Scot’s Weight Loss Blog

Many scientific researchers now believe that Atkins and other diets that encourage the use of low carbohydrates are pretty useless when it comes to keeping weight off long-term. In a survey comparing Lo-Carb, reduced fat diets and reduced calorie diets, all participants began to resume their former weight after 26 weeks, and by 12 Moons there was no statistical difference between the groups. Professor Arne Astrup of RVA University in Copenhagen, Denmark, said that there is no real proof that diets modelled on the Atkins-style are significantly any better than any other diets to help anyone fight the flab, despite the success in some cases of the Atkins diet. Ok… so perhaps this is a bit over the top, but it does illustrate a good point.

Recall the number of times that you’ve heard that to get control of your diet you must be strong. Or to put it another way, to achieve weight loss you must be a slave to severely reduce your favorite foods like cakes, eating at expensive bars, and yes, those fast foods must be avoided. If this silly advice worked in practise, the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics would no longer pick over-eating / obesity as one of the worse factors for our health!!

Initially it is appealing, the thought of trying something different, and starting the next new “rave” diet plan, fits the same mould. But unhappily, the outcome for the majority of these schemes is unsatisfactory. Once the sparkle and initial fun fade away, we’re back to square one.

Attempts to bring changes into overall diet, follow a pattern that goes something like this…

We start a new diet program. It is an exciting prospect, that of losing weight, we are fired up, we have already achieved losing some weight, and the World is a wonderful place.

- Our busy schedule gets even busier. There are demanding kids, demanding bosses becoming more demanding, and naturally there are always those new diet guidelines to learn and follow.

- Before long we find ourselves panicking because we don’t have enough hours in the day, and looking for ways to save time. We decide to postpone implementing one or two of the most time-greedy “special” meals defined as good for our health - “just this once.”

- Our “resources” of health conscious foods begins to dwindle, you don’t have the time to go down to the grocery store to restock, and you make the inevitable run to your local convenience store instead… (oops…… I never realized I had bought so much!) … a familiar story I’m sure.

So, with poor long-term results for diets, you might consider losing weight fast, but what about the dangers of rapid weight loss?

Very much a problem associated with losing weight fast is that many individuals decide not to eat at all, being too focused on losing weight fast. Abstaining from eating, even if it is only over a short period of time, can be dangerous to your health.

It is far better to cut back on the food that you do eat or concentrate on trying to eat healthier foods. By limiting your calories, it is quite possible to achieve a reduced waist size at the very minimum in the time that you were looking to.

It is just very important that you never go a complete day without eating.

Apart from a healthy diet, an additional thing to consider is exercise. Alas, many people do not understand that it will usually take approximately a week to see any appreciable benefits from exercising. With all that in mind, the worse the problem is in terms of your weight, the greater and quicker will be the improvement in your weight.

Although exercise is vital for you to lose weight, you should only proceed with exercise cautiously, especially if you haven’t had a regular exercise plan. Suddenly starting up an ambitious keep fit regime, lasting for hours, as opposed to gentle exercise over say thirty minutes, may help reduce your calorie intake, but, unfortunately, it may result in a hospital visit for you.

Take care with diets that are very much a gimmick or fad  and try to encourage us to change our normal eating habits.   They will almost inevitably fail.  Only consider a practical diet,  nutritious and in-balance  with your everyday energy requirements.  Do this, and you are on your way to that slimmer body.

With our  time-constrained ways of life both at home and work, trying to find  some unaccounted for time can be a challenge.  Spending hours, or even days trying to adjust to a new diet plan  is not only unrealistic, but is  not everyone’s cup of tea! It’s not that  Atkins, Weight Watchers, South Beach or any other commercial diet can’t help us to lose weight.  Ask almost anybody,  and they will  say  that it’s pretty easy to lose the first few pounds, which it is!

It is relatively easy to  quickly lose some weight on virtually any diet. The problem  is shown later  when we  weigh ourselves again  six months  hence.  Our  enthusiastic hopes  for losing weight  get crushed  when we  grow to understand  that our weight, like the prodigal son of Biblical report, is here to stay.

We soon find that  the restrictions  of our ambitious diet  are unworkable with our current lifestyle.  Almost by magic  we’re back to our old unhealthy, but more convenient way of eating.  And the pile of dieting books  and other information to do with anything about dieting  we spend big chunks of our wages on,  continues to grow.

It is possible that your diet is actually working against you and you should consider other options:

Here is one good  belly reduction tip:

A Raised Heel means a Raised Spirit

Although high heels are not very comfortable, they do help you to look great  because even if you are a bit tubby  they will boost your self-esteem  and they will create the sensation of a long leg,  therefore your siluette will appear slimmer.

Consider this useful tip to cope with a too large belly:

Access your Accessories

Make good use of scarves,  glove cut-offs, earrings  and any kinds of jewellery.  The explanation is quite simple actually:   people’s attention will be  distracted  from areas that you are not so proud of,  such as your huge thighs,  and consequently  you won’t get embarrassing remarks like:  “Did you gain some weight?”.  The solution to distracting people from those extra bulges is  to have an understanding of the best way to dress.

Carefully picking the best clothes  will make you look unchanged  until you can shift those extra pounds again and  get back in control of your diet.