The Checkup

Diets That Work

Even time-tested, popular and well-respected regimens such as Weight Watchers quickly brought out the worst in me. It's taken me years to understand that my body does best, nutrition-wise and weight-wise, when I manage to get busy with other concerns and not allow myself to obsess over food. Apparently I'm not alone. According to one article, the average obese person who undergoes bariatric surgery in order to lose weight has tried 24 diets before getting to that desperate point.

I'd like to hear from folks who, like me, have given up on diets per se. Without a guide, how do you lose weight?

-- Jennifer Huget

washedup wrote:

Portion control. After two decades of weight gain and loss, I finally learned not to underestimate my love of food. So I eat what I want, but not as much of it. I lost 65 pounds that way, though it took several years, and it came off faster once I started moderate exercise.

Remember the old saying: "You can have anything you want, but you can't have everything you want."

TracyAligDowling wrote:

The best diet I know is not really a diet -- it is an eating plan called DASH -- that was developed by the National Institutes of Health to lower blood pressure. It has the happy side effects of also lowering cholesterol, sating hunger and being easy to follow and very healthy -- lots of fruit, lots of veggies, whole grains, dairy products with minimal sweets, fats and limited animal protein. I recommend it to everyone -- I follow it most of the time (occasional slips during the high eating season between Thanksgiving and Christmas).

gentle_levon wrote:

Hey, it's very simple and as ancient as the hills. My hero Jack LaLanne says it best.

If God made it, eat it; if man made it, don't eat it.

If it tastes extra-ordinarily sweet, spit it out.

Of course Jack is referring to heated, treated, beated, refined processed foods.

Don't live to eat, eat to live.

kmltig wrote:

I have tried so many diets that my kids started to give them nicknames. By last September, when I topped out at 216 and my dog chewed a hole in the one pair of pants I could fit into, I was truly desperate. Then I managed an approach of feast and famine that I call the Set-Point-Lowering Diet. I told my 14-year-old, who has joined me in this diet, that it's the easiest diet I have ever followed. She said, "No, Mom, the Peanut Cluster Diet was." Well, with that diet, I gained 10 pounds. With this one, I've lost 15, and I think I'll continue to lose because it is so easy.

For all weekends and an accumulation of two weekdays per month, I can eat whatever I want.

For all other days, I limit my eating to no sweets, no snacks and no seconds.

My diets are based on a lifestyle change that means constant deprivation and a caloric deficit that ends with going off the diet and regaining the weight. . . . It took me 35 years to figure out how to lose weight without feeling like I'm starving.

Krisipuu wrote:

My big problem has been eating after 11 p.m. (I'm a night owl.)

Maybe it's my body at 62, but I've discovered that if I don't eat after 9 or 10 p.m., I don't have much of an appetite the next day.

For me, diet success leads to more diet success, so I figure as long as I avoid late-night noshing, I'll lose my extra 55 pounds eventually, agony-free.

Heads Up for Safety

Natasha Richardson's untimely death following what appeared to be a minor ski accident has got people talking -- again -- about helmets, whether skiers and snowboarders should be required to wear them, and whether a helmet would have prevented Richardson's death.

Apparently the use of helmets has risen dramatically since the widely publicized ski-accident deaths of Sonny Bono and Michael Kennedy in 1998. But it's not clear whether that has resulted in fewer head injuries or deaths.

The closest thing to a consensus I can piece together is this: Kids and adults alike should probably wear ski helmets. But they aren't likely to help much in high-speed accidents; they are actually most useful in slow-speed situations. In any case, skiers wearing helmets shouldn't view that protection as a license to take stupid risks: When skiing with a helmet, experts advise, behave as if you weren't wearing one.

-- Jennifer Huget

tonibark wrote:

As a physician and ex-ski instructor, I recommend that everyone wear a helmet while engaged in any sport where one can fall onto a hard surface, or can fall while moving at speeds of 5 mph or more. Necks can still be broken, and brains can still bleed from the motion of the brain inside the skull. However, some major risks are reduced. I grew up in a time where we raced on ice sans helmet, we also didn't wear seat belts in cars. Those of us who lived through this without losing our frontal lobes should count our blessings!

chirashir1 wrote:

I wonder if a ski helmet would have helped. If, as reported, she fell during a lesson in soft snow on a beginner slope (no collision), I find it rather more likely that the fall itself was the result of an initial minor stroke that was followed quickly by the fatal hematoma. Millions of people fall on the slopes without helmets, and serious head injuries are generally associated only with collisions.

UnixWizard wrote:

You should ALWAYS wear a helmet! You might trip and fall while walking. Or slip in the shower!