From all these specific recommendations,
there should be a combination that
burns the pounds for you.
Any successful program of weight control has four components: regular exercise, sensible nutrition, behaviour modification and diet. Each implies a change. Any one of these changes will decrease total body weight, and in combination they will produce faster and more dramatic results. Together, they form a Master Plan for permanent weight loss. The diet that works best is the diet that asks the smallest sacrifice for the longest time. Each of the following recommendations has proven effective for someone; your task is to discover which ones work for you.
PHASE I: Exercise. The special appeal of exercise is that it permits weight loss without any alteration of basic eating habits. Where weight loss is objective, sustained exercise is most beneficial. The easiest way to burn calories, therefore, is to keep your entire body in motion for long periods of time.
Walk, walk, walk. A brisk half hour walk will use up more calories than 15 minutes of so-called "spot-reducing" exercises, which generally involve only isolated parts of the body at any given time and too frequently are performed while supine. Answer the more distant telephone, post your letters at the mailbox that is three streets over. Park your car in the remotest corner of the lot. Run all of your downtown errands on foot. Walk home from work, or from the station.
Use a pedometer. Wear it all day and chart the distances that you cover. Record subtotals as well, before each meal. Study the chart. What does it tell you? How does your daily pattern of activity influence what you eat? Although exercise does not in itself cause hunger, if you recognize, for example, that your peak period of activity comes in the late morning and leaves you ravenous at lunchtime, you may find it helpful to postpone some of those chores until immediately after lunch.
Climb, don't ride. A Mayo Clinic physician in his early 60s is well known for the efficiency with which he makes rounds. He never uses the hospital's elevators, he uses the stairwells and takes the steps two at a time. Climbing burns twice as many calories as walking. It also improves heart and lung capacity.
Stand up. You burn more fat standing than sitting, even if you stand motionless. If you spend one additional hour standing each day you will lose half a pound a month.
Combine activity and fun. Take up swimming, golf or tennis. If you come to associate the pleasures of exercise with the pleasures of vacationing, you will find it easier to integrate regular exercise into your regular routine.
PHASE II: Nutrition. The North American supermarket offers all the ingredients of a nutritionally balanced diet. Eating correctly is only a matter of making the right choices.
Eat less fat. Ounce for ounce, fat contains more than twice as many calories as carbohydrate or protein. Any calorie chart will tell you which foods are high in natural fats and oils (untrimmed pork and lamb, avocados and coconuts, sardines and swordfish, cashews and pecans) and which are low (lean beef and skinless chicken, salad greens and squash, shrimp and sole, fruit of all kinds). An easier way to reduce your intake of fats is to avoid those that are added as foods are prepared:
1. Never order anything deep-fried when you eat out.
2. Cook without oil. All fats and oils, whether saturated or polyunsaturated, add calories to whatever is cooked in them. But nonstick cooking surfaces contain no fats or oils. And meat broiled by itself is every bit as palatable as meat panfried in oil.
3. Poach the things you usually fry, and steam the things you usually saut�. You will find that fish and vegetables prepared in this way taste less like fat and more like themselves.
Think vegetables. They provide abundant natural vitamins, fiber, and remarkably few calories relative to their bulk. Scorned by many as "rabbit food," raw vegetables in particular have become the most undervalued item in our diet.
Rediscover potatoes. The potato is the most maligned staple in our diet, the first item abandoned by the weight-watcher. In actuality, a small baked potato may contain only 70 calories and, seasoned with nothing more than a bit of salt and coarsely ground black pepper, it is one of the tastiest and most nourishing of low-calorie foods.
Know the cost of processing. Calories, usually in the form of refined sugar, are frequently added with each step in the processing of food. There may be 25 calories in a cup of fresh green beans, 45 in a cup of canned beans, 60 in the same amount of frozen beans. Processed fruits may contain three times the calories of fresh. In the supermarket, remember: choose fresh fruits or vegetables or those frozen without added sugar.
Appreciate the value of air. There is more apparent bulk and less actual caloric content in anything puffed. Puffed rice can be eaten as cereal or in cracker form, and contains only 55 calories in an entire cup. Rice, oatmeal and farina belong to this category, and one of the best arguments for eating unsweetened cereal at breakfast is that it is a good source of fiber and bulk that is moderate in caloric content.
Watch the sugar. Refined sugar is the only thing in our diet that contains nothing but calories. For many of us, it is a deeply ingrained habit. But it is possible for any adult to wean himself from overdependence on sugar, one teaspoonful at a time.
PHASE III: Behaviour Modification. Chances are your eating habits are controlled largely by external stimuli. You respond to the sight, smell or suggestion of food, rather than to hunger. The solution may lie in changing how you eat rather than what you eat.
