Weight Loss - Causes and Food Control

 It took time to put on the excess weight you want to be rid of. Take time to reduce. Moderate loss, at the rate of one-half pound to one pound a week, is healthier loss and the fat lost is more likely to stay off than fat lost in a hurry. And a pound a week adds up to 52 pounds a year. When you lose weight slowly, your skin adjusts and you don't get that deflated-balloon look.

CALORIE CONTENT OF SNACK FOODS FOOD AMOUNT

Chocolate bar Chocolate creams Cookies Doughnut Banana Peach Apple Raisins Popcorn Potato chips Peanuts or pistachio nuts Walnuts, pecans, filberts or cashews Brazil nuts Butternuts Peanut butter Pickles Olives Ice cream Chocolate-nut sundae Ice cream soda Chocolate malted milk Eggnog (without liquor) Carbonated beverages Alcoholic Beverages Beer Wine Gin Rum Whiskey Brandy Cocktail 1 small bar 1 average size 1 medium size 1 plain 1 large 1 medium size 1 medium size 1/2 cup 1 cup popped 8-10 or 1/2 cup 1 4 whole or 1 tbsp. chopped 1 1 1 tbsp. 1 large sour 1 average sweet 1 1/2 cup 1 glass 1 glass 6 oz.  

OBESITY STARTS IN CHILDHOOD

The problem of overweight in adults may well have its roots in infancy and childhood. There has long been a tradition-certainly no longer valid in an age of modern medicine-that the plump child is better equipped to withstand disease. The practice of actually encouraging fatness in babies to help them withstand tuberculosis and other diseases is not only unnecessary; it is potentially dangerous. Recent scientific work provides some tentative new insights into how overfeeding of children in infancy and the preadolescent years may build up fat cells (adipose tissue) that may remain with them a lifetime. The studies suggest that once these cells are laid down, they never disappear.

When weight is lost, the cells shrink, but still remain.

 At times, they may send out signals demanding to be fed. This demand may help explain why many people find it difficult to keep their weight down after dieting. A constant craving for food may not be wholly psychological, as many have thought; it may be at least partly based on biological demand from deprived fat cells. A lean adult may have about 27 trillion fat cells in his body; an obese may have 77 trillion. Obesity, when it exists, can be and that involves childhood, even in early infancy.  But its prevention is far reasonable eating habits 

How eating binges, breakfast, beverages affect your weight loss, weight control, weight management

EATING BINGES

 Some dieters are able to go off their diets occasionally without ill effect. Their morale may even benefit from knowing they can do this every month, which is better than constant "cheating." But re- member that you probably have a great tendency to eat more than you need or you wouldn't be dieting in the first place, so be very careful.

TALKING ABOUT YOUR DIET

 If you do talk about it, some people may consider you a bore; some may try to get you to break your diet; some will help you to keep it. You have to know which kind you are with before you start discussing your diet. Sometimes, it may be just as well simply to say that your physician has asked you not to eat certain foods. As a general rule, the best social technique is to avoid calling attention to your problem. Simply eat very little of fattening foods placed before you.

BREAKFAST

 A reasonably healthy, high-protein meal in the morning keeps people from being hungry in the midmorning and from eating too much at noon.

BEVERAGES

As you can see from the listings in the table, alcoholic beverages are high in calories. They don’t expect perhaps when taken in excess. Three glasses of 76 / Building General Health as Preventive Therapy beer, at 120 calories per 8-ounce glass, will supply as many calories as a fairly substantial breakfast. An evening of cocktails can provide almost as many calories as a full day's reducing diet. Even more serious is the fact that the calories supplied by alcohol are empty ones, without necessary food values such as proteins or minerals.  

Many people have turned to weight-reducing clubs where join with others wishing to reduce. The clubs are helpful in pi t1viding motivation. But medical authorities have reservations about supervision provided.  This dubs vary considerably in their programs, but all emphasize diet. Coupled with lectures, literature, and experience-sharing, some prescribe particular exercises.

