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| The Mediterranean diet has gained a lot of respect in recent years, with its emphasis on eating heart-healthy foods such as fish. CNS photo courtesy of Whole Foods. |
Pick an Eating Plan With Staying Power to Aid Weight Loss
by Vicky Katz Whitaker
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - It doesn’t take long to figure out what’s happened when the seams split on your favorite skirt, your shirt buttons pop, or those dress snaps just won’t stay snapped.
All those super-sized orders at the drive-through have made you super sized. You need a diet.
Finding one that’s right for you can be a challenge, especially if you’re looking to quickly shed the pounds you’ve packed on over a long period of time. You can do it yourself by ditching rich desserts, passing on the potatoes and limiting lunch to a couple of carrot sticks and a scoop of cottage cheese.
But if you’re like most people, you’ll try the latest fad diet. It’s usually the one that promises the quickest results. You may lose a couple of pounds immediately, but chances are you will gain it all back — and then some.
“All diets work in the short term, because each one has a trick for helping you cut calories whether you’re actually counting them or not,” explained Colleen Pierre, a registered dietitian, licensed nutritionist and an adjunct instructor of aging, nutrition and fitness in Johns Hopkins University’s certificate on aging program who works in private practice in Baltimore. “Keeping the weight off over the long haul is the tricky part.”
Pierre recommends choosing a diet with staying power. “A plan that includes all food groups, even small treats, keeps you well-nourished while you dispose of excess body fat,” she said. “Changes made gradually over time are most likely to become permanent and help you keep the weight off.”
Choosing a diet can be daunting. There are hundreds of plans — some are good, some are bad. Advertising and promotional campaigns on television and in print, as well as celebrity endorsements, can make even the worst diet an instant hit with the public. Others, like the now popular Mediterranean diet, may take years to catch on.
The Mediterranean diet drew scant interest in 1945 when Ancel Keys, an American doctor stationed in Italy, advanced the idea that a diet rich in olive oil, fresh fruits and vegetables could translate into lower cholesterol levels and better health. In 2001, well-known Harvard epidemiologist Walter Willett came to the same conclusion in Eat, Drink and Be Healthy, his best-selling book.
Today the Mediterranean diet, which goes easy on meat and urges the daily consumption of fruits, fish, salads, bread, pasta, beans, cheese and yogurt, is the basis of several other popular plans including the Sonoma Diet, the Omega Diet and the Miami Mediterranean Diet.
Some diet programs have staying power. Weight Watchers has had a following for more than 45 years. Each week, approximately 1.5 million members attend over 50,000 Weight Watchers meetings around the world. The Jenny Craig Weight Loss Program draws 150,000 a week and has counted 5 million clients worldwide since 1983. Both stress portion control and support to keep dieters on track.
The biggest weight loss website is eDiets.com, whose 1.3 million paid members can choose from nearly two dozen diets including its own calorie-controlled plan and well-known plans like Atkins, Mediterranean, Slim-Fast Optima and Glycemic Impact, or special-need diets that are wheat free, low fat, low sodium, vegetarian, high fiber, hypoglycemic, lactose free and heart smart.
Members of eDiets have access to nutritionists and fitness specialists, can participate in online support boards, get recipes and diet tools, track their weight loss history and, like a growing number of other diet operations, have portion-controlled meals and snacks delivered right to their door for an extra fee.
Even with close monitoring and support, many dieters still fail to lose those extra pounds. David Grotto, president and founder of Elmhurst, Ill.-headquartered Nutrition Housecall and a nutrition advisor to Fitness magazine, said dieters do themselves in by setting unrealistic goals such as putting an “end date” on their diet.
Focusing on deprivation and ignoring the details of when, what and how much to eat doom dieters along with failing to exercise, not getting at least seven to eight hours of sleep and not keeping records of what they’ve consumed.
“Every morsel needs to be accounted for if you are to ever make sense of the scale,” he said.
Article by Creators News Service.
page 18, 12/7/2009
©Los Angeles Downtown News. Reprinting items retrieved from the archives are for personal use only. They may not be reproduced or retransmitted without permission of the Los Angeles Downtown News. If you would like to re-distribute anything from the Los Angeles Downtown News Archives, please call our permissions department at (213) 481-1448.
All those super-sized orders at the drive-through have made you super sized. You need a diet.
Finding one that’s right for you can be a challenge, especially if you’re looking to quickly shed the pounds you’ve packed on over a long period of time. You can do it yourself by ditching rich desserts, passing on the potatoes and limiting lunch to a couple of carrot sticks and a scoop of cottage cheese.
But if you’re like most people, you’ll try the latest fad diet. It’s usually the one that promises the quickest results. You may lose a couple of pounds immediately, but chances are you will gain it all back — and then some.
“All diets work in the short term, because each one has a trick for helping you cut calories whether you’re actually counting them or not,” explained Colleen Pierre, a registered dietitian, licensed nutritionist and an adjunct instructor of aging, nutrition and fitness in Johns Hopkins University’s certificate on aging program who works in private practice in Baltimore. “Keeping the weight off over the long haul is the tricky part.”
Pierre recommends choosing a diet with staying power. “A plan that includes all food groups, even small treats, keeps you well-nourished while you dispose of excess body fat,” she said. “Changes made gradually over time are most likely to become permanent and help you keep the weight off.”
