Search Weight Loss Topics:

Page 242«..1020..241242243244..250260..»

Home » Diets that Work » Page 242

The amount of info out there about what to eat (and what not to eat) for weight loss can be a bit...you know. Stomach-churning.

But, in an effort to cut to the chase, U.S. News & World Report has just released its 2014 list of best dietsthe healthy-eating plans that actually work, according to a panel of health and nutrition experts.

OK, ready? Here's what months of research uncovered in the realm of diets for weight loss:

Best Diet #5: Volumetrics

This diet focuses on keeping you feeling full and claims that you should drop a pound or two per week by focusing on the density of the food in your meals. (For example: a pound of carrots is low-density, while an ounce of peanuts is considered high-densityand both clock in with the same amount of calories.)

Best Diet #2 (Tie): Raw Food Diet

For this eating plan, you eat foods that haven't been cooked, processed, microwaved, irradiated, genetically engineered, or exposed to herbicides or pesticides. The push is eating plenty of fresh fruits, veggies, berries, nuts, and seeds in their natural state (some experts say that cooking these foods cancels out their vitamins and nutrients). Ultimately, eating raw is also eating low-calorie; most people on the plan end up eating about half of the calories they might eating cooked foods.

Best Diet #2 (Tie): Jenny Craig

Jenny Craig offers prepackaged, balanced meals and recipes that restrict calories, fat, and portions. Each meal is designed around your current weight, physical activity level, fitness habits, and even tendencies to stress-eat and can end up being anywhere between 1,200 and 2,300 calories per day.

Best Diet #2 (Tie): Biggest Loser Diet

This is a six-week plan designed to jump-start weight loss (and maybe even boost your immune system while cutting the risk of developing illnesses such as cancer and Alzheimer's). The plan is based on balanced eatinglots of fruits, veggies, lean proten, and whole grains with calorie restriction and exercise as its main proponents.

Best Diet #1: Weight Watchers

WW says you'll drop two pounds per week with its plan, which emphasizes making healthy, filling food choices. Every food is assigned a points value, based on its protein, carb, and calorie content; the foods that fill you up for longer have lower points (for example, a 200-calorie smoothie), while those that don't last as long in your belly have more points (a 200-calorie soda).

And if you're into investigating diet plans, it's definitely worth taking a look at the whole list (U.S. News & World Report even ranks them in other ways, like best diets for diabetes, best diets for heart health, and the diets that are easiest to follow).

Have you ever tried any of these diets? Would you?

View the Weight Loss Tips notebook on Springpad

Go here to see the original:
The 5 Best Diets That Actually Work for Weight Loss | Glamour

Crash or fad diets, quick-loss diets, rapid weight loss diets, and flash or quick-fix diets are just some of the many popular names for weight loss programs and plans that promise to help you achieve weight loss fast and with long-term results. But are they really efficient?

To achieve satisfactory results and without seriously affecting your health, you should follow an appropriate diet plan based on your bodys unique nutritional needs. Listed below are some of the most popular diets that work fast and that actually help people to lose weight. Choose the one that suits you best.

The low-carb diet focuses on low carbohydrate content foods and promises to lose weight quickly.

This diet involves eating foods that are low in carbs and fats but rich in minerals and vitamins such as broccoli, spinach, tomatoes, herbs, strawberries, chicken breast, sea bass, milk, etc.

A low-carb diet presumes that excessive carbohydrate consumption can cause insulin levels to become highly unbalanced, which in turn may lead to excess weight gain.

With this diet approach, 10 percent of your daily calorie intake comes from carbohydrates, 60 percent comes from fat, and 30 percent from protein. You should consume lean proteins and healthy mono and poly-unsaturated fats, such as olive oil, flax oil, fish oil, nuts, seeds, and peanut butter.

There are, however, many different types of low-carb diets, each allowing different kinds and amounts of carbohydrates. In general, they all restrict similar foods such as grains (flour, pasta, and bread), beans, certain fruits, and starchy vegetables.

Zone diet promises to lose 1 to 2 ponds a week. It works on balancing the daily intake of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, and considers portion control as one of the most important keys to lose weight.

This type of diet is focused on maintaining your insulin levels stable or in the zone, that is to say not too high and not too low, which allows you to lose weight and keep your energy high.

The Zone diet consists of consuming 40 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent fat, and 30 percent proteins. A zone calculator is used to determine the exact amount of carbohydrates, fat and protein that you can consume in a 24 hour period.

As far as portion control is concerned, the only measuring tools you need are your hand and your eye, says Zone diet creator Barry Sears. At the beginning you might use a kitchen scale, but than you should get used to estimating and eyeballing portion sizes by yourself.

The Zone diet recommended daily allowance of calories is 1200 calories for women and 1500 calories for men.

This diet focuses on satiety or on the feeling of fullness and satisfaction after you have finished eating.

It is based on eating low-density foods, which are low in calories but high in volume. These foods can fill up your stomach and make you feel fuller faster and for a longer period of time.

The Volumetrics diet actually works on lowering energy intake without reducing the amount of food you eat. Foods with high water content, such as watermelons or grapes, promote a feeling of satisfaction and fullness even with low number of calories per bite, and they allow you to eat larger portions. They help you keep hunger at bay.

High-energy-dense foods instead contain plenty of calories and are low in fiber and water. They take up relatively little stomach space and they dont create feelings of satiety until youve overeaten.

