Experience with dieting

March 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

In 1978 from like Aug to Nov. I went on a diet for the 1st real time in my life. I ate NOTHING but Weight Watchers frozen dinners & drank diet soda waters. When at school for lunch I would eat of one those ol soy hamburgers just to get me thru the day. I would also run one lap around the track out back each day before gym class began & I had incredible success from this diet. But then you know Thanksgiving hit & I went off it. Then in 85 I was mired deeply with credit card debt. So for about 2 months all I could really afford to eat was red beans & rice. Couldn’t afford beer even. Went from 215 to 180.

 

Eventually I recovered financially & starting eating better & put it back on. Wouldn’t really recommend the Debt Diet tho. Nowadays I try to watch what I eat by avoiding fatty foods even tho I still love em. I weigh 265 which is down from 285. I had been in the 280′s for a few years. I still eat bread. In fact a lot of it but I ONLY eat 100% whole wheat bread. None of that white for me. Same for rice. About the only white colored food I eat is oatmeal which I love. I get plenty of exercise at work as it is a physical job. In the end now matter what diet you use you still have to do some sort of exercise.

 

Atkins is a bit difficult at first because of the drastic carb reduction. For the first 5 days I was miserable,I had a constant headache that Tylenol couldn’t touch,I couldn’t think straight,I was dizzy,I was shaky and I felt weak….some diet! Then on day 6 all of those things magically disappeared.It was as if a veil had been lifted from my brain. Suddenly I felt great and I had tremendous energy. Getting through that first week transition period is the hardest part,physically. After that the weight will begin to drop off in copious amounts.Throw in a little bit of moderate exercise and you will be amazed at how quickly your weight goes down. Then the mental battle begins.

 

You may have read that Atkins doesn’t require willpower? ,wrong,it does. Do you *really* want those cookies?…will you actually die if you don’t have some french fries right now?,willpower becomes paramount. After a few months you may not even desire carb laden foods,I don’t…..well,most of the time I don’t. Now and then I just chuck the low carb idea for a day and eat whatever I want; but then the next day I get right back on the wagon. I started Atkins back on May 1st of this year,I weighed 285 # at that time. So far I’ve lost and managed to keep off 60#,but I still have another 40# to go.

 

 

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Tolerating certain types of food

March 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Often, some people have a hard time handling certain foods (e.g. wheat, spices, dairy) which the majority of the human race has no problem with. They ofen attribute this to “allergies,” “food sensitivities,” etc.- or simply decide that these are bad foods that no one should ever eat. In my opinion, such people simply have weak digestion because of overall poor health, usually from neurotic anxiety. Foods that require more energy to digest (but would otherwise give many benefits) ferment or putrefy in their systems, and make them feel worse. And the lighter they make their diets, the weaker their digestion gets, because it isn’t being “exercised” properly.

 

It’s a vicious circle. The body tells you what it needs, if you listen. However, if your mind is convinced of a certain set of “rules,” it will ignore any prompts from the body that ask for something outside these rules- and health will erode. As far as white sugar is concerned, it is true that much of the literature out there (i.e. “Sugar Blues, which started the whole anti-sugar movement in 1976) are based on flawed studies or no studies at all. I suspect that most people who experience “bad reactions” to fast-absorbing sugars are really suffering from dehydration. The metabolism of sugar requires a lot of water.

 

The sensation of thirst often doesn’t occur until a person has been dehydrated for some time. Caffeinated drinks are diuretic & juices and soda bring in more sugar, so drinking these things can actually exacerbate the problem. Plain old water will take care of the “crash” in many cases. Complex carbs (i.e. starches) have the same effect, but since they metabolize more slowly, the demand for water doesn’t rise as dramatically. And it is true that common “brown” sugar is just white sugar with a little molasses added in. Turbinado, or “raw” sugar, has not had the molasses refined out of it yet. It retains a substantial amount of minerals that would otherwise be refined out. I like the taste better.

 

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Diets for resisting diseases

March 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I have no problem with that. It was an oversight, I meant sucrose and glucose, but I was trying to write simply. If you read the whole post, you would notice that I said to limit ALL sugars, including “natural simple sugars (fruit, dried fruit) and to mix them with other things.” I even pointed out that “carbohydrates turn to sugar in your mouth.”.. so I am defining sugar very broadly. So it was clear, (I thought) that I wasn’t picking on white sugar. I consider brown sugar, glucose, barley malt, honey, fruit and simple carbohydrates to be “sugars.”

