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Issue 8 - Sept. 2003 + Diets From Near and Far + Argument for Fast Food + Count Your Calories Because Calories Count + Eating Less for Longevity + Tricks to End Nighttime Eating + Atkins Move Over for the Low Sugar Diet + Common Sense and Diets + Are you Getting Enough Water + Low Carb Products - More Labeling Lunacy + What are Net Carbs?	Our OMB weight loss newsletter features: • up-to-date weight loss advice • funny weight loss articles • weight loss tips • specials for newsletter subscribers only!      To SUBSCRIBE

Diets from Near and Far

Why is it so difficult to draw the conclusion that our way of life, our "modern diet" is causing the high incidence of obesity? Look closely at native cultures such as the Japanese: They are often cited as being more healthy, with little obesity and heart disease. The major difference between a native Japanese diet and the American diet is fast food. That is a clue -- something is wrong -- and all the talk about diets is getting us nowhere fast. Cut down or skip the fast food and you'll have the solution.

Here are some examples of diets from various parts of the world. (You might notice they don't eat McDonalds or Taco Bell?). Remember these facts are taken prior to these countries adopting our Western Style of eating. Once a Western diet becomes common, their mortality rates change to more closely resemble our own.

Chinese - Primarily rice, vegetables, small amounts of meat and fish (20% of diet) for flavoring and garnish. T. Colin Campbell, PhD, professor of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. said, "There are some regions in China in which breast cancer and heart disease are almost unknown." (Obviously McDonalds hasn't yet located there.)

Mediterranean - Primarily vegetarian with whole grains, legumes, fruits, nuts, olive oil.

Japanese - Primarily vegetarian with rice, soy, sea vegetables, and fish (small amounts)

French - Pasta, cream, eggs, cheese, wine - it is reported the French eat more than 60% of their calories before 2 PM. While their diet is higher in fat than many other cultures, they tend to linger over their meals and consider snacking as unhealthy. Something they do is working!

Article at WebMd.com: Diets of the World

Argument for Fast Food

If you want to read arguments against fast food being the cause, and for lack of exercise, here's a site that strongly argues against fast food being the problem. They've written, "I highly doubt that an occasional large order of fries and a Big Mac are the main cause of obesity."

That is correct. It's not an occasional large order of fries and a Big Mac; it's the nearly daily fries and Big Mac's. It's the "All Fast Food, All the Time Diet" and if it isn't fast food then it's ready-to-eat from the grocery store. Deli foods, TV dinners (does anyone still call them that?) pizza parlors and Starbucks right
inside the store. Take a stroll through any grocery store you'll have to hunt to find any foods that aren't heavily processed.

Here's an Idea: Lose the Weight and Save some Money by Shopping the Parameters

You'd lose more weight if you simply stuck to the outside aisles where you'll find produce, breads, milk and meat. Inside is where the trouble begins. The bright and colorful packages scream out at you, but if you're a label reader, plan to stay a long time, and bring your glasses. The print is small.

I believe it's not the occasional consumption, but the constant consumption of these foods that's causing rampant obesity in this country and throughout the world.

I don't think the level of physical activity has changed much over the last 20 years. Before computers we had TV, in fact kids playing video games can be quite animated, not to mention how good it is for motor skills and brain power, unlike TV which requires one to do no more than sit and stare. Obesity on the other hand has grown at an enormously high rate of speed over the last two decades. At this rate the entire population will be obese by 2020.

This site is great for another view point: Consumerfreedom.com

What came first the chicken or the dipping sauce?

Website Spotter: Count Your Calories Because Calories Count

Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center

Here is a nice site with many features including Drive Through Diet, where you can look up the nutritional values at your favorite fast food restaurants. I like the Fit or Not page because after you enter your usual details such as height, weight, etc. it provides how many calories you need to maintain that weight along with a reasonable weight range based on mortality studies.

Mortality studies are done to determine the best height/weight ratios for longer life span. One interesting fact is that those who are underweight have the highest mortality rates. Yes, there is a price to pay for being too thin after all, so the next time your skinny neighbor laments how no matter how much she eats she just can't gain weight, have some empathy.

