Do Fiber Bars boost your metabolism? Do they help or hinder when it comes to battling weight loss? Dr. Terry Simpson reveals why they may not be so good for your health after all in this quick video.

When it comes to fiber – bars are not the best.  They are high in calories and they have less fiber than you typically need. If you want fiber, increase your fruits and your vegetables.  There are a whole lot of benefits to getting fiber from these “non-processed” items:

(a) The have fewer calories

(b) They taste better

(c) They have more vitamins and nutrients

(d) They will keep you feeling full longer

While fiber bars are quick and easy to pick up and eat — so is fruit – -and when it comes to meals- having a full cup of vegetables for dinner is important to your digestive health, to keep you trim – and to make you feel satisfied for a long period of time.

By the way- when I say vegetables I don’t mean the starchy ones like potatoes or rice, or corn — I mean green ones– and I certainly don’t mean salad. One further tip – why get frozen vegetables that you heat in the microwave? Get fresh vegetables – -they will taste a whole lot better.

So save some money- buy some fruit.  It will taste better — and treat your body better.

I am a fan of the television program by Gordon Ramsay called Kitchen Nightmares. In that show various restaurants contact him because their business is dying, and they need help. I noticed some similar themes in all of his shows:
(a) The kitchen has to be clean
(b) The food is fresh and made to order – not “frozen”
(c) The items on the menu are not many – but what is there is made so that the restaurant can easily make it fresh in the kitchen for the patron

We live in a time when few people cook – and while kitchen appliances are trending to look more like restaurant appliances, fewer and fewer people cook– as a result more are eating out. So, when eating out I have a few simple rules:

(a) No fast food – if you are served in a car window the food can’t be that good.

(b) No chain restaurants. I have yet to find a chain that goes out of its way to get fresh local ingredients and make them up quickly

(c) develop a sense of the food you like- and if you can- learn to cook it. If you just are not going to cook- then find a restaurant you can use as a standard and taste great food. Once you have the taste for great food- mediocre just won’t do

One of my favorite restaurants in Phoenix is Tarbell’s. Not only is the food fresh, but even the mozzarella is made daily. This is a good restaurant for standards in Phoenix.

My wife is in her final days of pregnancy, so she was in the mood for a good pasta. We have a few favorite places for that (in a very limited amount- pasta should never be a main course). We went to La Fontenella – which has been in Phoenix for over 20 years.  It was a disappointment. The mozzarella was not fresh- it was probably purchased. The chicken was overcooked, the pasta was overdone.  I almost wanted to give them Gordon Ramsay’s contact information. Still people ate there- and enjoyed it- but such places do not last long when they compete with great places close by.

Great food is simple: fresh, local ingredients, small portions. Find some great restaurants and enjoy eating out. But beware:  a reputation of a restaurant does not make food great.   Beware of chains and fast food places,  the meal will  never be as good, or as good for you,  as the real thing.

For a while it seemed that everyone was talking about the importance of fiber,  and its role in preventing a variety of diseases.  After much speculation, we now have a few answers about  what fiber really does, and what makes it an  important component of good nutrition.

Fiber is simply things that humans cannot digest.  Many vegetables and fruit have methylcellulose – the stringy stuff– and we, as humans cannot digest it.  Cows can, horses can, deer can – but not humans.  This is why it is better to cook vegetables – because by breaking down some of the fiber our bodies can get to the nutrients that are locked into the vegetables.

What we do with it is simply pass the material through our body.  If you don’t have enough fiber you can become constipated – and develop things like hemorrhoids or diverticulosis.  Fiber is also good if you have chronically loose bowel movements – it will help bulk up the stools.

Years ago a group of people thought increased fiber would lead to less colon cancer – -with the theory that fiber acts as a broom to sweep out the colon and thus keep the colon from being in contact with toxic stool.  Well- that has been tested in a number of places and just isn’t the case.  Even people with high fiber diets have no lower incidence of colon cancer than those with an average fiber diet.

Some thought fiber would increase the metabolism – so by taking more fiber in you would be able to loose weight.  That was proved to be incorrect also.

What is known is that the more bulk fiber you have- from fruits and vegetables- with higher fiber — the longer the sense of feeling full is.

This is why we recommend to patients to increase green vegetables, or squash, or beans – to increase their fiber – and to keep them feeling full for a longer period of time.

