To help
with weight issues and for overall improved health, many people turn to
diets. In fact, government statistics show that while about 65 percent of
Americans are overweight, 38 percent are actually doing something about it.
The most common weight related issues include but are not limited to.
- Coronary heart disease
- Type 2 diabetes
- Cancers (endometrial, breast, and colon)
- Hypertension (high blood pressure)
- Dyslipidemia (for example, high total cholesterol or
high levels of triglycerides)
- Stroke
- Liver and Gallbladder disease
- Sleep apnea and respiratory problems
- Osteoarthritis (a degeneration of cartilage and its
underlying bone within a joint)
- Gynecological problems (abnormal menses, infertility)
And
according to a recent survey by the National Health Institute, about a third
of overweight Americans who are trying to lose weight, are doing so by eating
less carbohydrates (carbs) largely because of the
increased popularity of diets like Atkins Diet and the South Beach Diet.
Although
there have certainly been other low-carb or low-sugar diet plans before, and
more will most assuredly come out in the years ahead, let's take a look at
the basics behind many of the major plans.
History
and Background of Low Carb Diets -
Click here to read more
The
terminology low-carb wasn't really coined until around 1992 when the USDA
announced America's model food pyramid included six to eleven servings daily
of grains and starches. However, low-carb dieting dates back more than 100
years before the trendy Atkins diet to 1864 with a pamphlet titled Letter on
Corpulence written by William Banting, as close to
the first commercial low-carb diet as you could get.
Popular
Low Carb Ketogenic Diets
- Click here to read more.
Now, here is a list 14 of the most
popular low-carb diet plans and books and a summary of their requirements.
- This book is was written by Drs. Rachel and Richard
Heller and is touted as being the book for any low-carb dieter on any
plan who needs help getting back on track right now.
- Perhaps the most widely known of all low carb diets
is the Atkins diet. Created by Dr. Robert Atkins in the 1970s the
Atkins diet is considered by some to be the most extreme low carb diet plan.
- Husband and wife scientist team Drs. Rachael and
Richard Heller introduced the term "Carbohydrate Addict" in
their 1993 book The Carbohydrates Addict's Diet. The idea is that some
people are addicted to carbohydrates just like alcoholics are addicted
to alcohol and drug addicts are addicted to drugs. This addiction causes
strong cravings, insulin resistance and weight gain.
- Dr. Fred Pescatore, a
former Associate Medical Director at the Atkins Institute, developed
the Hampton's Diet. This diet is a mix of low carb dieting concepts and
the healthiest concepts of the Mediterranean diet. He encourages the
liberal consumption of monosaturated fats to
aid weight loss and prevent diseases such as cancer, heart disease and
diabetes. All of this is laid out in The Hampton's Diet, published in
May of 2004.
- Written by Fran McCullough, the author of The
Low-Carb Cookbook, this book's rather long subtitle promises to teach
"everything food-loving dieters need to know to achieve lasting
success, including: strategies for controlling binges and cravings,
dealing with sudden weight gains and secret metabolic weapons".
- Ray Audette, the author of
NeanderThin touts his diet as a way to
"Eat like a caveman to achieve a lean, strong, healthy body".
At the tender age of 33, Audette suffered
from rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes. After hearing from doctors that
his condition was treatable but not curable, Audette
decided to undertake nutritional research to find a better cure.
- Drs. Michael and Mary Eades,
co-authors of The Protein Power LifePlan hold
views similar to Audette and also believe
that modern health problems are caused by our modern diet that is heavy
on grains and processed food. (Notable is that Dr. Michael Eades even wrote the introduction to Audette's NeanderThin.)
- Dr. Diana Schwarzbein is
the endocrinologist to the stars. The doctor of choice for Suzanne
Somers, Larry Hagman and many others, Schwarzbein encourages extensive testing for
hormonal imbalances and then suggests various diet and exercise
programs and selective hormone replacement to treat any deficiencies.
- Suzanne Somers first introduced "Somersizing" in Suzanne Somers Eat Great, Lose
Weight in 1992. Somersizing is a way of
eating in which you cut sugar and "funky foods" and eat
plenty of fats, proteins and good carbs like vegetables and fruit.
Foods must be combined in certain ways so that the body easily digests
them. Dieters Somersize in two steps, the
first (Level One) to lose weight and induce "the melt" of fat
and the second (Level Two) for ongoing maintenance of their ideal
weight.
- Developed by Dr. Arthur Agatston,
The South Beach Diet touts itself as teaching dieters to eat the right
carbs and the right fats. The diet has three phases. In the first
dieter's banish their bad carb cravings and induce rapid weight loss.
