Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Filling up with fiber, Fiber is Good for your Health

Looking for quick and easy ways to add fiber to your diet? Try some of these delicious tips:

Diet Start

For a side dish, have 1/2 cup of any one of the following: lentils (5 grams), cooked dried beans (7 grams), cooked whole grains, such as wheat berries (2 grams) or cracked wheat (3 grams). Mix it with '/2 cup of one of these vegetables: peas (3 grams), green beans (2 grams), or spinach (1 gram).

Make an opened-face sandwich with a sliced tomato (1 gram) and a slice of whole grain toast (2 grams). Top it with 1 ounce of low-fat mozzarella.

Select your cereals wisely. You have tons of high-fiber cereals to choose from now some offering up to 10 grams per serving. Look for cereals that provide at least 2 grams of fiber per serving.

Reach for fiber-rich fruits and think of them as ingredients, not just as snacks - especially a pear (4 grams), an apple (3 grams), a couple of figs (3 grams), 1 cup of strawberries (3 grams), or a banana (2 grams). Add them to salads, cereal, and yogurt or use them as a topping for pancakes and waffles.

Make short-grain brown rice a staple (4 grams of fiber per cup). It has a rich, nutty flavor and tastes much better than the long grain variety. If you can't find it at your local supermarket, check health food stores or Asian supermarkets.

Sneak vegetables in wherever you can - pizza, soups, stir-fries, rice, sandwiches, and pasta dishes. The sky's the limit!

A surprising source of soluble fiber is reduced-fat foods. The guar gum that many reduced-fat foods contain in place of fats is soluble fiber. Caution: This doesn't give you license to replace fresh produce and whole grain products with faux fats, but they do contribute a marginal amount of healthful fiber. For example, one piece of a brandname fat-free chocolate loaf cake contains 1 gram of fiber, as does one fat-free oatmeal cookie, a full-fat one contains only 1/2 gram. Surprisingly, even 2 tablespoons of fat-free ranch dressing has1/2 gram of fiber.

Ten Ways to Cut Calories

Reading food labels

  • Eating measured portions slowly from plates
  • Employing healthy cooking techniques

A food's fat content is important, but when it comes to weight loss, total calories are more important. So many of the lowfat products on the market aren't calorie reduced. For example, 2 tablespoons of reduced-fat peanut butter have the same number of calories as the regular kind. And replacing a tablespoon of butter on a bagel with 2 tablespoons of jelly eliminates the fat but doesn't change the number of calories. In this chapter, you can find some calorie-cutting tricks to live by.

Paying Attention to the Nutrition Facts

Diet StartSeemingly healthy foods can be surprising sources of calories and fat, so make sure to check out the details on the Nutrition Facts panel on the food label. A container of ramen noodles, for example, packs 15 grams of fat and 400 calories; a bran muffin can top 10 grams of fat and 250 calories. Portion sizeshealthy diet and nutrition can be deceptively small, too. A serving of sugar-sweetened iced tea contains 60 calories, but each bottle often contains two servings. And a serving of ice cream or other frozen dessert is a skimpy %z cup.

Limiting Alcohol

Alcohol, although fat-free, delivers 7 calories per gram or about 70 calories per ounce (2 tablespoons). The higher the proof, the more calories alcohol has: 80-proof alcohol averages 65 calories per ounce, and 100-proof alcohol comes in at 85 calories per ounce. The average light beer or 5-ounce glass of wine contains about 100 calories. A typical regular beer has about 150 calories. And don't forget, usually the nibbles served with alcohol are high in calories.In addition to the calorie wallop, alcohol whittles away your resolve to stay in control of your eating. And any cardiac benefits you may derive from drinking, such as that seen in men who drink a daily glass of red wine, are not nearly as important as those you derive from weight loss and exercise.

Switching to Smatter Plates

Serve yourself on a salad-size plate, about 8 inches in diameter, rather than on a dinner plate, which is typically 10 to 12 inches in diameter. Your portion sizes will be closer to those suggested in the Food Guide Pyramid (see Chapter 9) and more in tune with the number of calories you should be eating.

Asking for the Kid Size

It may seem like a bargain, but is an extra 240 calories for 39 cents really a good way to spend your calorie budget? That's the difference between a small order of fries and a large one. Kid-size popcorn at most movie theaters contains 150 calories, but a large size can top 1,000 without the butter-flavored topping. A child-size soda (8 ounces) has about 95 calories; a large soda measuring 36 ounces or more contains at least 400.

