This is a response I made to a woman who wished to lose weight quickly for a bellydance gig. I think many of us have the mentality of "I just need to lose 5 lbs for that special event", but real health and lasting weight loss means changing the way you view your relationship to food and exercise. Enjoy!
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As a healthcare professional, I agree on many of the points being made here. The "paleo" diet is one of the most helpful diets for maintaining healthy body muscle-to-fat ratio. Whole fruits, vegetables, leafy greens, lean meats (go organic, grass-fed and wild-caught whenever possible for the best ratio of anti-inflammatory omega-3 fats!), and good fats like avocado, flax, coconut, sesame, and olive will give you the most satiety and help you through sugar cravings. For optimal health and weight loss, don't skip meals or use coffee or cigarettes to suppress the appetite. The trick is to give the body enough fiber and good fats so that it feels full, and eat 5 small meals a day so that your blood glucose (sugar) is balanced and you don't get overly hungry.
Check out the glycemic index for an idea of which fruits and vegetables are less sugar-balancing. A general rule of thumb is that if it's starchy or low in fiber, it converts quickly into sugar in the body. Starchy no-nos would be things like most root vegetables and starchy fruits (potato, sweet potato, yams, pumpkin, cassava, plantain, banana, dates, mango, papaya, and any dried fruit). Check out Glycemic Index for more information.
Remember that keeping weight off is about lifestyle. Cultivate a lifestyle that encourages healthy eating, and the weight will stay off for good. I know you can do it!
Showing posts with label weight loss. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weight loss. Show all posts
Monday, January 16, 2012
Friday, October 21, 2011
The HCG Craze: What does it mean for those who want to lose weight?
This post is a response to a discussion started on BHUZ about a dancer who was curious about the HCG diet for weight loss.
I am a naturopathic doctor (ND), and this is a very "hot" topic in alternative healthcare right now. I can't advise anyone yea or nay, but I can give those who are curious some insight into my thoughts on the subject. First of all, the one thing that all diets that work have in common is calorie restriction. When you restrict the amount of food you eat, you lose weight. A drawback of that strategy, however, is the "yo-yo" phenomenon: while you are restricting calories your body goes into "save whatever I get" mode. Then, once you begin to eat normally again, you are still saving everything you eat, which makes you gain all the weight back.
The HCG diet comes with this drawback. Many re-gain the weight after stopping pills or shots. Another side-effect is anxiety, which has been mentioned. There are other side effects which I won't take time to mention here, but the biggest is cost! Plus, this hormone is only supposed to be in the body during PREGNANCY, and I'm sure there are undesired long-term effects that have not been adequately researched.
That said, what are some time-honored ways to lose weight? Weight lifting. Muscle burns fat. There was a big cardio craze in the '90's to "burn fat", but research has shown that building muscle bulk will burn more fat than cardio, every time. And when you weight lift, switch it up. "Muscle confusion" training is the best way to ensure that your body doesn't adjust to your fitness routine, and the less you can adjust, the more fat you will burn. Check out Mark Lauren's website "You are your own gym" for a great discussion on bodyweight exercises and muscle confusion:
Welcome to You Are Your Own Gym: The Bible of Bodyweight Exercises by Mark Lauren
Another great fitness regimen based on these principles is CrossFit.
Welcome to CrossFit: Forging Elite Fitness
What else? Diet, of course. Whole foods. What is a whole food? Anything that grew out of the ground, dropped from a tree or bush, or was slaughtered. No processing. Think: nuts, seeds, fruits, vegetables, meats, fish in as close to their original format as possible. The less starchy, the better for weight loss (so go easy on potatoes, bananas, yams). Check out the World's Healthiest Foods website:
The World's Healthiest Foods
What else? Mental approach to how we perceive weight, food, eating, and our body image. For this, I prefer using EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), which addresses our conscious and subconscious attitudes surrounding the choices we make. For those skeptics and name-droppers, it's been highly endorsed as a psycho-emotional therapy by the likes of Deepak Chopra and Dr. Mercola. Check out:
EFTUniverse.com
The good news? All of the suggestions I've mentioned above are FREE. Bodyweight exercises can be done at home, with few props. Many EFT resources are free. And buying whole foods is often less expensive than purchasing their processed cousins. HCG is a band-aid, a short-cut, not a viable long-term solution to the weight issue or to achieving optimal health.
I am a naturopathic doctor (ND), and this is a very "hot" topic in alternative healthcare right now. I can't advise anyone yea or nay, but I can give those who are curious some insight into my thoughts on the subject. First of all, the one thing that all diets that work have in common is calorie restriction. When you restrict the amount of food you eat, you lose weight. A drawback of that strategy, however, is the "yo-yo" phenomenon: while you are restricting calories your body goes into "save whatever I get" mode. Then, once you begin to eat normally again, you are still saving everything you eat, which makes you gain all the weight back.
The HCG diet comes with this drawback. Many re-gain the weight after stopping pills or shots. Another side-effect is anxiety, which has been mentioned. There are other side effects which I won't take time to mention here, but the biggest is cost! Plus, this hormone is only supposed to be in the body during PREGNANCY, and I'm sure there are undesired long-term effects that have not been adequately researched.
That said, what are some time-honored ways to lose weight? Weight lifting. Muscle burns fat. There was a big cardio craze in the '90's to "burn fat", but research has shown that building muscle bulk will burn more fat than cardio, every time. And when you weight lift, switch it up. "Muscle confusion" training is the best way to ensure that your body doesn't adjust to your fitness routine, and the less you can adjust, the more fat you will burn. Check out Mark Lauren's website "You are your own gym" for a great discussion on bodyweight exercises and muscle confusion:
Welcome to You Are Your Own Gym: The Bible of Bodyweight Exercises by Mark Lauren
Another great fitness regimen based on these principles is CrossFit.
Welcome to CrossFit: Forging Elite Fitness
What else? Diet, of course. Whole foods. What is a whole food? Anything that grew out of the ground, dropped from a tree or bush, or was slaughtered. No processing. Think: nuts, seeds, fruits, vegetables, meats, fish in as close to their original format as possible. The less starchy, the better for weight loss (so go easy on potatoes, bananas, yams). Check out the World's Healthiest Foods website:
The World's Healthiest Foods
What else? Mental approach to how we perceive weight, food, eating, and our body image. For this, I prefer using EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), which addresses our conscious and subconscious attitudes surrounding the choices we make. For those skeptics and name-droppers, it's been highly endorsed as a psycho-emotional therapy by the likes of Deepak Chopra and Dr. Mercola. Check out:
EFTUniverse.com
The good news? All of the suggestions I've mentioned above are FREE. Bodyweight exercises can be done at home, with few props. Many EFT resources are free. And buying whole foods is often less expensive than purchasing their processed cousins. HCG is a band-aid, a short-cut, not a viable long-term solution to the weight issue or to achieving optimal health.
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