How Women Can Lose Weight and Keep it Off

How Women Can Lose Weight and Keep it Off 

 Reference: Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Woo Hoo!  This is big news.  It even made NPR .  And it makes sense.  Published today is a lovely study looking at how mid life women can succeed at taking weight off and keeping weight off.   Here’s the “skinny”. Bethany Gibbs from the University of Pittsburg is quoted as saying, “Not only does motivation decrease after you start losing weight, there are physiological changes, including a decreased resting metabolic rate.  Appetite-related hormones increase.  Researchers studying the brain are now finding that you have enhanced rewards and increased motivation to eat when you’ve lost weight.”   

The conclusion that we all know: It’s devilishly hard to lose weight. So, who succeeds?   Some surprising conclusions.  First of all, you have to make a lifestyle of new habits.  One is regular exercise.  That keeps muscle mass up so you are burning calories 24/7 in addition to the calories you burn during exercise. Secondly, the emphasis should be on what you add, not what you take away. The women who succeeded added abundant new vegetables and fruits to their diet.   What they did was cut down on meat, cheese, fried food, and sugar.  In particular, the women who were still down 4 years later had essentially quit sugared drinks and desserts. 

New habits that you keep at every day seems to be the key here.  Adding more vegetables to your diet often replaces white carbs.  Sugar and white carbs stimulate insulin and insulin forces calories into storage.  Fried foods are usually saturated with omega-6 fatty acids which are inflammatory precursors.  It’s not just the calories in fried foods, it’s the messages those fats send to your body that wreak havoc. 

 This diet sounds like the Daniel Diet that Saddleback Church in Orange County, California has developed.  Lots of vegetables, a tiny bit of meat, no dessert, and no sugar.  Add a detox of your liver to that so that you can process your hormones better and a daily dose of moderate exercise and you start the journey to weight loss.  And then the habits keep it off. 

 WWW. What will work for me?  I’ve added the exercise, and I’m good with vegetables.  It’s the sugar and dessert where I just fall down.  Greek Yogurt with Honey and I’m done in.  I can eat the whole container after a nice 5-mile hike.  The sugar is like crack.  Gotta get that stuff out of the house.  It’s clear to me that the white carbs like bread and potatoes make for trouble too.  Farmer’s Markets are just begging for customers.  I bought 3 bunches of beets, 3 pounds of carrots, two boxes of tomatoes, fresh corn at the Brookfield farmer’s market.  You could too.  

Written by John E Whitcomb, MD   Brookfield Longevity and Healthy Living Clinic 17585 W North Ave, Suite 160,  Brookfield, WI 53045  262-784-5300 Archives at www.NewsInNutrition.com