 

But the more refined it is the faster it will break down, and if you are sensitive to it, you will feel the difference. I have had sugar reactions to “manna bread” at the health food store, because it breaks down easily. I quote myself: “Keep your glucose levels stable by eating protein, … complex carbohydrates … natural simple sugars (fruit, dried fruit) in small quantities mixed with other things (fruit jelly on muffins).”….”Simple carbohydrates like white bread will turn into sugar fast in your mouth. So don’t eat alot of it.” I figured the reader could insert all the other sugars that fall between the two extremes of white sugar and simple carbohydrates.

 

I am 22 and everyone says my brother and I are exact twins. He is 10 and suffers from ADD, he was diagnosed 3 yrs ago. They( mom, aunts, uncle, and family friend) says that I acted worse than he did when I was seven. My question is: I don’t have any insurance and even less money to spend on a proper diagnosis. How do I take care of my ADD to get better grades in college and do better on the job? No matter how hard we tried, there were always a few people who would come back to the kitchen to tell us that some of the ingredients were “unhealthy.”

 

These complaints were based on whatever diet that they had sworn allegiance to, i.e. macrobiotic, Pritikin, etc. When I was new to the place, I heard of so many different dietary systems that I was greatly concerned with learning them all and picking the one that was “right”- a futile quest. Over time, I noticed one thing above all else- the more fanatical a person was about their diet, the less healthy they were.

 

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Critique of Ketogenic Diets

March 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Can a person eat unlimited calories, and still lose weight, as long as they severely restrict carbohydrates? No, they cannot. The basis of ketogenic diets, such as the Atkins Diet, is a severe restriction of carbohydrate calories, which simply causes a net reduction in total calories. Since carbohydrate calories are limited, intake of fat usually increases. This high fat diet causes ketosis (increased blood ketones from fat breakdown) which suppresses hunger, and thus contributes to caloric restriction. Low carbohydrate diets are also characterized by initial rapid weight loss, primarily due to excessive water loss. A decreased carbohydrate intake causes liver and muscle glycogen depletion, which causes a large loss of water, since about three parts of water are stored with one part of glycogen.

 

Also, restricting carbohydrate intake reduces the kidney’s ability to concentrate urine, leading to an increased excretion of sodium. All these factors combine to cause a powerful but temporary diuresis. Dieters cherish this rapid initial weight loss and assume it represents fat loss. Actually, their body fat stores are virtually untouched. And, as the body adjusts for the water deficit, the weight loss slows or ceases. The dieter often becomes frustrated and abandons the diet. Individuals who do stick with it may lose weight due to the caloric restriction mentioned above.

 

A ketogenic diet may or may not have side effects, depending on the individual person. It is certainly riskier for overweight individuals with medical problems such as heart disease, hypertension, kidney disease, and diabetes than it is for overweight people with no health problems. Complications associated with low carbohydrate, high protein diets include ketosis, dehydration, electrolyte loss, calcium depletion, weakness (due to inadequate dietary carbohydrate), nausea (due to ketosis), and possibly kidney problems. Vitamin and mineral deficiencies are other problems in such unbalanced crash diet regimens. Even Dr. Atkins, the author of both old and new versions of Diet Revolution, admits that his diet doesn’t supply enough vitamin and minerals and recommends that people take supplements.

 

Gout is another potential side effect, since the uric acid in the blood increases as the uric acid competes with ketones for excretion. This higher blood uric acid level can also increase the risk of kidney failure. Dr. Atkins does warn that people with kidney problems shouldn’t follow his diet, but he doesn’t mention that the diet might produce these disorders. In the book The Ketogenic Diet, the author Lyle McDonald notes that the production of ketones from alcohol tends to result in less fat loss, since less free fatty acids are converted to ketones. He also indicates that there is no reason that small amounts of alcohol cannot be consumed during a ketogenic diet, although alcohol consumption slows fat loss.

