Dieting for weight, or eating for health?
In
this country, where there are many overweight people, it seems as if
our obesity is getting thrown back at us, for what ever reason. Not only
that, but it seems as if the ratio of being obese is ever so shrinking.
Back at around the 1900's, you were obese when you were 100#'s over the
average weight. Back in the 1980's, it was 50#'s over. Now it seems as
if it's around 30.
Yet even without the shrinking amounts, it seems as if as Americans, we are still fatter than ever, and I'm not so sure that the decreasing levels of being obese is helping those who are morbidly obese. Then when we look around, there's fast food and easy prepackeged foods that are being thrown at us to boot.
So what are we to do? Well, surely not sit back and not take charge of our own health now, because there's no such thing as a magic pill! But then again...
Here is an article from Web MD about a new diet pill that is approved by the FDA, but seems to have it's own problems. http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20120717/fda-approves-diet-drug-qsymia?ecd=wnl_nal_wlw_071812
So, sure, it may work, but, if you figure, it raises your heart rate, and you're already prone to heart disease if you're over weight. Then on top of which, a pregnant woman may be causing birth defects in her own baby by taking these pills to lose weight.
Here is a quiz by Web MD, about weight loss dos and donts: http://www.webmd.com/diet/rm-quiz-weight-loss-dos-and-donts?ecd=wnl_lbt_071812
But then, we've heard of Atkins, South Beach, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, and more... Fad diets such as the grapefruit and cabbage soup diets, it's not funny. So what should we eat? How should we eat? Should we take a pill? Follow a program? So many choices, and it's very confusing.
Anyway, it helps to know if you're eating right, wrong, over eating, etc. Find out if you may have some sort of food addiction. I know some of us may feel like we do, it's not a food addiction if you just love food. When we become dependent, emotionally and/or psychologically is when we are in trouble of addiction.
But, just because we emotionally eat, or eat because we're stressed, doesn't make it an addiction either. So what now?
Keep a diary. What you eat, when, and why. Were you really hungry? Or is the fridge calling your name? Are you bored? Or were you really hungry? And what did you eat? Was it healthy? How much was it? All of this helps. A log of what you eat, and when, because you may not think you're eating a lot, but, when you write it down, you realize you ate more than what you thought. Or maybe it wasn't that it was more, but maybe you thought you were eating healthy, and it was actually fattening.
The log will serve multiple purposes. First, you will notice a pattern, so if you were stressed, do you go for sugary or salty foods? Do you eat healthy breakfast, but have a lousy lunch? Maybe you grab a muffin and coffee for breakfast, and figure you'll eat healthy later, only to order a sub for lunch?
When you figure out why you eat, what you eat, how often you eat, and how much you eat, you will be able to develop a sense of your own schedules. Then go from there. If there is a sense of emotional eating, you may fare better with a therapist or counselor that can help you work through your stress. If it's out of cravings, start with small changes such as eating mandarin oranges instead of candy once, and then substitute other fruits and veggies gradually. If it's a whole thing about not knowing what you should eat, ask your doctor for a referral to a dietician. If you don't have a doctor, and no insurance, feel free to ask me about it, I will do what I can to help you. I am not a nutritionist or a dietitian. But I DO have a lot of experience with them behind my back. I might be able to help you find favorite foods that will go good, because many foods depend on American palates, and they don't really understand ethnic food, where I cook from a global food market.
The things I don't recommend - if you're offered a magic pill, run away from it. I also don't recommend diets that take away a whole food group or more, for example, the Atkins diet you skip all carbs. Fad diets like the grapefruit diet allows you to only eat 2 grapefruits and a scoop of vanilla ice cream a day for 3 days. The ice cream is so you won't have an acidic reaction, and w/o protein, you won't be able to think.
Most places will tell you to eat in moderation, and we all know that moderation can vary from person to person. I happen to have this genetic thing, called a 16p11.2 micro-deletion. We have a set of 23 chromosomes - for a total of 46, because we get one from each parent. On the 16th set of chromosomes, I have one normal one, and the other one is missing a small strand of information on the 11.2 band. It predisposes me to be overweight, and impacts my appetite. It will be nearly difficult to diet with this going on, so I will have to accept a diet plan that will go very slow - a super low calorie diet simply won't due, because I get way too hungry to suppress it. My son has it too, and it's more prominent in him.
Avoiding high sodium prepackaged foods will help, so please, leave the canned soups at the store, and only use those like cream soups sparingly to use with other foods to ensure that you're keeping away from them. Check frozen foods too, because the salt is hiding everywhere. Corn and peas are high in starch, and even though they're high in fiber, are really counted as starch, not a veggie.
Make sure you have 3 meals a day, and make them healthy, and have reasonable snacks. Pick one food/meal a week say, fried foods, to have. One a week won't hurt, while every day may. It's not easy, but when you include your favorite food, you won't be so tempted to fall off of the empiric band wagon.