Eating Proper Portion Sizes

Nibbling from packages of crackers and shaving "tastes" from the brownie pan or forkfuls of cake from the platter can add up to plenty of calories and more than you think you've eaten. Portion out everything you eat onto a plate or into a small bowl and put the package or pan away.

Use measuring cups and spoons to portion out a serving onto your dinnerware. Study and memorize how it looks. What does %z cup of ice cream look like in your dessert dishes? One cup of whole-wheat cereal in your breakfast bowl? One cup of pasta on your dinner plate? Five ounces of wine in your stemware? You can mark your dinnerware and glassware with a dot or dash of nail polish to remind yourself. If you have oversized dinnerware, use the salad or dessert plateshealthy diet and nutrition. You may even consider buying a luncheon set, which has smaller plates.

Dining in the Dining Room

When you bring plates to the table already filled, you won't be tempted to pick from serving bowls and platters in front of you. You're also forced to go out of your way for seconds and thus have the chance to reconsider. An added benefit: Because you don't have to dirty serving bowls and platters, you have fewer dishes to wash.

Eating Slowly

Your brain takes a full 20 minutes to register the fact that your stomach is full. Try putting your fork down and taking a sip of water between bites. Chew your food well and don't load up your fork or spoon until you swallow what's in your mouth. Doing so enables you to more easily recognize when you're full.

Filing Up on Plant Food

Fruits, vegetables, and whole grains without butter, dressings, or sauces take up stomach space, leaving less room for denser, high-calorie foods. They also take more time to chew and eat. Consider the fact that a teeny little pat of butter has as many calories as 3 cups of broccoli or that a 1-inch cube (1 ounce) of cheddar cheese has the same number of calories as 1 cup - that's 8 ounces - of bran flakes.

Switching to Low fat Dairy Products

Dairy is one place where going with the reduced-fat, lowfat, or fat-free variety makes sense, because the calories are significantly reduced in the lowfat version. For example, an 8-ounce glass of whole milk contains 150 calories, but the same amount of fat-free (skim) milk has only 85. One ounce of regular cheddar cheese has 114 calories, but reduced-fat and lowfat varieties contain 80 and 49 calories, respectively.

Note one exception, however: Dairy products, such as ice cream and flavored yogurt that are marketed as reduced-fat, lowfat, or fat-free often contain added sugar to make up for the loss of flavor and texture that fat provides. Don't be fooled into thinking that they provide fewer calories, too. Always check the calorie content on the Nutrition Facts panel of the food label.

Remembering That Duff Is Better

Not dull as in boring, but dull as in not shiny. At the salad bar, shiny means a thick coating of oily (high-calorie) salad dressing. Vegetables that shimmer usually have butter added to them. Muffins that leave a grease slick on your napkin have more calories than ones that don't. Bread or rolls that are slick with butter. .. you get the idea.

Cooking Meats with Methods That

Broil, barbecue, bake (on a rack), or braise meats, and you save many calories over frying, sautéing, and stewing, because the fat (and therefore its calories) has a chance to drip away from the meat.

Cooking chicken and other poultry with the skin on and removing it after it's been cooked is fine, because the meat absorbs little of the fat but stays moist.

Ten Strategies to Keep the Weight Off

Understanding what a healthy weight is keeping the weight off successfully Finding friends to cheer you on the hope that you've made some good progress with your weight-loss program and that you're eager not to lose ground. A weight maintenance program should be a priority after the initial six months of a weight-loss diet_ Weight maintenance isn't a matter of "going off your diet" - it's a matter of keeping your eating and activity habits up to a healthy standard.

In some ways, the strategies you need for maintenance are no different from those that you used to lose weight in the first place. But in other ways, the strategies are different. Maintenance means keeping at it forever. Stop, and you'll slide right back up to where you started - or worse yet, even higher.

Staying at a Healthy Weight

Diet Start

Notice I said a healthy weight - not a supermodel's or a movie star's weight. It's not even staying at the weight you were at in high school. A healthy weight is the weight that you can reasonably attain and maintain without going crazy. For example, most people would say that a 5-foot, 4-inch woman who has brought her weight down to 125 pounds has reached a healthy weight. But would you consider her weight healthy if you knew that she had to restrict her calorie intake so much that she couldn't relax around food for fear of losing control? That she had to exercise vigorously for at least two hours a day and sometimes more for fear of ballooning up to her old weight? That this lifestyle robbed her of time with her family and friends? And that maintaining her weight was the sole focus of her life? That's not healthy. That's neurotic.To maintain a healthy weight, you must maintain a healthy lifestyle - balancing your diet with exercise, stress reduction, and relationships in a healthy manner. As you work through your weight-loss plan and look forward to staying at your new, lower weight, consider the points in this chapter. They're the real measures of a healthy weight.

