All of the reasons you listed are good reasons to reduce your body fat. That's what you need to do is reduce body fat, not weight. The problem with these diet programs is that often you have to follow all their guidelines, buy their food, etc. What are you going to do when you go to a restaurant and they don't have their diet food there?
These clinics and diets are merely lo-calorie diets all in disguise for the mere purpose of making money. All these diets are fads that continually get recycled over the years and I don't agree with any of them. The Atkins diet is high protein, low carb but in essence a low cal diet; how much bacon can you eat at one time?
High protein diets yield instant results which are actually initally water weight loss accompanied by muscle mass loss; something you don't want. Excessive protein intake in the form of food and/or powders equals expensive urine.
Too much protein and not enough carbs causes the body to burn the protein for energy; not efficient and not what the body wants to do. It results in the production of ketone bodies, toxic to your kidneys and not something you want.
The body wants and is most efficient at burning complex carbohydrates like pasta and potatoes. It doesn't take a rocket scientist or an MD to realize that, pop open any basic biology book and read up on the Krebs cycle et al.
The Zone diet was/is popular and put out by
Dr Barry Sears. He advocates eating certain types of carbos as some are good and some are bad based on their "glycemic index". He contends that eating foods like rice and pasta are bad because they increase your glycemic index and fat deposition.
Not really. Glycemic index of foods may have some interest to someone who wants to control their insulin-independent diabetes but not for the average person. If eating rice or pasta were so bad, then why are people of asian decent often not fat?
He also erroneously stated that the Stanford swimming team won the championship after the swimmers got on his diet; never mind that the coach from Texas, the top swim team in the country, went to coach at Stanford when they won, also don't discount the individual swimmers. I bring out these points to show that these people are out for one thing, money.
If you take a brick size chunk of muscle compared to a brick size chunk of fat, the muscle will weigh more. That's why Arnold Weighs 200 something but doesn't have much fat on him; yet, he'd likely be listed as "unhealthy" based on inaccurate height and weight charts at the doctor.
You should be more concerned about your percent body fat than your weight. If someone weighs 150 lbs but is 35% body fat, they are worse off than someone who is 250 lbs and has a 10% body fat. You should have your body fat checked by a physical therapist or doctor as well as have body tape measurements taken.
Bear in mind that the only way of truly assessing your body fat is to disect you so what you are getting is an approximation based on cadaver study "norms". If you get your body fat checked, don't harp on, "oh it's 30%!" Use the number to track your progress. How you fit in your clothes is a much better indicator of reducing body fat than stepping on the scale.
So, what to do? My suggestion is to slowly change your eating habits, not necessarily the amount of food you eat. I don't think one needs or should count calories, if you need to count something, keep track of the number of grams of fat you take in everyday. You should consume approx 60% of your intake from carbs, 20-30% from fat and 10-20% from protein; the numbers may vary but the proportions should be around those.
Next, exercise and activity are a must. It's a pain and it's time consuming but necessary. If you want to exercise, my suggestion is to lift weights. The biggest burner of fat and calories in you body is your BMR = basal metabolic rate. That's your body's "fire" that normally burns throughout the day. This burn occurs at rest, when you sleep, .
You can increase your BMR by increasing muscle mass by lifting weights, heavy weights. Not that you have to be a power lifter, but you have to have enough resistance to allow for hypertrophic changes to occur. Lifting weights is an anabolic (build up) type of activity while cardiovascular training is catabolic (break down) type of activity.
Too much cardio equals no fat loss and can actually lead to muscle loss. Fat is a long term energy source which is burned best by your BMR at rest, not when running full bore on a treadmill; that's the reason you often see people run on the treadmill for hours everyday for years but don't lose any "weight".
There are numerous studies out there that support eating a well-balanced diet and working out leading to a healthy body and fat reduction. There's one in particular where 3 groups of people were used. One group dieted and had a diet a certain number of calories below the starting level. The second group dieted and exercised to the same level of caloric loss as the first. The third kept the starting level of calories but added a weight training program equal to the number of calories the other two were deficient in.
At the end, all groups were around the same weight. Group one had lost all the weight in muscle mass. Group two had lost similar amounts of weight but half of it was muscle. Group three had lost weight but gained muscle mass meaning the weight they lost was fat in addition to having muscle gain. I can look these references up if you need them.
I'd join gym with some good weight training equipment. If you need a trainer, look for one that's an NSCA Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist
www.nsca-lift.org/ or a physical therapist who moonlights as a trainer.
Vitamins and supplements are not necessary, unless you live in 3rd world country and can't eat regularly or normally. If you need nutrition advice, talk to a registered dietician, not a nutritionist or some other "nutrition expert". Registered dieticians are licensed and have a strict standard they must uphold to. Vitamins and supplements are not regulated by the FDA, therefore may or may not contain the ingredients and in the amounts as advertised; they equal expensive urine. Good luck, don't stress it too much; you have to enjoy life, too and you don't want to make your whole life about obessing with your weight.
is. Then we also found out how much fun it is to take the baby to the park and swing him, and we've found out that the less we watch the tube, the more life we have to live. I can't imagine bringing the danged tv back into the house. I'm no stellar weight loss guru, but I think it starts with getting rid of every reason we have to sit around, and finding reasons (there are plenty around [called kids or grandkids]) to get out and do stuff. I haven't modified my diet much, just do more stuff. I'm not losing much either, just keeping on a level plain of happy-fat, not the larger, miserable-fat of some folks.
