The diet Chronicle

Some people have great luck losing weight by taking diet pills, but those pills do come with risks attached to them. These pills are not required to be tested by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before they are released to the public.

On the upside, if the drug is found to be dangerous, the FDA will work quickly to make sure it is banned from future sales. 

This happened in 2003 when the FDA banned products that contained ephedrine after it was found to be at least partly responsible for the death of a prominent athlete. 

These pills work in different ways. Many are appetite suppressants containing phenylpropanoline or caffeine. 

Some claim to increase your metabolism thus increasing the body’s ability to burn fat while at the same time causing you to feel less hungry. 

Other pills say they can block the body’s ability to absorb fat or help you lose weight by removing fluids from the body. These pills contain a diuretic or laxative.

It’s very important for you to consult with your doctor before you start taking any kind of diet pills – even the ones that claim to be all-natural. 

This is especially true if you have a medical condition. Taking these pills could interact with medication you are already taking or it could aggravate a previous condition such as anxiety disorders.

Diet pills can be addictive, so take caution when beginning their regimen. Follow the directions for dosages exactly and be aware of any possible side effects. If you experience any of the following symptoms while taking diet pills, stop taking them immediately and consult with your physician:

•  Anxiety or nervousness.
•  Irritability.
•  Insomnia, restlessness, or hyperactivity.
•  High blood pressure.
•  Tightening in the chest.
•  Heart palpitations.
•  Fever.
•  Dry mouth.
•  Excessive headaches.
•  Dizziness.
•  Blurred Vision.
•  Profuse sweating.
•  Menstrual cycle or sex drive disturbances.

 Because diet pills can be purchased over the counter or on the internet, it is up to each individual person to use them correctly. Some people stupidly take more than the recommended dosage in hopes that it will speed up the weight loss, but this is very dangerous! You can overdose on diet pills which can cause tremors, breathing problems, convulsions, renal failure or heart attack.

And remember that nothing takes off weight and keeps off weight like a sensible, balanced diet and exercise.

First, you need to drink a lot of water. Most individuals don’t drink nearly enough water. Colas and coffee don’t count! Yes, you really should drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day - maybe more, depending on your weight.

Water is a natural appetite suppressant. If you drink a full glass of water before beginning your meal, your stomach simply doesn’t hold as much food.

No, you will not gain weight from drinking a lot of water. It’s when you don’t drink enough water throughout the day, your body gets dehydrated. When it does finally get water, it holds onto it and stores it for a future need. That’s when we feel swollen, and bloated with water weight. 

However, if you give your body enough water on a regular basis, it releases it naturally. Drinking enough water gives you the benefit of hydration and fullness.

You should always eat a balanced meal. This might be the one thing we learned in elementary school that we really can use in our adult life – the basic food groups.

Proteins and carbohydrates are essential to a healthy meal. Carbohydrates are the main source of energy in our diet, and proteins burn fat. At a bare minimum, each meal should consist of a protein and a carbohydrate.

DO NOT skip meals. One of the worst things we can do, in our attempt to lose weight, is to skip a meal. I’ve seen it countless times: Motivated to lose weight, an individual decides to eat just twice a day. But your metabolism needs the consistency of regular meals. With erratic eating schedules, the body thinks it’s starving.

So, everything it takes in – it stores as fat to be used for energy.

Finally, exercise. You just can’t lose weight when you maintain a sedentary lifestyle.  People who exercise live longer and feel better. And, they lose weight quicker. But, keep it simple.
 
Thomas Jefferson said, “The sovereign invigorating of the body is exercise, and of all the exercises walking is the best.”

It’s never too late to get in shape. We’ll give you a whole separate section on exercise, but you don’t have to join a gym and become the next famous body builder. 

There’s plenty of ways you can get enough exercise to aid in your weight loss efforts.

Of course, there is a simple formula to help calculate weight loss: consume fewer calories than what you burn every day. For example, if you consume 2000 calories per day and you burn 2500 calories per day, you will lose weight.

You might just say "Why don't I just cut down on my calories intake considerably, hence I don't really have to burn many calories to lose weight?" Well that would be starving yourself and is not a good idea at all. This will make you weaker, hungrier and you will eat quite a lot after.

Your body needs food and calories to get energy. You need to eat enough so as not to starve yourself and be able to burn these calories and more after. On the other hand, if you burn out the exact same amount of calories that you take, you will stay the same.