According to the Volumetrics Eating Plan food is divided into 4 categories:

Most water and fiber rich foods such as fresh fruits and non-starchy vegetables, nonfat diary products, and broth-based soups;

Starchy fruits and veggies, grains, pasta, rice, beans, breakfast cereal, fish, low-fat meat, legumes, and low-fat mixed dishes;

Meat, cheese, pizza, French fries, salad dressing, bread, pretzels, ice cream, and cake;

Crackers, chips, chocolate candies, cookies, nuts, butter, and oil;

To lose weight, you should stick to first two categories, reduce portion sizes in category 3, and keep category 4 foods to a minimum.

The South Beach Diet claims that you can lose 8 to 13 pounds within the first two weeks, and then continue dropping 1 to 2 pounds a week. The number of pounds you lose will depend on your starting weight.

This diet plan allows you to choose from a wide variety of items and it does not involve counting calories, fat grams, carbohydrates, or measuring portion sizes. It comprises three meals a day, two snacks and one high-protein desert.

The South Beach Diet is focused on replacing bad carbs and bad fats with good carbs and good fats. Eating these foods in moderation will help you lose weight and prevent you from gaining it back again.

The diet program consists of three phases. In the first phase carbohydrates are almost completely eliminated. During the second phase, they are increased to 27 percent, while the third phase raises the carbohydrate consumption to 28 percent of your total daily calorie intake. To maintain weight, you should follow the third phase plan for the rest of your life.

According to the Atkins Diet Plan, you can lose up to 15 pounds within two weeks.

This diet restricts carbohydrates such as bread, potatoes, rice, chocolate, chips, cereals and sugar, and allows eating high protein foods (meat, poultry, fish and eggs) and high-fat foods (cream, butter, cheese).

When fat is used as fuel, as it is on a low-carbohydrate diet, it gets mobilized. It does not accumulate, so weight and cholesterol drop, says Atkins.

The Atkins Diet consists of 4 phases: the induction phase, the ongoing weight loss phase, the pre-maintenance phase and the lifetime maintenance phase.

In the first phase you are allowed only 20 grams of carbohydrates per day, 12 to 15 of which must come from vegetables high in fiber. In the second phase carbohydrates are gradually increased to 35 grams per day, while in the third phase you can increase your carbohydrate consumption by 10 grams each week, as long as you continue to maintain your weight. The forth or the life time maintenance phase allows you to eat more foods than in the first 3 phases, while still limiting the amount of carbohydrates.

Alcoholic drinks are strictly prohibited during the induction stage. Moderate amounts of alcohol are allowed only during the maintenance phase.

The Cabbage Soup Diet can be considered a fad diet as it consists of consuming cabbage soup for one whole week. It is certainly a diet that works fast.

It lasts only seven days and it is extremely low in calories and high in fiber. The followers of this diet claim that they can lose as much as 10 pounds in only one week and that no exercise is required.

This diet program involves the addition of certain foods every day.

1. The first day you can consume all fruits, except bananas;

2. The second day you are allowed to eat raw or cooked vegetables of your choice;

3. The third day you can eat all fruits and vegetables that you want, with the exclusion of bananas and potatoes;

4. The forth day you can eat as many as 8 bananas;

5. The fifth day you can couple the cabbage soup with beef and tomatoes;

6. The sixth day you are allowed you to include beef and vegetables, but no potatoes;

7. On the final day you can eat your cabbage soup with rice, fruit juices and vegetables;

The Grapefruit Diet is one of the best diets to lose weight quickly. It promises to drop 10 pounds in less than 2 weeks.

This diet is low in calories and low in fat and it requires you to cut out carbohydrates. You are not allowed to eat sweet fruits, potatoes, white onions, celery, cereal, peas, corn or other starchy vegetables, grains and cereals, pasta, potato chips, corn chips, celery, low fat salad dressing, peanut butter, jam, or pretzels.

You are allowed to consume red onions, broccoli, bell peppers, radishes, carrots, spinach, lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, cabbage, green beans, fish, lean meats, chicken, bacon, pork chops, no-bean chili, mayonnaise, cheese, coleslaw, squash, eggs, regular salad dressing, dried nuts, and hot dogs.

Food combinations play an important role in this diet. The diet creators claim that the right combination of recommended foods can help burn off excess body fat quickly and without much effort. In addition to this, you should never eat between meals. The goal is to eat until you are perfectly full or satisfied as this will prevent you from feeling hungry later on in the day.

During this diet, grapefruit or grapefruit juice is consumed at every meal. Grapefruit is necessary because it contains a fat-burning enzyme that helps the body use fat for energy. Thats why this diet allows some of the foods that are high in fat and protein.

For best results, the Grapefruit Diet should be followed for 12 days. If you wish to continue, you must wait 2 days before starting again.

The 3 Day Diet, also referred to as the Cardiac Diet, is meant for rapid weight loss. It is often used in hospitals for cardiac patients who need to lose large amounts of weight before having heart surgery.

Proponents of this diet claim that you can drop 10 pounds in three days and that you can manage to lose 40 pounds in one month.

Being extremely low in calories, it is unhealthy to follow this diet for more than 3 days. After the 3 day period, you should return to your normal food intake for about four to five days. Only then you can repeat this diet again.

This diet consists of eating moderate portions of tuna, lean meat, grapefruit, toast, eggs and vegetables. Portions must be eaten exactly as specified in the diet plan. Only salt, pepper, and ketchup can be used to season foods and no sugar is allowed. Dieters are encouraged to drink 8 glasses of water a day.