So- if you want to lose weight- increase your fiber and decrease your processed food.  If you suffer from chronic hemorrhoids – see your doctor- but before then start on a high fiber diet (I recommend to my patients they take a scoop of fiber in 12 ounces of water followed by 12 more ounces of water).

Find yourself hungry mid-afternoon — consider a high fiber snack – like fruits.

So fiber has a lot of advantages – and the best source of fiber — vegetables

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Anyone who has been in my office sees rows of diet books. Almost every new diet that comes along, I get the book to read about it, because at some point a patient will come in and say they’ve learned some nutrition when they were on some diet plan.

One of the most common bits of misinformation is that peanuts – and hence, peanut butter – is protein – or a healthy snack — or a complex carbohydrate. Book after book on my shelf lists peanuts as a great source of protein, and a “snack that is healthy for you.”

I wonder if they ever bothered to look at a jar of peanut butter? Of the 190 calories in two tablespoons of peanut butter, 140 of the calories are from fat. Two tablespoons of butter contain 200 calories – all of which come from fat. Basically, while there is a bit of carbohydrate and some protein – peanut butter is over 70% fat. A tablespoon of peanut butter isn’t much- seems to fit right on that celery stick– and four tablespoons of peanut butter — well, now you have just had more fat than in a Big Mac. A Snickers bar (not a healthy snack) has less fat than two tablespoons of peanut butter.

Fat is not, nor will it ever be, a healthy snack. Fat is a dense source of calories, and if you are thinking about losing weight – the last place you would want to get a snack from is a dense source of calories.

When it comes to heart disease — what are those damaged heart vessels lined with? – FAT.

Now there are those who will tell you that fat does not make you fat (seriously, someone has this as the basis of their diet) – or that fat is healthier than bread (all I can say is they are nuttier than peanut butter).

If you want a quick, healthy snack  — think of an apple, or an orange, or almost any fruit (not fruit drink, not a fruit smoothie, but real fruit).  It will fill you, it has few calories, and will keep you satisfied for hours.

One apple has 72 calories (only 2 of the calories are from fat).

When it comes to finding simple things to lose ten pounds in a year, often the answer is easy.  It means changing your tastes – and finding something that is a lower calorie alternative or substitution for what you normally drink.

Soda pop is nothing but pure liquid calories – and often I see people walk around with a huge container filled with soda from some convenience store.  Did you know that a can of soda is about 100 calories for 8 ounces? There it is– a simple way to save ten pounds in a year.

I don’t think that even diet soda is a great thing for the health-conscious consumer- but it is a step to better health.

Still, be on the look out for liquid calories that add up quickly for your weight gain.

The 20 ounces bottle of Sunkist soda is 325 calories! That isn’t “natural goodness” in there– that is the same amount of calories as over a dozen chocolate chip cookies.

Snapple 20 ounces is 250 calories. Drink one of those a day above what you burn for calories and at the end of the year you will have gained 25 pounds!

And don’t forget that cup of latte you get – well, the Starbucks Frappuccino (13.7 ounce bottle) is 290 calories! A simple cup of coffee with a teaspoon of sugar and creamer is 25 calories (add ice in the summer to make a cold coffee drink).

So, when it comes to liquid calories- water is best, calorie free, and will quench your thirst. If you “must” drink soda– don’t drink the kind with sugar or high fructose corn syrup – instead, drink zero calorie soda.

Other healthy alternatives include Propel Fit Lemon, only 25 calories, or Desani Plus Pomegranate Blackberry, zero calories. Sobe Lean Mango Melon is 12.5 calories.  And for your water you can always purchase packages of Crystal Lite to place in the water– zero calories!

Remember, changing 100 calories a day is 10 pounds in a year. So think about those liquid calories – and try some new ones.

Did you know if you cut down 96 calories a day, over the course of a year you would weigh ten pounds less?  This is the start of how to lose those ten pounds this year, and keep it off.

Today we will talk about simple change – instead of drinking some juice, drink water.

Many people think that juices are a great thing- and they are – but if you are thirsty, think of water– zero calories — zero.  So if you change that one habit- have water where you would have had juice– in a year, you will have saved ten pounds.

Now that could be ten pounds you don’t gain, or you may lose ten pounds from where you are now.  Using the power of 96 — lose the weight– painlessly.  We look forward to sharing more simple lifestyle changes with you, like the Power of  96.