 Many require an initial medical certificate for membership, but few have continuing medical supervision. Physicians have reported that, because of the lack of medical supervision in some clubs, the condition of their heart and diabetic patients worsened as a result of diet advice given. If you are considering joining some diet club you may have read or heard about, the best policy is to check with your physician about that particular club and its standing and whether he advises that you join it. 

Food Intake Suggestions For Weight Control, Weight Loss

Weight Control, Weight loss Suggestions

Don’t taste while cooking and don't lick the bowl when finished cooking. It has been said jokingly, but not without a grain of truth, that half the overweight.

 House wives in this country have tasted or licked themselves. Add a great deal in calories. Are they worth it? If you happened to be a "snacker," you can study the snack chart. Consider that a cup of tea or coffee, without cream, with, spoonful of sugar, contains only 16 calories; it may satisfy yourself or at least take the edge off it, and provide the quick energy you.

On the other hand, a chocolate sundae will run between 300 and 500 calories, and half a brick of plain ice cream is 200 (and even low-calorie ice cream is 100). Nibbling between meals does help some people to diet by decreasing their appetite at mealtime.

 If you try this, keep careful count of calories  you will know whether or not it is really helping you. Nibbling also may be suggested by a physician for some heart patients, since the body can manage five or six very small meals daily more easily than the customary three, one or two of which may be fairly heavy.

The idea that you are helping your children when you sample their dinners or finish their portions is one that ought to be dropped. It helps neither them nor you-and can become a fattening habit. 

weight loss-fried foods-sweets-starches- diet control, natural diet

Avoid fried foods, especially those that are French fried. It is difficult to determine just how many calories these foods contain, since they absorb varying amounts of fat, but it is always a great deal. Boil or poach eggs; you won't mind unbuttered toast if you serve your egg on it. Try cooking eggs on a griddle or the type of pan that does not require greasing. If you cook stews ahead of time and let them cool, you can remove the hardened fat, at least from your portion-and stews often are even better when rewarmed. Trim fat from your meat, and omit rich gravy.

SWEETS

An artificial sweetener, in tablet, powdered, liquid, or crystal form, can be used in many ways in addition to sweetening beverages. It can be used with skim milk on cereal and on strawberries or other fruits, cooked or uncooked. (If you serve fruit stewed in sugar, give the syrup to someone who needs the calories.) Sponge and angel cake are not very high in calories if you separate out your portions before adding icing for others in the family or before adding jam or fruit syrup. Make your own gelatin desserts so you can use saccharin for your portion, sugar for the rest. Take very small portions of any dessert, and avoid soft drinks unless you use the low-calorie types.

STARCHES

Undoubtedly you are accustomed to getting bulk from starches. You can get it instead from leafy green vegetables. Don't munch on bread and butter. In restaurants, ask the waiter not to bring the bread until he serves the main course. In some areas, salads are served first-a good idea because salads take the edge off your hunger before you get to the higher-calorie foods. Use wine vinegar with herbs or lemon juice on your own salad while serving richer dressings to others. Good gravies can be made without flour; one way is to use powdered milk which is fat-free.

Vegetables, either dried ones or fresh ones cooked down, and herbs will thicken stews. Chinese restaurants serve bulky, low-calorie dishes-if you avoid the rice. Many Chinese vegetables can be purchased in stores. Avoid restaurants that have a strictly enforced "no substitutes" rule. Many restaurants will give you an extra vegetable or an extra serving of the one on your dinner, or a salad, in place of potatoes. When serving soups such as minestrone or chowder, take mainly the clear part for yourself, leaving most of the macaroni, potatoes, and so on, for the others. 

weight Loss - CALORIE CONTENT OF FOODS AND BEVERAGES FOODS AMOUNT CALORIES

CALORIE CONTENT OF FOODS AND BEVERAGES FOODS AMOUNT CALORIES 

 Miscellaneous Sugar 1 level tbsp. or 3 level tsp. 50 Jam or jelly 1 level tbsp. 60 Peanut butter 1 tbsp. 100 atsup or chili sauce 2 tbsp. 35 White sauce, medium 1/4 cup 100 Brown gravy 1/2 cup 80 Boiled dressing (cooked) 1 tbsp. 30 Mayonnaise 1 tbsp. 100 french dressing 1 tbsp. 60 Salad oil, olive oil, etc. 1 tbsp. 125 Margarine 1 tbsp. 