The 3 Day Diet Meal Plan:

Day 1

Breakfast:

Lunch:

Dinner:

Day 2

Breakfast:

Lunch:

Dinner:

Day 3

Breakfast:

Lunch:

Dinner:

The Scarsdale Diet is an excellent way to lose weight without feeling hungry. The regimen is strict, but it doesnt require counting calories, weighing, or measuring portion sizes. It should not be followed for more than two weeks in a row, but the proponents of this diet claim that during this period you can lose up 7 to 15 pounds.

The Scarsdale Diet is based on eating lean protein and low-carbohydrate foods such as fresh fruits, vegetables, salads, and lean meat. Breakfast generally consist of coffee, tea, one half grapefruit, and a slice of protein bread.

After 14 days of following the Scarsdale Medical Diet (SMD) plan, dieters should switch to Keep Trim phase for the next 2 weeks. During this period you can plan your own menus. A slightly higher calorie intake is permitted and a few additional foods are allowed.

You can continue repeating the SMD and Keep Trim cycle until you reach desired results.

The Scarsdale diet plan allows for a daily calorie intake of 850 to 1000 calories during the SMD, and between 1000 and 1200 during the Keep Trim phase.

In this diet you must eat exactly what is specified for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and avoid using oil, mayonnaise, or other rich dressings to season your salads. Alcohol is absolutely forbidden.

The Flat Belly Diet promises to help you drop up to 15 pounds in 32 days and lose belly fat permanently. It is focused on reducing unhealthy fat located deep inside your abdomen.

This diet consists of eating monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) at every meal in order to eliminate belly fat, promote satiety and fullness, and prevent overeating. MUFAs are found in foods like olives, nuts, avocados, dark chocolate, seeds, soybean, flax, and olive and sunflower oils.

There are two parts to the Flat Belly Diet: a four-day anti-bloat jumpstart period and a four week eating plan.

The four-day anti-bloat jumpstart period is designed to reduce bloating and make you lose weight almost immediately. This phase allows only 1,200 calories a day and it forbids salt, processed foods, high-carb foods and gas-producing foods such as cabbage, onions, and legumes. It does not permit coffee, tea, sugar alcohols, and carbonated drinks, but it encourages the dieters to drink two liters of sassy water (a mix of spices, herbs, cucumber, and lemon).

The four-week eating plan consists of consuming four 400-calorie meals every four hours, each containing MUFA components. During this stage, dieters are provided with a list of 28 interchangeable mix-and-match breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snack packs, along with portion sizes and calories. There are eighty recipes and they all include full nutritional information like total calories, protein, carbohydrates, total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium and fiber. The key ingredients are fish, veggies, legumes, fruits, whole grains, and olive oil.

To keep your body healthy and in good shape, please consult your doctor before undertaking any of the above diets and remember that food depravation can have dangerous physical and psychological effects. Choose a healthy diet that will satisfy your bodys nutritional needs and exercise as much as you can.

If you have any other good diets to suggest, please leave a comment below and dont forget to share this post with other people who are in search of weight loss diets that work.

Disclaimer:

This article is for informative purposes only and does not in any way attempt to replace the advice offered by an expert on the subject.

The rest is here:
10 Diets That Work Fast - YouQueen

Im so sick and tired of hearing about gluten-free diets and products. I want to scream bloody murder whenever I hear how terrible carbohydrates are. Also we have these diets: Atkins, South Beach, the Zone, low-fat, liquid, grapefruit, detox, cabbage soup, macrobiotic, juice and at least 100 more. Oh, and theres this nutty diet called the paleo diet thats totally against ALL grainsAnd yet Americans are more obese than ever. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC):

So, is there anyone out there who has come up with a no-nonsense, practical way of looking at the way we eat and who has come up with a system that doesnt fixate on adding or eliminating single food groups or using supplements or promise that all you need to do is sit on the couch to get fit?

I think there is. His name is Covert Bailey and even though he retired back in 1999, his series of books about diet and exercise is, in my opinion, one of the best out there. According to Covert Bailey, the magic pill to a healthy life is exercise and eating a balanced diet. He started writing about diet and nutrition back in the late 70s and his book was entitled Fit or Fat. Its incredibly simple stuff but Im afraid since his retirement, the world of lunatic-fringe diets has become its own alternative reality.

If you want to learn more about Fit or Fat I highly recommend you read his books. In them you will see that his diet really isnt a diet at all. Its a fitness system based on some simple guiding principles which he spells out in his 25 Fitness tips. Here are several of the most important:

One of the hallmark notions of Baileys Fit or Fat is that dietary fat is a real challenge in making people fat. In his PBS presentations, he was famous for saying things like: The fat you eat is the fat you wear. But, in all seriousness, he spends a lot of time talking about the role of fats and carbohydrates in our bodies and how they are metabolized. Yes, indeed, he believes that eating a lower-fat, balanced diet is the way to go; however, he NEVER says never to most foods. The main thing he emphasizes is doing aerobic exercise several times a week which literally alters the capacity of your muscles to metabolize sugars and fats. In short, becoming fit takes some work. As a preview of his diet Ive posted what he calls his food target below. Essentially, he believes that the closer you eat toward the center of the target, the healthier you will become IF YOU EXERCISE along with eating more healthfully:

Whats interesting about this target is how it portrays various foods in terms of its fat levels. All the really yummy, greasy, fatty foods lie further out from the less processed, more basic foods. Its really ingenious and simple to think about. He doesnt say dont eat meat. He does suggest that we dont eat really greasy meat.

One of the things youll discover if you eat according to Baileys recommendations is that youll actually eat more food than you used to. Simply put, when you eat toward the center of the target, the foods arent loaded with as much sugar or fat. If youre exercising along with disciplining your eating, your lean body mass with increase and your fat levels will drop.