Being realistic

Assigning a number as your ideal weight, based on information from a height and weight chart, isn't really a healthy way to judge your progress. Although the charts do serve a useful purpose as guides to a healthy weight range, specifying a number as ideal connotes that any number higher than that isn't good enough. Establishing an ideal weight sets you up in pass/fail mode instead of giving you credit for progress made. Thinking of your weight in terms of what's reasonable for you is healthier.

Being adventurous

national weight controlChanging your attitude about yourself and your body may be the most beneficial step you can take. If your weight keeps you from enjoying activities, let the issue go. Have you ever said, "I'll go on vacation when 1'm 125 pounds again" or "I'll try water-skiing when I'm thinner" or "I'll go for a hike in the woods when I'm in better shape"? Don't wait until you reach your goalweight If you do, you're missing out on plenty of living. Don't miss out on life, because you're hiding behind your weight. You can try many activities no matter what your weight - in-line skating, ballroom dancing, ice skating, skiing, hiking, or biking, just to name a few.

Be adventurous with your eating as well as with your activities. Try a new fruit that you've never tasted. If you always eat bananas and apples but are so bored with them that you don't eat your recommended number of fruit servings, break out of your rut. Try a papaya or a kiwi. Reach for different grains, too. White long-grain rice is nice, but don't miss out on the short, medium, aromatic, and brown rice varieties. And then you have quinoa (pronounced keen-wa), barley, and cracked wheat. Experiment with recipes. Check out Chapter 28 for plenty of tasty, adventuresome ideas.

Being flexible

You need to be flexible about what you consider to be weight-loss success. You also need to be flexible about what you consider to be a successful dieting or exercise day. Sure, you need to set goals, but you also need to accept that some days you aren't going to make them. Adding a week's worth of healthy meals and exercise to another week and another and another - even if you don't meet your goal on a few days in between - is how you build success.

If you can't work in your normal walking route one day, try to stay active in other ways. For example, park your car in the parking space that's farthest from the door. Be sure to take the stairs rather than the elevator. Any kind of exercise counts. If you're stuck at a family party or business meal and every dish in sight is a caloric disaster, don't throw in the towel and overeat. Enjoy small amounts of the foods that are offered and then be especially diligent at the next meal or the next day.

Being sensible

"I'm never going to eat another pepperoni pizza again!" Doesn't that sound silly? Ban words like never and always from your eatingnational weight control and exercise plans. These ultimatums put you just bites away from failure. Better to have one small serving and enjoy every bit or share a serving with a friend or pack half of it in a doggie bag for another meal on another day.

Exercising a little every day is better than trying to make up for a missed day or week by overexerting yourself. Chances are, you won't enjoy the exercise as much if you're overdoing it, and you'll probably be so sore afterwards that you'll miss the next few days of activity as well. No pain, no gain isn't our motto. Take it slow and steady and enjoy yourself - that's what's most important.

Being active

Don't you just love folks who say things like "We won the baseball game," when they mean that the team they were rooting for on TV won? Or the people who say that they're going to walk the dog and then go outside and watch the dog walk around the yard while they stand in the driveway? These people are spectators, not participants.

We use many other expressions that make us sound active: "Mow the lawn" (or do we sit on the mower?); "wash the clothes" (or do we put them into the washing machine?); "shovel the snow" (or do we push the snow blower?); "run to the store" (or do we drive the car?) - you get the idea. These passive activities sound like actions, but they're really not.

If you're guilty of using more active language than actually being active, change your behavior. Look for ways - big and small - to fit activity into your day: Climb the stairs, hide the remote, don't use your kids as slaves to fetch things, walk during your lunch break instead of sitting, play ball instead of watching, walk to the school bus stop instead of driving to meet the kids. Park farther from the store instead of circling to find the closest spot, and toss the remote. Clip a pedometer to your belt and aim for 10,000 steps a day. See Chapter 12 for more on pedometers.

Getting Same Tips from Lasers

Many people lose weight, but most people don't keep it off. The number of people who regain lost weight after 5 years is as high as 95 percent. A depressing number, for sure, but don't let that statistic stop you from trying. That 95 percent figure only reflects the people who have been in weight-control studies and official programs, not the vast number of people who lose weight on their own and keep it off.

