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Why losing the last 5lbs can be difficult

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From MSNBC.com:

Vegetables are a good substitution for other foods. They're filling and full of fiber and nutrition, but have relatively few calories. "It’s important for people to feel full and satisfied and vegetables can accomplish that," says Taub-Dix.

Some good tips in the article, especially about not changing your healthy practices when you goal comes into view. One of the nice things about the article is that it doesn't suggest fad diets or necessarily focus on "weight loss" but about how to healthily achieve your weight goals and offer up some good suggestions.

We have found vegetables, as they mention, to be very filling as well as tasting great :) And space consumed by veggies... is space where cheesecake cannot fill!

One thing they don't mention, though, is that it is important not to be obsessed with a number, but looking holistically at your health. Losing weight at any cost, even if it means muscle, isn't a good approach to health! Weight is just one barometer of good health.

Comments

Submitted by Tammy on Sun, 2007-01-28 00:39.
Tammy's picture

The last 5lbs...

Interesting article; thanks for posting about it (since you read the news and I don't!). :)

I just had to smile at this, though: And space consumed by veggies... is space where cheesecake cannot fill!

Should I mention that there's a new cheesecake chilling on our enclosed porch right now? ;)

Submitted by Finvola on Sun, 2007-02-04 13:56.
Finvola's picture

yo-yo weight loss/gain

I've recently been learning, somewhat through my own experience, and from my father's dietician, that many people who "diet" think that vegetables and salad are the way to go...they're healthy, and full of nutrients and you really DO lose the weight. HOWEVER, vegetables contain fewer calories than meats and whole grains and sometimes we go overboard, or should I say, underboard? When we eat too few calories, our bodies then go into starvation mode...causing us to not lose any more weight and in fact, sometimes to actually GAIN, in spite of all we're doing to eat "healthy". Then when we begin to eat foods higher in calories, our bodies respond by "soaking up" everything that we eat and the pounds come right back, faster and often even more of them than we started out with.

I'm amazed at how our bodies are created to preserve themselves in this way. It's just rather confusing to try to diet when we don't understand how everything really works. :)

Submitted by Joshua on Sun, 2007-02-04 16:16.
Joshua's picture

Metabolism

Welcome to Tammy's Recipes, Finvola! You are right on. This is why reputable "diet" programs advocate "life style" changes and not abstract weight goals. If you starve your body, you will lose weight, but there are two big negatives. The first, you mention, is the your metabolism decreases. Which makes sense for a couple reasons, one being that your body is going into self-preservation mode.

The other reason leads into the second point: rapid weight loss almost always includes drastic atrophy of the muscles. Losing muscle is NOT the type of weight you want to reduce! And even worse, when you lose muscle you are destroying tissue that burns calories, even while 'resting'. People with more muscle mass burn more calories.

So any diet the cuts significant muscle mass (which is pretty much any diet that calls for quick weight reduction) is a long term loss in the larger battle of the bulge. You may see short term "gains" but in the long run you have made a healthy lifestyle that much harder.

This is why exercize is a pillar of any lifestyle and "diet" plan.

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