Health Creator

Every year, millions of Americans resolve to lose weight, whether on New Year’s Day, their birthdays, or just some morning when their mirror or the bathroom scale seems particularly unkind. And every year, many get frustrated and give up before they reach their goals. Contributing to this problem is a host of bad information about diet and exercise that circulates through gyms, workplaces, and over the Internet.

To help more people achieve and maintain a healthy weight, Julie Bender, a dietitian with Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas, and Phil Tyne, director of the Baylor Tom Landry Health and Wellness Center agreed to “weigh in” on many of the most common diet and exercise myths.

Diet and Exercise Myth #1: Crunches will get rid of your belly fat.

False. “You can’t pick and choose areas where you’d like to burn fat,” Tyne says. “In order to burn fat, you should create a workout that includes both cardiovascular and strength training elements. This will decrease your overall body fat content.”

Diet and Exercise Myth #2. Stretching before exercise is crucial.

False. Some studies have suggested that stretching actually makes muscles more susceptible to injury. They claim that by stretching, muscle fibers are lengthened and destabilized, making them less prepared for the strain of exercise. “You might want to warm-up and stretch before a run, but if you are lifting weights wait until after the workout to stretch your muscles,” Tyne suggests.

Diet and Exercise Myth #3. You should never eat before a workout.

False. “Fuel” from food and fluids is required to provide the energy for your muscles to work efficiently, even if you are doing an early morning workout. “Consider eating a small meal or snack one to three hours prior to exercise,” Bender says. “Load up your tank with premium ‘fuel’ and choose some fruit, yogurt, or whole wheat toast.”

Diet and Exercise Myth #4. Lifting weights will make women bulky.

False. “Most women’s bodies do not produce nearly enough testosterone to become ‘bulky’ like those body builders on TV,” Tyne says. If you do find yourself getting bigger than you would like, simply use less weight and more repetitions.

Diet and Exercise Myth #5. Fat is bad for you, no matter what kind.

False. Contrary to popular belief, there are plenty of “good fats” out there that are essential for good health and aid in disease prevention. “They are the ones that occur naturally in foods like avocados, nuts, and fish, as opposed to those that are manufactured,” Bender says. “Including small amounts of these foods at meal times can help you to feel full longer and therefore eat less.”

Diet and Exercise Myth #6. Restricting calories is the best way to lose weight.

False. Both cutting back on calories and moving more will help you lose weight and maintain the lean muscle mass needed to boost metabolism. People often believe the diet and exercise myth that they must take drastic measures to lose weight, such as eating less than 1200 calories per day, but such diets usually do not provide adequate fuel for the body and may slow metabolism. “Drastic measures rarely equal lasting results, so start small and eliminate 100-300 calories consistently from your daily diet, and you will reap the reward,” Bender says.

Diet and Exercise Myth #7. As long as you eat healthy foods, you can eat as much as you want.

False. A calorie is a calorie. Although oatmeal is healthy, if you eat four cups of oatmeal, the calories add up. “Healthy or otherwise, you still must be aware of portion sizes,” Bender says. “You must limit your caloric intake in order to lose weight, however, understanding how to ‘balance’ calorie intake throughout your day can help you avoid feelings of deprivation, hunger and despair.”

Diet and Exercise Myth #8. Exercise turns fat into muscle.

False. Fat and muscle tissue are composed of two entirely different types of cells. “While you can lose one and replace it with another, the two never “convert” into different forms,” Tyne says. “So fat will never turn into muscle.”

Diet and Exercise Myth #9. Eating late at night will make you gain weight.

False. “There are no ‘magic’ hours,” Bender says. “We associate late-night eating with weight gain because we usually consume more calories at night. We do this because we usually deprive our bodies of adequate calories the first half of the day. Start the day out with breakfast and eat every 3-4 hours. Keep lunch the same size as dinner, and you will be less likely to over-indulge at night, yet you can enjoy a small late-night snack without the fear of it sticking to your middle.”

Diet and Exercise Myth #10. You have to sweat to have a good workout.

False. “Sweating is not necessarily an indicator of exertion—sweating is your body’s way of cooling itself,” Tyne says. It is possible to burn a significant number of calories without breaking a sweat: try taking a walk, or doing some light weight training, or working out in a swimming pool.