100 Herbs and spices 0 Chocolate sauce 2 tbsp. 90 Cheese sauce 2 tbsp. 65 Butterscotch sauce 2 tbsp. 200 Beverages Ice-cream soda 1 regular 250 Chocolate malted 8 oz. glass 300 Chocolate milk 8 oz. glass 185 Cocoa made with milk 1 cup 175 Tea or coffee, plain 0 Apple juice or cider 1/2 cup 65 Grape juice 1/2 cup 90 Cola drink 8 oz. 95 Ginger ale 8 oz. 70 Grapefruit juice, unsweetened 1/2 cup 40 Pineapple juice 1/2 cup 55 Prune juice 1/2 cup 85 Tomato juice 1/2 cup 25

SOME DIETING SUGGESTIONS FATS

Rather than whole milk, use skim or powdered milk for your beverages (hot skimmed milk is enjoyed by some people in breakfast coffee) and in cooking soups, mashed potatoes, gravies, etc. Powdered milk is quite good for gravies. 

You can separate out your portion and then add cream or butter or margarine for the rest of the family. The cream you save can be used to convert your low-calorie gelatin or fruit desserts into higher-calorie desserts for others in the family. 

Use plain cottage cheese instead of butter or margarine. It is especially good with chives, or onion or celery salt, on thin dry (Melba) toast.

Cook thinly chopped spinach and other greens in very little water to which you add J. bouillon cube, and you are not likely to miss the butter.  

Appetite and exercise - IS MASSAGE A REDUCING AID? - CAN HOT BATHS OR SWEATING HELP?

As for appetite and exercise 

while it is true that a thin person in good condition may eat more after increased activity, his exercise will burn up the extra calories. But the overly fat person does not react the same way; only when he exercises to excess will he experience an appetite increase, since he has large stores of fat, and moderate exercise in his case is not likely to stimulate appetite. This difference between the response to exercise of fat and thin people is an important one.

There are many opportunities to be found throughout the day for using up calories through little extra bits of activity. You can, for ex- ample, use up 100 calories with 20 minutes of gardening, 30 minutes of ironing, or 30 minutes of playing with the children. Any time you get up from behind a desk, walk about the room, perhaps just bend and stretch for a few times, you will not be burning up great quantities of calories- but do this every hour or two, and at the end of the week you will have burned a significant number.

IS MASSAGE A REDUCING AID? No.

 Massage may tone up the skin and muscles and help the body adjust to its new, slimmer contours. Your doctor will know when to recommend massage if it would help. 

CAN HOT BATHS OR SWEATING HELP? 

Only temporarily, since they serve merely to eliminate water, which is almost immediately regained. Not only do these methods achieve no permanent results of value but they may put a strain on heart and circulation. Sauna baths, recently fashionable, expose the body to high temperatures to bring about violent sweating. This is a shock to the body, sometimes doubling the pulse rate, as much of a shock as sudden and violent exercise. 

To be sure, saunas have long been popular in Finland, but the Finns use saunas over a lifetime rather than starting suddenly in flabby middle age, and they dash water on heated stones, producing a more humid and more tolerable (and possibly safer for the lungs) type of heat than electrically heated American saunas. 

Weight reduction

IS A DOCTOR NECESSARY? 

Weight reduction on a sound basis calls for the special knowledge of a physician. He will make certain that you do not lose your health while losing excess weight; that you do not reduce too rapidly and thereby put a strain on your heart and circulation; that you do not find yourself with a cosmetic problem because you have lost weight but have not regained skin tone and end up with flabby masses of pendulous skin. He will suggest proper exercise. 