 

He cautions that alcohol may have a greater effect (in terms of intoxication) when someone is in ketosis. Lastly, the risk of coronary heart disease may be higher in susceptible persons who stay on the diet a long time, due to increased consumption of foods high in saturated fat and cholesterol. In conclusion, ketogenic diets such as Atkins’ program are no more successful than those weight loss programs recommended by the scientific/medical community. They are more dangerous than other fad weight regimens due to its high fat content. Persons who choose to follow ketogenic diets should check with their physician periodically as the diet can cause electrolyte depletion and increased blood lipids. They should have periodic blood tests to measure total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, and triglycerides.

 

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Research on diet plans

March 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Led by Tufts University researchers and funded by the Tufts-New England Medical Center with federal support, the study randomly assigned 160 overweight and obese men and women to follow one of the four diets for a year. Participants ranged in age from 22 to 72. All had tried to lose weight before and all had at least one major risk factor for heart disease — high blood pressure, elevated blood cholesterol, abnormal blood sugar level or full-blown diabetes. Their average body mass index was 35, equal to about 216 pounds for someone 5 feet 6 inches tall. Individual participants ranged from overweight to severely obese. The Atkins, Ornish and Zone groups each received a book describing their program.

 

Since no book describing the Weight Watchers program exists, this group received a cookbook published by Weight Watchers International. All groups received instruction in their programs and four counseling sessions during the first two months. They were assessed for their ability to follow the regimens and then left to their own devices for the next 10 months. Researchers measured body weight, took blood and urine samples and collected food intake records through the year.

 

About half of those in both the Atkins group (very low carbohydrate, high fat) and the Ornish group (very low fat, high carbohydrate vegetarian) dropped out before the study was completed. About a third dropped out of the Weight Watchers group (low fat, moderate calorie, similar to the diet advocated by the U.S. Dietary Guidelines) and the Zone (which relies on a system to track how much food raises blood sugar levels). “The more extreme diets like Atkins and Ornish were tougher to follow than the Zone and Weight Watchers,” said Michael Dansinger, director of obesity research at the Tufts atherosclerosis research lab and the lead author of the study.

 

All four groups showed about 3 percent weight loss overall over the year — equivalent to a 200-pound person trimming about six pounds. But among those who stuck with their diets for the entire year, results were slightly better, ranging from a 4 percent loss for Atkins to 6 percent for the Ornish group. Both the Weight Watchers and the Zone dieters lost about 5 percent. Although this modest weight loss may not be what dieters are looking for, it brought significant health benefits. Risk of heart disease dropped 7 percent in the Ornish group, 11 percent in the Zone group, 12 percent on Atkins and 15 percent for Weight Watchers. None of the groups experienced adverse effects.

 

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Short term success in dieting

March 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Fat is a Feminist Issue support groups, self-hypnosis, and at least a few diet-of-the-month plans out of some magazine or another. I once lost 84 pounds in 5-1/2 months by consuming nothing (and I do mean NOTHING) the whole time but predigested liquid protein, diet sodas, black coffee, and vitamin and mineral supplements. Over the years I also succeeded in wasting large amounts of money, time, and energy, trashing my self-esteem, and in the case of the liquid protein diet, losing over half my hair (it fell out in big handfuls) and possibly doing permanent damage to my liver and my heart. Long-term success?

 

If you mean, did I keep the weight off for any length of time…no. Even the diets where I lost a significant amount of weight (30 pounds or more), I usually gained it back within two or three years, and almost always with an extra 20 pounds more than when I started that diet. I figure that I’ve dieted myself up to a good 75-100 pounds heavier than I would have been naturally if I hadn’t messed with my metabolism. My weight only stabilized when I finally quit dieting. That seems to be a common pattern–the vast majority of medical research shows that diets don’t work for somewhere around 95% of the people who use them trying to lose weight.

 

Exercise seems to work a bit better for some people, but it won’t do miracles–it’s more likely to leave you healthier but still fat than it is to make you thin. If your genetics and your metabolism want you to be thicker in certain places than you’d like to be, you’re going to find it well-nigh impossible to change that permanently. The good news is, you don’t really need to change it to be healthy, or happy, or well-dressed, or sexy, or successful, or whatever it is you think being thinner will do for you. Life is too short for celery sticks and self-hatred. A waist is a terrible thing to mind.

