Weight Loss And Diet
Introduction:
You have met the team players in your nutrition. The proper structure
of the team is called a healthy diet. Scores of books regarding weight
loss ( weight watcher, weight loss program, weight loss diet) have been published
and bought, and for a while the one or the other will be considered the leader.
Usually there will be a few "miraculous" claims, and after a while the
big firework of promises quietly fizzles out. Very often we are looking at a diet
of extremes (the banana diet, the fat-burning grapefruit diet, just to name a
few). The refrain will remain constant: the dieter "goes on a diet".
This already points to the next step: he or she will go "off the diet".
Surprise? Not really! After 4 weeks of nutritional boredom you too would hate
to look another banana in the face or even think of a grapefruit. You've had it!
No more. You may salivate at the thought of steak and turn your attention to a
steak diet: all the steak you want to eat ! It won't work either: you'll be turned
off too after a while of this dietary escapade. Actually, you are playing russian
roulette with your health. You ate vast amounts of protein, and your kidneys will
be working overtime to eliminate the unusually high amounts of waste products.So
let's try fasting. It sounds like giving your body a "rest". It certainly
has always had an appeal especially with the crowd of people who want to lose
weight quickly. To their disappointment they are in for an exercise in frustration.
After some initial weight loss the body goes on spare flame. Weight loss
becomes non-existing or slow, concentration becomes a major effort, energy wanes,
irritation runs high. What happened? Our body still needs carbohydrates, protein,
and fat to function. If protein does not come in, it's taken from our muscles.
One of the muscles by the way is the heart. Obviously we are not doing ourselves
a service by a fasting regime. After a good amount of discouragement and deprivation
the dieter will become an ex-dieter. Really, nothing has changed. The eating habits
have not changed, and the next station is already visible on the horizon: the
pounds that have been lost are regained, and eventually things have gone full
circle. The next diet sounds like a promise of changes for the better, yet the
next disappointment seems already built in. It becomes very obvious that extremes
do not work. There are no quick fixes, and dieting based on gluttony ("Eat
all the oranges you want and lose 10 pounds quickly") just keeps the dieter
in a yo-yo existence of up and down.It's a blow to the emotional well-being, it's
as bad for the physical function. If you wait for another diet, don't read on.
If you are looking at lifestyle changes that enable you to enjoy the foods that
are fuel and pleasure for your body, read on ! Here is a link regarding
a sensible diet: Your
resource for diet reviews, programs, pills, and information! If food
is considered like a drug that keeps our systems running, it is obvious, that
we have to administer it in a way that overdoses are avoided. It should rather
be looked at as a slow controlled supply of nutrients that is made available to
our body.You would question the sanity of anybody who would elect to swallow his
cough syrup or his antibiotics as one mega dose just once a day when he is sick!
Yet food habits very often are exactly like this scenario. Here is a paper
that stresses the importance of a balanced approach to weight loss emphasizing
that this demands a lifestyle change on a permanent ongoing basis. Other useful
information on weight loss through the use of proper foods and excercise can be
found under Ref. 8. |
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