Tag: Diet

How Yo-Yo Dieting Can Be Worse Than Obesity

More research is coming out to show that dieting, in general, is harmful to your body (and your mind) and that it most likely isn’t making you healthier in most situations. However, yo-yo dieting, where you are always back and forth between being on and off a diet, can be even worse for you.

How Yo-Yo Dieting Can Be Worse Than Obesity cover picture for article

How Yo-Yo Dieting Can Be Worse Than Obesity

This is when you either bounce to different types of diets constantly, or you are on a perpetual restrict and binge cycle. Your body is going through a lot of changes at a rapid pace, which can be far unhealthier than if you had stayed overweight.

Your Hormones Fluctuate Like Crazy

To start with, when you diet, especially back and forth between eating and restricting, your hormones are completely out of control. Severe calorie restriction and yo-yo dieting, where you have a lot of changes in what you eat over a long period can cause your cortisol levels to increase. Cortisol is a stress hormone, and can increase your risk for heart disease and diabetes!

You Might Have a Bigger Appetite and More Cravings

Yo-Yo dieting also changes your appetite and what you crave. It may seem like you are out of control, but this is not about willpower, it is actually from dieting itself. In your body, you have two different hunger hormones – leptin and ghrelin. Ghrelin is the hormone that increases your appetite, while leptin decreases your appetite and ca help you feel full. If you are dieting, the hormone leptin often decreases, while ghrelin increases, creating an imbalance. Feel like you are continually starving? Your diet might be why, and not just because you aren’t eating enough.

Yo-yo Dieting Makes Your Metabolism Slow Down

Wonder why when you start a diet, you seem to hit a plateau quickly? This is probably the result of your metabolism slowing down because of all the feast and famine periods your body has gone through. Your body is brilliant and knows what it’s doing. But when you put it through the wringer from yo-yo diets, you are making it harder to lose weight thanks to your metabolism slowing down. Stop undereating, give up the diets, and start to eat intuitively.

How Yo-Yo Dieting Can Be Worse Than Obesity woman on scale

You Lose All Sense of Hunger and Fullness Cues

When you have pre-determined portions, types of food, and meal eating windows, you lose all sense of when you are hungry or full. When you are on a diet, you don’t rely on your hunger, but instead on numbers. How many calories you can have, how many carbs, making sure your sugar is low, and protein is high, watching your fiber. You might also get into timed meals, eating every 2-3 hours, or intermittent fasting. All of this damages your ability to know when you are hungry or full.

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Long Term Diet After Gastric Bypass Surgery

Gastric bypass surgery is among the most popular bariatric surgery, with the number of those who are choosing to undergo the procedure doubling from 2001 to 2003. The American Society of Bariatric Surgery estimates the amount to be 140,000 annually. This procedure is primarily done to resolve issues of morbid obesity and the diseases associated with it. You need to know what a Long Term Diet After Gastric Bypass Surgery looks like if you want to see yourself successful.

In gastric bypass surgery, a small pouch is created in the stomach. This little pouch is stapled, and the small intestine’s upper portion is also attached to this tiny pouch. The middle section of the small intestine is attached to the rest of the stomach. Food will bypass the rest of the stomach and the rest of the small intestine. The stomach will be in a smaller size, which would make it full faster. Fewer calories will be absorbed.

Long Term Diet After Gastric Bypass Surgery

This procedure would require a diet change. Since the digestive system is altered or shortened, every food intake would be valuable. Some common side effects brought by the surgery are nutritional deficiency like anemia and osteoporosis. This fact is why patients need to follow a different diet and take mineral and vitamin supplements.

Protein is King

A Long Term Diet After Gastric Bypass Surgery would make sure that weight loss will be maintained over time. It would typically involve high protein food. Foods high in protein would ensure that new tissues are being built, and the wounds are healing properly. Ideal high protein foods will be low in fat like red meat, chicken, or turkey without the skin, fish, eggs, and cottage cheese.

Long Term Diet After Gastric Bypass Surgery chicken plate

Sugar and fat are among the foods that are to be avoided. A gastric bypass diet would involve foods low in sugar and fat. Sugary foods are high in calories and fat. Fat is difficult to digest. Consuming too much sugar could also result in the Dumping syndrome that has nausea, dizziness, vomiting, sweating, and diarrhea as symptoms. The body could also react the same way to too much fat. Foods with too much fat and sugar, anyway, do not have sufficient nutrients that would be essential to the body.

Watch the Fiber

Foods high in fiber are also limited in the gastric bypass diet. Fiber could block the stomach, small intestine and would require more gastric acid to digest it. A doctor’s approval is needed before ingesting any laxative or fiber pills.

Gradually Work up to it

This change is not done immediately. There are stages in a gastric bypass diet. Clear liquids would be the first stage. For the early days, clear liquids like water, sugar-free juice, clear broth, and no fizz soda are to be consumed in small amounts. Within the first two weeks, low-fat, high protein liquids are on the list. It is also essential to take chewable multivitamins during this stage.