What are the top 10 most popular diets? Here is a list of the most searched diets (according to Wordtracker) and how they stack up against each other.

Losing weight must be one of the top 2 new year’s resolutions year after year. Consequently every weight loss opportunist is looking for the quickest, easiest way to lose weight.

Each individual needs to look at their current situation and decide which plan is best for them. Here are 10 of the most popular diet plans:

1. Atkins Diet: Made famous by Dr. Atkins claim that dieters can lose all the weight they desire by eliminating sugar and carbohydrates from their diets. Bacon, Avocado, Jack Cheese Omelete is enough to make any cardiologist cringe. Dr. Atkins believed that obesity was caused by processed carbohydrates and insulin, not excessive calories. This diet is centered more around beef, chicken, pork, cheese, veal, bacon and fish while eliminating breads, vegetables and desserts.

2. The South Beach Diet: Developed by cardiologist, Dr. Arthur Agatston, with the purpose of lowering cholesterol for those with heart conditions and diabetes. The initial stage of the diet eliminates all simple sugars, most carbohydrates (sweets, pastas and most breads). Weight loss is achieved by this diet through caloric restriction.

3. Alli Program: A relative new comer to the weight loss industry, Alli is an FDA approved, over the counter weight loss product. It works by preventing your body from absorbing some of the fat you ingest. Weight loss is achieved by using Alli in conjunction with caloric restriction.

4. Jenny Craig: Created 15 years ago by a woman struggling with her own weight. Jenny Craig offers a variety of prepackaged meals and snacks that are required during initial phase of dieting. Their program focuses on lifestyle such as exercise and diverting attention away from food.

5. NutriSystem: Nutrisystem was created some 30 years ago as a diet program offering prepacked meals and dietary counseling. Nutrisystem now offers an online community. Their menu plan is incorporates NuCusine and can be difficult to follow without purchasing Nutri-products.

6. Ornish Diet: Specifically designed to reverse heart disease by Dr. Dean Ornish. It has recently gained popularity as a weight loss diet. The Ornish Diet emphasizes complex carbohydrates such as whole grains and fruits, restricts simple carbs such as alcohol, honey, sugar, prohibits meat, fish and nuts. Its recommends a ratio of 70% carbohydrates, 20% protein and 10% fat. This diet also advocates exercise and meditation.

7. Mediterranean Diet: Inspired by the traditional dietary patterns of the Mediterranean region, this is considered more of a way of eating versus a diet focusing on caloric restriction. The traditional food habits of this region is high consumption of fruit, vegetables, bread, wheat, olive oil, fish and red wine. Its often cited as beneficial for being high in monounsaturated fat and dietary fiber and containing low levels of saturated fats.

8. LA Weight Loss: LA Weight Loss Centers” is a diet and weight loss program based on reduced caloric intake along with nutrition bars and supplements, behavior modification, and personal counseling. There are approximately 450 centers worldwide.

9. Slimfast: Slimfast promotes weight loss through the use of its shakes, bars, snakes and prepackaged meals. Weight loss is achieved through caloric restriction by providing portion control and nutrition.

10. e-Diets: For more than 10 years, the experts at e-Diets have been providing a forum for clients to choose from more than 20 popular plans like Atkins and the Mediterranean Diet. eDiets.com provides you with a fully personalized health assessment. Prior to joining, you’ll complete a complimentary diet profile that reviews your weight, height, age and gender, as well as favorite foods, exercise and other lifestyle factors to help guide them to find the best-suited diet regiment for you. Plus, you’ll have access to eDiets.com’s roster of nutritionists, fitness experts, psychologists and more.

While there are many more diets, this list is just a general snapshot of the types of diets available for those wanting to lose weight. An individual wanting to lose weight, should talk first with their health care provider before attempting any type of diet. This list was put together by using wordtracker to determine which diets were searched most often. It is not intended to be a comprehensive list.

By Krishan Bakhru, Natural Food Recipes

For those of you who don’t know, the food pyramid is a carefully drawn up plan of exactly what the human body needs nutritionally. That is, the food pyramid is a guide to help us determine what we should eat everyday. It doesn’t have a set menu of food that you need to eat per day. All it has is a guide that can help you plan your meals so that you get the correct amount of nutrients into your system every day.

