6 replies to this topic

[calmcookie]

Many people attempt to follow someone elses "diet" rules but this NEVER works. Only UNDERSTANDING a few basic food principles, (I believe there are 3) then choosing your own way, will work. For as Ralph Waldo Emerson said - "As to methods, there may be a million and then some (diets), but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles is sure to have trouble. Long life to all, C.C.

Edited by calmcookie, 24 July 2007 - 12:08 PM.

[maineman]

Here's a diet that does work. But don't tell anybody.... its a secret: Learn about the calorie content of foods. Find out what your BMI should be (roughly) If the BMI charts says you should be "around" 160 pounds, multiply by 10, and that's the average calories you should consume daily, assuming you arent' working out for hours a day. Eat 3 healthy meals a day, divided among fruits, vegetables, grains, beans and if you want, meat, fish chicken. Try to keep "junk" to a minimum, but come on, relax a bit. Pig out once in awhile, Have a cookie... eat some whipped cream. Live a little. Try to get some vigorous exercise daily, around 200 to 400 calories a day of exercise. Or At least 3 times a week. That's all you gotta know. Period. Ain't no more.... mm

[PorkLoin]

"South Beach" works very well for me, and I think the lower refined carbohydrate intention is well-founded, especially in light of our "fast food" and "easy food" and "comfort food" culture. Doug

[lscharpen]

Here's a diet that does work. But don't tell anybody.... its a secret:

Learn about the calorie content of foods.
Find out what your BMI should be (roughly)
If the BMI charts says you should be "around" 160 pounds, multiply by 10, and that's the average calories you should consume daily, assuming you arent' working out for hours a day.

Eat 3 healthy meals a day, divided among fruits, vegetables, grains, beans and if you want, meat, fish chicken.

Try to keep "junk" to a minimum, but come on, relax a bit. Pig out once in awhile, Have a cookie... eat some whipped cream. Live a little.

Try to get some vigorous exercise daily, around 200 to 400 calories a day of exercise. Or At least 3 times a week.

That's all you gotta know. Period. Ain't no more....

Hi Doc,

From my experience that's a superb diagnosis of the issue. Thanks in part to a hyperactive thyroid I had no weight problem for the first 50+ years of my life. Then I saw a Dr. who said that's enough of that .... and got serious with radioactive iodine. Anyway, without the aid of a hard working thyroid my weight gradually went up about 80 or so lbs. to 275. On top of that I got diagnosed as being on the edge of type 2 diabetes. So for the first time I was faced with a 'weight problem'. I was fortunate to start from the 'calories count' side of the equation. Being a scientist by training, I decided that measuring something was my best first step. So I started counting calories .... which turns out to be relatively easy in this day of Google and personal computers. And I stumbled across the concept of BMI .... which said I was waaaayyyy over on the bad side of 'normal'. Anyway, once I started counting calories I was SHOCKED at the fact that I was consuming immense numbers of 'them' (calories that is) on a daily basis. It was fairly straightforward to find the worst offenders and cut them off at the pass. I lost about 15 lbs. in the first few weeks but decided that I should moderate the rate at which I lost weight. So I put some calories back on the menu and cut back the weight loss to about 7 lbs/month. I'm now down 75 lbs from my peak weight, I'm monitoring not only my calories but also the type of calories I'm consuming. I examined the data I accumulated during the 1.5 years I've been counting calories and found that I can get a really good fit of the data (measured weight, calories consumed) to a single parameter model. The parameter was the number of calories needed daily to keep 1 lb of my body weight stable. For me the parameter is 10.3 calories/lb/day. With this parameter I can fit the plot of my body weight with time to within about +/- 2 lbs. I follow your advice and lighten up when the mood hits me and have some popcorn (with butter!) at a movie .... or an occasional hot fudge sundae. But I'm real careful to be honest with the data collection process and not leave out these frivolous calories from the count.

Anyway, I must say that I'm probably eating better now (in terms of the type of foods I eat) than ever, I feel better than I had in years, I feel in control of what I weigh. All in all I'm a firm believer that Calories Do Count. Just remember too that calories come in all shapes .... and it's best to choose the ones that work best for a healthy life. I WAS suprised during this process to find out how MANY calories were contained in innocent looking foods I used to eat without suspicion. The weekend pancake breadfasts I used to enjoy ..... should have fed me for TWO DAYS!

Lee Scharpen

mm

[maineman]

Sweet!! Great answer, says it all. Your number of 10 calories per pound per day of ideal BMI is an age old and well known fact. Good for you for working with it. Man, you really said it all. With a little bit of snooping you can discover how to design your own calorie "budget" and then choose for yourself how to allocate those calories. Plain and simple (if not a little bit of hard work and determination). As I've said before, the folks in my practice who eat too much are overweight. The ones who eat enough are ok and the ones who eat too little are underweight... Porkloin: South Beach is a great "diet" for those who need to start, and its healthy, and sane. But in the end life goes on, hopefully, for a very long time, so its good to learn how to balance like LS writes about, above. If you educate yourself about the calorie count of all kinds of food, you can pick and choose and open up your choices a bit more. Having said that, we use a bunch of the recipes from the South Beach cookbook... mm

[stocks]

The study, reported in JAMA, compared two-year weight loss among 65 men and 358 women of various weights (but all considered "obese"), randomly assigned to either a Weight Watchers program (weekly meetings, a food plan, an activity plan, and behavior modification, all provided for free) or a self-help program (two twenty-minute counseling sessions with a nutritionist and provision of self-help resources). After the first year, the average weight loss was about 9.5 pounds on Weight Watchers, versus just under 3 pounds on self-help. But at the two year mark, the average participant had regained some of the weight lost, so the net loss was 6.4 pounds for Weight Watchers versus one-half of one pound for self-help.

Although the research team drew the conclusion that Weight Watchers was "more effective" than self-help, it doesn't take a degree in statistics to realize that the diet program failed to produce a lasting significant weight loss. This is the first real clinical proof of what we have been saying all along: diets are not effective as a long-term strategy for weight loss, in part because people regain most or all of the weight they lose. If the scientists had followed their subjects for another three years, we are certain that the weight regain would have been even more dramatic.

Although this is disappointing news for those looking for a way to lose weight, we feel it may be the beginning of a new era in research. We hope more studies will follow participants for two years, and even longer, so that meaningful results can be obtained. Perhaps they will begin to acknowledge that reducing diets as they stand now are a dead end. And perhaps they will put more emphasis on the much-needed research into the underlying basic biological mechanisms that affect body weight, appetite, metabolism, and weight gain, loss, and regain.

http://www.cswd.org/...tdietstudy.html

[maineman]

The whole idea of a "diet" implies something limited in time. Therefore it assumes long term failure. If someone goes on a "diet" and loses some weight can you say the diet "worked"? If your goal was to lose a few pounds for a short period of time, then the answer is yes. If you think that by going on a "diet" and losing a few pounds you're going to be "okay" for the rest of your life, you are not just dreaming, you're foolish. The grand delusion out there is that there is a "diet" that is "right". Meaningless assumptions. As with any thing else in life, "Good luck" comes to those who put in the hard work. Eat healthy and fun foods in proper amounts, exercise daily and don't sweat the small stuff. mm