Choosing a diet can be daunting. There are hundreds of plans — some are good, some are bad. Advertising and promotional campaigns on television and in print, as well as celebrity endorsements, can make even the worst diet an instant hit with the public. Others, like the now popular Mediterranean diet, may take years to catch on.
The Mediterranean diet drew scant interest in 1945 when Ancel Keys, an American doctor stationed in Italy, advanced the idea that a diet rich in olive oil, fresh fruits and vegetables could translate into lower cholesterol levels and better health. In 2001, well-known Harvard epidemiologist Walter Willett came to the same conclusion in Eat, Drink and Be Healthy, his best-selling book.
Today the Mediterranean diet, which goes easy on meat and urges the daily consumption of fruits, fish, salads, bread, pasta, beans, cheese and yogurt, is the basis of several other popular plans including the Sonoma Diet, the Omega Diet and the Miami Mediterranean Diet.
Some diet programs have staying power. Weight Watchers has had a following for more than 45 years. Each week, approximately 1.5 million members attend over 50,000 Weight Watchers meetings around the world. The Jenny Craig Weight Loss Program draws 150,000 a week and has counted 5 million clients worldwide since 1983. Both stress portion control and support to keep dieters on track.
The biggest weight loss website is eDiets.com, whose 1.3 million paid members can choose from nearly two dozen diets including its own calorie-controlled plan and well-known plans like Atkins, Mediterranean, Slim-Fast Optima and Glycemic Impact, or special-need diets that are wheat free, low fat, low sodium, vegetarian, high fiber, hypoglycemic, lactose free and heart smart.
Members of eDiets have access to nutritionists and fitness specialists, can participate in online support boards, get recipes and diet tools, track their weight loss history and, like a growing number of other diet operations, have portion-controlled meals and snacks delivered right to their door for an extra fee.
Even with close monitoring and support, many dieters still fail to lose those extra pounds. David Grotto, president and founder of Elmhurst, Ill.-headquartered Nutrition Housecall and a nutrition advisor to Fitness magazine, said dieters do themselves in by setting unrealistic goals such as putting an “end date” on their diet.
Focusing on deprivation and ignoring the details of when, what and how much to eat doom dieters along with failing to exercise, not getting at least seven to eight hours of sleep and not keeping records of what they’ve consumed.
“Every morsel needs to be accounted for if you are to ever make sense of the scale,” he said.
Article by Creators News Service.
page 18, 12/7/2009
©Los Angeles Downtown News. Reprinting items retrieved from the archives are for personal use only. They may not be reproduced or retransmitted without permission of the Los Angeles Downtown News. If you would like to re-distribute anything from the Los Angeles Downtown News Archives, please call our permissions department at (213) 481-1448.
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Reader Comments
The following are comments from the readers. In no way do they represent the view of ladowntownnews.com.
Linda Hibbard wrote on Dec 5, 2009 7:40 AM:
" Try wearing wearable weights like “Body Togs” anatomically designed weighted sleeves worn on your arms & legs under your clothes. Put them on in the morning and you literally forget you have them on while increasing your calorie burn, muscle tone & bone density! Weighted vests work great too! "
END DA FED wrote on Dec 5, 2009 10:14 AM:
" Maybe the US GOV should stop corn subsidies, then High Fructose corn syrup won't be the choice of sweetener. Its even in wheat bread! But we all know there nothing logical about the US Govt. "
Cornrefiner wrote on Dec 10, 2009 7:10 AM:
" High fructose corn syrup may have a complicated-sounding name, but it’s simply a kind of corn sugar that is nutritionally the same as table sugar.
According to the American Dietetic Association, “high fructose corn syrup…is nutritionally equivalent to sucrose. Once absorbed into the blood stream, the two sweeteners are indistinguishable.”
Manufacturers of corn sweeteners do not receive government subsidies. Our industry buys corn on the open market at the prevailing market price.
High fructose corn syrup is used in the food supply because of its many functional benefits. It is used in certain applications for sweetening, and in other applications it performs functions that have little to do with sweetening. For example, it is a highly fermentable nutritive sweetener that gives breads a pleasing brown crust.
As many dietitians agree, all sugars should be consumed in moderation as part of a balanced lifestyle.
Consumers can see the latest research and learn more about high fructose corn syrup at www.SweetSurprise.com.
Audrae Erickson
President
Corn Refiners Association "
According to the American Dietetic Association, “high fructose corn syrup…is nutritionally equivalent to sucrose. Once absorbed into the blood stream, the two sweeteners are indistinguishable.”
Manufacturers of corn sweeteners do not receive government subsidies. Our industry buys corn on the open market at the prevailing market price.
High fructose corn syrup is used in the food supply because of its many functional benefits. It is used in certain applications for sweetening, and in other applications it performs functions that have little to do with sweetening. For example, it is a highly fermentable nutritive sweetener that gives breads a pleasing brown crust.
As many dietitians agree, all sugars should be consumed in moderation as part of a balanced lifestyle.
Consumers can see the latest research and learn more about high fructose corn syrup at www.SweetSurprise.com.
Audrae Erickson
President
Corn Refiners Association "
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Billy wrote on Dec 5, 2009 5:43 AM:
I was able to lose 80 pounds and keep it off, I still have more to lose but this has been a great start "