One of the other strange things that people experience when eating this way is that they actually gain weight but become more trim? Why, because muscle weights more than fat and as you work out aerobically and eat better, your lean muscle tissues become more efficient and they grow.

If youve been thinking about losing some weight, tone up and become healthier this year, I highly recommend you pick up Covert Baileys Fit or Fat. Its a quick read and it wont require you to do anything crazy with your diet.

Like Loading...

See the rest here:
Revisiting Covert Bailey's "Fit or Fat" - Diets Don't Work ...

WebMD Feature Archive

When singer Beyonc Knowles needed to lose 22 pounds in a hurry for her role in the film Dreamgirls, she went on a crash diet that consisted of drinking a mixture of water, cayenne pepper, and maple syrup as a substitute for regular meals. She lost the weight, and in the process sparked a run on maple syrup as news and photos of her newly svelte figure spread. But even Beyonc has been quick to tell interviewers, "I would not recommend it if someone wasn't doing a movie, because there are other ways to lose weight."

Beyonc's own caution to dieters probably comes as good news to nutritionists who don't think much of her quick-fix weight loss plan. "This diet is void of essential nutrients and probably doesn't promote healthful eating and lifestyle habits that would sustain any weight that is lost," says Jenna Anding, PhD, RD, LD, associate department head, department of nutrition and food science, Texas A&M University. "Also, losing 20 pounds in two weeks is not healthy; nutrition experts recommend a weekly weight loss of no more than 2 pounds per week."

The "syrup diet" is just one of the many diet plans (albeit one of the more extreme) to capture our weight-crazed fancy over the years. From Atkins to South Beach to the Zone to the Blood Type Diet -- to name just a few -- many of us are always on the lookout for the "magic bullet" that will help us shed pounds quickly, and more or less effortlessly.

Why, despite the advice of most nutrition experts, are we fascinated by the myriad diet plans crowding bookstore shelves? "Most individuals want cutting-edge solutions for weight loss, and fad diets offer, at least on the surface, 'new' ways to beat the boring mathematical reality of long-term weight loss," explains Robin Steagall, RD, nutrition communications manager for the Calorie Control Council.

"All diets work on the principle of cutting calories [cutting 500 calories a day can result in a 1-pound weight loss in a week]," Steagall adds, "but every new diet has some unique twist to accomplish this mission."

Read the original here:
Can Fad Diets Work? - WebMD

Cleansing and detox diets introduction

If you're looking for a way to lose weight quickly and feel better (and who isn't?), you might be tempted to try a fad "detox" diet or a "cleanse" method." These diets start with a fast, followed by a period of consuming only raw vegetables, fruit, juices and water.

Most nutritionists say, "Don't bother."

There is no scientific evidence that "detox" (short for detoxification) or "cleanse" diets result in rapid weight loss or have any health benefits, says Heather Mangieri, RDN, LDN, a spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and founder of Nutrition CheckUp in Pittsburgh.

Indeed, the opposite may be true: One study published in 2011 in the journal Obesity found that beginning a weight-loss diet with a fast or cleanse could be counterproductive.

For example, researchers at the University of Illinois divided mice into two diet groups. For 10 to 12 weeks, one group of mice was fed a low-fat diet (10 percent fat). The other group was fed a high-fat diet (60 percent fat). Not surprisingly, the group on a high-fat diet gained a lot of weight. Afterward, both groups were put on a 24-hour fast. The lean mice lost 18 percent of their body weight in those 24 hours, but the obese mice lost only 5 percent.

Cleansing diets aren't new. "They've been around for years and years," Mangieri says. But they seem to get a lot of press from magazines and talk show hosts. And celebrities make cleanse diets popular every time they claim to lose significant weight on them.

"The terms 'detox' and 'cleanse' have become almost interchangeable and are thrown around almost as much as the words 'calorie' and 'carbohydrate' these days," says Keri Glassman, RD, CDN, founder and president of A Nutritious Life, a nutrition practice based in New York City.

Proponents of cleansing diets believe it's important to rid your body of toxins that you get -- like it or not -- from food, water and the environment. "The mistake most people make is equating detoxes and cleanses with weight loss," Glassman says. They are not the same.

So if you're considering a cleanse diet as a way to lose weight, you could be outsmarting yourself. "Cleanse diets can set you up for failure by slowing your metabolism and making you crave everything you just gave up," Glassman says. Cleanse diets don't help you or your body develop healthy eating habits. And what's worse, they could deprive your body of essential nutrients, Mangieri agrees.

Medically Reviewed by a Doctor on 4/7/2015

Medical Editor:

Dr. Charles "Pat" Davis, MD, PhD, is a board certified Emergency Medicine doctor who currently practices as a consultant and staff member for hospitals. He has a PhD in Microbiology (UT at Austin), and the MD (Univ. Texas Medical Branch, Galveston). He is a Clinical Professor (retired) in the Division of Emergency Medicine, UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, and has been the Chief of Emergency Medicine at UT Medical Branch and at UTHSCSA with over 250 publications.

Follow this link:
Cleansing and Detox Diets: Learn How Cleanses Work

What Dr. Michael Smith Says:

Does It Work?

If your goal is weight loss, a detox diet might help you drop a few pounds, but youll likely just gain it back. In the end, you havent accomplished anything, and its certainly not a healthy approach.

