Entries from May 2007 ↓

There are about thousands of weight loss programs which claim to help you lose weight with less hassle in the fastest possible time. However, among those myriad of weight loss diet programs, five stand out in terms of popularity and efficiency in helping people shed off those excess pounds. You can take your pick among these five fabulous weight loss diet programs and see which of these will work best for you.

Weight Watchers

The ease with which the Weight Watchers program is administered makes it the favorite method and subject of research of most health and fitness experts. In this particular diet program for weight loss, points are assigned to different point types. A typical weight watcher will have a pre-calculated number of points to balance in a day, and there will be no prohibited food types just as long as you are able to balance your points properly. Healthy foods such as vegetables and fruits have lower points than those which cause severe weight gain such as fatty foods. Moderate levels of points are given to protein foods, and there are even some foods which have no zero point assignments to them.

One has to be conscious of the number of points each meal is accumulating. There are no direct impositions on which food is acceptable and which foods are hazardous but a person who undergoes the Weight Watchers program will be given a set of recommended foods with which he or she has the option of taking or ignoring. For as long as the required points are balanced in each day, the program will work.

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BodyMedia has developed a body metabolic monitoring system to aid clinicians in helping individuals who’d like to lose weight use behavioral modification effectively - SenseWear.

The SenseWear® Body Monitoring System acts as a metabolic wearable monitor, allowing you to conveniently collect and analyze accurate metabolic physical activity and lifestyle information about your patients in a free-living context.

And recently, a study on the efficiency of SenseWear in helping improve weight loss results when used with weight loss intervention programs has been announced. SenseWear’s specific assistance in making behavioral modification benefit weight loss patients is its accuracy in the assessment and reporting of patients’ metabolic activity in a daily basis.

Tags: SenseWear, metabolism monitor, behavioral modification

Has anyone used the SenseWear armband yet?

Read full press release.

CNN reported about Popeyes fast food resto announcing that it is now losing the transfat (food ingredient found in margarines, baked goods, and cookies that causes heart diseases) content of its biscuits. However, its french fries still have transfat but reduced to only one gram per serving.

The restaurant said it began offering zero transfat biscuits and one gram trans fat fries in 2006 and has completed the project for the items to be in all restaurants.

Popeyes, a unit of AFC Enterprises (up $0.41 to $19.20, Charts), said many of its core chicken items have zero grams of transfat, while other items on the menu contain 1.5 grams or less.

The New Orleans-style restaurant also plans to review its Cajun and Creole flavor menu items and cooking procedures and said a zero transfat shortening is being tested.

Tags: transfat, Popeyes

Ever wondered why women seem to build more fat in the lower body, specifically the belly? It’s not just the genes, so don’t look to your ancestors for someone to blame. It’s your gender and what years of evolution have granted upon the female sex of our species that have a lot to do with why women build belly fat.

Fat and the female body
Every person, regardless of whether you’re a man or a woman, has a body that was designed to carry and store fat. Fat is used for insulation, not just to provide a layer of protection for the inner organs and tissues but also to protect it against outside elements. Fat also serves as the body’s food, to be used in case a person starves.

Women tend to store more fat in the belly because they are naturally predisposed to do so. Women are naturally built to have a smaller percentage of lean muscle and a higher percentage of body fat compared to men. Not only that, female fat cells are 5 times bigger than the male’s.

Not only are female fat cells capable of holding more fat, they are also genetically programmed to do so. It all comes down to compounds called lipogenic and lipolytic enzymes. Although these enzymes are present in both sexes, women’s bodies have two times the number of lipogenic or fat-carrying enzymes and only half the number of lipolytic or fat-releasing enzymes.

Women also tend to collect fat around the belly because of their baby-carrying function. A woman needs the extra fat cells to nurture a growing fetus and help bring it to full term. This trait of storing fat in the belly was also passed down from early women ancestors who needed to hold extra body fat in that area to survive drought or famine. This trait has since passed down from generation to generation and is still apparent today.

Tags: belly fat, women weight loss

[image from wandernut

Green tea has long been associated with good health and if recent studies are accurate, it might also be good for weight loss as well. Consider for example a study involving 35 Japanese men who were divided into two groups. One group took a bottle green tea while the other took oolong tea.

At the end of the three-month study, the men who took the extract containing green tea lost an average of 5.3 lbs. and also significantly decreased their BMI and waist size. It was also found that the level of LDL cholesterol decreased in this group.

This is just one of a number of studies involving the benefits of green tea. Green tea is more known as a strong antioxidant but it is its polyphenol content that is getting it all the attention these days. Polypnenols seem to contribute to the decrease in leptins, a protein that is produced by fats. It also seems to activate a type of body fat that helps burn more calories, shedding fat located in the lower body, such as those found in the waist and hips.

