Want to lose weight

Want to lose weight

Losing weight requires a combination of a balanced diet and regular physical exertion. Focus on consuming smaller calories than you burn by eating whole foods, controlling portion sizes, and avoiding sticky or reused particulars. Incorporate regular exercise into your routine, including both cardiovascular and strength training exercises. Stay harmonious and patient, as gradational, sustainable weight loss is the key to long- term success. Flash back to consult with a healthcare professional before starting any new weight loss plan to insure it's safe and suitable for your individual requirements.

Want to lose weight? Be healthier? Live longer? 

Until a couple of years ago, many of those same experts would have guided you to the good old U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Guide Pyramid. Introduced in 1992 to help consumers make wise choices about what to eat, the pyramid depicts a diet with a clear hierarchy of virtues.

At its base – the foundation of good health – are bread, cereal, rice, pasta, and other carbohydrates. Next come vegetables and fruits, then dairy foods and the group comprising meats, fish, dry beans, eggs, and nuts. Perched at the tip, where prudent people should rarely venture, are fats, olive oil, and sweets.

The high-carbohydrate, low-fat focus seemed logical during the 1980’s and 1990’s. But as time passed, the pyramid starting showing cracks. Studies began to cast doubt on the standard nutritional guidelines, and some respected experts proposed a heresy: Such a diet may actually promote weight gain, heart disease, and diabetes. There’s no getting around the fact, they pointed out, that in the 12 years since the pyramid was unveiled, the U.S. population has become less healthy, with more than half of all adults now overweight.

So – what’s next? Even while debate rages about what constitutes healthy eating, many experts agree on what does not: the pyramid. Researchers point to study after study showing that not all fats are bad for your health or waistline. Possibly more important, not all carbohydrates are good for you. As a result, there’ s a movement afoot to completely overhaul the government’s guidelines and the pyramid that symbolizes them.

The USDA plans to update the pyramid by early 2005 to reflect new research completed since 1992, says John Webster, director of public information and governmental affairs for the USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. The news has researchers, nutrition educators, and industry groups clamoring for a chance to shape the next pyramid.

Fat: No Longer All Bad

Leading the charge is Walter C. Willett, M.D. professor of epidemiology and chair of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health. To encourage debate about the pyramid, Dr. Willett unveiled his own Healthy Eating Pyramid in his book <amazon code)  Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy As it turns out, rather than clogging arteries and packing on the pounds, the monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats found in fish, avocados, flaxseed, olives and olive oil, and nuts and nut butters seem to improve cholesterol ratios and help with weight loss. Monounsaturated fats have been shown to help raise levels of high-density lipoprotein (JDL, or “good”) cholesterol and lower levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or  “bad”) cholesterol. They also seem to be involved in controlling hunger and burning fat.

Surprised? A lot of people are, considering some basic facts about fat. It is a fact that a gram of fat contains 9 calories, compared with 4 calories in a gram of carbohydrate or protein. And it’s a fact that the body stores energy from fat more efficiently than from carbohydrate and protein. Thus, the overriding message of the 1990’s was that you get fatter from eating fat. It seemed to follow, then, that if you wanted to lose weight, you could do it just by cutting back on fat.

It’s not that simple. According to Liz Applegate, Ph.D., professor of nutrition at the University of California-Davis and author of Bounce Your Body Beautiful, among other books, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats may help blood sugar insulin levels steady, which reduces hunger and promotes fat burning instead of fat storage. In fact, a recent investigation that compiled the results of 147 different studies on nutrition and health found that fats are down-right necessary for good health.