He will also prescribe vitamins, minerals, and other substances, if necessary, to prevent weakening of bones and organs and to maintain resistance to disease. For example, if you use a "no-calorie" salad dressing made of mineral oil, your doctor may want you to take some vitamins, because mineral oil lends to prevent adequate absorption of some of the vitamins your diet would ordinarily provide. Moreover, it helps considerably if you can have your diet suitably adjusted to your eating habits.

You may be one of those who will be miserable if deprived of a bedtime snack. You may prefer a substantial dinner and be willing to cut down on lunch to have it. A physician can help you establish a sound diet and one best suited to your needs. He may, if necessary, prescribe sedatives for your use during the toughest phase of dieting; the psychological aspects of a relationship with a sympathetic, encouraging physician also can be of great importance during dieting and later on in maintaining low weight. A doctor's encouragement and praise of a patient's efforts in reducing, we have found, can be of major value.

PILLS AS PROPS

 Should you take drugs to reduce? Without a doctor's supervision, never. If, in an individual case, a physician feels that an anti-appetite drug as a temporary prop is justifiable, he will prescribe it-and it should be taken exactly as prescribed. Most physicians, however, prefer to have a patient Weight Control / 67 rely on willpower and determination rather than on drugs and to adjust the diet so this is feasible. In the past, medicines for weight reduction generally were based on amphetamine and so stimulated patients that physicians were reluctant to use them. Now, a number of appetite-reducing agents are available, free of the side effect of overstimulation.

These apparently safer agents are available only on prescription. Over-the-counter reducing preparations are big business. At worst, they can be risky business because of the possibility of side effects; at best, the money is foolishly spent because in and of them the medicines are not to be relied upon for effective permanent weight reduction. The problem with even safe reducing agents is that they are only supports that help temporarily. 

It makes much more sense-s-and has far greater chance of permanent success-to regulate your diet by a healthy change in eating habits which, once desired weight reduction is achieved, can be continued with some upward shift in calorie intake, to maintain you at proper weight. 

Weight Control - THE DANGERS OF UPS AND DOWNS

Weight Control  

 THE DANGERS OF UPS AND DOWNS 

The frequent weight gains and losses indulged in by. The many obese people who practice what one writer calls the "rhythm method of birth control" may actually be more harmful than maintenance of a steady excess weight. For example, it has been shown that serum cholesterol is elevated during periods of weight gain, thus increasing the risk that it will be deposited on artery walls? 

We have no evidence to show that once cholesterol is deposited it can be removed by weight reduction. And it is possible that a person whose weight has fluctuated up and down a number of times has been subjected to more Atherogenic (artery- hardening) stress than a person with stable though excessive weight- and such stress increases the danger of heart attack and stroke.

 Animal experiments have shown that animals of normal weight have a longer life expectancy than obese animals. They have also shown that if an animal has been obese and has been repeatedly reduced, it will have a shorter life expectancy than the obese animal that has never been reduced. Such evidence adds further question to the advisability of undertaking weight reduction that cannot be sustained.

 THE ONLY SCIENTIFIC WAY TO REDUCE

There is nothing complicated about the principles for safe, sound, and effective weight reduction and they are principles that rest on solid scientific study.

1.       There are no healthy substitutes for them, and any attempts to circumvent them are only invitations to frustration and failure.

2.       Without any equivocation but rather as forcibly as we can, we wish to emphasize that all else is bunk, junk, profitable only to the purveyors and never truly so to the believer-buyers-and this is the set of principles upon which you must, and can reliably, pin your hopes for safe and effective weight control: If the number of calories you eat averages more than the number your body uses, you gain.

3.      

        If calorie intake totals less than calorie use, you lose weight. If you are to lose one pound of fat, you will have to take in 3,500 calories less than you expend. And while a sound reducing diet should, of course, lead to weight loss, it must, in addition, have three basic characteristics:

It must produce loss of weight at a safe pace.

