Posts Tagged ‘diets’

I don’t count calories. Calorie counting I find to be both counter productive and an impediment to a healthy diet. It has taken some years to come to this conclusion. It’s not that calorie counting is not only useless it can be dangerous. Personally I have no intention of drinking Diet Coke or using artificial sweeteners. The question is do I want to poison myself to cut calories. Neither will I opt for a low fat variety of a whole food product. When calorie count mentality is out for the count health will win out.

Main Stream Diets

This is what I have against most main stream diet plans. They go with the flow and use  America’s perception of what getting slim is about. We would be a slim nation if we just ate whole unadulterated food.

What I find is that the popular diets get repeat business, by using the wrong guidelines, calories in and calories out. Weight management in this country is counter intuitive. It is becoming more and more desperate as people balloon off the charts.

Calorie Counting isn’t a Promising Solution

Bariatric sugery, and gastric bypass are drastic attempts to fix a problem that is so out of control. Part of the reason things have gotten to this point is we are relying on the calorie content of foods. Some of the heavily looked up terms are calories in strawberries, calories in apples and fruit calories. These terms get anywhere from 75,000 to 240,000 of look ups per month. Look where this information has taken us. We now can eat less fruit and vegetables and substitute them with 100 calorie snack packs of cookies.

Count Nutrients

Instead of counting daily calories a far better approach would be to count the nutritional content of the day’s food. Weight management should be about much more than calories. It shouldn’t be about how slim we can get, but on how healthy we can become. With that as a goal we will be able to maintain our idea weight. What we should want is a incredible body that functions incredibility.   

This is another way to look at what we do to ourselves, that no other species does.

 Can you give me the calorie count, before I indulge in some nutrient dense food?

What is Weight Talk?

Weight talk is anything that has to do with BMI, the scale, the waist size, and fat content. This really means anything that shows up as pounds is part of the overview of weight management. From detoxifying diets that eliminate everything from bloating to chronic health conditions to carb or fat restrictive ones, we keep rolling the dice looking for an innovative way to lose the pounds. The major incentive to diet is being overweight.

The one thing that is usually wanted but missing from the dialog is a diet that is powerful, reliable and relatively inexpensive. With conventional diets there is usually an element that is territorial. What I mean by that is that the diet recommended comes from a corporate culture. Each corporate entity has its own set of rules, beliefs, products, and marketing.

This would be find and dandy if it worked long term across the board. There are some very good reasons that this is usually not the case. The top ranking diets are still in business with the help of repeat clients. Sustainability has to be the operative word when it comes to dieting. The word dieting is in fact the wrong word if you are looking for long term results.

Dieting and Pounds

Most dieters get swept up in the notion that a diet is about pounds. What is true is everyone that eats is following a certain type diet. It may be a junk food one, which is the make-up of one’s daily eating choices. There is a direct connection between food choices and body functions.

This is what weight talk should be about: reduction of blood glucose, good skin, reviving aging cells, and combating inflammation. Cellular energy is what the focus should be on. Excess calories have a impact on glucose, insulin, triglycerides and this is the reason that calories count.

Lifestyle

Lifestyle is the operative word for people that want change. Starchy processed foods that seem to have mass appeal are found manly in convenience foods. These are the foods found in paper and plastic wrap. Healthful eating habits make for more nutritious food options. Fat free foods are usually starch in disguise many times. When you talk about a reduced calorie diet the focus shouldn’t be on calories, but where the calories come from.

There are some breakthrough discoveries that we will present along with the science. We want people to be in control of what they eat, not the other way around. If we devoted this blog to weight management we would be addressing the deeper connection that food has to health.

The obesity treatment facts point to the fact that obesity needs no treatment. In fact the long frustrating quest for a pharmaceutical solution is not only a waste of time, but an unwelcome one. A pill can do squat by itself, but increase the dependency on a pharmaceutical solution to a lifestyle problem. Transforming your life is the primary way to loss weight and keep it off.

Research

Despite millions of dollars in research there are only a few government approved weight loss drugs that remain on the market. Weight loss is a pressing issue for many people, while eating is on autopilot. The question then becomes how you counter the basic factors that cause one to become obese. Doing that through surgery and pills may shrink your size, but the transition from fat to thin sacrifices most other objectives.

The Scale

The package doesn’t always look perfect, concentrating on the scale, misses the few basic reasons for the weight loss. One is sustainability which doesn’t come from pills or surgery. Pharmaceuticals for weight loss aren’t meant to be taken indefinitely. Pharmaceuticals can’t trump healthy eating.       

Technology            

Stomach stapling and lap bands are technology oriented and take aim at weight control with a one size fits all approach. What is debatable is the wide open future risks. Since these procedures are gaining popularity for a very young population.

Solution

Weight control needs a dynamic change in the way it is perceived. The heart of the matter isn’t just the shape people are in, but the way they got there. This is though the unlimited choices in frozen food lines, multiple pack sizes, menu components, and the enormous profits that drive the engine.

Volume and profit grow as does the consumer’s waistline. When truckloads of food are delivered daily and there is something to please everyone, all the obesity treatments in the world will not address the cause. Obesity treatment focuses on the symptom. Obesity reflects our relationship with the planet, profit, and our increasing reliance on manufactured substances that we classify as food.