Archive for the 'Diets' Category

How Much Does It Cost To Lose 30 lbs?

amy April 9th, 2007

Bankrate has an article (original can be found here) comparing the costs of different weight loss programs. The article seems to assume that dieters will lose 2 pounds a week, which is really a best case scenario as this is the maximum that experts say you should try to lose per week and it is often not a sustainable rate when you have less to lose. While these aren’t necessarily accurate numbers for how much it will actually cost to lose 30 pounds on a particular program, it is still interesting to see how the programs compare to one another. The costs of the diet range from reasonable to extreme. There are no real surprises here, though, except maybe the zone diet. $39.99 a day for food delivered daily?

The extravagant cost (and the fact that research shows that you are likely to gain all of that weight back in a few years) is yet another reason to avoid diets and lose weight your own way: by eating healthier foods, smaller portions, and exercising. If you set your own nutritional and exercise goals based on your personal preferences and triggers, and learn to eat like a naturally thin person instead of eating boxed foods or counting calories, hopefully the changes you make and the weight loss you achieve will be for like.

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Study: Dieting does not work, researchers report

amy April 5th, 2007

Here’s some more evidence against dieting. UCLA researchers have analyzed 31 long term diet studies and will publish their results in the April issue of American Psychologist. The researchers have concluded not only that diets are not an effective way to lose weight for the long term, but that in many cases dieting can actually be worse for you than maintaining your current weight:

“What happens to people on diets in the long run?” Mann asked. “Would they have been better off to not go on a diet at all? We decided to dig up and analyze every study that followed people on diets for two to five years. We concluded most of them would have been better off not going on the diet at all. Their weight would be pretty much the same, and their bodies would not suffer the wear and tear from losing weight and gaining it all back.”

People on diets typically lose 5 to 10 percent of their starting weight in the first six months, the researchers found. However, at least one-third to two-thirds of people on diets regain more weight than they lost within four or five years, and the true number may well be significantly higher, they said.

In some cases, the dieters ended up gaining more weight in the long run than those who did not try to diet:

“Several studies indicate that dieting is actually a consistent predictor of future weight gain,” said Janet Tomiyama, a UCLA graduate student of psychology and co-author of the study. One study found that both men and women who participated in formal weight-loss programs gained significantly more weight over a two-year period than those who had not participated in a weight-loss program, she said.

One interesting thing that the researchers mention is the negative effects yo-yo dieting can have on your body. I remember seeing an article on MSNBC years ago that said that yo-yo dieting was actually better for your heart than staying overweight, since your body still benefited from those times that you were at a lower weight. I haven’t heard much about the health of yo-yo dieting since, though, either because I totally missed it or it is not talked about at great length. I suspect it’s at least partly the latter, since it is not in the weight loss industry’s interest to scare us off from trying the same diets that have failed us in the past over and over again. This article suggest that yo-yo dieting has a negative effect, and other articles I found seem to agree.

Evidence suggests that repeatedly losing and gaining weight is linked to cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes and altered immune function. Mann and Tomiyama recommend that more research be conducted on the health effects of losing and gaining weight, noting that scientists do not fully understand how such weight cycling leads to adverse health effects.

The article is not all grim for those who wish to shed pounds, however, as it gives a slight nod to the importance of healthy eating and exercise, without dieting:

“Eating in moderation is a good idea for everybody, and so is regular exercise,” Mann said. “That is not what we looked at in this study. Exercise may well be the key factor leading to sustained weight loss. Studies consistently find that people who reported the most exercise also had the most weight loss.”

Here are some additional thoughts on the article:

  • I assume that the studies the article assessed were looking at specific diets (e.g. Weight Watchers, Atking, Jenny Craig, etc.), so it’s bad news for dieters but not necessarily those trying to lose weight through other methods (such as myself).
  • Unfortunately the article doesn’t go into a lot of detail (what diets were studies, how overweight the patients were, etc.), so it’s a bit difficult to assess the validity of the research without reading the actual study (which I wasn’t able to find). Some of the conclusions could be a bit suspect depending on the individuals who were studied.
  • Were the non-dieters who gained less weight just as overweight or obese as the dieters? Maybe that could explain why they did not try to diet in the first place or gained less weight later due to better eating habits.
  • How much weight did the people in the studies lose? If they lost a significant amount of weight, it seems like it would take longer for them to gain it back if they were making at least some attempt to continue to eat healthy.

You can find the full article here.

How to recognize a fad diet

amy March 13th, 2007

HealthDay News has some good recommendations on how to recognize when a diet is “too good to be true.”

Health Tip: Avoid Fad Diets

  • Diets that promise to help you lose more than one to two pounds a week.
  • Diets that promise weight loss without a healthy diet low in fatty foods.
  • Diets that base claims on “before and after” photos that show dramatic weight loss.
  • Diets that pitch testimonials from users or so-called experts.
  • Diets that focus on only one type of food, and don’t encourage a healthy, balanced diet.
  • Diets that require you to spend a lot of money on pills, seminars or prepared foods.

I have one more:  Diets that claim certain foods or nutrients (like calcium) have miracle weight loss powers (as frequently seen on magazine covers).

My thoughts on being “On Program” versus “Off Program”

amy March 11th, 2007

When I was on Weight Watchers, I was a big fan of their free message boards. (Even if you are not on WW, it’s still a good place to check out sometime for healthy recipes and general fitness and nutrition information.) My opinions about WW are based not only on my own experiences, but also the experiences of others that I encountered during my three years of reading the WW boards.

One common mentality is that you are either OP (On Program) or Off Program. If you are OP, you are a good Weight Watcher, counting points, drinking your water, and exercising. If you are Off Program, you have been eating without regard to points or binging. Others might call it being “on the wagon.” Why do I have a problem with this line of thinking? After all, that’s the point of a diet, it is something that you are either on or off,right?

