Health Benefits of Bananas

August 1, 2022 by admin Leave a comment

Bananas are one of the popular foods to eat worldwide. It’s not hard to understand why, as bananas are natural, tasty, nutritious, require no preparation, and provide a number of health benefits.

Benefits of Bananas

1. High in Nutritional Value

Due to the high amounts of nutrients found in chia seeds, chia seeds have been deemed a superfood, and when you really start to understand the nutritional value that they provide per ounce, it’s not hard to see how chia seeds were able to obtain their “superfood” status.

A Medium Size Banana/7″ to 7-7/8″ long/ 118 grams/ provides:
Carbs	27 grams (9 percent DV): Sugar 14 grams Fiber 3.1 grams (12 percent DV)
Protein	1.3 grams (2 percent DV)
Fat	0.4 grams (0 percent DV)
Vitamin B6	(20 percent DV)
Vitamin C	(17 percent DV)
Potassium	422 mg (12 percent DV)
Magnesium	(8 percent DV)
Calories	105

Bananas have many nutrients, but the nutrients it has in substantial quantities include vitamin B6, vitamin C, potassium, and magnesium. Many of the benefits that bananas provide are largely due to these nutrients.

2. Bananas Can Aid in Weight Loss

If incorporated into a diet correctly, bananas have the potential to aid in weight loss. Bananas are weight loss friendly because they can suppress appetite at relatively little calorie expense since one medium size banana contains only around 100 calories. Bananas’ ability to suppress appetite at little calorie expense has a lot to do with their water and fiber contents.

Water and fiber are great appetite suppressants; water has no calories and fiber has almost no calories.

Bananas can be a weight loss-friendly alternative to less healthy sweet foods.

3. Could Help with Heart Health

Bananas contain potassium and fiber which are both beneficial to the heart. Potassium can help with improve blood pressure.

Fiber can also help improve blood pressure.

Research has shown that the levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or “bad cholesterol” can be lowered by the consumption of fiber.

4. May Help Your Gut

Eating bananas can be beneficial to gut health. Bananas contain insulin and a type of dietary fiber which are beneficial to good bacteria in your gut.

5. Great Source of Energy

Bananas can be a great and weight-loss-friendly source of longer-lasting energy. Bananas’ ability to provide long-lasting energy has a lot to do with their fiber and sugar content.

Sugar is an easy source of energy for the body. Fiber slows down the ability to absorb sugar. Therefore, when you eat a banana, the banana’s fiber content will slow down the body’s ability to absorb the sugar content, which will lead to long lasting energy.

So, if you’re looking for a low-calorie source of long-lasting energy bananas can be a great option.

6. Can Great Food for Exercising

Bananas can be a great food for exercising because they are nonfattening source of long-lasting energy which can help you stay energized while exercising. Also, bananas have important electrolytes which can help you prevent cramping while exercising.

7. Bananas are a Great Source of Potassium

Bananas are great for the heart due to their potassium content. As mentioned earlier one medium size banana has 12% of daily recommended potassium

Although potassium is a great source of potassium there are also other foods that are a great source of potassium as well.

Preparation:

Bananas require no preparation before eating. All one has to do is peel a banana and eat it.

Should You Eat a Banana Before or After a Workout?

May 20, 2021 by admin Leave a comment

Bananas are the perfect food for working out. But often, the question comes up of whether it’s better to eat bananas before working out or after working out.

In actuality, there is no right or wrong answer to whether you should eat bananas before or after you work out because they both have their benefits.

In general, many of the benefits of eating a banana before a workout are related to improved workout performance. Many of the benefits of eating a banana after working out are related to post work out recovery.

So, whether you should eat bananas before or after a workout all comes down to how you want bananas to aid in your weight loss efforts.

Also, no rule says you can’t do both eat bananas before and after you work out.

However, like any food, you don’t want to overindulge in bananas. Because if you overeat any food, you will overload on the calories and nutrients that that food provides.

A good number to stop at would be 2 or 3 bananas a day.

Below are the benefits associated with eating bananas before and after a workout.

As you read you will see that some of the very things that make bananas beneficial to eat before a workout also make them beneficial to eat after a workout.

Benefits of Eating Bananas Pre-Workout:

1. Provide You Longer Lasting Energy

Bananas can be a great food to eat before a workout session because they can provide longer-lasting energy, which can help keep you energized through a workout session so that you get the most out of it.