To do this, keep as detailed a private journal as possible, recording not only what you ate, when and how long it took you, but what sort of mood you were in, and who ate with you. The more detailed the record, the more valuable as a means of weight control. Behaviour modification means small but significant changes in eating habits. For example:
Shop only from a prepared list. Dieting begins at the supermarket. It is easier to resist the Danish pastires on the baked-goods counter than on your kitchen counter, and you must train yourself to do so.
Keep a boring refrigerator. Discourage your late-night snacking and your gourmand's eye for the tempting tidbit by storing high-calorie foods in opaque plastic containers. If this proves an insufficient deterrent, remove the light from inside the refrigerator.
Always eat in the same place. Snacks will seem more like meals, and their calorie content will register more clearly when they are consumed at the table. Eat even the tiniest snack off a plate. The most insidious kind of nibbling involves taking snacks from their containers, one piece at a time.
Chew everything carefully. Our food consumption often outstrips actual hunger. The trick is to extend each meal while consuming as little as possible. One excellent way to do this is to set your fork down deliberately after every other bite.
Plan to fail. For reasons psychologists cannot fully explain, occasional slips have a way of reinforcing rather than undermining newly acquired habits. The mere fact that you have learned to recognize "cheating" for what it is indicates that you have learned to distinguish right eating from wrong.
PHASE IV: DIET. "To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals," cautioned the portly Benjamin Franklin. But most physicians fail to emphasize how little need to be taken out of a diet to produce weight loss. You can lose weight steadily and permanently by making only minor modifications in your diet. Give up a single pat of butter every day, and you can lose five pounds a year. Forgo a 12-ounce can of beer each day, and you can lose 17-1/2 pounds a year. Drop one slice of toast each morning: six pounds a year. Pick the items you can part with most easily. You will miss them least. And, whatever sacrifices you make:
Never count calories. Counting reinforces the notion of dieting as a temporary deprivation. a successful program of weight control is precisely the opposite: permanent and unobtrusive.
Weigh yourself no oftener than once a week. Many diets fail because dieters abandon them before they have a chance to succeed. And a principal reason for this is that most diets seem at first to fail. Body fluids may be retained, and after the first week or so, there may be no apparent weight loss for several weeks. Adipose tissue is being burned, but the impact is not registering on your bathroom scale.
Snack. This may seem the most radical suggestion of all, but can be the most effective. The very act of eating, combined with the most modest intake of calories an hour before mealtimes, seems to reduce hunger during the meals themselves. But be certain to choose a snack high in water content and bulk, such as natural fruit juice, puffed cereal, fresh fruit or raw vegetables.
The possible combinations of these suggestions are almost limitless. Not every suggestion will work in every case, but one is almost certain to work for you. Do not be afraid to try, do not be afraid to fail. Remember: there are as many answers to the puzzle of overweight as there are people with weight problems.
Condensed from "The Thin Game" E. Bayrd - RD7:79
RELAXATION is very important in the dieting game. Take some time to relax and play some games here
The Nutritional Cost of Prescription Drugs
Scientific literature recognizes that prescription medication can alter the way our bodies use nutrients, therefore, we must find a way to reduce the side effects and counter the negative long-term effects of medications through natural means.
For instance, birth control pills reduce the uptake of folic acid and we know that a folic acid depletion in women of child bearing age can lead to disastrous effects for an unborn child (spina bifida being the most known). To counter this, every woman taking birth control pills should also take a supplement of folic acid. This is now widely accepted. Another good example is cholesterol lowering drugs. The statins (a class of heart drugs), apart from lowering cholesterol levels, reduce coenzyme Q10 synthesis and coQ10 deficeincy is associated with a higher incidence of heart failure. (How strange, to reduce one heart disease risk factor to increase another!) But a supplement of coQ10 could correct this threat.
A last example to prove the point is estrogens, prescribed to relieve menopause symptoms and prevent osteoporosis. But estrogens also affect the uptake of magnesium from the diet! To build strong bones (not to mention nocturnal leg cramps) we need magnesium--how many women on hormones do you know that complain of leg cramps? Those cramps could be prevented by a simple addition of magnesium.
There are many other examples of drug-induced nutritional deficiency being connected with dietary supplements. If you're taking drugs be aware of the side effects and counteract them with essential nutrients in supplement form that will help the body heal!
The scientific data concerning drug-induced nutrient depletion has been collected into a book written by two American pharmacists: Ross Pelton and James B. Lavalle. The Nutritional Cost of Prescription Drugs is published by Morton Publishing Co. It's easy to read and answers all drug and nutrients related questions.
Jean-Yves Dionne, BSc Pharm, is a renowned lecturer, curently teaching at the Universitie de Montreal and at the Ecole Enseignement Superieur en Naturopathie. He is the author of several books and writes in numerous health magazines.
#220 Feby 2001 Alive - Canadian Journal of Health & Nutrition
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POINTS TO PONDER
Isolation is aloneness that feels forced upon you, like a punishment. Solitude is aloneness you choose and embrace. I think great things can come out of solitude, out of going to a place where all is quiet except the beating of your heart.
The Washington Post
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