New (And Not-So-New) Diet Tips for the New Year

(CC) kthread/Flickr

Stop me if you’ve heard this one (or more) before

Well, another new year is already upon us, which means the usual vast number of individuals — or perhaps the usual number of vast individuals — will set out to make this the year that they finally shed that unwanted five or 10 or more serious number of excess pounds. Never mind that it’s the one year in the entire century that ends with the number 13; this will be your lucky year, diet-wise.

Actually, you’ll probably need more than luck. And if you’re at all committed, you’ve armed yourself with the usual array of helpful weight-loss tips, such as get a good seven hours of sleep or more each night, and don’t over-exercise. But there is so great a profusion of such tips out there in diet land that you may have missed a few. And you never know which one or two might turn out to be a game changer. So here are a few morsels of advice on how to facilitate the weight-loss process.

• Those two examples above can’t be overemphasized. People who only get six hours of sleep a night are 27 percent more likely to become obese, and those sleeping less than five a jarring 73 percent more likely. It has to do with the body reacting to less sleep by producing more appetite-boosting hormones. And a good sweat-producing 30 minutes of exercise per day is plenty. Much more than that, studies find, simply leads the exercisers to eat and snack more and be less physically active the rest of their waking hours, nullifying most of the workout. Prolonged exercise may also boost the production of fat-producing hormones. If you’re determined to put in more than 45 minutes a day, break it into two sessions.
• Cut down on white foods. No, that’s not an invitation to pig out on ethnic fare such as barbecued ribs or sweet and sour pork. By white, we mean colorless food items, your sugar, whole milk, rice, potatoes, and pasta, bread, and another products made with bleached flour. Substitute whole grain versions of the latter. This leaves you heavily dependent on foods of color, most notably fruit and vegetables, for nutrition.
• The early bird loses the weight. The most efficient way to burn off existing body fat through aerobic exercise is to get the workout in before your first meal of the day, when there’s no new “fuel” in your system that the body can use for energy.
• Before beginning your weight loss program, weigh yourself, then go for two whole weeks without drinking anything alcoholic, carbonated or sweetened. Then weigh yourself again. You may have stumbled across a major source of, and solution to, your mysterious tendency to keep gaining weight.
• Put not your faith in salads. At least, not in salads all by themselves. Granted, they’re marvelously nutritious and low in calories if you don’t ladle on the dressing, but they do very little to damp down your body’s hunger hormones, and you’ll tend to merely make up the calorie difference at other meals or between them. Accompany that greenery with at least some carbs — whole grain bread, soup, pasta, beans or fruit — to slake those munchies.
• Don’t head for the gym right at the start. Especially if you’re seriously out of shape and markedly overweight. You run the risk of merely feeling intimidated and inferior amid exercisers much more fit and energetic than yourself and bailing out altogether. Start with long daily walks, then advance to jog-walk combinations, and finally to straight jogging, until you feel more comfortable with yourself and your ability to put in a respectable workout session.
• Be a cyclist. No, not that kind. Fitness guru/author Brad Schoenfeld is an enthusiastic advocate of what he calls calorie cycling, which seems to be a way of faking out your body’s natural inclination to feel starved when you put it on a low-calorie regimen. Using his example, if you want to limit yourself to 1,500 calories per day, eat just 1,200 calories on day one, 1,500 on day two, 1,800 on day three, and then repeat in order. You’ll take in just 1,500 calories a day on average overall, but the dramatic variations somehow keep your body too confused to feel ravenous. Unfortunately, all that calorie counting and monitoring may keep you too confused to implement it. For overweight math majors, however, it might work nicely.

Embrace or ignore these little suggestions as you like. Anything that you doubt will work for you, probably won’t. But here’s hoping that something does. So good luck, weight-trimmers. And if you’re spooked by that 13 in the coming year, you can always adopt the Chinese calendar and think of it as the Year of the Snake.

Maybe that will help kill your appetite.

(By Robert S. Wieder for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News):

Ed. note: Enjoyed this post? Click the “Like” button below and be sure to “Like” the CalorieLab Facebook page.

New (And Not-So-New) Diet Tips for the New Year is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

Source: http://calorielab.com/news/2012/12/27/new-and-not-so-new-diet-tips-for-the-new-year/

fbf diet bariatric surgery diet diet software cholesterol free diet my hcg diet