Note: On the Medfacts Dietary Assessment Questionnaire, the Clear and Total Buttons are not in the usual order. Be careful to choose the second button (Total) or you'll erase all your responses accidentally.

Eating Less for Longevity

The New York Times recently ran an article about people who believe eating less will expand our life spans. While this has proven to be true in laboratory rodents, I wonder why statistics show the average weight category outlives both the underweight and the overweight? Some of those interviewed in the article made comments bordering on the extreme. One person stated they eat only once a day and are thinking of cutting back to eating only once every two days! I don't think that was what the scientists had in mind when they suggested cutting back - in fact, the laboratory animals still were given their daily required nutrients, in a less calorie dense fashion. All they reduced were the calories, not the nutrients.

Simply not eating is certainly not providing all the nutrients. Our bodies require nourishment. There are also some who believe in a diet of nothing but pure air. I'm curious about their average life span? Maybe that explains why you seldom meet an air eater?

Extremes like this are fun for newsy bits, but not very wise. Skipping meals or simply not eating is the best thing to do if you want to lose your precious muscle tissue, reduce your metabolism and train your body to retain every ounce of fat in an effort to stay alive. It doesn't sound very healthy to me.

On the other hand, the common belief that we should eat until we are full is obviously getting in the way of good health. We should eat until we are satisfied - not full. Full is nearly stuffed. Full is something we were taught as children because we could understand full. Full meant we could eat no more. That is too much for an adult to eat on a regular basis.

Stop worrying about getting full, and start paying attention to getting some nourishment.

Diet Fraud - What to Do

If you've been mislead by an advertised product for losing weight, or a product simply didn't work according to the label's claims, you can complain by writing to FTC at CRC-240, Washington DC 20580, or telephone (202) 326-2222 or 1-877-382-4357. You may also visit the Federal Trade Commission web site

Complaining alerts the FDA, and if enough people complain about any one company or product, they just might take action to get them closed down.

Use some common sense. If an advertised product sounds too good to be true, it is. Period. There is no pill you can take that will allow you to eat as much as you want of crappy food and lose any weight. Sorry. If they do develop something, don't be surprised when a year or two later they pull it from the market because it kills people - remember fen/phen?

Website Spotter: Fitness & Kids

Check out this fun site, if you've got kids. FitnessandKids.com

Oral Contraceptive without Weight Gain

Introduced in 2002, Yasmin is a birth control pill that purportedly does not contribute to the bloating and water retention associated with many other contraceptive pills. If you take the pill and believe it may have caused you to gain weight, you might want to consider trying Yasmin. Ask your doctor.
Yasmin-us.com

Tricks to End Nighttime Eating

Here's a clever idea to help with nighttime eating and you'll get brighter teeth in the process: Crest Whitening Strips (TM). These work to whiten your teeth at home. You simply wear the strips for half an hour, twice a day. I put them on when I first get up in the morning, and again at night and then it struck me: What a great idea for someone who struggles with nighttime eating!

Plan ahead, to stop eating one hour before bed, and stick to your plan! Then, half an hour before bed, use the strips. Remember, anything you truly want to eat, you can have tomorrow.

Sometimes brushing your teeth an hour before bed also works, especially if you floss. There's simply no way I'm going to floss twice in one night, plus the toothpaste gives any food a weird taste.

The Crest White Strips (TM) can work for you in the same manner. Obviously it would be impossible to eat with them on (not to mention yucky), and once you've worn them, it's usually time for brushing and bedtime. Give it a try. They seem expensive but they are not when compared to a professional bleaching process at the dentist.

Move Over Atkins - Make Way for Low Sugar Diet

All this time we've been talking about high protein, low carb, but what we should have been saying is LOW SUGAR! Reduce the sugars including fake sugars, and you've got the problem licked, so to speak.

Fat, protein, carbohydrate - all are necessary for a healthy body. Trying to eat a diet of a specific ratio of one nutrient to the next is horribly confusing and more difficult than most of us want, which is why people gravitate to specific diet plans telling them what to eat and when. It's easier than having to figure it out by yourself.

The reason it appears low carb diets are more effective than low fat is because if you're eating low carb you're most likely skipping the french fries, cookies, cakes, donuts, and candy that are so easily consumed on a daily basis. Eliminating these foods would obviously result in a quick loss of excess weight, especially if they are common items in your usual eating plan.

