« February 2007 | Main | April 2007 »
Are you a dieter who loses weight, then gains it back over and over again? Well, the authors of The Step Diet think they have just the right diet to help you lose the weight and keep it off for good.
MSNBC recently explored the new plan by authors Drs. James O. Hill and John C. Peters, which counts steps, not calories.
Check out an excerpt of the book and see if it's right for you.
-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com
The Skinny on Fat is always on the lookout for tips on losing weight, especially when they apply no matter what plan you're using.
Homemakers.com, a Canadian site, recently featured 10 tips from Dr. Fred A. Stutman, M.D., a weight-loss expert and author of the recently released 100 Weight Loss Tips That Really Work (McGraw-Hill, 2006).
My favorites are: Drink water, nibble protein at night and don't yo-yo.
Check out the full article to see the complete list and the logic behind the tips.
-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com
There's a new trend in dieting, according to The Toronto Sun: Dieting wisely.
Marilyn Linton notes that a lot of plans no longer have broad lists of restricted foods. For instance, Weight Watchers, no longer tells you what to eat but rather how. Eat wisely, it advises, then gives its members eating plans, not foods, to consider.
Even though I am a low-carber at heart, I too have been experimenting with adding more foods into my diet and eating throughout the day to stave off the late-evening binge. We'll see how it works.
-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com
With airport security getting tighter by the day, some dieters are finding it hard to maintain their plans while traveling.
Forget whether you can carry your shampoo with you. How about your apple or yogurt?
Karen Collins, a guest columnist for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News recently offered some tips on staying true to your diet, even as you go take off your shoes at the X-ray machine.
Collins notes that arports generally either limit or forbid any price increase beyond a restaurant’s other locations. She says you should look for the low-fat options and seek out ways to add extra vegetables and fruits in soups, salads and side orders.
For other tips, check out the full article.
-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com
Brenda Watson, the guru of healthy digestion and detoxification, has written a new diet book that says fiber is the key to weight loss.
"The Fiber35 Diet: Nature's Weight Loss Secret" explains how 35 grams of fiber per day can help you lose weight, and help prevent the diseases that cut life short.
Watson says fiber fills you up and suppresses your appetite, allows you to eat more food without high calories and slows the body's carbohydrate conversion to sugar, which supports blood glucose stability that helps us lose weight.
"For every gram of fiber you consume, you don't absorb seven calories," Watson told Dan Vierria of McClatchy Newspapers. "That's 245 calories a day (eating 35 grams of fiber per day). Doing nothing else, you'll lose 2 pounds in a month."
-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com
A large study of middle-age women with a wide range of fat in their diet shows that eating a high-fat diet raises the risk of developing invasive breast cancer, according to a Reuters Health article.
The findings, reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, stem from the National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study, in which 188,736 postmenopausal women reported detailed information on their diet in the mid-1990s.
The news is of special concern for followers of the Atkins Diet, who sometimes can go overboard on the fat. Relax, I'm a low-carber. I'm allowed to say that.
Check out the article and see what you think.
-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com
If you think eating Chinese restaurant food is good for you, experts say you should think again.
A report released Tuesday by the Center for Science in the Public Interest found that typical Chinese restaurant menu is a sea of nutritional no-nos, according to an Associated Press report.
Foods studied were found to be laden with sodium and calories. A plate of General Tso's chicken, for example, is loaded with about 40 percent more sodium and more than half the calories an average adult needs for an entire day.
Get the full story and check out the Center's report .
-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com
Just as many of you are planning marathon Spring cleaning session for your homes, you should also come up with one for your body, according to this week'sPersonal Trainer column.
Elaine Paoloni writes that after a long winter of inactivity due to cold weather and harsh conditions, the sudden rush of motion can create a body full of aches and pains. So here are some exercises to help get you moving again.
Check out the suggestions and get more Personal Trainer features at amNY.com.
-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com
MSNBC had a really good article today on what good foods to eat when really want to eat something bad.
Instead of either totally giving in to temptation, the article suggests making a compromise between healthy and unhealthy. For example, if you really want a full-fat donut and Coolata for breakfast from Dunkin' Donuts, go for the whole wheat bagel and skim latte instead. You still get a cheat, but just not as much.
Check out the article for other tips on how to toe the cheating line.
-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com
Chances are you aren't getting enough fruits and veggies, according to a new government survey.
Fewer than a third of American adults eat the amount of fruits and vegetables the government recommends, a trend that's remained steady for more than a decade, health officials said in an Associated Press report.
That's "well below" the government's goal of getting 75 percent of Americans to eat two servings of fruits and having half of the population consume three servings of vegetables each day by 2010, said Dr. Larry Cohen of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Fruits and vegetables are essential for losing weight because they contain lower calories. And vitamins and minerals included are good for you too. So dig in!
-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com
As I was tooling around the web today, I came across some tailor-made advice for getting back on the low-carb wagon.
A reader wrote to Jimmy Moore's The Livin' La Vida Low-Carb Blog about her "Pop-Tart and waffle incident." She wanted to know if she had blown her diet for good.
Jimmy noted that everyone falls off the wagon. It's whether you choose to get back on and continue a lifestyle change that counts. Check out her letter and his response.
He did give me hope, despite the fact that chocolate is still calling my name. Hopefully soon, I'll be strong enough to turn a deaf ear.