Doctors would determine when would be a suitable time for the patient to progress to a soft or puree diet. Some would be able to eat after two weeks, while others would have to wait longer than that. Some people who are in this stage would sometimes resort to eating strained baby foods while others would prefer eating soft foods like scrambled eggs, low-fat cheese, blenderized lean meats, etc.

Two months after the surgery, the patient could now start eating a regular diet, starting with high-protein food. Food consumed should be in small amounts. Remember that the stomach is reduced in size. After the gastric bypass, the stomach could accommodate about an ounce of food. Eventually, it could stretch and hold about 4 to 8 ounces or a cup to half a cup of food.

One thing that people should be conscious of would be overeating. Gastric bypass surgery can make the stomach smaller; however, this does not affect the overall attitude to eating. People could result in overeating because of genetics or emotions. Lifestyle change is essential. Overeating could cause regaining the lost weight, expansion of the pouch, and in worst cases, rupture of the stomach.

There are many support groups, education, and counseling available to help deal patients with these difficulties. Just becareful of the online groups – they share a lot of mis-information.

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Top 5 Healthy Diet Options For Women

Healthy Diet Options for women seem to be everywhere, but which ones really are healthy? As someone that has tried various diets in the past, I totally understand the appeal of finding a magic cure or solution to losing weight.  Whether it is a pill to take or a food to eliminate, the promise of dropping weight easily is appealing to most.  The problem is, not many of those are truly healthy.  So, I am sharing some tried and true healthy diet options that I know are not only safe but work.

Healthy Diet Options

Top 5 Healthy Diet Options For Women

To me, a healthy diet option is one that includes a focus on limiting intake while making sure what you do eat is nutrient dense.  This can in some cases eliminate a specific food group for various reasons, but typically has more of an “in moderation” approach overall.  I know that many have had success with ready-made meals, supplements, shakes, and similar items, but typically the results are not as typical.  Those programs also can come with some bad side effects that potentially cause long-term health complications.  Not all diet plans are bad, but the ones that I prefer are definitely lifestyle changes.

Before beginning any diet or exercise program, make sure to consult with your physician.  It is best to have a routine physical, blood work, and a regular checkup prior to making any dietary changes. This helps not only keep you safe should you need to eliminate some things from your diet (sugar, salt, cholesterol), but it also gives you a solid baseline to compare your results to periodically.

Weight Watchers:

Weight Watchers has been a popular diet method for many years.  Popular with women and men alike, the in-person groups are great for accountability.  Weight Watchers is low-cost to join and has multiple options for online and local group meetings, accountability, and chat forums. One of the best things about Weight Watchers is that they do not eliminate any food groups.  Everything is calculated and you are given a set number of points per day.  This means you can eat anything you want, you simply have to account for it.  However, the recent change to their program helps you to make wiser and healthier choices by calculating things like saturated fats to make those not so great food choices look less appealing.  I love the flexibility.  I also love the apps, calculators, tons of recipes, and ease of finding foods to fit into your daily plan almost anywhere.

Calorie Counting:

This goes back decades and is still a popular method for many to learn portion control.  Setting up a specific number of calories per day and making sure you calculate each food item and account for it helps you to learn better eating habits.  It definitely helps you to quickly determine which foods are worse choices.  You’ll see that a big bowl of carrot and celery slices with hummus is a must healthier choice than the donut for a snack. You will begin making healthier choices that are satisfying and stay within your calorie range for the day. It’s also simple to calculate as you learn to measure portion sizes of favorite foods.

Healthy Diet Options

Gluten-Free:  

In recent years the trend of eating gluten-free has gained popularity.  Primarily, this diet regimen is focused on those who have Celiac disease or gluten sensitivity.  However, it has also gained a lot of popularity in the diet world since the elimination of a lot of common bread products tends to lead to easy weight loss.  While I am typically against eliminating any food group unless there is an allergy, eating a primarily gluten-free diet does seem to have a lot of health benefits, reduced inflammation, and can be healthy and easy to follow.

Whole 30:

I love the idea of the Whole 30 or Paleo diet.  This plan focuses on eating things that were available easily for the cave man centuries ago. It simply revolves around as little processing or refining as you can manage.  That means you are probably eating lean meats, fruits, vegetables, and herbs. You won’t be including processed products, many sauces that aren’t homemade, or added preservatives in your diet.  For some, this is a wonderful way to not only drop weight but to learn how to manage blood pressure and blood sugar with simple dietary changes.  I love the book, The Whole 30, as a great beginner resource.

Vegetarian:

This is another of the healthy diet options that does eliminate major food groups, however, the focus is not just on eliminating meat and dairy, but on feeding your body healthy options.  The term vegetarian can mean many things, and can be simply removing meats but continuing to keep dairy in our diet, or you can become vegan and eliminate all animal products entirely.  While this is much harder to follow, I find that the health benefits of getting to know your body and your own nutritional needs is a big part of this.  Most who adapt to a vegetarian diet, do so after a lot of research and truly understand what is needed.  This is, however, one diet where I would recommend meeting with a nutritionist or dietician to make sure you understand the best places to naturally get calcium and protein sources.  The New Becoming A Vegetarian is an old but updated resource with a ton of amazing information on beginning this journey.