Now, if you started out eating low fat, that was an excellent plan until the food manufacturers caught on and started producing their new "low fat" and "reduced fat" versions of formerly high fat products. Low fat cookies or non-fat cakes quickly found their way into our shopping carts and onto our hips. It was never the fault of the diet, but the misperception we had that we could eat all we wanted of the newer products, since they no longer contained the
dreaded fat.

Think about that the next time you start to reach for any modified product. Instead think wholesome, think foods from the ground, tree or bush. Think fresh. Do you believe our world evolved to produce foods that grow in and on our earth that are not healthy for us to consume as grown? Think of the maligned potato. Suddenly being shunned as a high sugar food, while millions of people happily eat all the mass produced chemicals the food industry can shove our way? That's ridiculous.

Instead of skipping potatoes, corn, rice and other healthy foods, make an effort to avoid artificial sweeteners. Try it for one week. Write down how many products you routinely purchase that contain artificial sugars and make a note of how much money you're spending on these foods. Compare it to the cost of a pound of potatoes, then pick yourself back up off the floor.

Reduce Your Dental Costs

If you have dental coverage most plans limit benefits to $1,000 worth of coverage a year. That $1,000 doesn't go far as I'll explain below.

If you need a lot of dental work, or you have kids, the cost of avoiding the dentist can run into thousands of dollars. My son recently had his wisdom teeth extracted to the tune of $1,600! Bam! Hit between the eyes by an unexpected expense, but that wasn't the worst of it. He also had seven cavities and the dentist gave a quote of over $1,200 for fillings! I just about fainted. One lousy visit to the dentist and I'm suddenly down over $2,800 ;-(

He has dental insurance but is limited to that $1,000 a year cap, so I'm still down $1,800 cash. Then I discovered DentalPlans.com and my anguish turned to joy! Being able to save some money, big money, gave my mental health a big boost. With the best plan in my area, I'm now going to be paying $441 instead of $1,200 for a total reduced cost of $759 on the fillings alone! After the cost of my annual plan at $139, I'm still ahead $620. For my money this idea is money in the bank. It's far cheaper to get six month checkups and stay ahead of the game. Dental work is far too expensive today. Here's a way to help alleviate that pain.

They offer different plans, so depending on where you live you can find the best plan for you and your family. I wouldn't recommend this unless I really thought it was a great deal. I'd suggest you call some of the dentists who accept the plan in your area and ask about their fees to be sure they closely approximate what the website indicates. I've been paying too much money to the dentist simply due to waiting too long between regular checkups, and maybe you have too?

Dentalplans.com - 100,000 Dentists $99/year!

Website Spotter: AHA (American Health Association)

Delicious Decisions - Online cookbook

This site is also listed in the OneMoreBite Links, Food & Recipes category. Check our weight loss and much more links pages for lots of fun sites and if you know of a site that should be listed, send it to me.

Considering Weight Loss Surgery (WLS)?

Next Newsletter will be instructions to obtain my book: Using EFT for WLS." If you have specific questions you'd like addressed, send them and if I'm able, I'll include them.

Learn EFT to alleviate much of the stress and anxiety associated with this, or any surgery or serious medical procedure.

"An error is not a mistake until you refuse to correct it." Source unknown.

+++ -------------- Ending Emotional Eating -------------------- +++

Have you taken seminars, read books, bought gadgets, or tried countless weight loss programs, and you still can't quite make it work? The answer you seek isn't in finding more information but in devising a weight loss program you can call your own.

Working one-on-one with a professional weight loss coach may be the answer. Overcome your limitations, break through to the weight loss success you know you can achieve.

The 8 Week Workshop is beginning in October. Maybe the time is right for you to eliminate your obstacles to weight loss success?

+++ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ +++

Common Sense and Dieting

The USDA's Food Pyramid has taken a lot of flack lately, but it still seems a sensible approach. It is easy to take it out of context when it was simply meant to be used as a guideline:

There have been variations on this theme, but basically when they say to eat a diet that is moderate in saturated fats, sugars, and salt they are saying: EAT LESS JUNK FOOD! Can you do it? Try it just one day a week, no junk, for four weeks, just to see how it feels. If it feels really bad, then decide whether you are happier just the way you are because no weight reducing method will work for you long term if you stay addicted to junk foods. Period.