 

The one diet plan that works for me is Weight Watchers. It is fairly easy to do and maintain after you reach your goal. Also walking works great for me because I enjoy it. I also got a couple of Windsor Pilates tapes….it is a great concept that works for me and I don’t hate it like aerobics .also it depends on what your regular diet has been. I’m not a big sweet food eater but I love carbs. Cutting down on carbs and eating only whole wheat breads etc. has helped me alot. Also eating much more fresh fruit and yogurt for snacks. And don’t forget WATER!!! Lots of it.

 

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What is the future of dieting

March 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Take a woman of 30 years old who stands 5’6″ who is in normal health, weighs 181 pounds, and moderately active. Here calories out are in the area of 2150. If she takes in less calories then she puts out she would drop weight. The recommendation from some sources for calorie reduction in this case would be about 1850 calories. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but it is suppose to insure you are still getting what you require. Interesting note is that a couple of experiments on both rodents and monkeys seem to indicate a possible increase in longevity by as little as a decrease of 10% calories compared to a control group.

 

The critters look a little thinner, however don’t seem to be emaciated and appear to function as well as their counterparts, with the exception that the ones on a diet seem to be outliving them (based on more deaths in the control group, the monkey’s haven’t been alive long enough to see if their average age will exceed the average monkey age) One of the stated side effects using a vlcd is that it may drop your calories out for your normal processes. “I exercised and still can’t lose any pounds”, but then over a day I may actually be putting out less when counting all sources of calories out triggered by the bodies response to a vlcd.

 

Calories out via excretion, transfer of heat from the body to the air, and so on, could in fact drop enough to compensate for any type of gain one is trying to get with an exercise program. Amazingly, this is actually the case. I’m a compulsive muncher, a habit which has caused quite a bit of weight gain in the past 10 years. Last fall, I hit 192 (i’m 5’11), and found out my blood cholesterol was 312. I decided it was maybe time to do something about that. So, instead of scarfing down junk food all day, I began eating baby carrots, straight outta the bag. I’d also have a thing or two of instant oatmeal on a daily basis.

 

In three months, through the miracle of carrots and oatmeal, I dropped 17 pounds, without a lick of exercise. Of course, I got out of that routine, and have since gained back about 7 pounds. But still… I did learn one interesting thing during that time, and that’s the mechanism whereby oatmeal lowers your cholesterol. It’s not some bizarre chemical thing it does to your blood, but the fact that it’s so effing filling that once you eat some, you haven’t room for anything else.

 

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Heart ailments and high protein diets

March 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Even when the THC is administered other safer ways, its not as effective as people might wish; Do a MedLine search, you will probably find several journal articles on the efficacy of such treatment compared to other appetite stimulating drugs- THC wasn’t even the most effective of the possibilities available, and it can supress other healing factors in the attempt to provoke munchies. You might make it easy on yourself and see if they have a low carb, artificially sweetened shake mix on hand, preferably one with a bunch of vitamins added. Keep in mind that it *must* be artificially sweetened or stevia sweetened, sugar will just go straight to the cancer cells to feed them.

 

If you could get, say, Carbolite shake mix or Atkins shake mix, you could combine it in a blender with the MCT oil and some half and half; should work pretty good. My dad drinks the chocolate flavor Atkins shakes for breakfast every day (His daughter sent him a canister for Father’s Day after learning that he was eating powdered sugar donuts for breakfast every day, and complaining about how lousy he felt); he likes them a lot and feels considerably better. First of all, they insist on calling low carb “high protein”, when most low carb diet books recommend a protein intake in the neighborhood of 65-85 grams a day for your average dieter, hardly an excessive amount.

 

They make the accusation that there’s “no research” to back up low carb, which is not only untrue, but *wildly* ironic coming on the heels of Gary Taubes’ article “The Soft Science of Dietary Fat” published in Science not too long ago, detailing the utter *lack of research* behind the whole low fat mania. They apparently are blissfully unaware that low fat/high carb diets are *notorious* for provoking high triglycerides and low HDL. They’re laboring under the misapprehension that low carbers don’t eat vegetables, when most of us end up eating *more* vegetables, because that’s what is available to us in the way of side dishes.