If your goal is to detox your system, dont waste your time or money. Your body is an expert at getting rid of toxins no matter what you eat. Toxins dont build up in your liver, kidneys, or any other part of your body, and youre not going to get rid of them with the latest detox wonder. Especially avoid diets that promise to detox your liver with supplements or cleanse whatever the diet determines needs washing out.

The only type of detox diet that is worthwhile is one that limits processed, high-fat, and sugary foods, and replaces them with more fruits and vegetables. That clean-eating approach is your best bet to getting your body in tip-top shape.

Is It Good for Certain Conditions?

Not only are detox diets not good for people with certain medical conditions, they could be harmful. They dont improve blood pressure or cholesterol. Detox diets have no positive effect on the heart. For people with diabetes, they may be quite dangerous. Any diet that severely restricts what you eat could lead to dangerously low blood sugar if you take medicine for diabetes.

The exception would be a detox diet that just focuses on clean-eating. This approach would be great for anyone living with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, and even heart disease.

The Final Word

Weve heard a great deal about detox diets in recent years. But its all hype with no health benefits. There are many ways to get your body clean and healthy. This isnt one of them.

SOURCES:

Frank Sacks, MD, professor of cardiovascular disease prevention, Harvard School of Public Health.

Christine Gerbstadt, MD, RD, spokeswoman, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics; author, Doctors Detox Diet.

Connie Diekman, MEd, RD, nutrition director, Washington University, St. Louis; author, The Everything Mediterranean Diet Book; past president, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

See more here:
Detox Diets: Do They Work? Are They Healthy? - WebMD

Spring is right around the corner, and as I glance around my home, I see that a thorough cleaning is in order. Dust bunnies are multiplying under my bed, spider webs are glistening on my chandelier, and a layer of dust has settled on all places too difficult to comfortably reach.

As I strategically plan my upcoming cleaning project, I start to wonder if my body is also in need of a cleaning, so to speak.

Like many of you, I tend to go into hibernation mode during the winter months. With less daylight hours and physical work to do outside, along with an influx of sugary treats and comfort foods, my body has been insulated by an added layer of fat. I'm surely not alone in feeling this way, judging from the number of questions we field on the site about detox diets this time of year.

While the idea of cleaning out harmful toxins in your body or removing body fat quickly may sound tempting and even beneficial, is a detox the answer?

What is a detox? Around since the 1970s, the Master Cleanse, also known as the Lemonade Diet, is probably the most popular detox diet. Followers of this detox spend 10 days drinking a concoction of lemon juice, maple syrup, water and cayenne pepper. Side effects include tiredness, irritability, hot bowel movements, and headaches, but those are touted as signs of the beneficial detoxification process. Other detox programs can last for several days to weeks and involve drinking little more than fruit and vegetable juices. Still other programs involve drinking water and consuming no food for several days at a time.

But does the body need detoxification? If you've been exposed to high amounts of heavy metals, poisons, or radiation, you might require an actual medical detoxification. However, typical day-to-day living does not bring about a need to detox with concoctions and laxatives. The body is perfectly capable of cleaning itself. Think about all your wonderfully complex body systems involved in the removal of toxins: your circulatory (blood) system, respiratory (lungs) system, urinary (kidneys) system, and digestive (liver and intestines) system. It makes no sense that a little lemon juice, vegetable juice, or gut rest is actually going to make a difference in your health. There are no published, peer-reviewed, or well-designed research studies on detoxing that indicate any health benefit or weight loss.

Detoxing and weight loss Of course you will usually lose weight when following a detox program. The diet is very restrictive, and the daily calorie intake is much less than what you would typically consume. A person could lose several pounds weekly while detoxing. Some of the weight will be body fat, but most will be water loss and some muscle tissue loss. Since the detoxer has not learned to change his or her eating habits and food environment, the weight will quickly be regained. Overall, there is no sustainable benefitand the loss of muscle mass due to fast weight loss is harmful.

Detoxing and increased energy Many people who "detox" report a decrease in food cravings, increased energy, and a feeling of overall well-being. "Whats up with that?" you might be asking.

I definitely do not spring clean with a detox! Instead, I have a simple, 2-step plan that will work for anyone:

Read the original here:
Do Detox Diets Work? Are They Safe? | SparkPeople

South Beach Diet - Benefits and Drawbacks

There are a lot of diets out there these days that promise quick weight loss with no deprivation, but the South Beach Diet is one of the few that actually fits that bill. Originally designed by Dr. Arthur Agatston , a cardiologist, for his heart patients, it's become a tried-and-true diet plan that is no fad. In fact, you can stick to it for life and health as well as weight loss.

One of the main factors in the South Beach Diet's success is that it utilizes the glycemic index to help control hunger. That is, by following the diet and eating mostly foods that are low in the glycemic index, you maintain blood sugar levels and therefore reduce your hunger for "simple" carbohydrates like sugars and sweets.

The diet in three phases, during which you wean yourself off of certain foods and focus on South Beach Diet friendly foods. You can also lose up to eight to 12 pounds in the first two weeks, as long as you follow those guidelines.

Basic benefits

Medical science actually supports this diet, because it focuses on "clean" eating, and it's full of lean protein, fruits, vegetables, and "good for you" fats, while minimizing or eliminating refined sugars, trans fats, and saturated fats.

Are there any drawbacks?

The first part of the diet, Phase I, has you severely restricting your carbohydrates, for the first two weeks. This also includes limiting intake of fruits and vegetables, by the way, so you won't be getting all the nutrients you need. You'll also likely experience difficulties because of the lack of fiber in this particular phase of the diet.

