Are You On A Diet?

You might tell me that is obvious I am overweight and need to lose the excess weight. Ah! But wait have you ever been on a diet before?

I can imagine many of you saying yes I have been on and off diets for so long I cant remember when I wasnt on a diet.

How many times have you started a diet with really good intentions, and even managed to lose a few or maybe quite a lot of pounds and then what happens next? You suddenly stop exercising or watching what you eat and suddenly those pounds you lost are back with the vengeance and more beside. How many times have you lost the same weight over and over again?

How many different types of diets have you tried? There are the popular ones but there are so many fad diets I have lost count as to what is now available. Maybe you are sitting there smiling thinking about the time you did the cabbage soup diet or the grapefruit diet or anything else like that.

You know these might be good for a short time but who wants to live on grapefruit or cabbage soup?

The truth is DIETS DONT WORK. If diets worked and you had followed them time and time again you would be thin. Think how many pounds you have lost during the course of your life, for some of you when you add them all up it is more than you weigh at the moment.

Diets dont work because in the main you cant sustain them. You go on holiday and you eat whatever is available and the pounds go on and suddenly you are discouraged and quit. Or you have a bad day which means you end up eating chips, donuts and chocolate while watching a film and all the time your self esteem drops lower and lower, in fact if it went any lower it was hit the opposite side of the world.

What you need is to decide to learn to eat in a proper manner. To realise that garbage in is garbage out. If you want burgers, fries and coke daily you are going to get fatter. If you know that you want to eat these once in awhile then go ahead it wont hurt you. Maybe you downsize the fries and coke. If you know you are going to an eat you like buffet, then dont panic but think ahead. Eat smaller meals during the day, and then eat in the evening but not so much that you feel sick. Know your limitation and know when to stop.

It takes time and effort to know when to stop but it is possible to learn it.

There are so many rules around at the moment when it comes to dieting that so many people feel condemned when they think they have broken a rule.

If you know you can eat any food, any time you want, and all you need to do is control the amount you eat, then nothing is going to make you feel bad.

How many times have you said, I failed with my diet today because I ate pizza and ice cream? Imagine what it would be like if you were allowed those and then you would stop feeling like a failure.

You would find that many of the foods you are craving would no longer hold the attraction for you. When something is banned people want it. Put a wet paint sign by a bench in the park, and then watch how many people touch it to see if the bench is still wet. The more you stop yourself from eating a food the more you want it.

Make a decision today to stop dieting. That doesnt mean you and not going to get healthy and lose weight, but you are no longer on a diet where there are so many forbidden foods. Nothing is disallowed. Who is the person who decided that certain foods were bad for you in the first place, maybe the person who wrote the diet? Look at some of the diets around and see one saying dont eat meat another saying only eat meat, another saying no red foods another telling you to eat tomatoes. They are all in conflict, but if you want to lose weight, then the first important step is to stop being on a diet.

Learn about food, learn to love food, learn there is no such thing as good or bad food. The food isnt bad it is you when you abuse it. Time to admit you are an abuser. Time to stop abusing food. The food did nothing to deserve it. When you buy food in the raw state there is nothing added to them to make them into bad foods, you do that when you cook them.

Make today the day when you decide to educate yourself and learn to love food, love yourself and love the fact that you are never having to go on another diet.

In Obesity, Brain Becomes 'Unaware' Of Fat
Critical portions of the brain in those who are obese don't really know they are overweight, researchers have reported in the March issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, published by Cell Press. These findings in obese mice show that a sensor in the brain that normally detects a critical fat hormone - causing a cascade of events that keeps energy balance in check - fails to engage. Meanwhile, the rest of the metabolic pathway remains ready to respond. [click link for full article]

News Roundup and Quick Links
The Carrot Diet A woman eats carrots every 15 minutes for 3 months in order to cure her infertility. The solution seemed to work as she became pregnant. A tabloid special Active kids say slim "Children who did 15 minutes a day of moderate exercise -- equivalent to a brisk walk -- were 50 percent less likely than inactive...

The Answer To Childhood Obesity: 15 Minutes Of Football?
ALSPAC The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (also known as Children of the 90s) is a unique ongoing research project based in the University of Bristol. It enrolled 14,000 mothers during pregnancy in 1991-2 and has followed most of the children and parents in minute detail ever since. [click link for full article]

Americans Still Not Eating Enough Fruits And Vegetables, According To Two Recent Studies
"Eat your vegetables" has been heard at the dinner tables of America for a long time. Has the message gotten through? Since 1990 the Dietary Guidelines for Americans has recommended consuming at least two servings of fruits and three servings of vegetables daily. However, two studies published in the April issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine clearly show that Americans are not meeting the mark. [click link for full article]

Obesity's Connection To Cardiovascular Disease Remains Poorly Understood
Obesity rates have escalated dramatically in the last several decades and the condition negatively affects health, but its connection to conditions such as cardiovascular disease (CVD) is complex and not fully understood. In the March issue of the Journal of Investigative Medicine experts say more research is needed to discover the links between obesity and CVD, with particular attention to biological differences between women and men. [click link for full article]

Potential Link Between Obesity And Environmental Chemicals
A team of researchers at the University of New Hampshire is investigating whether the increasing ubiquity of chemical flame retardants found in foam furniture, carpeting, microwaves and computers might be related to the climbing rate of obesity in the United States. [click link for full article]