Weight Loss Info Center

Study:  Low Carb Weight Loss Not Water Weight

This is great news for those of you who choose (and love) the low carb lifestyle!  “According to lead researcher, Guenther Boden, M.D., ‘When carbohydrates were restricted, study subjects spontaneously reduced their caloric intake to a level appropriate for their height, did not compensate by eating more protein or fat, and lost weight.  We concluded that excessive overeating had been fueled by carbohydrates.’”

Evidently, eating carbs (bad carbs) leads to overeating.  And the weight loss in the above study is NOT due to a change in metabolism.

So if you are living the low carb life, you’re doing the right thing.

Bookmark It

Here is an article I wrote some time ago, but I thought it might be helpful.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were some miracle pill that could help us shed unwanted pounds without lifting a finger or adjusting how many calories we consume or increasing our activity level? Wouldn’t it be great if you were the inventor of this magical pill that could make us/keep us thin? Well, don’t dream about this for too long because, unfortunately, it’s not going to happen. For permanent weight loss, you will have to change your lifestyle and eating habits…that’s all there is to it.

Weight loss takes time, work, motivation, and positive thinking. Forget those “Lose 10 pounds in 2 days” weight loss schemes. Oh, they may work in the short term, but how long can one drink only juice and stay alive? Or take a pill and only eat once a day, if at all? Let me tell you: not very long. And guess what? Once you start eating and drinking normally again, those pounds you lost will come right back…quicker than when they came off!

Permanent weight loss takes time. You don’t know how I hated to admit to myself that the following statement is true: “It took time to accumulate the weight, so it will take time to take it off.” I thought it wasn’t true, but it is. If you steadily gained 10 pounds over 6 months, it’s going to take at least 1 to 2 months to get those pounds off. You will also have to invest time in finding the right exercise plan for you and time to determine how you want to eat in order to maximize your weight loss efforts.

To get those pounds off, it will also take work. That’s right: work. By that I mean exercise. Yes, study after study has shown that activity is key to weight loss and keeping the weight from coming back. There’s no getting around it: you will have to exercise if you want optimum results.

To get optimum results, you will also need motivation. You will be surprised at what motivates you. It could be your doctor telling you that you need to lose weight because your blood pressure and/or cholesterol are high. It may be a comment made in passing by a friend or loved one about how you have “let yourself go.” It may be those clothes in your closet that you haven’t worn in years that are beckoning to you, screaming out to you to please wear them again soon! Whatever your motiviation is…do whatever it takes to keep it in your mind at all times. Put a picture of yourself from your thinner and healthier days up on your frig or on your mirror. Write about your weight loss journey every day in a journal or notebook. Repeat your goals to yourself at least three times a day. Find a weight loss buddy. Whatever it takes to keep you motivated, do it!

Another important key to permanent weight loss is positive thinking. In addition to changing your eating and activity habits, it is imperative to change the way you think. You cannot let negative thinking get in the way of your goal…a thinner, healthier you.

So the weight loss checklist includes:

Time

Work

Motivation

Positive Thinking

These 4 things are key in reaching your weight loss goal.

Bookmark It

So I have been reading different message board posts by women lately who are eating well below the suggested 1,200 calories per day mark.  Why is that?  Maybe they don’t like to eat or they want to stay the same weight that they are or even GAIN weight.  Yes, that’s right, by eating less than 1,200 calories per day, you can actually gain weight and here’s why: when you consume too few calories, your body thinks you are starving it, so it goes into what is called “starvation mode” in which it hangs on to fat to feed itself because it thinks it’s starving.  PLUS, eating less than 1,200 calories is not sustainable.  Yes, you may be able to do it for a little while, but it’s not feasible to think that you can and will do it forever.  So what else can happen?  You binge.  You may call them “cheat days” or have days where you “just couldn’t help” but eat the entire bag of Doritos or half a cake.  It’s called binging and more often than not, people binge because they have deprived themselves of foods they enjoy and/or much needed calories.  So then what happens when you binge?  You gain weight - period.  Unless, of course, you burn, burn, burn a ton of calories all in the same day, and who is really going to do that when they’re stuffed full of Doritos and cake?

