Diets: The Good, The Bad, And The Disgusting

It seems like everyone these days wants to lose weight! America is trying to move in a healthier direction in order to help prevent diseases. I think it's great that so many people want to lose weight, but are they really helping their long term heath? There are so many diets, The Atkins Diet, South Beach Diet, along with meal plans like NutriSystem and Jenny Craig. Let's not forget about diet pills, one of the more recent ones is Alli, but there are many dietary supplements that contain mysterious herbs. Well, a lot of these plans and pills are ok for a quick fix, but not for long term benefits. Think about it, if extreme diet plans and pills really worked, no one would be obese!

My theory is that our bodies need all the basic food groups. We need carbohydrates, proteins, fruits and vegetables, whole grains, dairy, and a little bit of fats and sweets every now and again. Any time you cut out a major food group, you are causing your body go out of wack. Problems such as low blood sugar can occur, that can not only make you feel terrible, but it could lead to death. Or your body may become accustomed not to having a certain food group that once you try to introduce it back into your system, it can make you terribly ill.

Nutrisystem and Jenny Craig are decent ideas for short term help. Those plans help you to realize how much you need to eat in order to survive every day. They are meant to help people who have problems with portion control. Of course they boast the benefits of using the glycemic index to help you lose weight while staying fuller longer. Commercials for these programs can be very misleading, they make it seem like you don't even have to exercise! If you read the fine print at the bottom of the screen it says "Results not typical." My question is, what are the results? Five pounds? Ten pounds? Fifteen pounds? You may not even lose weight on the program if you don't exercise, you might end up gaining weight!

Alli has been proclaimed a weight loss miracle drug, it helps to reduce the amount of fat your body retains. Alli works during the Lipase phase of digestion where fat is broken down into smaller amounts and then stored for energy. The pill helps to prevent this phase, allowing the fat to pass through your digestive tract without being stored. In order for this pill to work, you have to monitor the amount of fat your consume each day. We've all heard about the side effects, diarrhea, gas, bloating, and the occassional inability to control your bowels. Sounds appealing right? I think that's the reason why it works so well, it's the fear factor. If you have a hamburger and milkshake for lunch, you may accidently go potty in your pants before you know it! So if you know that could happen, that will deter you from eating that hamburger and milkshake for lunch. Plus having diarrhea makes anyone lose weight! I have also read once you stop taking the pill, you could end up gaining all the weight back. Do you really want to live in fear of having an accident for the rest of your life for the sake of losing weight? I know I don't.

Here's what I recommend, watch what you eat and exercise! It's not as hard as you think to practice portion control, here are some common examples you can use.

• Deck of cards- the size of one serving of meat, poultry, or fish.
• Baseball- the size of one of one serving of vegetables or fruit.
• Six dice- the size of one serving of cheese.
• CD- the size of one serving of pancakes or waffles.
• Computer mouse- the serving size of a baked potato.
• Rounded handful- a snack size for raw, cooked, dried fruits or vegetables or a full serving rice or pasta.
• Thumb tip- one teaspoon of peanut butter.

A woman typically needs 1200 calories per day and a man needs around 1800 calories per day. If you are able to cut 100 calories per day along with exercise 3-4 times a week with each session being about 45 minutes long, you will lose weight. It won't be drastic, you won't lose 10 pounds in one week. But you will lose weight the safe way and you will be more likely to keep it off. One pound of fat equals 3500 calories so it will take a while to lose fat. But keep in mind our bodies need some fat in order to keep going. And a lot of our body weight are bones, muscles, organs, blood, and water. Unless you want to amputate a leg you can't get rid of bone weight!

Exercise doesn't have to require a gym membership either. Walk around your block briskly or if you have the luxury of living near a park, tackle a trail or two. If you live in a two story house, try running up and down the stairs for five or ten minutes. You can always switch it up by working with light weights. You can exercise while watching tv, during the commercials do arm curls with a five pound weight, you don't even have to stand up to do this! When going to the grocery store or mall, park farther away from the entrance and you will be shedding calories just by going shopping. Sometimes it's the little things we change in our lives that make the biggest difference.

Remember, in order to have safe weight loss, portion control and exercise is the way to go!

Sincerely,
Advice Queen Jean