Living Well

Eating a big breakfast is one of the keys to losing weight

Over the years, many studies have shown that eating a big breakfast is key to losing weight or at least not gaining weight. A new study says eating a big breakfast might be more effective than eating low carb. Comparing a low carb diet with a "big breakfast" diet:

Four months on, the low-carb dieters appeared to be doing better, losing an average of 28 pounds to the 23 shed on the "big breakfast" diet.

However, after eight months, the situation had reversed, with the low-carb dieters putting an average of 18 of those pounds back on, while the big breakfasters continued to lose weight, on average 16.5 pounds each.

They lost a fifth of their total body weight on average, compared with less than 5% for the low-carb dieters.

I wonder what happens if they eat a low carb, big breakfast diet? (Eating low carb for breakfast is easy: eggs, bacon, sausage, ...)

Book Review: Good Calories, Bad Calories

If you have ever tried to lose weight or just eat healthy, you must read this book, Good Calories, Bad Calories.  This book changed my thinking about food, health, nutrition and exercise.  I didn't realize how much of what doctors said that I just believed.  I didn't realize that what they recommend is based on little proven evidence.  Or how much contradictory evidence is just ignored. 

This isn't a diet book.  It's a book about the history of nutritional advice.  Our understanding of food and obesity, how it's come about and how it's changed over the past century.  I'll be writing more in future posts but here's what I've definitely taken away:

1. A calorie is not a calorie.  A lot of other factors matter like what kind of calorie, what kind of person, metabolism, exercise, external environmental factors, ...
2. Calories in does not always equal calories out.  Or we are not measuring all the calories in and out correctly.
3. Dietary fat does not make you fat.  Fat is not necessarily better or worse than protein or carbs.  It's not necessarily equal either!
4. Many of our current doctors are 100% convinced of what they know and not really willing to consider radical shifts in thinking.   Like they continue to recommend  eating less calories and exercising to lose weight when it's obviously not working for many people.  (Do you really lack the will power?)

More to come, but I definitely recommend Good Calories, Bad Calories.  You can read a good excerpt written by the author, Gary Taubes, on ABC News.

Can you use tapeworms to lose weight?

I remember when I first heard about tapeworms back in 7th grade.  One of my co-students wanted one in the worst way - she saw it as the perfect approach to weight loss.  Eat as much as you want and all the weight goes to the worm!

Turns out that tapeworms were used in the early 1900s as a weight loss program.

Atkins, why does it work?

The Atkins diet is a low carbohydrate diet.  The theory is that if you eat only protein and fat and very little carbohydrates, that you will force your body to make carbohydrates from the fat in your body. 

I've known several people that have lost a lot of weight following the Atkins plan. (Not any of them have kept it off long term though!)  My personal theory is that they've lost lots of weight on Atkins because they've eaten a lot fewer calories.  Seriously, how much steak can you eat?  And if you aren't eating carbs, then you are eating just steak, no baked potato, no bread, no sour cream, no beer, ... you are eating a lot less!  Also, there a lot fewer temptations during the day.  You might see a bowl of candy (a no-no on Atkins) or a jar of cookies but how often do you see a plate of jerky sitting around?  I think Atkins works because you don't feel deprived - you are allowed to eat as much as you want - but you eat a lot less because how much steak are you going to eat, seriously?

I think people lose weight on Atkins but have a hard time keeping it off because it's really hard to avoid carbohydrates in everyday living.  Could you order a cheeseburger, hold the burger, hold the fries everyday?