Here are some good tips to follow when trying to lose weight:

1.  Do not starve yourself or deprive yourself - becomes friends with your food.  That’s right - become friends with your food.  Food is NOT your enemy - you are.  You can eat more than 1,200 calories per day and still lose weight.  Make healthy choices, learn to like food and what it can do for the body when you choose the right foods.  Do not deprive yourself of foods that you enjoy eating.  If you like cake, okay, have it, but don’t eat a HUGE slice - just eat a thin slice or a few bites, whatever it takes to satisfy you.  For some healthy recipes, visit my Recipes section here at WLIC.

2.  Find out what your BMR is - this means the calories your body burns every day just at rest.  You can find a good BMR calculator here:  http://walking.about.com/cs/calories/l/blcalcalc.htm  Calculate how many calories your body burns just resting and you can subtract from that number to get the number of calories you need to take in on a daily basis and still lose weight.  You may be surprised at the number, so give it a try.

3.  Exercise.  Sorry, folks, but there is no other way around it - you have to get up off your butt and move it!  Dancing, cleaning, taking care of your children, cooking, aerobics, weight training - all of these activities burn calories.  Every time you move you burn calories - so just move!  http://www.fitday.com/ has a free program where you can input your calories by different food, calculate how many calories you are burning per day with each activity you do or just “at rest,” a journal, reports, and much more!  If Fitday doesn’t suit you, try http://www.sparkpeople.com/ and join the community there.

4.  Don’t beat yourself up.  This is the most important thing to keep in mind - you’re human; it will take time to implement change, so if you find that you have a bad day and you don’t stick to your weight loss plan, remember that tomorrow is a new day!  Don’t beat yourself up and then quit trying to reach your goal.  Forgive yourself and move on.

Bookmark It

I had someone email about how they too could stop drinking soda, so I thought I would share my “secret” to stopping.  And for those of you who do not have a soda - well, let’s just call it what it is - a soda addiction, you probably won’t believe that there are people with soda addiction.  I liken it to being an alcoholic in the sense that you get uncontrollable cravings for it.  I am assuming it’s the sugar because after you stop drinking soda and try to drink one again, it tastes nasty even though when you were a soda junkie, it tasted, oh, so good and you couldn’t live without it!

For the past 5 years, I was up to anywhere between 4 to 5 Mt. Dews a day.  A lot of people drink coffee in the morning…well, my “coffee” was Mt. Dew.  I had one before breakfast, with breakfast, with lunch and dinner, sometimes just as a “snack.”  I went nowhere without one in my hand…it was my constant companion, my friend, so to speak.  I was absolutely out of control and my pants getting way too tight for my liking was ‘proof in the pudding.’  So about a month and a half ago, I decided I wanted to “wean” myself off the Dew.  It took me about a week, but I got down to only drinking 2 a day.  Well, the next week, I kept my Dew in the frig instead of sitting right in front of me.  That helped a little.  But I got tired of the “Oh, I really shouldn’t drink this,” the up and down to the frig every few minutes to get a sip, etc., etc.  So about a month ago, I decided to STOP the insanity and just go cold turkey.  Best move I EVER made!  I feel so much better.  I actually have more energy.  What I did to get me through that first week (because I had to have something cold to drink and wasn’t ready to up my water intake) was drank sweetened (with organic sugar) ice tea, but I quit the tea the second week in and went with water instead.

Yes, there was withdrawal symptoms.  I didn’t get headaches like most people do, but the 2nd and 3rd week in, I was so tired I thought I had something wrong with me and talked to a doctor who told me caffeine withdrawal is very “punishing” and yes, the horrible fatigue was being caused by withdrawal.  I upped my iron (because I’m anemic as well) and made sure to get a good night’s rest.  I was also very, very irritable for those 2 weeks.  I don’t know what to suggest for that other than just roll with it and try not to kill anybody ;-)  Seriously, meditate, use relaxation techniques, be good to yourself, pamper yourself, do things that will make you feel better.

I will add that we have ate out several times in the past month and instead of ordering a Dew, I have drank iced tea or ordered a Pepsi, and I had a Mt. Dew the night before last.  Tempting fate, I know, but I wanted one to see if I had overcome and wouldn’t go on a Mt. Dew binge…and I didn’t!

There’s no better feeling than having that monkey off my back!

If you decide to stop drinking soda, it will be the best thing you ever did.  You won’t be a “slave” to the soda/sugar anymore, you WILL have more energy, and your waistline will thank you for it.  Good luck!

Bookmark It