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Rating The Diets: A Mindless Exercise?


There has been a recent surge in the experts weighing in (pun intended) on popular and celebrity diets to rate them in terms of effectiveness, nutritional adequacy, and balance. Look at the latest crop of magazines, Internet news reports, and television specials.

What is a semi-motivated would-be dieter to do?

Every diet listed seems to give rise to a chorus of criticism. Either it contains too few fruits and vegetables, not enough fiber, not enough fat, or too few calories. The glycemic index is too high or too low, the nutritional content of its staples are not good enough, there is too much or too little of something.

Who rates what we are eating now? We simply pig out on everything from pizza, to fast food, to snacks (did you know that potato chips are the most popular snack food in America - accompanying 32% of our lunches?), desserts, ice cream and beer.

While it would be nice, I suppose, to have a population who ate only healthy foods, in moderation, exercised daily, and took care to ingest at least the minimum requirement of vitamins and minerals, that is not reality, my friend. We overeat on all the wrong foods, we avoid regular exercise like the plague, and huff and puff our way into enlarged bodies that are twenty to fifty pounds heavier than our frames deserve.

Any way that we can take off some or all of that weight is worthwhile. No one is going to stay on any of the popular diets for a lifetime, let's face it. We look at them as temporary (which is part of the problem, but I digress) fixes. The last thing we need are experts who make us afraid to start because we might not be obtaining the right nutrition. Or do we take a certain degree of self-satisfaction in telling ourselves that we can't start until the "perfect diet" is identified?

Are we eating the right way without a diet? No, our nutrition is still deplorable, it's just that we are eating a lot of everything. Let's have at least one expert come out and truthfully report that no matter the deficiencies of any specific diet - going on it is absolutely better than eating the way we are now!

Let's get our collective weight down, and then start worrying about nutrition and health. Diabetes, heart attacks, and gall bladders care a lot less about what we eat than how much.

Start a diet, ANY diet, and follow through for a few weeks and I guarantee you'll be in a much better place, physically and mentally, to start looking after your health and long term fitness than when hemmed in by too much blubber, reading scare stories from the media about how your intended diet is somehow unbalanced.

Virginia Bola is a licensed psychologist and an admitted diet fanatic. She specializes in therapeutic reframing and the effects of attitudes and motivation on individual goals. The author of The Wolf at the Door: An Unemployment Survival Manual, and a free ezine, The Worker's Edge, she recently completed a psychologically-based weight control book: Diet with an Attitude: A Weight Loss Workbook. She can be reached at http://www.DietWithAnAttitude.com



Weight Loss in the News:

Drug Topics Magazine

Weight-loss surgery helps with pregnancy: study
Reuters - 5 hours ago
By Andrew Stern CHICAGO (Reuters) - Women who get pregnant after weight-loss surgery tend to be healthier and less likely to deliver a baby born with ...
Some Pregnancy-Related Complications Minimized for Women Who Have ... MarketWatch
Weight loss surgery may help obese women avoid pregnancy-related ... EurekAlert (press release)
Bariatric Surgery Before Pregnancy Benefits Moms, Babies U.S. News & World Report
Science Daily (press release) - Medscape (registration)
all 26 news articles


UPDATE 1-US Medicare wants limits for weight loss surgery
Reuters - Nov 17, 2008
... Nov 17 (Reuters) - Medicare, the US government's largest payer of health care, said on Monday it does not plan to cover weight-loss surgery in diabetic ...
CMS Will Not Cover Weight-Loss Surgeries for Non-Obese Diabetes ... Kaiser network.org
Medicare Wants to Cut Funding for Weight Loss Surgeries The ... Softpedia
all 17 news articles


Dairy saves bones during weight loss
Stock and Land, Australia - 22 hours ago
... Prof Weaver stressed how important it was for adolescents to maintain the recommended dairy food intake, even during low calorie weight loss diets, ...


Aljazeera.net

Boxing legend De la Hoya confident despite weight loss to face ...
AFP - Nov 17, 2008
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AFP) — US boxing legend Oscar de la Hoya said Monday he has dropped pounds but no punching power ahead of his December 6 welterweight ...
Roach: "Hey Oscar, The Weight Loss Don't Impress Me" BoxingScene.com
OSCAR: No KO Would Be "Disaster" The Sweet Science
Oscar throws punches then jabs at Freddie Roach during media day 15rounds.com
Doghouse Boxing
all 314 news articles


Physical Activity After Bariatric Surgery Improves Weight Loss ...
Science Daily (press release) - Nov 17, 2008
"Bariatric surgery is quickly emerging as a standard treatment for severe obesity, although weight loss outcomes vary. These results suggest that patient ...


Amazing Weight Loss Stories
WXii 12.com, NC - 12 hours ago
Kimberly Van Scoy is working on weight loss stories and we'd like to have your stories and contact information. Give us your e-mail if that's all the ...


Weight Loss Challenge comes to Swampscott
Swampscott Reporter, MA - Nov 17, 2008
Local area residents are invited to launch a 12-week non-profit Weight Loss Challenge that offers a quick, easy weight loss solution and long-term weight ...


Dietitians fear weight loss advice 'dangerous'
The Dominion Post, New Zealand - 8 hours ago
Television weight loss show Downsize Me has sparked complaints from dietitians worried it tells people to lose too much weight too quickly – and dishes up ...
Dietitians complain about TV weight-loss series Scoop.co.nz (press release)
all 2 news articles


I did it! Robyn Archuleta's weight loss story
The Virginian-Pilot, VA - Nov 17, 2008
Robyn Archuleta, a Virginia Beach resident, turned to Tidewater Bariatrics for weight loss help and dropped 100 pounds in eight months. ...


Weight Loss vs. Healthy Weight Loss for the Holidays
The Open Press (press release) - 23 hours ago
But they should know that there's a big difference between weight loss and healthy weight loss, and anyone who's starving to death will tell you so. ...

Weight-Loss - Google News



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