The National Weight Control Registry, a database maintained at the University of Colorado, has followed a group of people who had success losing weight by using a variety of methods. The requirement for inclusion in the registry is a 30-pounds-or-greater weight loss that's maintained for at least 1 year. But the actual numbers are far better. Of the 3,000 participants, the average weight loss is 60 pounds, which the participants have maintained for more than 6 years!

These people obviously can share ideas about taking weight off, but they have even more ideas about maintaining the loss. Interestingly, some of their advice flies in the face of conventional weight-loss wisdom - like weighing yourself on the scale every day. But the take-home message here is that the people have found certain strategies that work for them. What have youfound that works best for you? Keeping an exercise log or food diary? Exercising in the morning versus the evening? Planning meals for the week ahead of time? People who keep their weight off have their own personal tricks. The key to successful weight maintenance is to put them into practice.

Trying, trying, and trying again

national weight controlThe average woman goes on 15 diets in her lifetime and loses about 100 pounds. But she regains about 125! Experts call it yo-yo dieting or weight cycling. At one time, health authorities believed that each time a person's weight yo-yos, weight loss becomes more difficult in the future. The individual loses more muscle, needs fewer calories to maintain the weight, and becomes more frustrated. The bottom line seemed to be that you're better off not trying to lose weight and that going on repeated diets is dangerous.

One major study published in The Journal of the American Medical

Association 275(5), 1994, looked at 43 studies and found no convincing evidence that weight cycling in humans has adverse health effects on body composition, energy balance, risk factors for cardiovascular disease, or the success of future efforts at weight loss. Proof positive is the fact that 90 percent of the people in the National Weight Control Registry had tried to lose weight previously - in fact, each person had lost and regained an average of 270 pounds! Yet they were able to lose weight and keep it off, once and for all - even after years of yo-yo dieting.

Weighing in

When you're trying to maintain weight loss, monitoring your weight closely is the best approach. Successful maintainers are able to catch a 5- or 10-pound weight creep and take immediate action. Many people in the National Weight Control Registry say that they weigh themselves every day. During the weight-loss phase, weighing daily can be disappointing, so experts recommend that you get on the scale no more than once a week. But when you're in maintenance, you may find it helpful to more closely monitor the scale so that you can make adjustments to your eating plan before a 1- or 2-pound gain becomes the 5 pounds you just can't seem to lose.

During your maintenance phase, continue to weigh in, so to speak, on what you eat, too. Some successful maintainers continue to monitor what they eat by keeping food records. And they stick with a lowfat, low-calorie eating plan.

Solving problems

People who can keep their weight stable are good problem solders. They find ways to fit exercise into their schedules. They uncover techniques to eat lowfat foods. They work balance and moderation into their eating plans and exercise routines.

Move

Physical activity is a key predictor of weight-loss maintenance success. (See Chapter 12 for more information about the importance of exercise.) Besides helping you to lose weight, regular physical activity is a super stress reducer (Less stress means less eating in response to stress.) You'll have more energy, not less. (Many people eat when they're dragging and feeling tired.) you walk with a friend(s), you'll have good quality time, too.

Don't try to make up for a slow day with an overly active one. But if you do go overboard with an activity that's too strenuous, still try to do something the next day, even if it means a slow walk. The important thing is to do so kind of exercise every day. That's how you make it a habit.

Getting support

You can't lose weight without support nor can you maintain your loss without help. Most successful weight losers are motivated by their own personal needs, but they do have support from friends, spouses, family, or a group of like-minded dieters. They can turn to these people for help with managing the stress in their lives, solving problems, and scheduling time for exercise by handing off household or child-care responsibilities. People who lend support also can serve as cheerleaders and provide attaboy (or attagirl) encouragement. Don't go it alone!

Understanding how dining out can add calories Spotting the high-fat cues on menus

Knowing your best ethnic food choices

  • Eating before you take off and during your flight
  • Eating out can pose special problems for dieters.

New menu choices are tempting, portion sizes are large, and many professional kitchens don't normally use lowfat or low-calorie cooking methods as standard practice. In fact, as a rule, the less expensive the restaurant, the more likely it is that the kitchen uses generous amounts of fat and high-fat cooking techniques - inexpensive and easy ways to add flavor to food. A fish fillet, for example, must be high quality and cooked skillfully if it's going to taste delicious simply broiled or baked without a coating of oil or buttery sauce.

But don't fear. This article can help you navigate menus and still enjoy going out to eat. Armed with the information we give, you can be a dining detective, avoiding the high-fat items and zeroing in on the lower-calorie and lower-fat meals with ease.