The food pyramid will show you the path to keeping yourself fit and healthy through a steady and healthy diet. Up until recently that’s all the food pyramid did. In 2005 however, the food pyramid as we know it was changed forever, and a more up-to-date food pyramid took its place. Now you’ll find that instead of the two-dimensional food pyramid we’re so used to, it’s become more three-dimensional. To show the added benefits that regular exercise will have on you, a figure running up a flight of stairs on the side of the food pyramid has been added.

Earlier if you looked at the food pyramid you would have seen horizontal lines spanning the food pyramid with the food that we eat the most of, starting at the bottom. The food that we should eat the least amount of, could be found at the top. This is the food pyramid that we all know about and the one that was shown to us when we were in school.

The new food pyramid however, is completely different. Apart from the fact that it’s become three dimensional and has a figure climbing up the side of it, this new food guide has also eliminated the horizontal lines. Instead we can now see lines starting from the tip of the pyramid and radiating downward.

Each of these sections are only as big, or small, as the earlier food pyramid sections were. Only with this new food pyramid, you now know that although you need to eat some food types more than others, even within those food groups there are some foods that you should only eat in moderation.

Additionally you’ll also find that your new food pyramid is color coded. So you’ll get an Orange stripe representing grains; a Green stripe for vegetables; a Red stripe for fruits; a Yellow stripe denoting how much fats and oils you should have; a Blue stripe for the milk and dairy products that you’re allowed; and a Purple stripe showing you the quantities of meats, fish, beans and suchlike that you should eat in a day.

With six colored stripes denoting the quantities of food you should take, and a figure of a healthy person running up a flight of stairs on the side of it, this new food pyramid is definitely better than the old one, and can help you learn more about better eating habits, and a healthy lifestyle.

By Sonia Zjawinski

Eight quarter pounders generate the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as driving for three hours while burning a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days. The study, done by Akifumi Ogino of the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Tsukuba, Japan, found that most of the greenhouse gas emissions are in the form of methane (read: farts). Over two-thirds of the energy used to make your steak goes towards producing and transporting the animals’ feed.

A 2003 Swedish study suggested that organic beef, raised on grass rather than concentrated feed, emits 40%less greenhouse gases and consumes 85% less energy.

In other carbon related food news, Tesco, the largest grocery retailer in the UK, is working on a carbon labeling system that will show consumers how large of a carbon footprint the foods they buy have.

The project, with help from Oxford University, requires calculating the carbon footprint of over 70,000 products and will cost Tesco $10 million. But will people really count their carbon calories?

Seems like $10 million could be better used for sourcing localing manufactured and grown foods that don’t need to travel such large distances? PSFK seems to agree.

Also, how would the carbon footprint data be read? Would it be included in the nutritional label? And how would people know what was a large or small footprint? I still don’t know what’s an obscene amount of carbs and sugars (hence my ignorance while eating pasta and guzzling grapefruit juice), so how am I supposed to know what’s bad for the environment?

I’m all for educating the public, but I also think that small, local farmers are having a harder and harder time making ends meat (no pun intended). Isn’t it time mega markets got involved, as well as the government? Every city should have a solid farmers market to get their goods.
Here’s a poster from the New York Farm Bureau that I think sums it all up.

Via Wired.com

If it works, this could be the best weight loss invention yet - the ability to easily burn almost 120 extra calories per hour while working at your computer.

The origin of this thinking comes from Dr. James Levine, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic, who found that any incremental movement, even fidgeting, burns extra calories. From this, he extrapolated that even very light aerobic activity would cause the body to greatly increase the rate at which it burns calories, a process called non-exercise activity thermogenesis.

To study his hypothesis, he invented a computer workstation that can be used while walking slowly - very slowly - on a treadmill, and recently released the results of a small research study that evaluated how many calories this would burn.

The recent study included 15 obese individuals - 14 women and one man - in their forties who did no regular exercise. Their average Body Mass Index (BMI) was 32 and percent body fat was 52%. Using the treadmill at 1mph burned 119 more calories per hour during the study than sitting while working, which would indicate that walk-working for 2 to 3 hours per day could lead to a weight loss of about 45 pounds in a year according to Dr Levine. […]

Read more: Lose Weight While Working at Your Desk