-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com
Judging by an article in the Orange County Register, I'm not the only one struggling to stay on my eating plan during a life-changing event.
Dr. Charles Stuart Platkin, author and founder of DietDetective.com,
advises readers on how to prevent backsliding while getting married, having kids, going through a divorce and more.
Check out the article and see if it can help you stick to your plan.
-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com
Should you skip breakfast in the morning? Does low-fat mean low calories?
Dieters face these questions and many more each day as the choose what to eat. Janet Helm of the Chicago Tribune recently tackled them and how to avoid food fads.
To answer the questions: No, skipping breakfast isn't a good idea. You just eat more throughout the day. And low-fat foods often contain the same amount or even more calories than regular versions.
-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com
If you're considering weight-loss surgery, be aware that a new study has linked bariatric procedures with a severe alcoholics and linked to a vitamin deficiency.
Reuters reported that a study in the journal Neurology described the cases of 27 women and five men who developed the condition, Wernicke encephalopathy, after bariatric surgery.
Wernicke encephalopathy can develop when the body does not get enough vitamin B1, also known as thiamine. It affects the brain and nervous system, with symptoms including double vision, eye movement abnormalities, unsteady walking, memory loss and hallucinations.
Watch video on the subject:
Check out the full story.
-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com
Coca-Cola and PepsiCo announced recently that they are both getting in on the health movement with carbonated drinks with vitamins and minerals in them.
Diet Coke Plus and Tava, which is PepsiCo’s new drink, will make their debuts in the coming months, according to the New York Times.
For some, calling soda healthy is an oxymoron. Tom Pirko, president of Bevmark, a food and beverage consulting firm, told the Times it was “a joke” to market artificially sweetened soft drinks as healthy, even if they were fortified with vitamins and minerals. Research by his firm and others shows that consumers think of diet soft drinks as “the antithesis of healthy,” he said.
Check out the full article and see what you think. And then share with me. Will you drink these new products?
-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com
Speaking of cheating, I have a serious confession to make. I have fallen off the diet wagon, been run over and left for dead.
It all started with a family health emergency in early February. For a while, I was strictly adhering to the Atkins principles and going to the gym regularly. But as the stress ramped up, so did my intake of bread, chocolate and anything else that wasn't nailed down.
Now, I'm trying to find my footing. I am taking it meal by meal; anything else at this point is totally unrealistic.
I found some great tips for getting back on the diet horse in The Body Fat Review on BodyFatGuide.com. Ron Brown, author of The Body Fat Guide, says dieters like me take weight loss as all or nothing. He advises cutting calories first over a two-day period to get a leg up.
iVillage.com readers suggest getting a move on back to exercise, setting goals and getting rid of the unhealthy food
If you have any other tips for getting back on the wagon, let me know.
-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com
Now that Atkins Diet has come out on top of the Ornish, Zone and low-fat plans in a study funded by the National Institutes of Health, the diet gloves have come off.
Slate reports that Dr. Dean Ornish and Dr. Barry Sears, architects of the Ornish and Zone plans respectively, have come out firing against the study that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Ornish complained in the Baltimore Sun that the study participants cheated at the end. On Dr.Sears.com, the Zone guru says the study is based on bad science.
As an Atkins person, I have to wonder, do they perhaps protest too much?
-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com
The number of U.S. children having obesity surgery has tripled in recent years, surging at a pace that could mean more than 1,000 such operations this year, new research suggests, according to an Associated Press report.
While the procedure is still far more common in adults, it appears to be slightly less risky in teens, according to an analysis of data on 12- to 19-year-olds who had obesity surgery from 1996 through 2003.
During that time, an estimated 2,744 youngsters nationwide had the operations. The pace tripled between 2000 and 2003, reaching 771 surgeries that year, the study found.
Researchers at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, N.J., and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center analyzed a database of U.S. hospital patients.
-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com
Can you go off your diet and still lose weight? Clinical nutritionist Deborah Arneson resoundingly says yes.
The author of the new book "Fries, Thighs, and Lies: The Girlfriend's Guide to Getting the Skinny on Fat" tells the Sacramento Bee that says ditching the scale and eating more fats, not less is the key.
Read the full article and see if you agree.
-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com
I'm won't say I told you so, but a new Stanford University study finds the Atkins diet is most effective for reducing weight in women.
According to United Press International's Consumer Health Daily, Christopher Gardner, a professor of medicine at Stanford University's Disease Prevention Research Center in California, compared the Atkins Diet, the Ornish Diet, The Zone and LEARN, which is the U.S. government's recommendation of a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet.
The 77 women in the Atkins group lost an average of 10 pounds -- around twice as much as those on the Ornish and LEARN diets -- while those on the Zone lost an average of 3.5 pounds.
Get the full story and a recipe for Atkins Chicken Cacciatore.
-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com
Research results suggest that a diet rich in low-fat dairy calcium boosts weight loss in overweight type 2 diabetics, according to a Reuters Health report.
"Such a diet should be tried in diabetic patients," researchers conclude, particularly in those individuals who have a tough time sticking to other weight loss diets.
The weight-loss promoting effect of dairy calcium was revealed when a study was conductied in which 259 overweight diabetics a mixed glycemic index diet, a low-glycemic index diet, or a modified Mediterranean diet.
Check out the full story.
-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com