In the second phase, some types of carbs are reintroduced and weight loss
is slower. The final phase is the "Diet for Life" phase. This
is the maintenance diet and will be followed for the rest of the
dieter's life. If at any time the dieter begins to gain unwanted
pounds, then he simply goes through the induction and pre-maintenance
phases again.
- On Sugar Busters! dieters
cut sugar to trim fat. This diet was created by a group of doctors and
the CEO of a Fortune 500 business from New Orleans who realized that
low fat foods are full of sugar and that it is the sugar in foods that
produces a negative insulin response and leads to weight gain.
- Written by Rick Gallop, a former President of The
Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario, The Glycemic Index (GI) Diet
claims, "if you can understand a traffic
light, you'll understand this diet".
- Created by Dr. Barry Sears, The Zone encourages
balanced carb and protein intake. Dr. Sears suggests that you divide
your plate into three sections, one for protein and two for fruits and
vegetables per meal. This works out to 30 percent protein, 40 percent
carb, and 30 percent fat. For each meal, the protein portion should be
roughly the size of your tightly closed fist. The carb portion should
be the size of two loosely closed fists and the added fat portion
should be about the volume of your thumb.
- Before he began extolling the virtues of Australian
macadamia nut oil, Dr. Fred Pescatore wrote
the book Thin For Good: The One Low-Carb Diet
That Will Finally Work for You. This plan explores the mind-body
connection in lasting weight loss and includes plans for men and women
as well as a low-carb diet plan for vegetarians.
Diets
and Popular Dietary Treatments
Americans spends millions of
dollars each year on diet books, products, and weight-loss plans. With all of
this dieting, you would think obesity would be decreasing every year instead
of increasing. So, why aren't they working?
Subscriber
Diet Programs
There are many subscriber programs
available both online and in the real world for dieters. In order to help choose
one or just learn more about them in order to help round out your daily life
and coordinate your activities, foods - - i.e. perfect diet lifestyle, here
are some of the membership programs available.
And let's take a look at how they fit into the real world today. Because
while it might be great to lower the body's sugar content and be healthier,
wouldn't it be great to learn how to do so while being part of this
fast-paced world?
In the
world of instant messaging, quick Internet interaction and the already
multi-faceted day-to-day hectic schedules, dietary food budgeting, planning,
preparing and shopping are issues that can become major sources of stress and
reasons for dieting failure. Dual income families on-the-go and other
super-busy wage earners and dieters often already suffer from more than their
share of everyday stressors like fears of being laid off, their jobs being
relocated or terminated, juggling more than one job, dependents (both elderly
and minors) and trying to fund and juggle continuing education into their
lives, budgets, and daily routines.
People
want and need simpler solutions. And they need simpler dieting plans. Forget
spending mega bucks on gourmet, hard-to-find items. Forget spending hours
just to prepare meals. And forget counting, measuring, and weighing
ingredients.
Natural
Dieting Alternatives
Nutrition
and Dietary Basics
The
Dieting Twelve Steps
Basic
Meal And Menu Planning
Social
Eating and Traveling Tips
Basic
Weight Management
Ogden CL, Carroll MD, McDowell MA, Flegal
KM. Obesity among adults in the United States – no change since
2003—2004. NCHS data brief no 1. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for
Health Statistics, 2007.
Ogden CL, Carroll MD, Flegal KM. High Body Mass
Index for Age Among US Children and Adolescents, 2003—2006. JAMA. 2008;299(20):2401—2405.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Healthy People 2010. 2nd ed.
With Understanding and Improving Health and Objectives for Improving Health.
2 vols. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, November 2000.
- Eades,
Michael R.; Eades, Mary Dan: Protein
Power: The High-Protein/Low-Carbohydrate Way to Lose Weight, Feel Fit,
and Boost Your Health--in Just Weeks!, Bantam
Books, 1999, ISBN
978-0553380781.
- Bowen,
R.: The
Endocrine Pancreas, Colorado State University: Hypertexts for
Biomedical Sciences, 8 December 2002.
- The Ketogenic Diet,
Johns Hopkins Epilepsy Center.
- Banting,
William: Letter
On Corpulence, Addressed To The Public, 4th, London, England:
Harrison, 1869.
- Bowden,
Jonny: Living
the Low Carb Life: From Atkins to the Zone, Sterling
Publishing, February 2004, ISBN
978-1402713989, 352pp.
- Carr,
Timothy P.: Discovering
Nutrition, Blackwell Publishing, October 2002, ISBN
978-0632045648.
- Freeman,
John M., Kossoff, Eric H., Freeman, Jennifer
B.: The
Ketogenic Diet: A Treatment for Children and
Others with Epilepsy, Fourth edition, Demos Medical Publishing,
October 4, 2006, ISBN
978-1932603187.
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