The Biggest Loser Diet is Simple and Results in Weight Loss
It’s a hit television show, it’s a new book, and it’s a successful diet and fitness plan that results in weight loss. And now there’s The Biggest Loser interactive website. Now if all of this isn’t great motivation and support to lose weight, what is?
The contestants on the popular NBC television show The Biggest Loser are losing weight, and their success is inspiring and encouraging others to meet the challenge and lose weight as well. Anyone who wants to follow in the ever lighter steps of the show’s contestants can now pick up the book by the same name (written by “experts and cast, with Maggie Greenwood-Robinson, PhD), visit thebiggestloser.com website, as well as watch the television show to learn how they, too, can be a loser.
The weight loss program was developed by obesity specialist Michael Dansinger, MD, of Tufts University, along with dietitian and chef Cheryl Forberg, RD, and trainers Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels, all of whom worked with writer Maggie Greenwood-Robinson, PhD, to put out the book. The Biggest Loser eating plan is simple: a low-calorie approach that follows a 4-3-2-1 design: four servings of fruits and vegetables, three of lean protein, two of whole grains, and one “extra,” a fat, sweet, alcohol, or oil equal to 200 calories. Throw in one hour of exercise daily, and that’s the program in a nutshell.
The book and the website are important accessories to the television program, which provides the motivation. For people who are serious about wanting to lose weight, the 12-week program explained in the book tells all. And the “all” is simple: eat small, frequent meals based on the 4-3-2-1 plan, keep daily food logs, watch portion sizes, drink up to 64 ounces of water daily, and exercise daily. The book includes one week of sample meal plans with recipes.
No weight loss program is complete without exercise, and The Biggest Loser is no exception. Workouts can start at 30 minutes and then increase to one hour daily. The book explains strength and cardio training and peppers the section with tips and words of inspiration from contestants.
Although you may not have television cameras turned on you to watch your weight loss progress, you can get motivation and support from The Biggest Loser official NBC website. Individuals can join The Biggest Loser club, and in return for about five dollars per week, get online support, meal plans, a journal, customized fitness information, recipes, fitness game, and more.
The reason The Biggest Loser program works is also simple: people eat less calories than they burn. Foods should be eaten raw or prepared without extra fats, refined starches and sugars are avoided, portion sizes are monitored, and food is consumed frequently: the program calls for three meals and two snacks daily. People who are still hungry when following the program can eat more than four servings of fruits and vegetables (sorry, French fries and onion rings don’t count).
The caloric intake for the weight loss program ranges from a low of 1,050 calories for a 150-pound individual to a high of 2,100 calories for a 300-pound person. The book also includes suggestions for weight maintenance once people reach their goal. In essence, the recommendation is to consume 10 to 12 calories per pound of body weight and to continue one hour of exercise daily to maintain your weight loss goal.
Everyone has an opportunity to become their own biggest loser, and they have several motivating factors to help them. The Biggest Loser can help people become big winners when it comes to weight loss if they follow the program seriously and can garner inspiration and motivation from the various media sources. Hey, whatever works.
Top 10 Weight Loss Lies to Eliminate for Steady Weight Loss
Weight Loss Faith
Everyone loves to eat and drink during the holiday season, but as soon as the New Year rolls around we scramble to get healthy and lose weight. “To ensure weight loss success, you need accurate information,” says Laurie Bell, an internationally recognized weight loss and health expert, and the author of the new book, Lose the Lies, Lose the Weight: The Ultimate Guide to Permanent Weight Loss. (Back to the Basics Publishing, LLC 2006).
The statistics aren’t optimistic. Of the 45% of Americans who make New Year’s diet and health resolutions, most give up after the first month. Many of these attempts are from lifelong yo-yo dieters who have been unsuccessful in the past. The good news? It doesn’t matter how many times you have� � failed at weight loss or lost weight only to regain it back. In her new book, Lose the Lies, Lose the Weight: The Ultimate Guide to Permanent Weight Loss, fitness expert Laurie Bell provides the information you need to drop those pounds and keep them off.
1. Go ahead, eat it, one time won’t hurt you. How many times have you told yourself that one time won’t hurt? The whole problem is, it’s never just “one time.” Getting fit is like entering a race. Your beautiful body is waiting at the finish line. To get to the finish line, you must eat right and exercise. Desserts and second helpings move you away from the finish line. If you overate 1,000 calories, you would� � have to eat considerably less and exercise considerably more just to burn those calories off. By burning off 1,000 indulgence calories, you wouldn’t be losing any weight. You would� � just get back to the weight you were before you indulged. You would� � have to burn off additional calories to actually “get ahead.”
