To a lot of people the words "weight loss, weight control or management" are synonymous with bizarre diets. How many times have you heard of somebody resorting to fad diets to control their weight. One moment they are relying on some regimen that has them drink three glasses of grapefruit a day and that is it. Some other time they will be eating only carbohydrate-rich foods, and some other time they will eat only protein-rich foods... and later a mainly liquid diet. Of course, for the few days they will have only three glasses of juice, their weight may fall. However they are uselessly torturing themselves and damaging their health with a totally deficient and unbalanced diet.
Proper nutrition should always include a wide variety of foods from all food groups. We will refer to an article in this month's issue of the Nutrition Journal regarding energy needs. Let us suppose you have used the calculator in this article and determined that your caloric needs were 2,400 Calories per day, while you had generally been ingesting 2900 Calories, in other words: 500 too many. You may be tempted to shed the accumulated fatty "assets" in a jiffy by cutting the food intake in a drastic and unsustainable manner. Let's face it, if your body needs 2,400 Calories, why supply it with only 400 all of a sudden! You will be hungry and weak all the time you are on this most unreasonable diet.
Going back to square one: a person was having 2,900 Cal a day or 500 too many given his/her height and level of activity. They weight the person would like to be at requires 2,400 Cal. What will happen if the intake is temporarily set at 2,300 Cal. or 100 Cal less than the required amount ? Weight will slowly and gradually fall down while the person can enjoy a wide variety of foods and have a balanced nutritional regimen. The feeling of satiety can be achieved by adding fiber volume, using more generous portions of vegetables. Light between-meals snacks can also be used, as long as they are included in the 2,300 Cal.
To draw up such a dietary weight loss strategy, one can start by looking at the food groups in the USDA Food pyramid, the American Diabetes Association Food Pyramid or the Mayo Clinic Healthy Weight Pyramid. To produce a healthy diet or eating plan, your meals should include some foods from every category, in a reasonable quantity. Your aim is to adjust every meal to contain the right proportion of these foods...and to make sure that the daily total equals the amount of energy required for your profile. Eating well implies balanced nutrition. In the example used above, the total should not exceed 2,300.
Once one's weight has come down slowly to the desired level, one can go to the determined level of calories (2,400 Cal in the example) and add back the missing 100 Cal. Note that you may have to make some adjustments on the way, as the body may start being more efficient and cause the weight to "plateau" for a while. However, if you keep at it you will lose weight and reach your desired healthy or ideal weight.
In the above scenario, a person relies on supplying an amount of energy sufficient to maintain a desired or ideal weight. Regularity is a key to this approach. On the long term, weight maintenance can be compared to the operation of a bank account. if every week one deposits $ 500 more than he spends, the balance will increase until one has a portly sum. On the other hand, if one starts to withdraw, every week, $ 100 more than he deposits, one will end up with a very lean bank account, after enough time. The key here is for a person to determine how much food and what type of foods are needed; then, REGULARITY will do the rest.
While the initial phase of meal and diet planning may require a bit of work, the rewards are worth it. One does not walk around hungry and weak all the time and can be confident that he/she has a good nutritional balance. In the next issue we will cover the issue of meal planning using the food pyramids as templates.
Note that diabetics and heart patients should always discuss meal planning with their Doctor or nutritionist (registered dietitian preferably) for approval.
Proper nutrition should always include a wide variety of foods from all food groups. We will refer to an article in this month's issue of the Nutrition Journal regarding energy needs. Let us suppose you have used the calculator in this article and determined that your caloric needs were 2,400 Calories per day, while you had generally been ingesting 2900 Calories, in other words: 500 too many. You may be tempted to shed the accumulated fatty "assets" in a jiffy by cutting the food intake in a drastic and unsustainable manner. Let's face it, if your body needs 2,400 Calories, why supply it with only 400 all of a sudden! You will be hungry and weak all the time you are on this most unreasonable diet.
Going back to square one: a person was having 2,900 Cal a day or 500 too many given his/her height and level of activity. They weight the person would like to be at requires 2,400 Cal. What will happen if the intake is temporarily set at 2,300 Cal. or 100 Cal less than the required amount ? Weight will slowly and gradually fall down while the person can enjoy a wide variety of foods and have a balanced nutritional regimen. The feeling of satiety can be achieved by adding fiber volume, using more generous portions of vegetables. Light between-meals snacks can also be used, as long as they are included in the 2,300 Cal.
To draw up such a dietary weight loss strategy, one can start by looking at the food groups in the USDA Food pyramid, the American Diabetes Association Food Pyramid or the Mayo Clinic Healthy Weight Pyramid. To produce a healthy diet or eating plan, your meals should include some foods from every category, in a reasonable quantity. Your aim is to adjust every meal to contain the right proportion of these foods...and to make sure that the daily total equals the amount of energy required for your profile. Eating well implies balanced nutrition. In the example used above, the total should not exceed 2,300.
Once one's weight has come down slowly to the desired level, one can go to the determined level of calories (2,400 Cal in the example) and add back the missing 100 Cal. Note that you may have to make some adjustments on the way, as the body may start being more efficient and cause the weight to "plateau" for a while. However, if you keep at it you will lose weight and reach your desired healthy or ideal weight.
In the above scenario, a person relies on supplying an amount of energy sufficient to maintain a desired or ideal weight. Regularity is a key to this approach. On the long term, weight maintenance can be compared to the operation of a bank account. if every week one deposits $ 500 more than he spends, the balance will increase until one has a portly sum. On the other hand, if one starts to withdraw, every week, $ 100 more than he deposits, one will end up with a very lean bank account, after enough time. The key here is for a person to determine how much food and what type of foods are needed; then, REGULARITY will do the rest.
While the initial phase of meal and diet planning may require a bit of work, the rewards are worth it. One does not walk around hungry and weak all the time and can be confident that he/she has a good nutritional balance. In the next issue we will cover the issue of meal planning using the food pyramids as templates.
Note that diabetics and heart patients should always discuss meal planning with their Doctor or nutritionist (registered dietitian preferably) for approval.
Eating well should never mean being hungry.
Reference
: The United States Department of Agriculture / the Food Pyramid ... or use the e-Library link
NOTE: The terms "Registered Dietitian" and "Nutritionist" are NOT always equivalent, an R.D has studied the science of nutrition in college and passed national examinations. The term "nutritionist" is NOT regulated by law and some very greedy and unqualified people are using it to sell questionable "stuff", at the detriment of those good nutritionists. As a rule, if he/she refers to "a miracle", a "new wonder" or "..its natural" and wants a lot of money...Beware !
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