Nonetheless, if you can get through this first two weeks, you'll move on to the second phase of the diet, which is less restrictive. It might also be said that because you so severely limit your intake of certain foods during the first phase (namely, carbohydrates), you're going to clean your palate so that you're not going to be craving junk foods, refined sweets, etc., and can move on to the second phase fully ready to stick to it.

What happens with the rest of the diet

In the second phase of the diet, you're going to add certain foods back into your diet you had to avoid during Phase I. Because you've "cleared your palate," you're not going to be craving these foods as much, and you'll be able to eat them in moderation, though not as much as you could before.

The final phase, Phase III, is the maintenance part of the diet and is meant to be something you'll follow for the rest of your life. It's the least restrictive and is simply meant to utilize basic guidelines that will have you limiting certain foods and focusing on others so that you maintain rather than lose weight.

The results

The South Beach Diet is in fact a very good diet for the most part, and just about anyone can follow it. Because it severely restrict your access to what is mostly "junk" food, while focusing on an intake of "good" foods like lean proteins, fruits, vegetables, and "good" carbohydrates and fats, it is certainly a healthy plan to follow and it doesn't so severely restrict calories or food groups (other than during Phase I) that you are at risk of deficiencies. Weight loss is generally sensible, with a focus of about one to two pounds weight loss after the first phase (which promises up to 12 pounds of weight loss), and medical professionals support this plan in general. All in all, a good sound diet that can be followed for life after the first phase, and that focuses on good healthy foods and sensible rather than extreme weight loss.

There are a lot of diets that can be described as being amongst the best diets and a lot of these diets promise that it is possible to lose weight quickly. The south beach diet is one of the diets that is often referred to as being amongst the best diets. A doctor who was known as Arthur Agatston first designed this diet and he was a cardiologist. This doctor developed this diet for the patients that he used to see with heart problems. Over time this diet has become a tried and tested regime, and this is not one of the many fad diets which are around. It is possible to stick to this diet for life as a way of promoting good health as well as a method for losing weight.

One of the main reasons why the south beach diet can be described as being one of the best diets is that it makes good use of the glycemic diet. This is a good way to keep hunger under control. This diet works best when the person follows it and eats mainly the foods that are low on the glycemic index as this will help you to maintain the level of sugar in your blood. This helps to reduce your level of hunger for simple carbohydrates. Simple carbohydrates include items such as sweets and sugars.

The south beach diet actually consists of three different phases. During these phases you basically wean yourself away from certain foods and focus on the foods that are better for you and form part of this diet. This diet is considered to be one of the best diets as it is possible to lose between eight pounds and twelve pounds within your first couple of weeks.

There are a number of benefits that can be obtained from following this diet. This diet is considered to be one of the best diets and is supported by medical science. The diet focuses on clean eating therefore it consists of eating lean proteins, vegetables, fruit and also the fats that are actually good for the body. This diet also involves eliminating or at least reducing the amount of refined sugars, saturated fats and trans fats that are within the diet.

The first phase of this diet involves you restricting the amount of carbohydrates that you eat. This has to be done rigorously in order for the diet to work. This phase of the diet will also involve limiting the amount of vegetables and fruit that you are consuming. Therefore, during this time you will be lacking some required nutrients and you may experience some difficulties due to the lack of fiber that is in the diet. The first phase of this diet only lasts for two weeks and then you can progress onto the second phase.

The second phase of this diet is actually less restrictive. Due to the severely limited foods during the first phase you will probably have cleansed your palate therefore you will probably not crave the so-called junk foods. During the second phase of the diet you will be adding certain foods back into your diet and your cleansed palate will mean that you are happy to eat these foods within moderation. The third phase of this diet really sets you up to follow the diet that you have started. This part is really the least restrictive part of the diet. These three phases are the process to losing weight using one of the best diets that are available.

Read more here:
Diets That Work | Lose 12 lbs in 21 Days

Are you locked in an uncontrollable cycle with food? Iknow the hopelessness created by yo-yo dieting, overeating and losing weight to only regain it again. Youve already tried all the diets; Atkins, South Beach, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, NutriSystem, etc. You promised yourself that this time would be different. But here you are again looking for another solution.

Currently sixty-six percent of Americas population is overweight and nearly one-third are obese. But at the same time we are spending over $60 billion on dieting and weight loss products each year. At no time in history have we had more people overweight. Something is drastically wrong!

Most of us can write books about nutrition and diets. We know the fat grams, calories, and carbohydrates in most foods. We know how we should eat, and what we shouldnt eat. But we just cant put that knowledge into practice.

By the time people pick up this book, they are out of control with food. But its not just the food. It is the obsessive thoughts about food, weight, diets, and body image that consume our lives. We need to experience an internal change for lasting results.

Diets Dont Work provides astructured program that changes the way you think about food and your Self. Because of dieting we have completely disconnected from our appetite. Some of us do not know when we are hungry or full. We may think we are hungry but actually we may be experiencing a feeling that we are not even aware of.

People who go through this step-by-step method outlined in the Diets Dont Work productshave long-term recovery from disordered eating. We understand and we know how to stop this painful way of living. Our books and productsare available in many formats to use in the comfort of your own home. Now is the time to create a new you where you can eat when hungry, make healthy choices, and stop when you are fullwithout a struggle.

You can do this! I willshow you how.

Go here to read the rest:
Welcome to Diets Dont Work!