2. Thin people are lucky. Anyone can gain weight whether rich, poor, young, old, short, or tall. A daily intake of more calories than you burn off results in infinite weight gain. Believing thin people are lucky (but you aren’t) prevents you from pursuing your fitness goal. You must work diligently at your fitness. If you start your workout plan with the thought of doing as little as possible, you won’t get results. The more effort you put in, the greater the results. Accepting that getting in shape requires effort (not luck) is the beginning of a beautifully transformed, healthy body.
3. I can’t lose weight. How many times have you told yourself that you can’t lose weight? Would you say ten times (a day), a hundred times (a week), a thousand times (a year), maybe more? The prime reason you haven’t been successful at permanent weight loss is you believe you can’t be. You can’t succeed when you repeatedly affirm you will� � fail. Eliminate “can’t” from your vocabulary. Thinking you “can’t” do something means you have given up before you start. Instead say, “I can lose weight.” Believing emphatically you can lose weight is the mindset you need to succeed.
4. But I never overeat. You may feel you don’t eat that much. You rarely eat dessert. You never drink soda. You always get your dressing on the side. You just don’t understand where that extra weight came from. The truth is, if you take in even one more calorie daily than your body burns, you won’t lose weight. Even healthy food can make you fat! An extra 100 calories a day adds up to one pound gained per month or 12 pounds per year. Those 100 extra calories can be found in a small glass of juice, one banana, or eight unshelled peanuts.
5. I am� � buying it for my kids. How many times have you purchased empty calorie foods and told yourself you were buying it for your kids? While you strolled down the cookie aisle, you promised yourself, this time would be different. This time you would not eat Junior’s lunchbox cookies. You wanted to believe the cookies would not make it into the wrong mouth – yours. Don’t let your subconscious fool you. Don’t believe the unhealthy food is only for your kids. That’s a lie. You want it for yourself. Don’t buy it or you will� � eat it.
6. Everyone gains weight as they get older. Many people falsely believe they are� � doomed to gain weight as they get older. Believing that lie assures you will gain weight with each passing year. In life, you get exactly what you expect you will� � get. The truth is, you can stay fit your entire life! Certainly, many people do gain weight with age simply because they overeat and don’t exercise. When you believe weight gain is an inevitable consequence of aging, you just let it happen. Immediately change your belief to, “I will get in better shape with each passing year.”
7. You will� � never look the same after having kids. Believing you are� � doomed after having kids is “poor-pitiful-overweight-mommy” thinking. Having a baby does not cause you to stay overweight forever. Eating too many calories, moving too little, and giving up is the reason you are� � still unfit 18 years after baby arrives. Eliminate “poor-pitiful-overweight-mommy” thinking immediately. You can look great after having kids! The women who convinced you that you could never look good after having kids were selfishly lying to you because they didn’t reach their fitness goals.
8. Carbohydrates make you fat. Hearing you should “cut carbs” is vague and useless advice. Quality carbohydrates like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains foods are an essential part of a healthy diet. Your body needs carbohydrates to function properly. After hearing that carbohydrates make you fat, you may have restricted the quality carbohydrates, setting yourself up for mood swings, low energy, nutrient deficiencies, and a weight loss plan you would never stay on. The refined simple carbohydrates you should eliminate are those found in sodas, candy, cake, cookies, pastries, white bread, and other empty calorie foods.
9. I will� � have to starve to lose weight. Starvation diets don’t work. Stringent dieting tells your brain food is in short supply. When your brain registers the perceived food shortage, it goes into “famine mode.” The restricted calories quickly get stored in your fat warehouse. With stringent dieting, your body begins to burn lean muscle tissue for fuel. Starvation diets ensure considerable muscle is lost along with fat and water. Losing muscle means a slower metabolism, fewer calories burned, and little or no weight loss. Even without stringent dieting, your body loses some muscle tissue when you diet. To lose weight, without losing muscle, you must strength train to compensate for muscle loss during dieting.
