Diet Hoaxes

It frustrates me to see magazines not giving a damn about their readers, and only trying to sell more copies. Who hasn't read a huge, bright head-line reading 'Lose 1 Pound a Day', '10 Pounds in a Week!', 'Exercises for a Ripped Stomach', 'Exercises to Flatten your Tummy', 'Exercises to Tighten you Bum and Thighs', etc. The best one I've actually seen on billboards reads:'Lose 30 pounds in 30 days!'

I can tell you exactly how to lose 5 pounds or more in one day in a mere paragraph, free of charge! Just read on, it's coming up!

There are so many people who are looking for answers, and magazines basically exploit them with these hollow promises. It makes me sick, so here I am, setting the record straight! Do not fall prey to these false claims!

First, a quick list of facts you should know about fat loss and exercise:

Exercises for particular areas will increase the underlying muscularity of an area, which may in turn, 'firm it up', but if you want to actually see muscular definition, you have to burn off the fat! If you do enough of any exercise, it may in fact almost reach an aerobic status, but you'd be better served doing rowing, cycling, or any other cardio activity. They use more muscle, and burn more energy!

And now, how to lose 5 pounds in one day! For one day drink at least 10 cups of water throughout the day. Do not eat any sugars, starches, or salt (no cereals, breads, corn, carrots, pastas, rice, potatoes, juice, pop, muffins, donuts, pastries, etc.), instead eat meats, eggs, cheese, and low-carb vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, celery, lettuce).

If you stick with this diet for just one day, and eat about as much as you like, not counting calories, I guarantee you the next morning, even that evening, you'll have lost around 5 pounds! But it's all water!! Carbs, salt, and insulin all cause water retention, eliminating them from your body eliminates water retention and you'll weigh less, and look better.

Is this a gimmick? Am I saying not to do it? No, I'm not. Why not keep doing it? What you probably don't know is that there is are huge benefits to such a diet, just read on. The sad thing is, the entire world seems geared to low-fat, high carb diets, that just don't work! They're dangerous because of elevated insulin, and essential fat deficiencies, and have not slowed the fattening trend of North America. Yet here you'll find another 'research paper' that encourages low fat living! Conversely, here is a paper citing many studies that show how ineffective low-fat diets are.

Currently (and finally) there is a bit of a trend towards a carbohydrate reduced diet to achieve weight loss amongst a host of other benefits. This is by no means a new concept, as I'm sure many of you have heard of the Atkins diet which was first published around 30 years ago.

You may, however, be surprised to learn that there have been diets recorded and published expounding the benefits of a moderate to higher fat, higher protein, and carbohydrate restricted diet as much as 150 years ago! Over the decades, several studies have shown such a diet to be effective, and the Eskimos prove it every day!

The mild success of today's diets probably stem from the fact that avoiding fat means avoiding donuts, chips, fries, burgers, pastries, hashbrowns, fried rice, many crackers, cake, cookies, muffins, many pastas, and more. Not only do these contain fat, but also loads of carbohydrates. Instead people have to look for alternative sources like fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately, there are plenty of low fat foods still high in carbs: bagels, cereals, pastas, rice, and more.

Not to mention, in the low-fat craze, many manufacturers have been replacing fat in their foods with sugar so as not to lose flavor. And to top it off, since it's low fat, we tend to eat more of it, consuming large quantities of carbohydrates. Can you tell I'm leading up to something?

I am currently reading a book called 'Protein Power' that you may have also heard about, and it goes into metabolic and biochemical detail of why these diets work, and why the popular high-carbohydrate/low-fat diets fail miserably. Not only do they fail, but they have caused America to become fatter, and probably caused an increase of heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and more!

These are bold statements indeed, but all the data is there, how else could you explain it? 'Protein Power' goes into great detail explaining all the how's and why's. I highly recommend this book, which doesn't even cost twice as much as those magazines making all those ridiculous claims!

Let me just give one example out of 'Protein Power' that really drives the point home: We blame a high fat diet for high cholesterol, yet most of the cholesterol is actually produced in out own bodies when stimulated by the presence of high insulin levels. Sure, our bodies require fat as a building block of cholesterol, but not a lot! So what happens? You're doctor says, 'Eat less fat', which basically translates into eating more carbs, releasing more insulin, and only compounding the problem! It may work slightly at first, because by severely restricting fat, you restrict the building blocks of cholesterol, but that kind of fat restriction brings with it a host of other maladies!

Consider this as 'part one', or an introduction to a new weight loss article. When I'm finished reading the book, I'll right a more detailed 'book report', or 'Part Two' on it. I can't help but highly recommend this book to anybody looking to flatten their tummy's, tone their thighs, shed the pounds, etc.!