Weight Loss – The Food Pyramid, Revisited
The USDA Food Pyramid has been controversial since its first appearance in 1992. While it incorporated many valuable features, it led to some confusion. Attempts to clarify the guidelines it contained in 2005 were only partly successful. What’s the scoop?
The Original Food Pyramid
In an attempt to make dietary guidelines easy to follow, the U.S. government developed a graphic called the Food Pyramid. Both visually and with supplemental text it outlines how much of what type of food should be consumed daily.
For example, it recommended 6-11 servings of whole grains per day. On the whole, that’s good advice. Whole grains contain valuable fiber, essential fatty acids, valuable carbohydrates and more. Such things as oatmeal, whole grain bread and brown rice are definitely nutritious.
It also recommended 3-5 servings of vegetables daily. Leafy green vegetables contain needed vitamin A and C, bushy vegetables are rich in calcium and iron. All tend to be low in fat and calories, a definite boon to a weight conscious public seeking healthy weight loss guidelines. Again, good advice.
But it also had some drawbacks.
Nutritional science continues to grow by leaps and bounds. The number of well-done research projects, written up in professional journals, continues to increase. Many thought by the turn of the millennium that the Food Pyramid was simply getting outdated.
Worse still, the original recommendations contained some questionable suggestions even by the standards of the early 1990s. Three cups of whole milk or an 8 oz hamburger contain considerable fat along with their proteins. Yet fats were supposed to be consumed ’sparingly’. Fat is essential, but keeping the amount low is helpful to those seeking healthy weight loss. It also comes in different types. The pyramid didn’t give clear guidelines here.
The amounts recommended, too, were sometimes confusing particularly to those seeking healthy weight loss. The pyramid contained a recommendation of 2-3 servings daily of meat, poultry, fish, dried beans, eggs or nuts in order to get proteins. But this was meant to be a maximum. By contrast, it contained a recommendation for 2-4 servings of fruit, though the guideline was intended as a minimum.
Perhaps worst of all, the question arises: what is a serving?
The answer turns out to be highly confusing. It varies with the food being discussed.
In the grains section, a slice of bread is one serving. An ounce of cereal is one serving. In the vegetable area a 1/2 cup of broccoli is a single serving. But for raw, leafy vegetables a cup equals a serving. A cup of fruit equals one serving, unless it’s dried in which case 1/2 cup is a serving.
No one could possibly keep these things straight.
MyPyramid
The new food pyramid introduced in early 2005 was an attempt to overcome some of these difficulties. Regrettably, in some ways, it’s even worse. Using the interactive tool on the USDA website (http://www.mypyramid.gov/pyramid/index.html) yields such information as: ‘Eat a variety of fruit’ and ‘Eat at least 3 ounces of whole grain bread’ and ‘Eat more dark green veggies’.
However, there is an interactive applet that does a better job of providing more detailed information at MyPyramidPlan (http://www.mypyramid.gov/mypyramid/index.aspx). It may take more time, but the guidelines are more carefully tailored for specific age, weight and activity level.
Summary
The lesson to be learned is that diet and Nutrition, especially for those seeking healthy weight loss, is a highly individual affair. It requires some attention to the details of what is consumed and what that contains. As with any intended approach to diet, seeking the advice of your physician is always wise.
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Diets – Why Not Just Stop Eating?
One sure way to lose weight, it might seem, is simply to stop eating for a while. Simple as it sounds, that idea is fraught with potential problems.
The basic weight loss equation certainly remains valid in this case: using more calories than are consumed results in weight loss. If you don’t take in calories by eating, it’s fairly easy to satisfy that equation. Your body burns 70 calories per hour even just sitting idle on the couch.
But while you may be idle, your body’s systems are not.
First of all, the body – deprived of food – will slow down the metabolism and burn calories more slowly. Weight loss can be sudden at first, but the rate slows very soon thereafter.
At first, it goes after glycogen stored in the liver and converts it to glucose to burn for energy. That energy is used to power all the body’s activities.
When that is used up (to a degree), the body then begins going after the energy stored in the bonds of certain molecules in fat cells. The process is called ketosis and accounts for why your breath sometimes smells like fingernail polish (made with ketones) after hard exercise.
So far, that all sounds good. You burn calories, reduce body fat and lose weight. Exactly what you wanted. But, unfortunately, this isn’t all the body is doing under these circumstances.
Because of the relatively rapid weight loss/calorie burning from this method of ‘dieting’ the body will experience a ‘rebound’ effect. In other words, it will cause you to crave food like crazy. The food you do eat will cause you to put on more pounds than you lost. The body is compensating for a radical deficit.
At the same time, there are serious health risks to simply starving or a long term fast. Going without food for a few hours or even a day isn’t dangerous, though it can be uncomfortable since you’ll get very hungry. But this method causes a number of carefully balanced nutrients to get out of whack.
It upsets the delicate balance of insulin, sugar and a variety of other essential compounds. Apart from regulating energy levels, they influence hormones that regulate the brain and nervous system.
Concentrations of potassium and sodium get out of balance unless you compensate with sports-style drinks, which can be more difficult to adjust in the absence of food. Those minerals are key to regulating the heartbeat, not to mention being found in every cell of the body and the fluid in between where they participate in an enormous variety of vital tasks.
Fatigue, dizziness and difficulty concentrating are only three of the milder symptoms that will result. Dehydration is likely, since much of the fluid we gain is from food, not just liquid. That can easily lead to heat stroke if the weather is at all warm and you are even a little active.
The kidneys will have a more difficult time filtering properly. They clean waste material from the blood, play a role in regulating blood pressure and stimulate the bone marrow to make red blood cells.
The odds of heart attack are increased, brain function suffers,… the list is endless. Even if the fast is ended long before death (at about 4 weeks), serious physical effects would occur.
Instead of fasting, eat a balanced, healthy diet of limited calories – combined with an age and circumstance-appropriate exercise program and find a way to stay on track. Motivation is the key to staying with any new kind of life style. Lets not kid ourselves, what permanent weight loss requires is a permanent change in life style. Hypnotherapy is one of the best ways to create a new habit and get rid of old negative or unhealthy ways of thinking about food. That is the surest way to lose pounds safely. Your physical health will be in harmony with your mind and your new healthy eating/exercise habits will become part of who you are.
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