins to produce more hunger hormones. So its not in your mind that you feel hungrier on a diet. But the worse part of trying to lose large amounts of weight is that as you lose weight, your metabolism slows down so you have to eat less and less to remain in a calorie deficit and continue to lose weight.

Part of this fall in caloric requirements is simply due to the fact that as you drop weight, you need less energy to move around your lighter body.

Look at it in this way. If you are walking around with a bag weighing 50 pounds, you are burning a certain number of calories in order to feed your muscles holding the bag. When you lose weight, you are putting down the 50-pound bag. You need less calories because you are no longer labouring with that weight. You therefore need to consume less calories because you are burning less calories, that is, your metabolic requirements fell. If you dont cut your calories as you shed weight, you will hit a plateau, or worse yet, regain the lost weight.

What frustrates most persons who are morbidly obese is that in addition to this simple need to eat less because you weigh less, the body also actively cuts its metabolic rate as you lose weight.

The most famous study looking at this metabolic adaptation followed the highly successful dieters on the TV show The Biggest Loser. The researchers found that in addition to regaining a significant portion of the lost weight, the metabolic rates of the former contestants were ridiculously low. Those who had kept the weight off had to be hitting the gym very hard to compensate for their slow metabolism.

The sad truth is, your body will try its best to get you back to an unhealthy weight once the hormonal changes of being severely obese kicks in.

This is a fact that I hammer home to all prospective bariatric surgery patients. If you slip up after surgery and start consuming calorie dense foods like snacks, sugary drinks or even natural juices, the weight can return very quickly.

Morbid obesity is classified as a chronic disease for a reason. You never really cure it by losing weight. You put it into remission. And like all chronic diseases, it can come back if you are not vigilant with your lifestyle and treatment.

Your best bet at success is to avoid becoming morbidly obese in the first place. Because if you do, surgery may be the only viable option for you to lose weight and keep obesity in remission.

Of course, those who peddle diet pills, shakes and programmes will never tell you that. Primarily because, like my Instagram colleague, they are wilfully blind to the truth.

After all, a 95 per cent failure rate will keep you paying their bills as long as you are willing to buy more hope.

- Dr Alfred Dawes is a general, laparoscopic and weight-loss surgeon; Fellow of the American College of Surgeons; former senior medical officer of the Savanna-la Mar Public General Hospital; former president of the Jamaica Medical Doctors Association. @dr_aldawes. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and info@islandlaparoscopy.com

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Alfred Dawes | Severe obesity: The harsh truth | Health - Jamaica Gleaner

Appiah rang Leukaemia Cares helpline from the point of diagnosis until well after the end of her daughters life. Sometimes Id call them as a means of support, she says, when things got really rough, when her medications were really powerful, and the chemo made her so unwell. She rang when she had panic attacks; an NHS psychologist had told her that these were likely, and that she should breathe into a brown paper bag, but Appiah found speaking to a person more soothing.

With a laugh, Appiah notes that shed ring the helpline at other times, too: Sometimes Id be out with Imogin, and shed be in the pram, being naughty, and all of my patience was going down the drain, and Id phone Leukaemia Cares nurses, and say: Look, Im feeling so depressed, my daughters shouting, I dont know what to do!

But I might also say: Nurse, Im actually feeling good today.

Appiah says the support of an independent person was invaluable: When your child is so ill, you need to speak to someone who doesnt know your name you need an outsider you can unload to. I didnt want anyone thinking: Here Sheila comes again!

You become self-conscious about your situation and dont want to be a burden on your friends and family. With the helpline, you wont be judged: they just listen. You get it out of your system and then go do the shopping at Sainsburys.

When Imogin was well, shed go to school. But she also spent weeks at a time in isolation in St Georges Hospital, with her mother by her side. Once, she had a bad reaction to a medication and went into cardiac arrest. She was crying and saying, Please, please! and they were giving her all sorts of medicine. The doctors were battling to keep her stable and I dived into the bed with her and told her: Youre going to be OK. I lay down with her and I started singing with her. And then, once she stabilised, she said: Now can I watch High School Musical?"

Appiah shakes her head, laughing: Thats what she was like: I was on thedoor of death, but I have something else planned. I want to watch my video and none of you are going to stop me!

Charities sent the pair to Disneyland Paris twice. The first time was fantastic, says Appiah, the second time Imogin was in and out of consciousness. But they said we should go, to make memories, Appiah explains. Imogin got to be a celebrity for a day and went to Hamleys in a limousine to get anything she wanted.

The rest is here:
'My daughter's death took me to the darkest place, but I've learned it's possible to come back' - Telegraph.co.uk