9
December
2008
Can you Stick to an Atkins Diet?
News Flash! This ‘just in’ hot off the presses…
Researches now say that Atkins and other Lo-Carb diets do not help when it comes to staying thin. In a comparison between Lo-Carb, low fat and reduced calorie diets, all participants started to regain weight after six months, and by twelve months there was little difference between the groups. “There is no clear evidence that Atkins-style diets are better than any others for helping people stay slim, despite the popularity and apparent success of the Atkins diet,” says Professor Arne Astrup of RVA University in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Ok… so maybe this is a bit melodramatic, but it drives home a point. We are living in a world of dietary confusion, a Land of Oz and make-believe, where facts are hard to find and commercial diets aim to keep us in a confused state and distract us from the truth. This is just one of the many barriers that people face when trying to lose weight.
So how are we expected to deal with all this dietary misinformation? Here is a suggestion. Ignore the hype, find a safe and healthy diet that makes good common sense, and stay with the plan for life. While this might not seem like any great revelation, it‘s amazing how many dieters beat their heads against the wall struggling to lose weight, hoping that “this time” the results will be different. My friend, if this describes your experience with dieting, you are following the wrong plan and need to consider a different approach.
Think back for a moment about how many times you have heard that to lose weight you must be “disciplined” in your approach. Or to put it another way, to lose weight you must be willing to just give up eating your favorite foods (like ice cream) and dining at your favorite places (yes, those fast foods are definitely out of the question). If this ill-advice actually worked, The U.S. National Center for Health Statistics would no longer rank obesity as one of their leading health problems!!
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Posted under Diet plans
9
December
2008
Dean Ornish Diet, Is It For You?
The Dean Ornish diet plan became popular among heart patients for reversing heart disease. The Ornish diet is not just a diet but requires a complete lifestyle change. The plan includes meditation and exercise. The Dean Ornish diet is at the opposite end of the spectrum of the Atkins diet plan.
The diet does not really stress the amount of food you eat but rather the type of food. It is a low fat vegetarian diet plan. Basically you can eat all the vegetables you want with very limited amounts of non fat dairy and egg whites. Complex carbs are also okay and whole grains but no refined sugar, alcohol or junk foods are allowed. Less than 10% of your calories should come from fat, 20% protein and 70% carbs. Dr Ornish’s book is a must if you plan on following the Dean Ornish diet plan as it is filled with excellent recipes to keep you with in his guidlines.
Unlike Dr. Atkins plan the Dean Ornish diet gets positive feedback from most in the medical community. Limited studies have shown overall health benefits of his plan. No Dean Ornish diet review would be complete without mentioning stress management using meditation and exercise.
Typical Day on The Dean Ornish Diet Plan
Breakfast
* Oatmeal cereal with raisins and skim milk
* 1/2 Grapefruit
* Green Teat
Lunch
* Soup (tomato, lentil or other)
* Garden Salad
* Bread
* Fresh Fruit
Dinner
* The Ornish diet includes some terrific pasta dishes for dinner like Eggplant Lasanga
Hits: This might be the perfect diet for the human body. Its a complete plan of living not just a diet.Misses: This is not at all a easy diet for the average person to stick to and one of the most restrictive.
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Posted under Diet plans
8
December
2008
By Andrew Stern
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Women who get pregnant after weight-loss surgery tend to be healthier and less likely to deliver a baby born with complications compared to obese women, researchers said on Tuesday.
An obese woman who has weight-loss, or bariatric, surgery also may increase her chances of getting pregnant in the first place by normalizing her menstrual cycles and hormone levels, the researchers found.
Obese women are more likely to have difficulty getting pregnnt, but after the surgery “there is some suggestion of increased fertility,” Dr. Melinda Maggard, a surgeon and researcher at the Rand Corp think tank in Santa Monica, California, said in a telephone interview.
Bariatric surgery alters the digestive system’s anatomy and reduces the volume of food that can be eaten and digested. The most common form is gastric bypass, which makes the stomach smaller and permits food to bypass part of the small intestine.
While lossing weight naturally is preferable, weight-loss surgery does reduce the risks of pregnancy-related problems such as diabetes and high blood pressure that can harm the mother and her newborn, said the RAND researchers who analyzed data from 75 earlier studies.
The risks of premature delivery, having a low birth wweight baby, or delivering an exceedingly large-bodied baby were reduced for women who had bariatric surgery compared to obese women, the report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association said.
In some cases, pregnancy-related risks after surgery were comparable to those for normal-weight women.
Bariatric procedures have surged in the past decade, with more than 200,000 performed last year in the United States. In the years 2002 to 2005 covered by the study, 150,000 U.S. women of child-bearing age underwent the surgery.
The study was requested by a group representing obstetricians and gynecologists.
A few women who had procedures that shrank the size of the stomach with bands or staples had the devices removed after they became pregnant — either because of discomfort or out of choice.
Others experienced pregnancy complications that likely were related to the surgery such as bowel obstructions, but overall maternal and infant deaths did not rise significantly.
Ideally, women should wait a year after the surgery to get pregnant to let their bodies adjust, but Maggard said some got pregnant earlier without problems.
Even overweight women not morbidly obese who are having difficulty getting pregnant might qualify for bariatric surgery if other weight-los efforts fail, but improving fertility ought not be the main reason to have the surgery, Maggard said.
A related concern after weight-loss surgery might be unplanned pregnancies, Maggard said, because their previous dose of oral contraceptives may not be absorbed adequately.
“They might consider barrier methods of birth control or other means,” she said.
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Posted under Weight loss and pregnancy, weight loss surgery