Most diets seem to succeed in the short-term, and fail in the long-term. This is not a new, or even particularly controversial, observation among researchers:

There are two indisputable facts regarding dietary treatment of obesity. The first is that virtually all programs appear to be able to demonstrate moderate success in promoting at least some short-term weight loss. The second is that there is virtually no evidence that clinically significant weight loss can be maintained over the long-term by the vast majority of people.

Confronting the failure of behavioral and dietary treatments for obesity, Garner & Wooley, 1991

Although weight loss can usually be achieved through dietary restriction and/or increased physical activity, the overwhelming majority of people regain the weight that they have lost over the long-term.

The Defence of Body Weight: A physiological basis for weight regain after weight loss, Sumithran & Proietto, 2013

Of course, we can all endorse the call for a healthier lifestyle, but we must be realistic about what it can and cannot accomplish including that it is not by itself an effective approach to long-term obesity treatment.

An Inconvenient Truth about Obesity, Schwartz, 2012

More in-depth analysis of the failure rate of dieting can wait for another post. The question Im asking here is, if diets fail for some proportion of people, which they indisputably do, why is that? What is the reason? What are the specific mechanisms at work?

The usual assumption among non-researchers about why diets fail is that when a dieter regains weight, it must be because they stopped dieting, which is in turn attributed to things like not having enough willpower, personal and moral failure, gluttony and laziness, or being too ignorant to know better.

These are assumptions which reflect the mythology of our culture: that anyone, if they try hard enough, can be anything they want and therefore that weight is entirely a choice, a product of effort and moral character. This story centres the individual, their behaviour, their character traits, and their moral attributes as the cause of fatness in the first place, and the reason why weight is regained following a diet.

But these explanations are not satisfactory to me, nor, as you will see, are they reflected in the scientific literature.

To explore other answers, I haphazardly gathered peer-reviewed articles, spanning a range of more than 30 years, that investigated or discussed the various reasons why weight loss produced by dieting is not maintained long-term.

Here is what they theorize about why diets fail.

1. Behavioural relapse, a.k.a. going off the diet

The earlier papers on the failure of dieting focused on behavioural factors, since dieting was, at the time, a relatively new and exciting behavioural intervention for obesity. (By the mid-20th century, dieting as a popular pastime was not new, but as a subject of medical research, it was still fairly novel.) Researchers assumed that when someone could not sustain weight loss, it mustve been due to a breakdown in their new behaviours people must have gone back to eating more and moving less, just as is popularly assumed.

However, the researchers tended not to lean so heavily on moral explanations for this relapse. One study suggested that the fault lay with lack of scholarly attention to the maintenance phase of behavioural change in designing weight loss plans. This was further complicated by the fact that no one can avoid eating entirely, which makes dieting quite different from other behavioural interventions like smoking cessation programs and abstinence from alcohol.

Alongside this were proposed cultural and commercial pressures to eat, especially calorie-rich and highly palatable foods. There also appeared to be few natural rewards provided by dieting once the intervention phase ended apparently nothing, not even thinness, feels as good as food tastes.

The researchers were not very optimistic about the usefulness of dieting if it only resulted in regaining weight. An illuminating quote from the conclusion of one paper:

Research on humans suggests that the deleterious effects of obesity are exerted primarily during periods of weight gainIts medical consequences may be unfortunate enough that if people cannot maintain weight loss, they would be better off not trying to lose weight!

Behavior Modification in the Treatment of Obesity: The problem of maintaining weight loss, Stunkard & Penick, 1979

Another paper suggested that culprits for the breakdown of dieting behaviours were negative moods, emotional stress, social pressures to eat more, as well feelings of intense hunger that prompted overeating. But an interesting quote from this same article hints of more than purely behavioural factors:

The obvious reason for weight regain after weight loss treatment is that participants return to inappropriate eating and exercise habits. These habits need not be as bad as pretreatment habits to cause regain, because metabolic factors may make it easier to regain after a period of dietary restrictionThe pattern of relapse and regain appears to be the result of a war between the will and physiologic demands over which self-control appears relatively powerless.

Why Treatments for Obesity Dont Last, Goodrick & Foreyt, 1991

So even in cases where behavioural relapse were implicated, researchers seemed to acknowledge that other factors contributed to that relapse (like stress, biological and cultural pressures to eat, and increased hunger), or to the weight regain itself (metabolic changes.)

2. Lowered energy expenditure

Reduced calorie intake and weight loss, it turns out, cause some interesting changes to the body that result in expending fewer calories. In animal studies, changes include decreased body temperature, less spontaneous activity, and lowered resting metabolic rate (the amount of energy the body uses while at rest.)

Reduced total energy expenditure and, possibly, lowered resting metabolic rate after diet-induced weight loss have also been observed in humans. (Conversely, humans who gain weight above their baseline weight through eating have been observed to have an increased resting metabolic rate.)

A person who gains weight would be expected to expend more energy just due to their increased body mass, thus requiring more energy to physically move and biologically maintain it. The same, but in reverse, is true for someone who loses weight less energy is required to maintain a smaller body.

But the changes in energy expenditure resulting from dieting have been described as disproportionate, meaning that they were greater than the changes expected for the amount of weight gain or loss, indicating that some compensatory mechanism meant to restore preferred weight may exist.

In other words, a person who lost weight to reach 150 lbs. may expend fewer calories just existing than someone who has always weighed 150 lbs. And someone who purposely gained weight to reach 150 lbs. may use more calories to maintain their weight than the person who has always weighed 150 lbs.

However, other studies of weight loss in humans have not demonstrated the effect of lowered resting metabolic rate, which leaves the question open.

