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Healthy Strategies
for Your Ideal Body
By Grace M. Navarro
Once the dust and cookie crumbs from the holidays were
swept clean, many people made some resolutions
regarding
their health, planning to shed some weight and get
into
better shape. By now, some are still carrying on with
their
good intentions, while others got derailed and are
looking
to get back on track. For both cases, here is some
information and encouragement.
You've got lots of company if you are presently
dieting or
preparing to start. At any point in time, there are
nearly
60 million US residents on a weight loss program.
Given a
population of around 300 million, one out of five of
the
people you meet today are likely to be in the midst of
dieting, whether it's necessary for them or not. Data
from
previous years indicate that during the course of this
year, at least half of the population will go on a
diet,
meaning that half of the people you meet today are
probably
going to try to lose weight some time in 2005. Since
three
out of four women think they need to lose weight, a
greater
number of those dieters will be female.
It is no wonder, with a market that lucrative and
widespread, that the dieting industry is so
competitive and
saturated. And it is no wonder the products - from
books,
to pills, to exercise machines - are often focused
more on
what will sell than what will work. Buyer beware. An
understanding of just a few key principles would help
many
people choose wisely among the hundreds of diet plans
available. Rather than starting a diet plan that is
inherently flawed and doomed to fail, one particular
fact
could prevent you from suffering that fate of 98% of
all
dieters. Research has proven beyond question that
'traditional' diets that are based on a restriction of
calories simply do not work. At all. They actually
backfire
and cause weight gain!
Here's the nutshell reason why just restricting
calories
cannot result in permanent weight loss. In the face of
a
radical reduction of food intake, our miraculous
bodies
have evolved to conserve energy, create more fat, slow
down
metabolism, and engage in all kinds of survival
mechanisms
to keep us from starving. Yet people continue to make
the
mistake of cutting back on food instead of changing
the
types of food they eat. And in the process of
restricting
calories, people inadvertently trigger the "Starvation
Response," a combination of physiological processes
for
survival that guarantee that when the diet is over,
all the
lost weight will be regained. Our bodies are
programmed for
survival, not to fit into a smaller size blue jean.
People fall for diet programs that defy common sense
for a
number of reasons. First, there is confusion because
so
much conflicting information is published by the
media.
Second, we are barraged with some very effective
marketing
as companies compete for our dieting dollars (35
billion is
spent annually in the US alone). Third, the truth is
that
most of us want to believe there is some magic answer,
an
easy, quick and effective way to get fit. Despite the
claims made by promoters of many diet plans and
products,
research is consistently showing that the big four
dieting
concepts do not work in the long-run. They are either
unsustainable, or too simplistically applied.
Low-calorie
is over. No-fat is out. High-protein is finished. Low-carb
is on the wane.
What really works? Eating the foods our bodies evolved
to
eat, in proper proportions in proper combinations.
It's not
tricky, but it's not brainless either. Look in a good
bookstore for books about combining foods, and check
to see
what kind of research studies are used to support the
writing before buying. One book, a quick read that
clearly
explains the right foods and combinations for humans
to eat
is "The Good Calorie Diet" by Dr. Phillip Lipetz. The
book
was written in 1994, but the principles of which foods
we
should eat in what combination are as old as
humankind, and
the research studies on which the book is based are
sound.
The book is brief, easy to understand, and the plan is
readily applied. The basic principles are few. I'll
share a
couple here so you can get the idea of proper food
combinations and get started on the pleasant journey
of
changing your eating habits for permanent weight loss.
The
first principle is to eat whole food, and avoid
processed
foods such as those that come in packages, boxes and
cans.
Another principle is never to combine animal protein
with
fruit or with starchy carbohydrates (rice, bread,
pasta,
potatoes). All of the principles of food combination
are
aligned with the way our ancestors ate, and it just
makes
sense to eat according to the diet humans were
designed to
thrive upon.