Miracle Diet? Fat Chance!
So you think you know how to eat right—what foods are healthy, what foods keep
the weight off—yet you can't avoid peeking at the latest fad diet. A voice inside
says
you'd lose the weight without cutting calories if you ate your cheeseburger without
the
bun, drank a liquid protein concoction, and stopped eating for three hours before
you go
to bed, or ate exactly 40% of calories from carbohydrates, 30% from protein, and
30%
from fat at each meal and snack.
Sound crazy? Sure it does. Yet at any given
time, about two-thirds of us are trying to lose weight or keep it off.
1. The only permanent way to lose weight is to:
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All these steps help:
Low-fat diets, for instance, can cut your risk for heart disease and other ills.
Still, experts say, it's not the makeup of the diet that determines whether you
lose
weight, it's how many calories you consume and how many you burn. Calorie-burning
exercise is vital, but it won't work alone. If a 120-pound woman walks briskly
for
an hour, she burns about 200 calories, but you must give up 500 calories a day
to
lose a pound a week.
2. If you want to lose weight, the worst time to eat is:
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If you eat the
same dinner at 6 p.m. or 10 p.m., it won't matter weight-wise. But emotional eating
(such as downing a bag of cookies while depressed) often occurs at night. You'll
also feel more satisfied and energetic if you eat during the day.
3. The high-protein/low-carbohydrate fad diets work
because:
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This diet,
really a low-calorie diet in disguise, has been around for a century, going in
and
out of popularity. A high-protein diet burns no more fat than a healthier,
low-calorie diet. Carbohydrates aren't more fattening than protein: Both have
4
calories per gram, while fat has 9 calories per gram. And despite diet claims,
there's no proof that eating carbs makes you store more fat-—it's excess food
of any
kind that packs on weight. Do these diets keep you from feeling deprived? Experts
say yes, because they let you eat foods you thought were taboo, like butter and
cheese. Eventually, they create boredom by limiting choices. They can leave you
exhausted, nauseated, and constipated.
4. If you want to lose weight, what would be the most filling,
lasting snack? (Standard serving sizes are shown.)
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Although
high-fat food like ice cream tastes great, you can get 230 calories in half a
cup.
It goes down fast and has low "satiety," meaning you get hungry again quickly.
Two
carrots (about 70 calories) make up a bulky, high-fiber snack that fills the stomach
in a lasting way by raising blood sugar slowly. An ounce of pretzels offers little
bulky fiber and raises blood sugar too quickly. The orange juice (100 calories)
is a
setup for dieters: People tend not to substitute drink calories for food calories,
because fullness doesn't last. A tablespoon of peanut butter offers a
high-satisfaction protein, but little to chew on. Add it to low-cal celery sticks
for a filling combination.
5. Dieters have traditionally avoided fat because:
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Still, some fat is good
for you. You need polyunsaturated fats for certain body functions, and omega-3
fats
in fish and monounsaturated fats in the Mediterranean diet are heart-healthy.
Only
saturated fat, common in dairy products and red meat, is labeled bad. Although
fat
doesn't burn as efficiently as carbohydrates during exercise (it takes more oxygen
to burn fat), that really doesn't matter. Your workout burns both so long as you
exercise at an intensity that leaves you able to breathe comfortably.
6. A diet is a fad if you notice:
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Fad diets
fail, experts say, because they don't teach you how to manage weight for the long
term. When you realize you can't stick to a fad diet, you probably will go back
to
eating the way you did before. The National Weight Control Registry, a record
of
people who lost 30-plus pounds and kept it off more than a year, offers clues
to
what really works:
- 98% of people who took park in the Registry say they changed how much food they ate in order to lose weight.
- 94% got more exercise. The most common form of exercise was walking.
- Registry members keep their weight off in several ways. Most say they eat a low-calorie, low-fat diet and get a lot of exercise.
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