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Calories and Weight Control
The Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council recommends that the average woman between 23 and 50 eat about 2,200 calories a day to maintain weight. (Chart of Suggested Weights for Adults)
The best way for a woman to determine whether she's eating the right number of calories is to "keep stepping on the scale," says FDA's Stephenson.
She cautions, however, that cutting back on calories isn't always the answer to losing weight. "You don't really want to cut back any more [calories] if you're down around that [1,500 calories] range," says Stephenson. She explains that the fewer the calories you have to work with, the harder it is to meet all your daily requirements for a healthy diet.
"If you find you are gaining weight, you need to think of not only cutting calories, but also about increasing Exercise," she says. "Calories are only half the equation for weight control. Physical activity burns calories, increases the proportion of lean to fat body mass, and raises your Metabolism. So, a combination of both calorie control and increased physical activity is important for attaining healthy weight.
"On the other hand, if you've been pigging out--well, you know what you have to do."
Cholesterol
Women tend to have higher levels than men of a desirable type of cholesterol called HDLs (high-density lipoproteins) until Menopause, leading some researchers to believe there is a link between HDLs and estrogen levels. But this doesn't let women off the hook--a diet high in saturated fat and cholesterol can still mean trouble.
For both women and men, blood cholesterol levels of below 200 milligrams are desirable. Levels between 200 and 239 milligrams are considered borderline, and anything over 240 milligrams is high. High levels of blood cholesterol increase the risk of coronary heart disease.
To keep levels in the good range, the National Cholesterol Education Program of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute recommends eating no more than 300 milligrams of cholesterol a day. Cholesterol is found only in food from animal sources, such as egg yolks, dairy products, meat, poultry, shellfish, and--in smaller amounts--fish and some processed products containing animal foods.
Even more important than limiting cholesterol to under 300 milligrams is keeping saturated fat to under 10 percent of total calories, says Nancy Ernst, the nutrition coordinator for the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
"Don't even think about cholesterol in your diet," says Ernst. "Focus on reducing saturated fat."Fat
In the United States, out of every 100,000 women, approximately 27 die from breast Cancer each year. In Japan, breast cancer deaths are fewer than 7 per 100,000. Some scientists think that the difference in death rates may be related to the different amounts of fat in the average diet in each country--40 percent for American women versus 20 percent in Japan.
"We believe pretty strongly in the link [between high-fat diets and breast cancer]," says Jeffrey McKenna, director of NCI's Cancer Awareness Program.
Population studies have also linked high-fat diets to other cancers, particularly colorectal cancer.
Fat does, however, serve a purpose in the diet. Fats in foods provide energy and help the body absorb certain vitamins. But it is as easy as pie (and doughnuts, ice cream, and sirloin steaks) to eat too much.
For a healthy diet, the diet and health report of the National Research Council recommends reducing fat to no more than 30 percent of total calories. (Figure out your fat intake.) But that's not all. In terms of heart disease, the kinds of fat you eat are as important as how much.
There are three kinds of fat--saturated, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated. All three are equal when it comes to calories--9 per gram (compared to 4 calories per gram for protein or carbohydrate). But they aren't equal when it comes to how they affect your health.
More than anything else in the diet, saturated fat can raise your blood cholesterol level. Because of this risk, less than one-third of your daily fat intake (less than 10 percent of total calories) should come from saturated fats.
That's the bad news. The good news is polyunsaturated and monounsaturated may actually lower blood cholesterol levels. The diet and health report recommends that not more than 10 percent of total calories should be from polyunsaturated fat, and monounsaturated fat should make up the remaining 10 percent.
The foods with the highest amounts of saturated fat come from animals--meat, of course, and foods derived from animals, such as butter, cream, ice cream, and cheese. In addition to animal products, coconut and palm kernel oils are very high in saturated fat--over 90 percent.
The best sources for polyunsaturated fats are plant-based oils--sunflower, corn, soybean, cottonseed, and safflower. Monounsaturated fats are found in the largest amounts in olive, canola and peanut oils.
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