Skipping Breakfast

In a new study published in the British Medical Journal, researchers report that breakfast may have no impact on weight loss at all. In the study, a team of researchers from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, analyzed 13 randomized controlled trials during the past 28 years. Of the trials, seven examined the effect of eating breakfast on weight change, and ten examined the effect on energy intake.

One of the arguments against skipping breakfast, weight-loss experts say, is that you will feel hungrier throughout the day and be more likely to overeat. The new study’s first finding was that people do not feel hungrier after skipping breakfast and do not overeat the rest of the day. The researchers’ second finding was that eating breakfast does not prevent overeating later in the day. The researchers also found that breakfast skippers weighed about a pound less on average compared to people who ate breakfast.

Funny Diet Thoughts

I bought a talking refrigerator that said “Oink” every time I opened the door. It made me hungry for pork chops.

Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie.

I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets, they are wonderful things for other people to go on.

My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. . . unless there are three other people.

Food is like sex: when you abstain, even the worst stuff begins to look good.

The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.

Soup is just a way of screwing you out of a meal.

Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon.

Life is too short for self-hatred and celery sticks.

Calorie Burning Food Myth Debunked

For many the day after a holiday brings guilt from holiday feasting, but do not fall into this myth trap. Myth: There is such a thing as "calorie-burning" foods.
If you have spent any amount of time researching diets on the web, you probably read articles about 'miracle foods' that are filled with negative calories and foods that have such a low caloric count that the stomach expends more calories digesting them than they contain. In addition to these negative-calorie foods, you can also find lists of other healthy foods that burn fat and some that magically target belly fat. Lately there are various diets which insist spicy foods will burn fat by magically heating up your metabolism. If all of this sounds too good to be true, it is.
There is no such thing as a diet that burns more calories than it provides. There are only diets that specifically cause you to lose weight through reduction in caloric intake. Food cannot reduce fat on its own.
Foods that are called negative calorie lean toward fruits or vegetables. Much of the weight loss you experience eating these foods is water weight, which returns when you start eating normally again.
The only reason you lose weight by eating these foods is that the diet plan they come with requires you to consume less calories. Those fat-burning supplements work on the same principle. You lose weight because you are starving yourself.

Bottom line, the only miracle performed by so-called 'miracle foods' is that they allow you to trick yourself into believing it is the food, not the reduction in calories.

Calories are Calories

A few years ago, for a class project of 10 weeks, Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate sugary foods for his meals. To add variety in his stream of Hostess and Little Debbie snacks, he munched on Doritos chips, sugary cereals, Oreos, Twinkies, Nutty bars, and powdered donuts.

His daily intake included : Doritos Cool Ranch: 75 calories; 4 grams of fat,
Kellogg's Corn Pops: 220 calories; 0 grams of fat,
whole milk: 150 calories; 8 grams of fat,
baby carrots: 18 calories; 0 grams of fat,
Duncan Hines Family Style Brownie Chewy Fudge: 270 calories; 14 grams of fat,
Little Debbie Zebra Cake: 160 calories; 8 grams of fat,
Hostess Twinkies Golden Sponge Cake: 150 calories; 5 grams of fat,
Centrum Advanced Formula From A To Zinc vitamin: 0 calories; 0 grams of fat,
Little Debbie Star Crunch: 150 calories; 6 grams of fat,
Hostess Twinkies Golden Sponge Cake: 150 calories; 5 grams of fat, and
Diet Mountain Dew: 0 calories; 0 grams of fat.

His premise was, "In weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most - not the nutritional value of the food." (Not the best for lifelong intake, but an easy diet.)

A man of Haub's pre-dieting size usually consumes about 2,600 calories daily. So he followed a basic principle of weight loss and consumed less than 1,800 calories a day.

The result - Haub's 'bad' cholesterol, or LDL, dropped 20 percent and his 'good' cholesterol, or HDL, increased by 20 percent. He reduced the level of triglycerides, which are a form of fat, by 39 percent. In addition, the premise held up as he dropped 27 pounds during the course of his diet.

Gluten Fad and Facts

As with most fads, gluten has way too many headlines and gluten free diets are popular, without much knowledge of what it is or why we should or should not eat gluten. In fact, the majority of Americans do not know which foods contain gluten.

Gluten is a protein composite found in foods processed from wheat and related grain species, including barley and rye. Gluten gives elasticity to dough, helping it rise and keep its shape and often gives the final product a chewy texture. Worldwide, gluten is a source of protein, both in foods prepared directly from sources containing it, and as an additive to foods otherwise low in protein.

