weight loss cardiff answers:

The Jorge Cruise 3 Hour Diet seems to be very popular, although I have not tried it. Good Luck!

weight loss cardiff answers:

Like just about any other responsible diet or plan of eating, weight watchers’ works will if you stick with it. I’ve done weight watchers twice, had success on it, and there are a few guidelines.

1) What foods to buy: Well, that is the good news about WW. There are no forbidden foods, the important thing is not eating too much and following some sound nutritional solutions. You will learn at the meetings how to figure out foods to enjoy, and the proper amounts to eat. Other guidelines (e.g. Drinking enough water, adequate vegetable servings daily, the right amount of healthy oils) make sure that you will get proper nutrition.

2) Another thing that I like about the program is that it begins with more generous portions, and as you lose weight you gradually decrease your food intake. This helps to insure steady weight loss from beginning to end.

3) One thing that some people don’t like about WW is that it is very intentional about limiting weight loss to approximately 1 pound a week. This is actually the healthy way to do it, but darn it, it isn’t as much fun in the short term as faster weight loss. However, weight loss is more easily maintained with this sort of weight loss. That is the difficulty with any diet, when the weight is lost, and you have to start eating normally again. With the WW system, the transition into maintenance is fairly simple, as you eat the same way as during weight loss, you just are able to eat slightly more.

4) About the goal. The meetings I attended set the first goal as losing 10% of your body weight (so, for example, if you weigh 220 lbs, your first goal would be to lose 22 lbs, or get down to 198). This actually has some medical backing, as there have been many studies showing the health benefits of a 10% weight loss. After you hit the first goal, why not go for another 10%, in this case it will only be another 19 lbs! And so on until you reach your ideal weight.

5) How it works, well, this is already a long post, so I won’t go too much into it. Basically, every food has a point value, based on the amount of calories, fat and fiber. It is super easy to calculate, and you just keep your food intake to a prescribed amount each day. Then you are encouraged to eat vegetables, drink more water, and exercise sensibly. All in all, it is a very simple program to implement.

As I said at the beginning, the main problem with WW is user error. I tended to follow it for a while, and then (as I’ve done with every other diet I’ve ever attempted), stopped following it, and gained the weight back. The program is nutritionally sound, and sensible, you just have to know going in that, in order to get and keep the weight off, you are making a lifelong commitment. That is true with any weight loss program. The good thing about WW is that, while can’t imagine living on shakes, or drinking maple-syrup-sweetened lemonade, or buying those expensive celebrity-endorsed “eat nothing but our pre-packaged-food-and-you’ll-lose-weight programs for the rest of my life, WW provides a solution that is logical and maintainable.

This has turned out to be more of a glowing endorsement than I planned when I started typing. Just to clarify, I’m in no way affiliated with WW, and I’m currently not following the WW program. I am, however, a fan, and if you are ready to do it, WW will provide you a reasonable and relatively simple road to get there.

Hope this helps. Sorry for the length!!!

Peace,
Tom

weight loss cardiff answers:

Do calories matter or do you simply need to eat certain foods and that will guarantee you’ll lose weight? Should you count calories or can you just count “portions?” Is it necessary to keep a food diary? Is it unrealistic to count calories for the rest of your life or is that just part of the price you pay for a better body? You’re about to learn the answers to these questions and discover a simple solution for keeping track of your food intake without having to crunch numbers every day or become a fanatic about it.

In many popular diet books, “Calories don’t count” is a frequently repeated theme. Other popular programs, such as Bill Phillip’s “Body For Life,” stress the importance of energy intake versus energy output, but recommend that you count “portions” rather than calories…

Phillips wrote,

“There aren’t many people who can keep track of their calorie intake for an extended period of time. As an alternative, I recommend counting ‘portions.’ A portion of food is roughly equal to the size of your clenched fist or the palm of your hand. Each portion of protein or carbohydrate typically contains between 100 and 150 calories. For example, one chicken breast is approximately one portion of protein, and one medium-sized baked potato is approximately one portion of carbohydrate.”

Phillips makes a good point that trying to count every single calorie – in the literal sense – can drive you crazy and is probably not realistic as a lifestyle for the long term. It’s one thing to count portions instead of calories – that is at least acknowledging the importance of portion control. However, it’s another altogether to deny that calories matter.

Calories do count! Any diet program that tells you, “calories don’t count” or you can “eat all you want and still lose weight” is a diet you should avoid because you are being lied to. The truth is, that line is a bunch of baloney designed to make a diet sound easier to follow.

Anything that sounds like work – such as counting calories, eating less or exercising, tends to scare away potential customers! The law of calorie balance is an unbreakable law of physics: Energy in versus energy out dictates whether you will gain, lose or maintain your weight. Period.

I believe that it’s very important to develop an understanding of and a respect for portion control and the law of calorie balance. I also believe it’s an important part of nutrition education to learn how many calories are in the foods you eat on a regular basis – including (and perhaps, especially) how many calories are in the foods you eat when you dine at restaurants.

The law of calorie balance says:

To maintain your weight, you must consume the same number of calories you burn. To gain weight, you must consume more calories than you burn. To lose weight, you must consume fewer calories than you burn.

If you only count portions or if you haven’t the slightest idea how many calories you’re eating, it’s a lot more likely that you’ll eat more than you realize. (Or you might take in fewer calories than you should, which triggers your body’s “starvation mode” and causes your metabolism to shut down).

So how do you balance practicality and realistic expectations with a nutrition program that gets results? Here’s a solution that’s a happy medium between strict calorie counting and just guessing:

Create a menu using an EXCEL spreadsheet or your favorite nutrition software. Crunch all the numbers including calories, protein, carbs and fats. Once you have your daily menu, print it, stick it on your refrigerator (and/or in your daily planner) and you now have an eating “goal” for the day, including a caloric target.

Rather than writing down every calorie one by one from every morsel of food you eat for the rest of your life, create a menu plan you can use as a daily goal and guideline. If you’re really ambitious, keeping a nutrition journal at least one time in your life for at least 4-12 weeks is a great idea and an incredible learning experience, but all you really need to get started on the road to a better body is one good menu on paper. If you get bored eating the same thing every day, you can create multiple menus, or just exchange foods using your primary menu as a template.

Using this meal planning method, you really only need to “count calories” once when you create your menus, not every day, ad infinitum. After you’ve got a knack for calories from this initial discipline of menu planning, then you can estimate portions in the future and get a pretty good (and more educated) ballpark figure.

So what’s the bottom line? Is it really necessary to count every calorie to lose weight? No. But it IS necessary to eat fewer calories then you burn. Whether you count calories and eat less than you burn, or you don’t count calories and eat less than you burn, the end result is the same – you lose weight. Which would you rather do: Take a wild guess, or increase your chance for success with some simple menu planning? I think the right choice is obvious.

For more information on calories (including how calculate precisely how many you should eat based on your age, activity and personal goals, and for even more practical, proven fat loss techniques to help you lose body fat safely, healthfully and permanently, check out my e-book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle at

http://www.fightfatphilly.com/tom_venuto_fitness_articles.html

To learn more about building your best body ever, simply go to http://www.ChristianHealthandFitness.com to download YOUR FREE copy of ‘The Christian’s Guide To Maximal Fat Loss’ sample plan. You will also find some more great fitness tips from Matt Shuebrook at http://www.FightFatPhilly.com/articles.html and http://www.MyPhiladelphiaFitnessExpert.com