Knowing Your Enemy

The whole dining-out experience can cost you plenty of calories. How many times have you had to wait in the bar until your table was ready? Cocktails add calories and lessen your diet resolve - you get to the table famished aDiet Startnd not exactly steeled against temptation. And then the impulse to clean your plate overtakes you because, after all, you're paying big bucks for the meal. But take heart: You can maneuver around these predicaments.

For example, if you do dine out frequently, consider becoming a regular at one spot. That way, the wait staff and kitchen can get to know you. They can alert you to items that are especially dieter friendly, and the kitchen won't be thrown by your specialhealthy diet and nutrition requests - a plus during the busiest dining hours.

Whether dining out is more special or a routine part of your day, keep this advice in mind:

Restaurant meals are often considered special occasions.

More frequently, though they're last-minute solutions when you're too tired or stressed to make dinner. Both scenarios set you up for overindulging. Remember to look at the meal in context of the entire day's eating or what you'll eat over several days.

Restaurant meals are often loaded with fat.

Fat is an easy way to make foods taste good. Fat is also cheap compared to lean meat, so restaurants use it liberally because it makes their bottom line healthy - although it doesn't do much for the shape of your bottom. Be a fat detective. Ask questions about preparation and request substitutions.

Portions may be huge.

You often get twice the amount that you really need to eat. Share an entree with a friend or order two appetizers instead of one entree. Don't be embarrassed to ask for a doggie bag.

Menus are organized with the focus on protein, and the servings of protein are much too large.

Meat, chicken, and fish often get the most "ink," with little attention paid to side dishes. So cast your eye over to the side dishes section and choose from the plainer ones. (That is, those without sauces.) Another way to create a better balance may be to order your entree from the appetizer section.

Most meals eaten out include alcohol.

Not only is alcohol calorie heavy and nutrient poor, but it also lowers your resolve to eat healthfully. If you enjoy a cocktail or a glass of wine when eating out, plan to limit your intake to one, and drink it with, not before, the meal.

These are important tactics to keep in mind wherever you dine. They're a start. But menus are always going to be written to entice and seduce you into ordering more than you intend. If you can discover how to read between the lines and spot the red flags for dieters, you'll rarely be duped into ordering and eating more than you want. And when you eat ethnic, try to find out a little about the cuisine, the ingredients, and the typical methods of cooking so that foreign phrases don't throw you.

Menu Sleuthing

If you know how to translate the code, menu descriptions can yield clues to the fat and calorie contents of a dish. For example, "Grande taco salad served in a crispy tortilla shell, topped with lean sautéed like a good choice at first. But the words grande, crispy, and sauteed tell you that this is no low-cal salad. In fact, it contains about 700 calories! If you're restricting your intake to 1,200 calories a day, do you really want to get more than half your calories from a single dish? Following are the most commonly used menu words that speak volumes - calorically, that is.

Lots of fat:

  • Alfredo
  • Basted
  • Batter-dipped
  • Breaded
  • Buttery
  • Creamy
  • Crispy and crunchy (except when describing raw vegetables)
  • Deep-fried
  • Marinated
  • Pan-fried
  • Rich Sauteed
  • Coated
  • Dressed
  • Dipped
  • Bathed

Huge portion sizes:

  • Combo
  • Feast
  • Grande
  • Jumbo
  • King-size
  • Supreme

Saner sizes:

  • Appetizer
  • Kiddie
  • Luncheon
  • Petite
  • Regular
  • Salad-size

A portion to a restaurant may not bea portion to you!

Restaurant portion sizes have more to do with controlling operation expenses than with balancing nutrients. Most restaurants use standardized ladles, spoons, cups, and scoops, and their capacity is generally larger than what you would use at home. Some typical institutional measures are:

  • Salad dressing ladle =1/2 cup
  • Pat of butter = 2 teaspoons
  • Scoop of ice cream= 11/2 to 2 cups
  • Burger = 6 to 8 ounces
  • Meat, poultry, or fish = 8 to 12 ounces
  • Beverages: small = 2 cups, medium =4 cups, large = 6 cups
  • Theater popcorn: small = 4 cups, large = 10 cups, jumbo = 15 to 20 cups
  • Wine= 6 to 8 ounces

Understanding Your Relationship with Food

That society discriminates against overweight people is a fact of life. It starts in school, and anyone who has been larger than his classmates can tell tales of the rejection and ridicule that come out from the mouths of thinner peers. That the prejudice is widespread in the business world, too, is well documented. And countless men and women can tell you that their weights and their dissatisfaction with their bodies keep them from getting close to other people or sometimes even enjoying sex with their spouses.