 

They’re convinced we’re eating a low fiber diet, when most low carbers actually skew their diet in favor of *more* fiber — who else is eating bran crackers and oat bran tortillas? The fact that a low carb diet encourages the consumption of nuts, seeds, olives, olive oil, avocados, and other sources of healthy fats, while a low fat diet discourages this, is of course not mentioned.

 

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Information on juice diets

March 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I was just wondering if anyone has ever tried any of those juice diets…where you just drink JUICE.  I’m curious whether they work and are easy to stick to for about a week or two. I’m going to the beach in about two weeks and I kinda wanted to shed a couple lbs. Just to get an idea I’m about 5’5 and roughly 125 lbs. Also, does anyone know what juices would be the best? Thanks ahead of time! but ur only supposed to do it for 2 days at a time. and then eat healthy for a few days, then go back to the juice diet. thatch what i heard anyway.

 

but it is healthy and doctors approve of it, as long as its for a short time period, and you cant just drink water. its like an all liquid diet and you need to have juices and water and like chicken broth and stuff… to make sure you get all nutrients and stuff… anyway i think it sounds cool but i haven’t tried it yet cant see how that can work at all because juice has a lot of calories in it. it doesn’t make much sense. it would probably be a total crash diet, and the minute you started eating again you would just quickly gain the weight back if the juice diet ended up working.

 

All that we had was so unbelievable Now that it’s gone it’s inconceivable Still in my dreams, you were so damn beautiful How could it be that you ruined my Everything, everything, everything i know in my heart that my life ends and starts with you and baby i know that this feeling i’m feeling just won’t let me go cuz you’re the first true love I’ve ever known. A glass of juice usually has the same amount of calories as a glass of any soft drink. Calories do equal energy, but unless you’re burning them off, they can be stored in the form of fat, I believe. So sitting on your ass and drinking juice really does nothing for you.

 

I roast red and green peppers, put them in a polythene bag so they sweat the skins off, peel off the skins, and cut them into strips. I marinate the chicken in a mix of lemon juice, thyme, salt, onion powder, oregano, pepper, garlic, chopped chillies (either jalopenos, fresno or anaheim ones) , basil and rosemary. Then i throw it all in a wok and stir fry on high. Once the chicken is cooked well, i add a chopped onion and the peppers, and fry for a couple more minutes and then server it up with wheat tortillas.

 

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What’s with these low carb diets?

March 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I couldn’t get anything to come up, but I’ve read plenty of bad info on low carb diets. What exactly are they saying this time? If the author hasn’t really read any of the books, then he will not be truly informed on how the LC diet works. Basically, if your old meal consisted of a meat, a green veggie and a starch, you just replace the starch with more green veggie. That’s the basic idea. How could more veggies be bad for you? On this diet, I eat more veggies and a wider variety of them than ever before. I’ve recently had a physical to check my progress. In three months, I’ve lost 25lbs, my blood pressure has come down and my cholesterol has come down. How can that be bad?

 

The one thing that I always ask people when they “nay say” the LC diet:which is worse for the body, not eating starches or being 100lbs overweight? Plus, keep in mind that the celiac can NOT do a low fat diet. Gluten free replacements for pasta, bread, etc all have much more fat and calories(and carbs)than their wheat counterparts. A celiac on a low fat diet would be stuck eating rice or potatoes every day for her starches and that’s not a lot of variety. Well we don’t subscribe at the moment, and because the site only came up with a bit but then asked you to subscribe, I haven’t read the whole thing.

 

On the TV item they talked about the Atkins, the Zone, and the blood group one and others. On low carb in general they said that when you have low carb you can reduce the your metabolic rate which then means that you are not getting enough exercise. They also mentioned a specific condition (can’t remember the name) that you can get if you are not getting enough carbs. It apparently has some nasty effects but the only one I can really remember is bad breath, which was funny but least significant.

 

Specifically on the Atkins they said that it contained far too much saturated fat. The Zone they said was too difficult to be practical. The blood group one they considered to pure nonsense with people missing out on large food groups for no good reason. They had all the books there and were quoting from them and the consumer magazine in NZ has a very respected reputation. So I figure that they read the books from cover to cover. If that site still won’t work a search under consumer magazine nz should find it.

 

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