If you have questions, please ask. And stay tuned, next blog will host healthy recipes that can easily be put into your difficult schedule. Some are so easy that you'll want to keep them, and because they will be tasty, you won't mind.
Yet even without the shrinking amounts, it seems as if as Americans, we are still fatter than ever, and I'm not so sure that the decreasing levels of being obese is helping those who are morbidly obese. Then when we look around, there's fast food and easy prepackeged foods that are being thrown at us to boot.
So what are we to do? Well, surely not sit back and not take charge of our own health now, because there's no such thing as a magic pill! But then again...
Here is an article from Web MD about a new diet pill that is approved by the FDA, but seems to have it's own problems. http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20120717/fda-approves-diet-drug-qsymia?ecd=wnl_nal_wlw_071812
So, sure, it may work, but, if you figure, it raises your heart rate, and you're already prone to heart disease if you're over weight. Then on top of which, a pregnant woman may be causing birth defects in her own baby by taking these pills to lose weight.
Here is a quiz by Web MD, about weight loss dos and donts: http://www.webmd.com/diet/rm-quiz-weight-loss-dos-and-donts?ecd=wnl_lbt_071812
But then, we've heard of Atkins, South Beach, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, and more... Fad diets such as the grapefruit and cabbage soup diets, it's not funny. So what should we eat? How should we eat? Should we take a pill? Follow a program? So many choices, and it's very confusing.
Anyway, it helps to know if you're eating right, wrong, over eating, etc. Find out if you may have some sort of food addiction. I know some of us may feel like we do, it's not a food addiction if you just love food. When we become dependent, emotionally and/or psychologically is when we are in trouble of addiction.
But, just because we emotionally eat, or eat because we're stressed, doesn't make it an addiction either. So what now?
Keep a diary. What you eat, when, and why. Were you really hungry? Or is the fridge calling your name? Are you bored? Or were you really hungry? And what did you eat? Was it healthy? How much was it? All of this helps. A log of what you eat, and when, because you may not think you're eating a lot, but, when you write it down, you realize you ate more than what you thought. Or maybe it wasn't that it was more, but maybe you thought you were eating healthy, and it was actually fattening.
The log will serve multiple purposes. First, you will notice a pattern, so if you were stressed, do you go for sugary or salty foods? Do you eat healthy breakfast, but have a lousy lunch? Maybe you grab a muffin and coffee for breakfast, and figure you'll eat healthy later, only to order a sub for lunch?
When you figure out why you eat, what you eat, how often you eat, and how much you eat, you will be able to develop a sense of your own schedules. Then go from there. If there is a sense of emotional eating, you may fare better with a therapist or counselor that can help you work through your stress. If it's out of cravings, start with small changes such as eating mandarin oranges instead of candy once, and then substitute other fruits and veggies gradually. If it's a whole thing about not knowing what you should eat, ask your doctor for a referral to a dietician. If you don't have a doctor, and no insurance, feel free to ask me about it, I will do what I can to help you. I am not a nutritionist or a dietitian. But I DO have a lot of experience with them behind my back. I might be able to help you find favorite foods that will go good, because many foods depend on American palates, and they don't really understand ethnic food, where I cook from a global food market.
The things I don't recommend - if you're offered a magic pill, run away from it. I also don't recommend diets that take away a whole food group or more, for example, the Atkins diet you skip all carbs. Fad diets like the grapefruit diet allows you to only eat 2 grapefruits and a scoop of vanilla ice cream a day for 3 days. The ice cream is so you won't have an acidic reaction, and w/o protein, you won't be able to think.
Most places will tell you to eat in moderation, and we all know that moderation can vary from person to person. I happen to have this genetic thing, called a 16p11.2 micro-deletion. We have a set of 23 chromosomes - for a total of 46, because we get one from each parent. On the 16th set of chromosomes, I have one normal one, and the other one is missing a small strand of information on the 11.2 band. It predisposes me to be overweight, and impacts my appetite. It will be nearly difficult to diet with this going on, so I will have to accept a diet plan that will go very slow - a super low calorie diet simply won't due, because I get way too hungry to suppress it. My son has it too, and it's more prominent in him.
Avoiding high sodium prepackaged foods will help, so please, leave the canned soups at the store, and only use those like cream soups sparingly to use with other foods to ensure that you're keeping away from them. Check frozen foods too, because the salt is hiding everywhere. Corn and peas are high in starch, and even though they're high in fiber, are really counted as starch, not a veggie.
Make sure you have 3 meals a day, and make them healthy, and have reasonable snacks. Pick one food/meal a week say, fried foods, to have. One a week won't hurt, while every day may. It's not easy, but when you include your favorite food, you won't be so tempted to fall off of the empiric band wagon.
If you have questions, please ask. And stay tuned, next blog will host healthy recipes that can easily be put into your difficult schedule. Some are so easy that you'll want to keep them, and because they will be tasty, you won't mind.
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