How to Lose Pounds Fast

You’ve seen all the celebrities touting the Jenny Craig Weight Loss Plan: Kirstie Alley, Valerie Bertinelli, Queen Latifah, even basketball star Baron Davis. What is the appeal of this program that attracts heavy hitters to espouse its virtues? Jenny Craig is both a diet and lifestyle program, intent on changing the way you eat, exercise, and live your life. The goal is to change the way you think and act, keeping in mind your overall body health.

The South Beach Diet is a weight-healthy lifestyle designed by Dr. Arthur Agatston, a cardiologist and associate professor of medicine at the University of Miami. Originally developed as a weight-loss plan for his overweight heart patients, he found additional health benefits that led to further diet research and refinement. Thus the South Beach Diet was born.

There are three basic “phases” to the South Beach Diet:  (1) Eliminate Cravings and Kickstart Weight Loss; (2) Lose Steadily, and (3) Maintain for Life. In the first phase, which lasts two weeks, you will eliminate cravings for sugar and refined starches and jump-start your weight loss. This is done by eating nutrient-dense, fiber-rich foods, including lean meats, low-fat dairy, veggies, and eggs. This is similar to the Atkins Diet, where carbs play a very reduced role in the diet.

There is no one diet or eating plan that fits everyone, but Consumer Reports has ranked diet/eating plans according to their effectiveness for weight loss. Baby boomers, Generation Xs and all parties interested in shedding pounds take heed of the rankings: 1. Jenny Craig diet; 2. Slim-Fast Plan Diet; 3. Weight Watchers; 4. Zone Diet; 5. Ornish Diet; 6. Atkins Diet and 7. NutriSystem Diet.

In addition to weight loss effectiveness, the eating plans were also ranked according to their adherence to the dietary guidelines established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, referred to as the U.S. Dietary Guidelines.

In an age when obesity rates have reached epidemic proportions, a diet containing an extreme amount of fat may sound absurd. But in reality, a high-fat, low-carbohydrate food plan—or ketogenic diet—has been successfully used to rid or markedly reduce seizures in children with drug-resistant epilepsy. By starving the body of carbs and sugars it tricks the body into using fat stores instead of glucose for energy. And that same concept may soon lead to an effective treatment for another serious condition.

Resistant starch foods have their own website, a diet foods name (“The Skinny Carbs Diet”) and a suddenly devoted following. So what is the science behind resistant starch; are starch foods the latest diet fad, or is there more to them than meets the eye?

Why are Resistant Starch Foods in the News?

In a word: marketing! World News Insight explains that a cookbook titled “The Skinny Carbs Diet” is on the shelves and promising to offer healthy diet foods that capitalize on resistant starch for weight loss.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Kidney failure is a main complication of diabetes, but a lab study on mice showed that a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet could reverse that in eight weeks, US researchers said Wednesday.

The extreme food plan is known as a ketogenic diet and is often used to treat children with drug-resistant epilepsy. It starves the body of carbs and sugars, thereby tricking the body into burning fat for fuel instead of glucose.

The diet is so restrictive it must be devised with an expert’s help. Meal options may include scrambled eggs with cream, a bacon and butter omelet, or lettuce doused in mayonnaise.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Health officials Thursday announced a new effort to curb America’s obesity epidemic by moving science from the lab into clinical trials to find practical ways for prevention and treatment.

“This plan is a bold blueprint that will encourage the research community to examine the epidemic of obesity from diverse perspectives,” National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Dr. Francis Collins said in a statement.

More than a third of adults and nearly 17 percent of children in the United States are obese, increasing their chances of developing health problems including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, fatty liver disease and some cancers.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. health officials Thursday announced a new effort to curb America’s obesity epidemic by moving science from the lab into clinical trials to find practical ways for prevention and treatment.

“This plan is a bold blueprint that will encourage the research community to examine the epidemic of obesity from diverse perspectives,” National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Dr. Francis Collins said in a statement.

More than a third of adults and nearly 17 percent of children in the United States are obese, increasing their chances of developing health problems including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, fatty liver disease and some cancers.