Diet Start

Being overweight takes a toll on your self-esteem and the way you relate to others. Self-esteem is key to your relationship with food, too. If you don't feel good about your body, you may not feel good about the food you put into it. And without a healthy relationship with food, your body image will plummet. It's a Catch-22 situation.

This section is about body image: finding out how to feel good about who you are, regardless of your body size or shape.

Just whose ideal are you anyway

According to research conducted by the Kellogg's Corporation (published by the Opinion Research Corporation), women in the United States determine their ideal body size and shape from the way models in television ads and fashion magazines look, not from the way women look in real life. Women are obsessed about their weight, fueled by a society that sets an artificial standard for beauty based on the way models look. Women also believe that how they're described by men and by each other promotes the notion of an ideal woman, whom they will never be able to match.

The Kellogg's survey found that women tend to focus on the specific body parts they don't like, not on their bodies as a whole. They may like their hair color and think that they're tall enough, but only 14 percent of the women surveyed were happy with their weights. Almost a third of the women surveyed said that a woman's ideal weight is between 110 and 125 pounds, and half said that a weight between 126 and 145 is ideal. But in reality, there is no such thing as an ideal weight, because people are genetically programmed to be different shapes and sizes.

That so many women are confused about what they should look like isn't surprising. The role models look nothing like the average woman. In fact, if you think about it, it's the fashion models who don't conform to the standards of the average adult, not the other way around. Only 1 in 40,000 women has a supermodel like body - 40,000! That ratio means that out of the entire population of Indiana, a state with more than 6 million residents, only 152 women have model-perfect bodies!

The following table compares the average American woman to the media's and society's ideals, demonstrating that when it comes to selling clothes, life doesn't imitate art. In fact, it's getting farther away from it. Marline Morn, the pinup girl of the 1950s, wore a size 14 dress - the same size that many women in the United States wear today. This isn't to say that a size 14 is healthy for all women. It depends on your height and other factors. If you're 5 feet tall and you wear a size 14, then you're probably unhealthy. But if you're 5 feet 6 inches tall, a size 14 may be okay, even though you'd still be considered on the large side by society's standards. The scary thing is that today's models, who are usually at least 5 feet 8 inches or taller, typically wear only a size 6. And between 1955 and 1998, the measurements of a Playboy centerfold dropped by 35 percent.

Female Role Models

Average Man

Mannequin

Model

Dress size

12

6

6

Weight

152

120

Height

5'9"

6'

6'

Body measurements

37-34-40

34-25-34

34-25-34

37 waist

30 waist

30 waist

Percent body fat

34

28

BMX (Body Mass Index)

26.1

17.2

This phenomenon isn't unique to women. Even male models and mannequins are smaller than the average American male. Table illustrates the differences.

Male Role Models

Average Man

Mannequin

Model

Pant size

37

30

30

Suit size

42 regular

40 regular

40 regular

Weight

180

145-150

Height

5'9"

6'

6'

Body measurements

41 chest

39 chest

39 chest

37 waist

30 waist

30 waist

Percent body fat

22

15

BMX (Body Mass Index)

26.6

205

The important point to take away from these tables is that you need to stop comparing yourself and your weight to unrealistic numbers. Even if you diet religiously, you probably won't end up with the body of a super model. Stop beating yourself up for not meeting standards that are clearly unrealistic and concentrate on the things you can do to make your body healthy. And begin to feel good about your progress, too.lose weight

One study of obese women - their average weight was about 218 pounds - conducted by Foster and others at the University of Pennsylvania did just that [see the Journal of Consulting and clinical Psychology 65(1), 1997]. The women were asked to write down their goal weights and then the weight-loss amounts that they would consider "acceptable" and "disappointing." Most women set their goals 32 percent lower than their starting points (about 72 pounds). "Acceptable" was about a 25 percent loss (55 pounds), and the women considered a weight loss of only 17 percent of their starting weights (38 pounds) to be "disappointing."

After 6 months of dieting, exercising, and behavior modification and 6 months of maintenance, the average weight loss that these women were able to maintain was only 16 percent of their defined starting weights (or 36 pounds). They hadn't even reached their "disappointing" weight_ Did they fail? No. These women can be called successful for several reasons: A weight loss of just 10 percent is enough to bring down high blood pressure, lower cholesterol and triglycerides, and improve overall health. And these women beat that goal by 6 percentage points.

... andjoyohoxing