Getting Enough Water

I think it's fascinating that most of us have no problem drinking several beers, or glasses of wine, or liters of soft drinks, but when someone suggests drinking eight glasses of water a day were aghast! "I'm not that thirsty," and "Water doesn't taste good." Drinking enough liquids isn't about taste - that's something we've come to expect by all the years of adding sugar and flavoring to our beverages. Water is meant to hydrate your body and its cells, keeping you healthy in the process.

I know many health experts state we need to drink 64 ounces of water a day, every day. Yet common sense begs the question whether it seems logical that human beings would require that much water? This planet is vast, and there is a lot of water, but how often in our history were there adequate supplies of water such that people could get, let alone find time to drink, that much water?

I'd say the idea of drinking so much water is being heavily promoted by the folks bottling and selling water. Have you seen the shelves lately crowded with new flavors and cute bottles encouraging us to drink more expensive water?

The better idea is to drink more water, yes, but you don't have to go insane about it, and save a few pennies by learning to enjoy a fresh, clean, glass of pure water. No flavors, no bubbles, just water.

Diet suggestion:

During the day, when you suddenly out of the blue think, "Hey, I'm hungry." First have a half glass of water, wait five minutes, and drink the other half. Then wait 10 more minutes. Many times you'll realize you aren't hungry at all and then can go on about your business. False hunger is often thirst - we've just forgotten how to recognize it.

Low Carb Products: More Labeling Lunacy

Atkins Dieters Beware:

Reduced carb bread? Low carb beer? Please. What is that? If you're following a low carb plan you'll do yourself and your pocketbook a big favor by staying away from these products. It didn't work with "low fat" products, and it won't work with low carb either.

So called "low carb" products are not low carb at all. It's just more fun and games with labeling. Read the nutrition label and you'll see that often they've added artificial sweeteners (which effectively reduces the carbs), and/or they simply reduced the serving size to ridiculously small amounts, thus keeping the
carbohydrate count low - when in reality any human being will eat far more than they suggest.

Read the entire article: Low Carb Lunacy

What are Net Carbs?

When looking into the low carb products, I found myself asking what are net carbs and how do I calculate net carbs.

First net carbs, also known as net-impact carbs or net-effective carbs is a new term coined by those in the low carb business. I couldn't figure out how they reduced carbohydrates, but that's the beauty! They didn't reduce them at all, they simply calculate them differently, and voila! The products haven't changed, it is how they are labeled that is different.

The rational is that there is a difference in how your body utilizes carbs from different sources, and that is true. After all this time, (the Atkins Diet's been popular since early 1960) suddenly they decided that fiber, and non-nutritive (meaning fake) sweeteners are "non-blood sugar impacting," and therefore they don't count. (I disagree, but I must not have been home the day they tried to call for my opinion.)

They begin to calculate "net carbs" by subtracting fiber grams from the total carb grams. For example, if there are two grams of fiber, and 10 grams of total carbs, you'd end up with eight grams of net carbs. They then take a giant leap and have devised a magical figure for Polydextrose/Fiber and Glycerin, thus effectively reducing a product from 22 grams of carbs to 2 net carbs. Wow, that's quite a trick! Sorry, there is no way to do the calculation yourself, since the label doesn't include anything but the fiber, so you're stuck with nothing better than subtracting fiber grams. Which would bring you back to about 20 grams of carbs.

They hope these labels will entice you to purchase these products. More fun and games with labels. Frankly, these new products are junk all dressed up fancy to look like food.

The more highly processed foods you eat (whether labeled as being low fat, low carb, low calorie, etc.) the worse off you're likely to be. You're also spending far too much of your food dollars on expensive junk food.

Think about it and just eat whole foods more often, processed foods less often.

Humorous Editorial

Let's see if diet fads are worth their weight, by Gene Collier

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'Til next time, eat and enjoy life. Stop waiting until you're thinner, taller, richer - Do it Now!

Kathryn Martyn, M.NLP
OneMoreBite-WeightLoss.com

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