10. I don’t have time to exercise. Your time on Earth is limited. You will not be able to accomplish every goal. However, you will be able to accomplish every top priority goal. In life, you always find time for priorities like shopping, watching television, or dining out. If you believe you don’t have time for exercise, it is because you haven’t made it a priority. To make exercise your top priority, schedule your workouts in your monthly planner first, before you schedule anything else. Treat each workout as an important business meeting you can’t miss. If you were paid $10,000 an hour for working out, you would� � refuse to miss workouts! Prioritizing your fitness is the best decision you will� � ever make.
Contrave Combination Weight Loss Drug Appears Safe, Effective
A combination of bupropion and naltrexone appears to be an effective treatment for weight loss in obese patients. Contrave, manufactured by Orexigen Therapeutics, was found to produce a 6.1% loss of body weight over the 56-week trial for those on the highest dose. An FDA panel will review the new weight loss drug on December 7th.
Contrave is a sustained release formulation combining two currently approved drugs. Buproprion is also known as Wellbutrin and is a common treatment for depression. Naltrexone is used to help people quit smoking or overcome drug addiction.
Contrave is different than other currently available weight loss medications in several important ways, says study author Frank L. Greenway, MD, professor and chief of the outpatient clinic at Pennington Biomedical Research Center of Louisiana State University System.
“Both of the drugs in the combination are used to treat addictive disorders, naltrexone for opioid addiction and bupropion for smoking,” says. “The combination of bupropion and naltrexone has been shown to work on both the appetite and the reward centers while other obesity medication has concentrated on the appetite mechanism alone. This may be “helpful for those people for whom craving interferes with their ability to stay on a diet,” he says.
The Contrave Obesity Research (COR-1) study, the largest of four phase III trials involving the weight loss drug, enrolled 1742 patients between the ages of 18 and 65 (mostly women) who had either a body mass index (BMI) above 30 and were without complications, or a BMI of 27 and above with dyslipidemia or hypertension.
Patients were randomized to a placebo or to a pill containing 360 mg of bupropion plus either 16 or 32 milligrams of naltrexone. Dosing was once a day for 56 weeks. The patients also received instruction for a healthy diet and exercise plan.
In addition to producing a measureable weight loss, the drug also brought significant improvements in HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, and C-reactive protein compared with a placebo. Fasting insulin and glucose were also improved among those on the highest doses of naltrexone.
The most frequent adverse event in the treatment groups was nausea, occurring in almost 30% of patients. Headache, constipation, dizziness, vomiting, and dry mouth were the other more common symptoms reported.
Contrave is one of three new investigational diet drugs that are seeking market approval this year. Recently an FDA panel reported concerns about the safety of Qnexa, a combination of phentermine and topiramate. They have not yet reviewed Lorcaserin which works by increasing a brain chemical (serotonin), leading to increased satiety.
Staying Healthy With Diabetes
Joslin Diabetes Center today announced the release of Staying Healthy with Diabetes: Weight %26amp; Wellness, the latest book in its popular “Staying Healthy with Diabetes” series. Written for consumers, Weight %26amp; Wellness provides information and strategies to help individuals with type 2 diabetes achieve a healthy weight and maintain it over time.
“Being overweight affects every system in the body – and not for the better. For people who are at risk for, or who already have type 2 diabetes, being overweight affects the body’s ability to use insulin,” said Amy Campbell, M.S., R.D., C.D.E., author of the book. “The good news is that research has shown that losing even a small amount of weight can help insulin be more effective. And, for individuals at risk for developing type 2 diabetes, reducing weight can delay or even prevent the onset of the disease.”
Weight management goals are different for everyone and weight loss presents a special challenge for people with type 2 diabetes. Based on the nutrition guidelines developed by Joslin Diabetes Center and the lessons learned from Joslin’s Weight Achievement and Intensive Treatment Program (Why WAIT?), Staying Healthy with Diabetes: Weight & Wellness offers tools and support strategies for individualized weight management programs.
Weight & Wellness explains how to determine a healthy weight, meal planning and how to overcome barriers to beginning a weight management program. In addition, special issues such as meal replacements, popular diets, weight loss medications and surgery are covered. Weight loss for children and adolescents is also included.
Through clear, concise discussions of the importance of issues such as metabolism, glycemic index, glycemic load, reading nutrition labels and BMI/waist circumference, Weight & Wellness offers readers the knowledge they need to help make individually appropriate lifestyle choices.
Effective Weight Loss 