The secret to losing weight without going hungry is to make the right food choices. You need to choose foods that are low in calories but can satisfy your stomach so you don't become hungry.

We found a very interesting study that illustrates how the way we eat affects our weight. It was performed by New Zealand’s University of Auckland in 1999. 
 
The researchers divided male participants into three groups. Each group was put on a diet with different fat percentages (their total daily calories were composed of 60, 40 or 20-percent fat) but no calorie limits. The men were told to eat as much they wanted from the food choices they were allowed.

As expected, the men eating the 20-percent fat diets lost weight because they were consuming fewer calories. Fat contains nine calories per gram compared to four calories per gram for carbohydrates or protein. Therefore, the more fat a food contains the more calories it will have. However, in spite of the lower calorie diet, the men in this group were not at all hungry.

What the researchers discovered was that the men in the low-fat group unconsciously compensated by choosing foods that weighed the same as the men in the higher-fat groups and, therefore, were not hungry.

What this suggests is that the weight of the food you eat may play a more important role than fat or calories in satisfying your hunger. In other words, you may not need to eat high-calorie or high-fat foods to feel full but your stomach has to feel the weight of a certain amount of food.
 
There are several other studies suggesting that people tend to eat the same weight of food daily, regardless of the fat or calories that the meals contain. It's almost as if your stomach has an internal scale with a pre-determined weight that has to be reached for you to be satisfied and not hungry.

This may explain the rationale behind drinking a glass of water or having a bowl of soup before eating to cut down on your appetite. It may also explain why people can go on a low fat diet and yet gain weight if the majority of their food choices come from starchy food that is highly processed and low in fiber.

You can eat many slices of fluffy white bread before you feel full while eating two slices of whole wheat multi-grain bread already makes you feel like you swallowed the whole loaf. Eating high fiber foods like oatmeal helps you eat fewer calories (seven ounces of oatmeal only has 120 calories) without going hungry.

So how do you choose the right foods?

I suppose the easiest answer is fast food, but the problem extends out to so much more. Yes, the prevalence of fast food restaurants certainly doesn’t help.

At any rate, many of these restaurants are now offering health-conscious choices including salads, potatoes instead of French fries, yogurt, and grilled meats instead of fried meats. So with these items now included on their menu, why aren’t we losing weight? The answer lies within our choices. Those choices extend to home life as well.

Many people live horridly busy lifestyles, and they more often than not opt for pre-packaged foods that contain high amounts of salt, fat, and other unhealthy components that contribute toward weight gain. We tend to maintain a mostly sedentary lifestyle choosing to watch a favorite television program after dinner rather than going out for a walk like they used to do decades ago.

This type of life style unfortunately is being learned by our children as well. When I was young, we couldn’t wait to get through dinner so we could go outside and play a game of kick the can as the sun went down. We rode our bikes everywhere and only watched television when “The Brady Bunch” or “The Partridge Family” was on. Hey, we had our priorities!

Today, you’re more likely to find kids on the computer or in front of the TV with a video game controller in their hands.  Kids know more about the story line on Desperate Housewives than many of their housewife mothers. They can tell you about all of the new products being offered through commercials they see in between their programs. In fact, the average child these days will watch more than 15 hours of television each and every week.

Now, we’re not saying television is BAD. In fact, some programs can be beneficial and even helpful in making kids smarter. What we’re saying is that kids need to get outside more instead of sitting in front of the TV eating Cheetos and drinking sugar rich soda.

The statistics are showing this to be true. Fifteen percent of all children and teens are overweight - a number that has tripled since a previous study done in 1990.  

Some people blame their excessive weight gain on slow metabolisms.  In some cases, this might actually be true. However, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has confirmed what no one really wants to face:  we’re overweight because we simply eat too much of the wrong foods.  

Losing weight is actually quite simple – eat less, exercise more. But we’re resistant to that message. Mainly, it’s because we’re looking for a quick fix – an easy, painless way to drop pounds without sacrifice. After all, losing weight just CAN’T be that easy, now can it?

No, it isn’t. You have to consider portion control, food choice, exercise, how much exercise, what kind of exercise, etc. But worrying about all of the specifics will do you little good. You need to get the big picture in mind first before worrying about the specifics.

What you want to do is lose those extra pounds. And there are many, many ways to go about that. But before you wait around for the next miracle diet, try some of the tried and true methods we’ll show you. It’s not as monumental as you think it is!