Gluten, especially wheat gluten, is often the basis for imitation meats resembling beef, chicken, duck, fish, and pork. When cooked in broth, gluten absorbs some of the surrounding liquid and becomes firm to the bite. Gluten is often present in beer, soy sauce, some chocolates, and deli meats. It can be used as a stabilizing agent in more unexpected food products, such as ice cream and ketchup.

Experts estimate that about .75% to 1% of Americans have celiac disease. The condition, caused by an abnormal immune response to gluten, can damage the lining of the small intestine. For people with celiac disease, a gluten-free diet is essential, but for others, "unless people are very careful, a gluten-free diet can lack vitamins, minerals, and fiber," according to the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University. Many whole grains that contain gluten are rich in an array of vitamins and minerals, such as B vitamins and iron, as well as fiber. Studies show that whole grain foods, as part of a healthy diet, may help lower risk of heart disease, type-2 diabetes, and some forms of cancer. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends that half of all carbohydrates in the diet come from whole grain products.

Gluten sensitivity is classified as intolerance, not an allergy.

Gluten does not make you fat and cutting gluten will not help you lose weight. Gluten-free does not mean fat-free or calorie-free. “Gluten does not make you fat,” according to the Cleveland Clinic. “Calories make you fat regardless of where those calories are coming from, whether they are coming from brown rice, which is gluten-free or a wheat bagel.” If you eat more calories in a day than you use, the extra calories will be stored as fat.

Some gluten-free foods contain extra sugar and/or calories to make them more palatable and make up for the loss of the gluten.

You can eat a clean diet that includes gluten or a clean diet that does not.

French fries are gluten-free and vegetarian.

There is nothing unhealthy about gluten. Gluten alone doesn't have many health benefits, but foods that contain gluten, like whole grains, tend to be higher in fiber and contain vitamin B, zinc, and iron. As a result, cutting gluten could actually result in nutritional deficiencies.

Gluten does not cause cancer. There is no connection between gluten and risk of most cancers. The exception is an increased risk of intestinal cancer for only those who have celiac disease, or true gluten intolerance. The Mayo Clinic lists cancer as a complication of celiac disease (not gluten). People with celiac disease who do not maintain a gluten-free diet have a greater risk of developing several forms of cancer, including intestinal lymphoma and small bowel cancer.

Numerous observational studies show that the more whole grains a person eats, including the gluten-containing grains (wheat, rye, barley), the lower risk of most cancers. This is true for some of the most common types of cancer, such as breast, prostate, and colon cancers, as well as for less common cancers, such as cancer of the pancreas. Whole grains contain fiber, which can stabilize blood sugar and hormone level.

How to Stay Young

It need not take a lot of effort. John Morley, M.D., director of the division of geriatric medicine at Saint Louis University outlines a ten-step program to improve quality of life as we age.

He suggests little changes that involve good eating, such as including dark chocolate in your diet, drinking wine, socializing, adding simple exercises, fidgeting in your office chair to burn calories, spending time walking from your car to the store rather than driving to find a close parking space, working in your garden, taking the stairs instead of the elevator or going dancing once a week. I  already socialize, drink wine, and eat chocolate, but need to practice fidgeting a bit more.

Holidays and Weight Gain

Postprandial weight gain is especially troublesome during the holidays. In the immediate short term any food and drink that you put into your body will make you exactly that much heavier. Eat a pound of chocolate and you add one pound to your mass, until your body starts to excrete the food or use it for energy.

That gain begins to decrease almost as soon as it begins. The time it takes for food to pass through the digestive tract varies widely. Overall, the journey of a meal takes between 20 and 56 hours. Once it is metabolized and excreted, only excess calories converted to fat remain. If you ate a very salty meal, you tend to retain water, and a greater proportion of the weight temporarily remains. How much remains long term depends on the energy content of the food consumed as excess calories are converted into fat to be used for energy in the future.

In a recent study, a team of Israeli scientists tested different diets on almost 200 obese adults. One group consumed a greater proportion of their calories at breakfast and lost significantly more weight, on average, than the others in the study.

The bottom line is, the net weight gain associated with any one meal will be very small. However, a prolonged series of excess eating can accumulate to have a significant, long-term effect. A few overindulgent meals for the holidays are not a problem, the problem is the three overindulgent meals a day over a long period of time. Just as it takes time to reduce weight, it takes time to gain lasting weight, so enjoy the Holidays.

Money Diet

A few years ago, baseball pitcher Curt Schilling started to get a bit pudgy. When the Boston Red Sox re-signed him to a one-year deal with $8 million before the 2008 season, it included a clause in which Schilling could pick up an extra $2 million if he made weight at six random weigh-ins over the course of the season.

Schilling picked up a $333,333 check each time he didn’t tip the scales too far.