The reason bananas can provide longer-lasting energy has a lot to do with their sugar and fiber content. Sugar provides energy. Fiber slows down the body’s ability to absorb sugar. So instead of getting a quick sugar rush of energy, the energy is delivered at a slower, more subtle pace when you eat a banana, and therefore the energy lasts longer.

2. Glycogen Store

The body stores energy in many ways. Glycogen store is when the body takes glucose from carbs, converts it to glycogen, and stores it for future use. It is primarily stored in the muscles and liver. It’s the body’s go-to energy source once exercises reach a certain level of intensity. Studies have shown that a high percentage of energy comes from glycogen stores once physical activity reaches a certain level of intensity and the body needs more oxygen.

Also, studies have shown that there is a direct correlation between glycogen and how long you can exercise at a certain intensity.

This means it’s always good to have your gas in the tank in terms of glycogen storage. Eating bananas helps ensure that you have stored energy.

3. Fill You Up

Bananas can fill you up at relatively little calorie expense. As a single banana can be very filling and contains only 105 calories.

That makes bananas a great option if you’re working out to lose weight and looking for food that can keep you full while you work out that is also low in calories.

Banana’s ability to fill you up at relatively little calorie expense has a lot to do with its water and fiber content. As water and fiber can be very filling to consume, and water has no calories, and fiber has almost no calories. Bananas are made up of 83 percent water, and a single banana medium-sized bananas (7 to 77/8 inches) contains 3 grams of fiber.

Contents in bananas that do have calories are found in minimal amounts; therefore, as a whole, bananas are a low-calorie weight loss-friendly food.

4. May Help Prevent Cramping

Cramping is often caused when muscles aren’t contracting properly. Potassium is the mineral used to help send electrical signals that help muscles contract. When you exercise, potassium is lost as it is sweated out. That is why getting plenty of potassium in advance of working out can help prevent cramping.

Helping to prevent or mitigate cramping in the first place will ultimately speed up the post-workout recovery on the back end.

Summary of Benefits of Eating Bananas Pre-Workout

Eating bananas before working out can help you from going hungry when working out, help keep your energy levels up throughout the workout, and help prevent cramping while working out. All these benefits can help with your exercise performance.

Benefit of Eating Bananas Post-Workout:

1. Relatively Low Calories / Can Help With Post Exercise Hunger

Bananas can take care of post-exercise hunger, and at about 100 calories single banana is relatively low in calories.

Therefore, if you are working out to lose weight, eating a banana after your workout will help take care of your post-exercise hunger without adding back on a lot of calories that you have worked so hard to lose.

Bananas’ ability to be filling and yet low in calories has a lot to do with their water and fiber content. Many studies have shown fiber to be weight loss friendly (1)(2)(3), and many studies have shown water (4)(5)(6) consumption to be weight loss friendly.

2. Can Help With Post Exercise Fatigue

After a hard workout, you may feel exhaustion and fatigue, and you may feel like your energy is totally zapped. Being that bananas are a great source of energy they are a great food to help with post-exercise fatigue.

As mentioned earlier, bananas are low in calories, so when they help with fatigue, they do so at little calorie expense.

3. Can Help Replenish Electrolytes Helping To Reduce Post Work Out Cramping

As mentioned earlier, bananas can help reduce cramping during a workout. However, cramping is not something that you have to worry about during a workout. It can also be a problem post-workout as well.

As mentioned before, the body uses electrolytes to generate electrical impulses (ib) for doing things like contracting muscles. Working out can deplete a lot of your electrolytes which can cause post-workout cramping.

Bananas can help replenish the body with two important electrolytes, which are potassium and magnesium.

4. Good For Protein Shakes

A protein shake can be perfect food to consume after a workout.

Made correctly, a protein shake can fill the body up by taking care of hunger and replenishing the body with some much-needed nutrients while being enjoyable to drink.

Bananas can make a great addition to a protein shake. Adding banana to a protein will give the protein drink a fruitier, sweeter, and more colorful taste.

Bananas don’t just complement protein shakes from a taste standpoint; they also complement protein drinks from a nutritional standpoint.

The two important things the body needs after a workout are protein and carbs. Protein helps with tissue repair, and carbs can help with replenishing glycogen stores as already mentioned, once exercises reach a certain level, a lot of energy comes from glycogen. However, the body doesn’t store glycogen in large amounts in glycogen store.