 It must offer variety so that it maintains health and provides some pleasure in eating as well as some satisfaction of hunger.

Building General Health as Preventive Therapy

It must teach new, and enjoyable, eating patterns so that you do not promptly slip back into old, weight-gaining eating habits. And, in most cases, coupled with a good reducing diet having such characteristics there must be a sound program of exercise or other physical activity that will increase the calorie expenditure level, ease the dieting regimen, and contribute to general health in the process. 

DOES THIS MEAN YOU? 

By definition, an obese person is anyone who weighs 30 percent or more over what he or she should weigh. Even if you are not that much over- weight, it can be important to lose the first 10 pounds or so of excess, because the chances are that if you are overweight at all, you will gain Weight Control / 6 more in the future, and it is easier to lose 10 pounds than 20, 30, 50, or 100. Usually, your mirror provides you with a fairly good clue about whether you are too heavy. You can consult the accompanying table to determine whether your eyes have deceived you.

DESIRABLE WEIGHTS FOR MEN AND WOMEN    

Weight in pounds, according to frame, as ordinarily dressed, including shoes

HEIGHT                                                                

(WITH SHOES ON)                                                           

FT. IN.   SMALL FRAME                   MEDIUM FRAME              LARGE FRAME

                                                Men                     

5              2              116-125                                124-133                131-142

5              3              119-128                                127-136                133-144

5              4              122-132                                130-140                137-149

5              5              126-136                                134-144                141-153

5              6              129-139                                137-147                145-157

5              7              133-143                                141-151                149-162

5              8              136-147                                145-160                153-166

5              9              140-151                                149-160                157-170

5              10           144-155                                153-164                161-175

5              11           148-164                                157-168                165-180

6              0              152-164                                161-173                169-185

6              1              157-169                                166-178                174-190

6              2              163-175                                171-184                179-196

6              3              168-180                                176-189                184-202

                                                Women                               

4              11           104-111                                110-118                117-127

5              0              105-113                                112-120                119-129

5              1              107-115                                114-122                121-131

5              2              110-118                                117-125                124-135

5              3              113-121                                120-128                127-138

5              4              116-125                                124-132                131-142

5              5              119-128                                127-135                133-145

5              6              123-132                                130-140                138-150

5              7              126-136                                134-144                142-154

5              8              129-139                                137-147                145-158

5              9              133-143                                141-151                149-162

5              10           136-147                                145-155                152-166

5              11           139-150                                148-158                155-169

You will note that this table, unlike some others, gives desirable rather than average weights. Average people tend to become fat with the passing of the years, and this is not desirable. Average weight tables reflect the fatties who make up the upper part of the average. Note that in each ural weight group there is an allowance or range of about 10 pounds. If you have lost or gained a few pounds outside the limits for your height and frame, discuss the matter with your physician at the next visit.

 If you vary 15 or more pounds from the limits, make an appointment for an immediate checkup. There are several simple tests, too, by which you can assess your actual fatness. One, the ruler test, is based on the fact that if there is no excess of fat, the abdominal surface between the flare of the ribs and front of the pelvis normally is flat. If you lie flat on your back and place a ruler on the abdomen, along the midline of the body, it should not point upward at the midsection. 

If it does, you need to slim down. The skinfold, or pinch, test simply calls for grasping a "pinch" of skin with thumb and forefinger-at your waist, stomach, upper arm, but- tocks, and calf. At least half of body fat is directly under the skin. Generally, the layer beneath the skin-which is what you measure with the pinch since only the fat, not muscle, pinches-should be between one-fourth and one-half inch. Since, with your pinch, you are getting a double thickness, it normally should be one-half to one inch.

A fold much greater than one inch indicates excess body fatness- one much thinner than half an inch indicates abnormal thinness.