As you are looking to get healthier and lose weight, these healthy diet options are a great place to begin.  I find that for most looking for a healthier life, changing what you put into your body is the best method.  You can easily find a plan that works for you and your lifestyle, as well as your health.

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Bariatric Diet Tips for Satisfying Cravings

We all have some kind of food craving from time to time. Unfortunately, these cravings are usually for foods that ar very high in calories, fat, and sugar. Dealing with cravings is difficult for anyone, and it is very important to know whether a particular craving was physiologically or psychologically driven. Your body may be telling you of something it actually needs, or maybe the brain is just playing tricks with you. These Bariatric diet tips help satisfy cravings and keep you on track for success in your new lifestyle change.

Bariatric Diet Tips for Satisfying Cravings

Bariatric Diet Tips for Satisfying Cravings

The physiological cravings are usually caused by very poor protein intake, inadequate calorie intake or wrong kind of carbohydrates that can cause fluctuations in the blood sugar level of an individual. Psychological cravings, on the other hand, are mainly caused by stress and being over-tired. So it is very important to understand the root cause of your psychological cravings. You must maintain a food diary wherein you are supposed to write what you are eating and how much and how you are feeling? It will shed some light on the cause of these cravings. Here are a few tips on how to prevent a potential craving.

Do not skip meals

If you are skipping meals or your snack-time then you are putting yourself at risk for experiencing a kind of extreme hunger later on in the show. With cravings, there is also an increase in the number of unhealthy choices in food. You must give your body all that it needs before you start losing control.

Plan well ahead

You must take note of the time when your cravings strike. If the cravings mainly strike when you are hungry, then you must start eating healthy snacks between meals. The snacks must be carefully planned so that you can keep the hunger and the cravings at bay. The concept of portion control is also very vital here. Each of the snacks should be lower than 200 calories. Shoot for healthy choices like peppers and bean dip, hard-boiled eggs with a few multi grain crackers, fruit smoothies with protein powder, and yogurt with nuts or granola. Always blend a protein with a complex carbohydrate. Try these 100 Snacks And Appetizer Recipes For Meal Planning.

Stay fully hydrated

Dehydration is a leading cause of almost all kinds of cravings. This is because when we are not hydrated properly, our bodies start looking for a source of quick energy which we term as cravings. Sugar delivers a quick jolt of energy, but it lags far behind in terms of nutrition. It means that sugar plays a very minuscule role in supporting the biological functions of the body. One can make drinking water tastier by adding slices of fresh fruit or simple healthy garnishes to the water, like cucumber slices coupled with fresh mint leaves, or lemon juice with several organic orange slices. If you have undergone any kind of bariatric procedure then the concept of staying hydrated becomes extra important for you. The amount of water that your body needs will depend upon a host of factors like the activity level, age, and gender. I have 10 Water Infusion Recipes for you here.

Bariatric Diet Tips for Satisfying Cravings

The balance needs to be maintained

Protein remains the topmost priority in almost all our meals but it is also very important to include some healthy carbohydrates like fruits, and whole grains, along with healthy fats like peanut butter and olive oil. You need to consider your present dietary stage in case you have recently undergone bariatric surgery. We all go through the same stages: liquid diet, pureed food, soft food, and then gradually back to things like salads and ground beef.

Resist the sweets

Let’s face it, these might have helped get you to the point that you needed the gastric surgery! Resisting the sweets can be a tough proposition, and we suggest that it is not a good idea to deprive yourself of the food that you love. Try intuitive eatting instead, so you may indulge in very small servings of the desired treat. For example, if you are craving for chocolate, then you can have a small piece of dark chocolate. Try to avoid that so-called sugar-free candy, as it has a very high-fat content and it contains lots of calories. It seems like it should be heathier, right?

Avoid the problem places

Is there a certain place that triggers you? When you have a very strong craving, you must try your best not to move towards those places where resisting something will be a very big challenge. This may include places like a fast-food restaurant you used to frequent, those office vending machines in the early afternoon, and the food court in the shopping malls. Those people with the free smaple trays can really suck you in and the next thing you know? You are looking at a plate of Chinese food that has 1,500 plus calories while being high in fat.

Learn to control your hunger

When you are in the process of establishing a regular meal pattern, you need to strictly rely on eating by the clock rather than eating according to hunger. It is common to loose that ability to be “hungry” after surgery, so the clock is your friend. This helps keep your metabolism stronger, and you will be burning calories more efficiently. This will ensure that you remain in full control of your hunger pangs or the cravings.

In our food-rich society, it is natural that you will be bombarded with great choices of both healthy and unhealthy foods. When you follow a regular meal pattern then you will be in better control of your cravings.

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