People are social beings, so for many of us, it doesn’t make sense to try and lose weight alone. Many people do better in a group program such as Weight Watchers. In fact, Weight Watchers has been one of the most successful weight loss programs around for many years now. It operates on a simple, yet ingenious formula that makes weight loss simple for the majority of people.
The first element is the grading of foods according to points. The key is that it’s a simple system. Different foods are given a different number of points based on their fat and calorie content, and you are given a daily ‘allowance’ of points depending on how active you are and how much weight you want or need to lose. This means that you don’t need to stick to pre-planned menus, you don’t need to buy special foods or supplements, and you can eat the foods you love. There are no forbidden foods.
This is very different from a lot of other diets and weight loss programs, which tend to target a particular type of food and blame it for everyone’s weight problems. For people who subscribe to the low -carb approach to weigh loss, simple carbohydrates are the ‘enemy’. For fitness guru Susan Powter, fat is the enemy. The problem is that all of these diets lose their appeal after you have been on several different ones, and they all tell you different things. In fact, as a society, we almost expect a new approach to eating to come along every year or so, just to confuse us!
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At Weight Watchers, though, they just let the numbers speak for themselves without judging the foods. Some foods are simply higher in calories, so if you want to eat them, you have to eat less in order to lose or maintain your weight. It’s very simple. So, for example, if you want to plan to have dessert, you can cut back on some of your other food for the day, or just exercise a bit more.
Another thing that makes Weight Watchers so successful is the group approach. Everyone comes to meetings together, a little bit like AA or any other support group. There, everyone is weighed in public, though there is no scolding or shaming, Psychologically, though, that really does make people try harder to lose weight. People know that if they slip up, everyone will know. Everyone will probably be very understanding, but by the same token, everyone is likely to applaud you when you do stick to the plan and lose weight.
Weight Watchers is the original, but there are many other weight loss programs that are based on this group approach. It’s very helpful to many of us, much as exercising with a friend can be much easier than doing it on your own. Basically, eating is a very social thing, and one of the reasons why people fail to lose weight may be that they feel the need to participate in the social aspect of eating.
Tip! Avoid Hidden Calories. Here’s an over simplified version of weight loss and weight maintenance: if you eat more than your body needs, you gain weight.
Weight loss groups deal with this need very constructively. You have the opportunity, on a regular basis, to be with a large group of people who are in the same boat, so to speak. Weight Watchers also has qualified counselors on hand to help you with any trouble you might be having with your weight loss plan. That kind of support is definitely well worth the very reasonable fee you pay for joining.
Weight Watchers is a diet, not a way of life - you set goals, and when you meet them, you’re ‘finished’, so to speak. However, one of the aims of this program is to teach you certain skills that you will be able to keep for life. These include a sense of portion control - because we are often served huge portions of food in restaurants, for example, some of us seem to have lost touch with what a reasonable portion of food looks like, or what it feels like to eat it. This, in and of itself, leads to a lot of weight problems. Weight Watchers and other similar weight loss programs help you reinstate the sense of portion control by limiting the amount of food you eat at a single sitting down to a more reasonable size.
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Quite understandably - and quite rightly, in fact - diet pills used to have a bad reputation. It’s easy to see why - the diet pills of the sixties, seventies and eighties were barbiturates - street name ‘speed’. That’s what they did - they sped you up, increasing energy to an often frenetic level while cutting your appetite. An overdose could be fatal, and even a mild overuse of these diet pills could keep you ‘going’ for days and days - hardly the effect anyone was going for! But yes, they did make people lose weight, sometimes quite a lot of weight. All too often, though, any benefit that patients got from their weight loss was more than counterbalanced by other health problems that the diet pills themselves brought about.
Tip! Set realistic goals. – Instead of a 10# weight loss in a month, set goals regarding your eating plan, continuing to see the scale go down, or starting an exercise program.
The new generation of diet pills is much different. Nowadays, people are more likely to take ‘natural’ diet pills that are make from herbal preparations, and these are safer, for the most part, but not nearly as effective as the diet pills of the past. Of course, there is (and probably always will be) a market for them, because people love the idea of a quick fix - a pill to make you lose weight!
One new diet pill is called “Acomplia” (generic name ‘rimonabant’). It works by blocking the brain’s hunger receptors, so as a result, you feel less hungry or don’t realize that you are hungry. Depending on your precise behavior that caused you to gain weight in the first place, this may or may not work for you. Some of us eat too much because we make poor food choices in response to hunger. Others, however, engage in emotional eating - eating when we’re not even hungry at all - for other emotional or psychological reasons. The diet pill may or may not do much for your individual diet program. Studies indicate, however, that this diet pill does help you lose weight to a certain extent. In a European study, the subjects who took Acomplia lost twenty pounds as opposed to only 8 in a control group who received a placebo or ‘dummy’ pill. This was a one-year study that included 1,500 people, all of whom had weight to lose.
Tip! Set Realistic Goals The first step to weight loss is setting a realistic goal. By using a BMI chart and consulting with your health care provider, you can determine what a healthy weight is for you.
The manufacturers of this pill expected that it would have a positive effect on weight loss. They - and the researchers - were surprised to find that it had another benefit as well. This diet pill proved effective in lowering ‘bad’ cholesterol (triglycerides) by 7%, and even more significantly, it raised ‘good’ cholesterol (HDL) by 27%. This means that this pill, independent of its weight loss benefits, it also an effective means of improving your cholesterol profile and lowering your risk of heart disease and cardiovascular disease. Some of this change in cholesterol level may have been due to the fact that Acomplia does facilitate weight loss, and weight loss generally does improve one’s cholesterol profile. However, it does seem as though it would do so even if no substantial weight loss is sustained.
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Interestingly, this pill is also effective for other addictive behaviors, such as smoking. It’s not known why - as far as we know, its physical effects are limited to the elimination of reduction of hunger. It seems as though there might be link between these two compulsive behaviors - overeating and smoking - though precisely what that link is is open to speculation at present.
Acomplia is not yet available to the pubic, but it will be by next year. Ask your doctor about it if you think it would be of benefit to you, and do some internet research. So far, it seems very promising, and the side effects are virtually non-existent. Time will tell, however, whether any concerns regarding this product come up - it’s still in the clinical trial stages.
The decision to rely entirely on a pill for weight loss is usually a misguided one. Essentially, you have to do the work - you have to change your eating, and start exercising - and there’s no real substitute for that. That having been said, however, it does seem as though this pill is an effective tool you can use to help you on your way. Ask your doctor about Acomplia, particularly if your cholesterol profile could use a bit of improvement!
For more great information visit Gabae Weight Loss the premiere resource for weight loss, diets, nutrition and living a great healthy life style!
Also if you’re looking for more informative articles check out Gabae Weight Loss Articles.
Tags: Weight Loss
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