GLANDULAR VERSUS ORDINARY OVERWEIGHT Some 50 years ago, when hormones were discovered, there was a common notion that obesity must be due to some hormone problem. When this turned out to be rarely the case, there was a shift to the idea that obesity is never due to hormonal disturbances but is always the result of overeating. Today, some physicians think that the reasonable view is that to become obese it is always necessary to eat more than you need for the energy you expend, and how often this may be due to some shift in hormone functioning, even within the so-called normal range of such functioning, is simply unknown.

What is known is that in those relatively few cases where a hormone problem can be detected and corrected, it is most commonly the thyroid gland that is at fault. Located at the side and in front of the windpipe, just below the" Adam's apple," the one-ounce thyroid gland acts some- what like a thermostat, regulating the rate at which body organs function and the speed with which the body uses food. With an overactive thyroid, body functions speed up noticeably. 

There may be a perceptibly faster heartbeat, nervousness, difficulty in sleeping at night, and weight loss. With an underactive thyroid producing inadequate amounts of thyroid hormone, there is a tendency to be lethargic and to gain weight. When thyroid dysfunction is suspected in an overweight person (or anyone else, there are tests-basal metabolism and others-that can determine whether, in fact, there is a problem. If under activity is established

Weight Loss and body mechanism

WEIGHT DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE 

It would be a fallacy to say that obesity is ever the one and only cause of a death. But the association between overweight and excessive death rates is unmistakable. Among overweight men, mortality from all causes is 150 percent that for other men; among overweight women, 147 per- cent that for other women. 

As for individual diseases, insurance statistics show that overweight men and overweight women, respectively, have these excesses of mortality as compared with the general population: 142 and 175 percent for heart attacks; 159 and 162 percent for cerebral hemorrhage; 191 and 212 percent for chronic nephritis (kidney disease); 168 and 211 percent for liver and gallbladder cancer; 383 and 372 per- cent for diabetes; 249 and 147 percent for cirrhosis of the liver; 154 and ) percent for hernia and intestinal obstruction; 152 and 188 percent f or non -cancerous gallbladder diseases. Obvert is associated with many diverse types of health hazards. There are breathing difficulties, since the greater the weight in the chest.

wall, the greater the work involved in breathing. With their increased difficulty in breathing, obese people have less tolerance for exercise. They have a higher rate of respiratory infection than do people of normal weight. They may experience two complications related to their breathing problem: lethargy may develop because of accumulation of carbon dioxide in the blood from decreased ventilation; and as the result of reduced levels of oxygen in the blood, the body, trying to compensate, may produce increased amounts of red blood cells. 

The latter condition, called polycythemia, often is responsible for the ruddy complexion of obese people. It may lead to blood-clotting problems. Heart enlargement and congestive heart failure attributable to obesity have been reported. Many studies have established that more hypertension, or high blood pressure, exists among the obese than among the non-obese, that the obese hypertensive experiences a greater risk of coronary heart disease than the non-obese hypertensive, and that mortality rates for obese hypertensive persons are greater than for others with obesity alone or hypertension alone. Obese people often have impaired carbohydrate tolerance that may be sufficient in degree to be classified as diabetes.

Difficulties during anesthesia and surgery have been associated with obesity. In women with significant degrees of obesity, menstrual abnormalities and abnormal hair growth (hairsutism) have been observed with some frequency. For pregnant women, obesity can be a hazard in several ways: it is associated with a greater incidence of toxemia, of complications during delivery, and of stillbirths. Some skin problems are related to obesity. Thus, the extra surface area of the skin in the obese person may lead to excessive perspiration, and the juxtaposition of moist skin areas in adjacent folds may lead to boils, fungal infections, and other inflammatory conditions.

It has been well established that in many health problems, significant benefits often follow loss of weight. Among such conditions are hyper- tension, angina pectoris, congestive heart failure, varicose veins, rupture of intervertebral disks, osteoarthritis, and many other varieties of bone and joint disease. And certainly not to be omitted from even a partial list, many foot aches and backaches may be relieved to a significant extent, sometimes even completely, by weight loss.