A nod to weight diversity from the last study linked:

Body weight in adults is remarkably stable for long periods of time. In the Framingham Study the body weight of the average adult increased by only 10 percent over a 20-year period. Such a fine balance is evidence of the presence of regulatory systems for body weight. Whatever the mechanism (or mechanisms), the weight at which regulation occurs differs from one person to another, and these differences are almost certainly due in part to genetic and developmental influences.

Changes in Energy Expenditure Resulting from Altered Body Weight, Leibel, Rosenbaum, and Hirsch, 1995

3. Fat storage and insulin sensitivity

Another physiological change produced by weight loss is increased insulin sensitivity. This is generally considered a good thing, but it may also leave people vulnerable to weight regain. We may need to go back to a little high school biology to cover this one adequately.

Insulin is a hormone that the pancreas releases into your bloodstream. Insulins main life goal is to act like a key that allows glucose, also flowing through your bloodstream, into your cells, which then use the glucose for energy.

When a persons cells become resistant to insulin, the glucose cant get into the cells it then builds up in the blood, eventually causing high blood sugar. Meanwhile, the cells switch to using fat for fuel.

With weight loss, cells become more sensitive to insulin, which allows glucose to enter the cell once more. Those cells use that glucose, and the fat that would otherwise be used for energy is directed back into storage, which may spell weight gain.

Experimental research in humans has indeed demonstrated that increased insulin sensitivity following weight loss from dieting predicts the amount of weight the person will eventually regain. The researchers are careful to point out that increased insulin sensitivity, alone, is not enough to cause weight regain, but in combination with lowered energy expenditure (see above) and increased food intake (see below), it certainly helps.

From this same paper:

Following weight reduction, there is a 95% failure rate for obese individuals to stay weight-reduced more than 4 years (5). After obese subjects undergo weight reduction, metabolism shifts to favor weight regainThese metabolic phenomena result in the shunting of lipid fuels away from oxidation in muscle to storage in adipose tissue, and in the setting of positive energy balance, increases in body weight and percent body fat occur.

Weight Regain Following Sustained Weight Reduction is Predicted by Relative Insulin Sensitivity, Yost, Jensen, and Eckel, 1995

4. Increased appetite

During and after weight loss, levels of several hormones involved in appetite regulation change significantly.

Hormones that promote feelings of fullness and inhibit food intake (including leptin, peptide YY, GLP-1, cholecystokinin, and amylin) are decreased with weight loss. Meanwhile, ghrelin, a hormone that stimulates hunger, is increased, along with reported food preoccupation and appetite.

Again, these responses may indicate the existence of a regulatory mechanism intended to restore preferred body weight:

Taken together, these findings indicate that in obese persons who have lost weight, multiple compensatory mechanisms [encourage] weight gainFurthermore, the activation of this coordinated response in people who remain obese after weight loss supports the view that there is an elevated body-weight set point in obese persons and that efforts to reduce weight below this point are vigorously resisted.

Long-Term Persistence of Hormonal Adaptations to Weight Loss, Sumithran et al., 2011

In addition to feeling hungrier, weight-reduced people show a stronger preference for high-calorie (high sugar and high fat) foods. There are also changes in brain activity patterns indicating that weight-reduced people are more responsive to food rewards, while brain areas associated with controlling ones food intake are less active.

The hypothalamus, a part of the brain that may act as a brake on the homeostatic tendency toward weight gain, shows decreased activity in people who have lost weight, which affects both food foraging behaviour and metabolism to favour eating more and regaining weight.

5. Genetic predisposition to gain weight

It has long been understood that body weight has a significant genetic component.

Research in pairs of identical twins shows that there is also a significant genetic component to weight loss, including how much and what type of fat is lost, and the rate of fat burning relative to use of glucose for energy.

On the other side of the coin, population studies of twins have shown an association between dieting attempts and subsequent weight gain, which probably reflects a pre-existing tendency to gain weight that is powerful enough to counteract weight loss attempts.

From that study:

The poor success in weight maintenance after dieting predisposes individuals to the vicious cycle of frequent dieting attempts and weight regain. The relation between weight cycling and subsequent weight gain is well described in the literature. Part of the weight gain occurring in young adults may be regarded as physiologic, and is likely to occur independently of attempts to lose weight.

Weight-loss attempts and risk of major weight gain: a prospective study in Finnish adults, Korkeila et al., 1999

Another study using twin data indicates that some of the weight gain may also be due to dieting itself, independent of genetics.

As you can see, moral explanations for weight regain leave a lot to be desired. They reflect lazy thinking. A persons drive to eat, combined with their tendency to regain lost weight, is clearly more dependent on physiology than on moral corruption, or even simple ignorance.

Biology drives behaviour. It also primes the body to most efficiently exploit that behaviour. What is often interpreted as weakness of will and greediness by our culture is actually the result of a complex orchestration of genetic, homeostatic, metabolic, hormonal, and neurological processes influencing us to eat, restore lost weight, and ultimately survive.

And a final quote:

metabolic conditions after weight loss may not be the same as they were prior to gaining the weight in the first place. Instead of working in our favor to prevent weight gain, biology becomes one of the driving pressures that underlie weight regain.

Biologys response to dieting: the impetus for weight regain, MacLean et al., 2011

If youve ever regained weight after a diet, you are in very good company. Most dieters regain the weight. You are not lazy, stupid, or greedy. You did not fail on the contrary, your body worked hard to save you.

Share this post: on Facebook on Google+

Follow this link:
Why Diets Dont Work - The Fat Nutritionist

Page 242«..1020..241242243244..250260..»

Home » Diets that Work » Page 242