Trust your belly!

Still Counting Calories? Your Weight-Loss Plan May Be Outdated

Published: July 18, 2011

The most detailed long-term analysis of the factors that influence weight gain shows that conventional wisdom may not be the best approach.

The article sheds light on the dangerous idea that one diet plan can fix everyone. Dieting is a complex process that should be tailored to each individual.

Disagreements arise in the debate because researchers and companies have pre-conceived notions and vested interests on what constitutes a good diet regimen. Some support reducing Calories, others want a reduction in fat and yet others promote increasing protein in diets.

It makes more sense for someone to take the information available to them, pull from their dietary history and create a diet that fits their physiology, lifestyle habits and mental outlook.

Moreover, the idea of a personalized plan is supported by people sense of what foods will cause adverse intestinal problems. How far fetched is it to think that we know what food makes us fat, no matter the calories or perceived health benefits 

So why do calorie counting or others diets have short term success? Perhaps, calorie counting triggers a hyper-vigilance in dieters that calculates not only the calories in a meal but what particular foods to will cause weight gains.

If you were only allowed 1500 calories a day and you filled that requirement with ice cream day and night. The chance for weight loss would be suspect, unless you are lactose intolerant.

The best thing to do before you count calories is to make a list of foods that you must absolutely avoid if you want to loose weight and stick by it.

Scratch the diet out of diet soda

Waistlines in people, glucose levels in mice hint at sweeteners' effects: Related studies point to the illusion of the artificial
ScienceDaily (2011-06-28) -- In the constant battle to lose inches or at least stay the same, we reach for the diet soda. Two studies suggest this might be self-defeating behavior. ... > read full article

It is no surprise to me that the weight loss benefits of diet soda are being challenged by a new study.

This exact issue came up during a Psychology lecture in University back in 1997. The professor explained that the body could be confused when drinking diet sodas. Basically, the body expects a certain amount of calories from a sweetened drink, and when it fails to register the calories, it signals the brain to eat more to compensate for the loss.

This explanation stayed with me, and when I put myself on a sugar reduced diet, I made a concerted effort to move from regular soda to water and not to artificially sweetened drinks. In two months, I had loss 15 pounds, all of it from the replacement of soda and juice with water.

In a perfect world everyone would drink water, but some people can’t get over water’s blandness. Not a hard thing to accept when you consider the amount of effort that has been put into artificially flavouring or sweetening our drinks.

This is a lesson for people to remain diligent and not to take corporate or societal claims at face value. Do your own research and judge from the specific results you have from eating, drinking or using specific products.

The following linked article goes into more detail about the effect of artificial sweeteners on the brain.

Low Cal Sweeteners Don’t Help Weight Loss