Is a green tea diet supplement right for you?
There are certain groups of health experts who believe that green tea diet supplements require further study.

It still has to be studied under controlled conditions and its effects on people who follow a certain diet and lifestyle is yet unknown. Its effect on overweight people who take certain medications is also not known.

However, the health effects of green tea are indisputable. It is known to help reduce the risk of heart disease and has anti-carcinogenic and anti-inflammatory properties. For that alone, green tea is worth considering.

Tags: green tea, diet supplement

[image from yuri kim]

Dieting is only one way to lose weight, but some people rely on it entirely for their weight loss problems. This is understandable, given that people have less and less time to tend to their bodies, and more and more sources of low-self-esteem inducing images. Dieting, however, is not easy to carry on for a long time, and people tend to either break their diets, or move on and pick another diet. What causes such diet hopping?

First, some people may be impatient with the current weight loss they are experiencing. Some diet programs promise a certain amount of lost pounds within a certain time, but not all these diets work with all kinds of people. There are many factors to consider in a diet, such as a person’s medical background, his or her insulin levels, and his or her speed of metabolism. Plunging headlong into a diet does not necessarily ensure a person of success.

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Although once disparaged for reportedly increasing cholesterol levels, which was reported to be just a black propaganda, coconut oil is enjoying a comeback and is becoming a diet food of choice. According to regular coconut oil users, coconut oil can actually reduce the risk of heart disease; ease the symptoms of thyroid-related diseases, chronic fatigue syndrome, and diabetes; ease the symptoms of several digestive disorder; increase overall energy; and rejuvenate skin, preventing wrinkles. In addition to all these, coconut oil can reportedly lower cholesterol levels, and even allow you to lose weight.

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Dr. Judith Reichman contributed an eye-opening article on weight loss medications to MSNBC. She discussed about three weight loss drugs, where two of them are FDA-approved.

1. Meridia aka sibutramine

It is an appetite-suppressant that inhibits neurotransmitter levels. When this weight loss pill is used with proper diet, behavioral modification and exercise, it can be very effective in helping people lose weight. Its side effects include constipation, dry mouth, head ache, insomnia, and blood pressure and heart rate increase. It should not be taken if you have hypertension or under SSRI antidpressant meds.

2. Xenical or orlistat

It helps in preventing fat absorption in the stomach and small intestine. The fat you eat gets excreted in the stool. The side effects of Xenical include oily spotting, stool urgency and fatty oily stool. It’s reported to go OTC come July 2007.

3. Acomplia or rimonabant

The medical jargon for the effect of this weight loss drug is cannabinoid receptor antagonist, which can make you feel full and can decrease your appetite through blocking the brain’s pleasure centers stimulated by eating and smoking. Side effects from Acomplia are mostly mild gastrointestinal problems.

Are you using any of these weight loss meds? Were they at any rate helpful to you? Or any unusual or unmentioned side effects?

Tags: weight loss pill, Xenical, Acomplia, Meridia

US National Institutes of Health will be conducting the Teen Longitudinal Assessment of Bariatric Surgery (Teen-LABS) research to learn about the pros and cons of bariatric surgery among 200 teens.

Over the next five years, 200 (ages 14-19) teens will be enrolled and will undergo gastric bypass. These teens will then be compared to 200 adults who were bariatric surgery patients during their adulthood but have been obese since their teen years. And these teens will still be followed for two years after the weight loss surgery.

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The Nebraska Sports Council has a three-month team wellness program called N-Lighten Nebraska, which was started in 2003. The objective of this program is to promote more physical activity and weight loss for its participants.

There’s an entry fee of $15 per person and for those who will be entering this program online will only be paying $13. The criteria for judging of which team will win will depend on the following:

1. Weight Loss
Each member of the team submits an “honor” weight to the team captain. Captains total the team weight, complete the team entry form and submit it by Feb. 1. “Honor” weigh-ins will be repeated in March 15 (midway point) and May (final). Winning teams are those that lose the highest percentage of weight over the three-month program.

2. Accumulated Activity
Teams track miles based on activity performed (see the Activity Tracker in the NLN Handbook). Winning teams are those that log the most miles over the three-month program. Captains total the team miles and report them monthly. Youth 18 & Under will also have an opportunity to take part, by joining the N-Lighten Kids program.

An approximate of 7,000 Nebraska adults lost more than 16,000 pounds and logged nearly 1.5 million miles during the program.

Register online here.

Tags: N-Lighten Nebraska, Nebraska