  1. It’s too black and white. Eating is eating. There is no such thing as good eating and bad eating. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you have eaten 500 more or 500 less Calories than your body has burned. Honestly, it doesn’t even matter at the end of the week. If you eat 500 extra Calories a day over the entire week, you will technically gain a pound (1 pound equals 3500 Calories). So what? That pound canbe just as easily lost (with more) in the next couple of weeks if your Calorie consumption is less than what you burn. What matters is that over a long time period, you ultimately eat less Calories than you burn. Your body doesn’t care if you count your points, keep a food journal, drink all 8 glasses of water every single day, eat something that is not “on program,” or otherwise follow an arbitrary diet plan.
  2. It encourages feelings of guilt. Being off program implies that you have been “bad,” and only perpetuates the power that food has over your emotions. (Face it, if you are 50 or more pounds over weight like me, you must have some sort of emotional relationship with food.) There is no such thing as good food or bad food, just as there is no such thing as eating good or eating bad. We must learn to separate our feelings of self-worth from the foods we eat, and the good/bad implicationof being on or off program does not help.
  3. It can perpetuate a cycle of eating to the extremes. Because eating is seen as either black or white, if you are off program, you might as well be way off program. I know I am not the only one who has fallen into this trap, because it is a common complaint of WW’ers. In the past, when I was not being a perfect little WW’er, I used it as an excuse to eat all of the foods that I had beendenying myself. Not only did I eat anything that tickled my fancy without regards to points, but because of the weekly structure of the plan, there was no point on trying to get back “on” until my week restarted with my weigh in. On the WW message boards, I’ve heard the following analogy many times: “If you tripped and fell down a couple of stairs, you wouldn’t throw yourself the rest of the way down, would you?” Or, “If you accidentally broke a couple of eggs, you wouldn’t say oh well and throwthe entire dozen on the floor.” Of course the answer is no, but if you avoid “On Program” and “Off Program” thinking in the first place, then there won’t be any broken eggs or a fall in the first place.

If your goal is to eat like a “normal” (meaning healthy-weight) person, I believe it’s important to get away from the “On” of “Off” state of mind. You shouldn’t do something to lose weight now that you don’t want to do for the long term. Ask yourself, do you really want to be “On” or “Off” for the rest of your life?

Introduction

amy March 10th, 2007

Three years ago I thought I had mastered weight loss. I went from pushing morbidly obese at 274 pounds down to a barely overweight 176—two pounds above my initial goal weight—in about a year in a half with Weight Watchers online. Aside from the occasional fall “off the wagon,” I lived, ate, and breathed the points system. I reveled in the compliments of my friends and coworkers who watched me lose 98 pounds, relished shopping in the “regular” clothing section, and ran my first 5k after completing CoolRunning.com’s Couch to 5k program. I had finally left my former fat persona behind and could look forward to a new life of “normal.”

Three years, two incredibly stressful semesters of working full time and going to school part time, one pregnancy, and four diet attempts later, I’m back to an obese (but at least not pushing morbid) 243 pounds. Part of me wishes If Only…If Only I had stayed on Weight Watchers…If Only I had kept running…If Only I hadn’t put myself under way too much stress by going back to school…If Only I had seen a nutritionist when I started gaining an excessive amount of weight during my pregnancy, instead of listening to everyone who validated my bingeing by pointing out that I was “eating for two”…If Only I had fully committed myself during one of my many diet attempts after giving birth. If Only, I could be at my goal weight now.

The bigger part of me would like to think that my yo-yo dieting hasn’t been for naught. If I’d actually followed through with one of my “If Only”s, I’d still be back at this same point, overweight and out of shape, if not now then at some point. I’ve finally come to a realization that someone else’s magic bullet, once size fits all plan/diet/system for wellbeing cannot undo a lifetime of food abuse. If diets work, then why is weight loss a multi billion-dollar industry? With 40% of women and 25% of men attempting to lose weight at a given time, why are the waistlines of Americans still growing?

I believe it’s because most people (yours truly included) focus on a quick fix that might yield impressive results in the short term but don’t confront the daunting task of retraining their attitudes towards food to help them maintain the weight loss for a lifetime. When someone works up the motivation to change their eating habits, they don’t necessarily want to spend the time figuring out why they are overweight and what causes them to overeat (emotional triggers, boredom, habit, lack of knowledge about nutrition, peer pressure, lifestyle, environment, etc.) Most people who seek to lose weight want a structured plan that has been tested and guaranteed (or at least promised) to work if the person follows the program. They want results. These diet plans (not only fad diet but “reputable” diets like Weight Watchers and South Beach as well) deliver their results by imposing some sort of artificial control on how people eat, whether it is limiting certain foods or counting calories or other nutritional units. The dieter loses weight and may even get to goal and maintain their weight loss for awhile, but they don’t learn how to live and eat outside of these boundaries by controlling their weight naturally. Many weightwatchers point out that WW is a “lifestyle, not a diet”, but do they really plan to count points or carry around a set of measuring cups for their entire lives?

Having lost weight the Weight Watchers way, then gaining most of it back, I’ve come to realize that I need to learn to lose weight my own individualized way, by listening to my body, eating healthy, low energy-dense foods 80% of the time, controlling my eating for reasons other than hunger, and incorporating more activity into my life, without counting, measuring, or excluding foods.

This time, I’m not in a big rush to lose weight like I was before. Even if I manage to lose 10 pounds a year, if I can do it in a way that truly changes my attitudes towards food, then it will be 10 pounds that are gone forever.

So, here is my commitment to changing my health, 10 pounds at a time.