Protein drinks are a great source of protein, and bananas are a great source of carbs, so when you blend them, you give the body some of the nutrients it needs to most: protein and carbs.

Summary of Benefits of Eating Bananas Post-Workout

Bananas are great post-workout because they serve as a low-calorie, filling, and healthy food that will help the body recover, rejuvenate, and replenish after a workout.

To learn ways to make exercising fun click here:

Are Bananas Good or Bad For Weight Loss?

May 17, 2020 by admin

There are mixed opinions regarding the question, “are bananas good or bad for weight loss?”

One reason for the mixed opinions about bananas’ ability to promote weight loss is that there aren’t a lot of studies on the subject matter.

That has left room for people to come up with their own opinions on whether or not bananas are good for weight loss, and sometimes these opinions contrast.

Another cause of dispute about bananas’ ability to be good for weight loss is their sugar content. There is a belief that because of bananas’ sugar content, bananas can’t be good for weight loss.

Breaking Through the Confusion

Now it is true that bananas have sugar content, but so does every other fruit, and it seems that nature knows what amount of sugar to put into its foods because natural foods such as fruits have sugar, for the most part, in moderate amounts.

When health experts speak about how sugary foods are unhealthy and can cause obesity, they are not referring to natural foods, which for the most part, are weight loss friendly and healthy.

They are referring to manufactured foods with a lot of added sugar to enhance taste.

As far as bananas go, with their sugar content and all of their other contents combined, the average medium-size banana has about 105 calories, which is a rather conservative number of calories when you think about how filling and what a great source of energy a banana can be.

Therefore, it can be said that bananas have the potential to help with weight loss because they can fill you up and provide you energy at a relatively little calorie intake.

Now just because bananas have the potential to help with weight loss does not mean that eating bananas will guarantee weight loss because weight loss is based on your overall diet being one where you’re taking in fewer calories than you’re burning.

So only if bananas are helping you to moderate your caloric intake so that your overall diet is one where you’re taking in fewer calories than you’re burning can it be said that bananas are helping you lose weight.

What Allows Bananas Filling But Yet Low In Calories?

Above, it was stated that bananas have the potential to help with weight loss because bananas are filling and, at the same time, are low in calories.

There are three traits of bananas that allow them to be filling and yet low in calories:

1. High Water Content

Water can be very filling to consume, and as you probably already know, water has no calories. Bananas are made up of 74 percent water.

2. Fiber Content

Fiber can also be very filling to consume, and fiber has virtually no calories. The average medium-sized banana contains about 3 grams of fiber.

3. Content That Has Calories Are Found In Either Moderate or Minuscule Amounts

Not all the contents of bananas have no or virtually no calories, like bananas’ water and fiber content. Bananas also contain starch which can have up to 2 to 4 calories per gram, protein which has 4 calories per gram, sugar which has 4 calories per gram, and fat which has 9 calories per gram. However, each of these four contents is found in either minuscule or moderate amounts in bananas. Therefore overall, bananas are a low-calorie food.

Provides Energy at Relatively Little Calorie Expense

Bananas aren’t just great for weight loss because they can fill you up at little calorie expense. They can also be great for weight loss because even though they are low in calories, they can provide longer-lasting energy.

This ability that bananas have to provide energy at minimal calorie expense is very important because when you’re on a weight loss diet, you don’t want to lose weight at the cost of being tired all the time. You still want to have plenty of energy.

How Are Bananas Able to Provide Longer-Lasting Energy and Yet Be Low in Calories?

Calories are simply units of energy.

When the body takes in or consumes too many calories, the excess energy will be stored as fat that the body will burn in the future when it needs energy.

Body fat, simply put, is stored energy due to excess calorie or energy consumption.

As mentioned earlier, the average medium-size banana (7-7/8inches) has about 105 calories.

105 calories are enough energy to energize the body, but not enough to where there should be energy left over that could be converted into fat.

Long-Lasting Energy

The great thing about much of the energy that bananas provide is that it’s longer-lasting energy, and this has to do with bananas’ sugar and fiber content.

A lot of the energy/calories that bananas provide comes from their sugar content.

Of the 105 calories of energy that a banana offers, about 53 percent comes from its sugar content.

Sugar is a simple carb meaning it’s easy for the body to break it down.

Fiber is a complex carb that is hard for the body to break down, which is why fiber travels through the body largely intact. This is also why fiber has virtually no calories because it is hard for the body to break down fiber and extract energy from it.

Not only is fiber hard for the body to break down, but when sugar and fiber are eaten together, the fiber will slow down your body’s ability to break down and extract energy from the sugar content.

That is the secret to why bananas can provide long-lasting energy. Again, the banana’s fiber content slows down the breaking down of the banana’s sugar content, so the energy that comes from the sugar content lasts longer.

Bananas also have resistant starch, which is similar to fiber in that it’s a complex carb. The greener the banana, the more resistant starch it has, but as bananas start to ripen, their resistant starch content becomes less and less.

Recap:

Bananas have 105 calories which are not enough to be fattening. But enough energy to give the body an energy buzz.

Much of the energy that bananas provide last longer due to the fact that much of the energy that bananas provide comes from their sugar content, and bananas’ fiber content slows down the body’s ability to break down the sugar content, so the energy from sugar last longer.

That is how bananas can be lower calorie & weight loss friendly but at the same time provide long-lasting energy, making them a great source of energy for people on weight loss diets.

Not a Sure Thing

Even though bananas are weight loss friendly, it is not certain that if you eat bananas, you will experience weight loss.

Weight loss all comes down to a person consistently consuming fewer calories than they’re burning. Being that bananas are filling and low in calories, they have the potential to aid in keeping your hunger at bay and keeping your calorie intake down so that your diet is one where you’re taking in fewer calories than you’re burning.

However, there is no such thing as a food that will guarantee weight loss, bananas included.

How effective bananas are at aiding in weight loss depends on how strategically you’re using bananas for weight loss and how they impact the overall calorie intake of your diet.

If you’re using bananas as a low-calorie filling food to help fill yourself up at little calorie expense and bananas are, in fact, helping to moderate your calorie intake so that your diet is one where you’re taking in fewer calories than you’re burning, than it can be said that bananas are having a positive effect in helping you achieve weight loss.

However, if you have a diet where you’re consuming more calories than you’re burning, and instead of using bananas to help moderate your caloric intake, you’re just eating bananas on top of everything else you’ve been eating, bananas will not help with weight loss.

Also, for bananas to be effective at aiding in weight loss, it’s important not to overindulge in bananas because even though a medium banana is only about 105 calories, the sheer number of bananas can add up if you eat a lot of bananas.

Weight Loss Friendly & Nutritious

Bananas are not just weight loss-friendly; they are also a great source of some vital nutrients. Bananas being nutritious is important because, on a weight loss diet, you want to be losing weight while at the same time getting proper nutrition. Below is a list of nutrients and their quantities found in one medium size banana.

One Medium Size (7-7/8inches) Banana Contains:

•20 percent of the daily recommended intake Vitamin B6 – Vitamin B6 is beneficial to the nervous system.

•17 percent of the daily recommended intake Vitamin C – The benefits associated with vitamin c include great for skin (helps boost and maintain collagen in the skin), strong antioxidant (helps fight against diseases such as heart disease and cancer).

•12 percent of the daily recommended intake Potassium (422mg) –Getting proper amounts of potassium is beneficial to heart health.

•12 percent of the daily recommended intake Fiber (3.1g) – The benefits associated with vitamin fiber include: great for heart health (fiber intake has been shown to improve heart health), great for weight loss (can help with weight loss)

•8 percent of the daily recommended intake Magnesium – Magnesium is great for the bones.

Studies

Although there are not a lot of studies that measure bananas’ (as a whole) ability to create weight loss, there are studies that show a link between various contents found in bananas and weight loss.

• Fiber: Fiber, which is found in bananas, has been shown to an inverse relationship with body weight (1)(2)(3).

• Water: Water, which bananas have a high concentration of also have been shown to contribute to weight loss. Now keep in mind many of these studies are based on participants drinking water and not getting the water from food sources like bananas, but these studies do show a connection between water consumption and weight loss (4)(5)(6).

Great Food For Exercise

Another way bananas can aid in weight loss is by being a great food for exercise as exercising can aid in weight loss.

The fact that bananas can be filling and provide long-lasting energy at little calorie expense is one of the main reasons bananas are a great exercise food.

Therefore, if you are working out to lose weight and or other health reasons, bananas can be a great food to eat.

To learn more about how bananas can help with exercise, click here:

Here is a list of other foods that can possibly help with weight loss:
•Spinach
•Oatmeal

Also, get health benefits of these various foods:
•Chia Seeds