How to Lose Weight and Keep It Off

How to Lose Weight and Keep It Off
Adopting Healthier Habits
From Everyday Health

Calorie restriction and exercise help many people lose weight, but only for as long as they keep up the effort. And the same environmental and psychological factors that accounted for the weight gain in the first place can play a role in causing someone to stop exercising or start consuming too many calories. The difficulty in sustaining a diet and exercise routine is one of the main reasons that people who lose weight fail to keep it off. But the difference between long-term success and failure is the ability to make the changes in your diet and activity level permanent.

Certain strategies are useful for everyone who wants to lose weight, regardless of the main causes or severity of their obesity. Many of the following strategies seem like common sense, but they are easily overlooked. You’re most likely to follow them if you plan for them in advance.

Eat slowly
Chewing and swallowing your food at a leisurely pace can help you keep from overeating. Here’s why: It takes about 20 minutes for your brain to “tell” you when you feel full. Until then, you continue to feel hungry and want to eat. If you eat quickly, you’ll end up consuming more than you need to feel full. But eating slowly gives your brain the time it needs to signal that you’ve had enough.

Make changes gradually
Don’t expect to change your diet and activity level overnight. Instead of switching all at once to a low-calorie eating plan, try gradually decreasing the calories of your meals and snacks. For example, start by cutting out snacking or limiting yourself to certain snacks at certain times of day (such as a mid-morning banana or a late-afternoon apple). Also, gradually reduce the calorie content of particular foods. For example, if you’re used to drinking whole milk, first switch to milk with 2% fat; then, as you get used to the taste of less fat, go on to milk with 1% fat and finally to skim milk. Another strategy is to lower the calorie content of one meal at a time. In the first week, you might want to eat a low-calorie breakfast, but keep lunch and dinner the same as before. During the second week, you might reduce the calorie content of your lunch. Finally, you can begin eating low-calorie dinners.

Keep a record
Keeping a daily log of what you eat and what physical activities you engage in can help keep you motivated to stay with your diet and exercise plan. Looking over a week’s worth of entries can tell you how successful you’ve been and can help you identify areas where you need to improve.

Seek social support
You’ll find it easier to maintain behavioral changes if you have the support and encouragement of others. Social support can come in many forms and from various people. For starters, ask your family members to keep high-calorie foods out of the house, or at least to refrain from eating them in front of you. You might even try to enlist your family to eat the same meals you do. Exercise with someone else, or join a support group. The camaraderie can help keep your spirits up during the inevitable periods when you become discouraged with your progress.

Use a list when buying food
Stick to your grocery list, and steer clear of those aisles or areas with the kinds of calorie-dense foods that you need to avoid.

Out of sight, out of mind
At home, put the most tempting foods high up in the cupboard, at the very back of the fridge, or in other inconvenient spots. Replace the cookie jar and candy bowl with a fruit bowl. Never eat directly out of a large package; many small containers are better than a few large ones, because they provide convenient stopping points. And don’t put out too many different varieties of the same kind of food — you’ll be tempted to sample from each one and eat a lot more than if you were faced with fewer choices.

Don’t go all out when eating out
Eat a low-calorie snack before going out; you’re less likely to go off your diet if you’re feeling full when you get to the party or restaurant. Go elsewhere for after-dinner coffee so you are less tempted to segue right into dessert.

Make a plan for special occasions
Decide how much you’re going to eat before an event, and do your best to stick with that plan. Set some limits before you go to the movies or watch the Sunday afternoon football games. It’s so easy to mindlessly munch when you’re in front of a screen of any kind.

Be a copycat
When eating with a group of people, look around. Who’s eating the least? Who has the healthiest food on their plate? Model your eating habits on those people’s.

Find physical activities that you enjoy
For example, if you don’t like exercising outdoors on cold days, join a fitness club, or get an exercise bicycle and hand weights to use at home. If the problem is a time crunch, exercise in increments of 10 minutes whenever you have the time — before work, after work, or during your lunch hour.

Reduce stress
If you overeat when you are under stress, find a stress-reduction method that works for you: meditation, relaxation techniques, listening to music, exercising, or talking to a friend.

Easing Hand and Wrist Pain From Keyboard Use

Arthritis Eased With Light Exercise

Exercise might seem like the worst thing for stiff, aching joints. But it may be just what people with arthritis need.

If you’re using a computer keyboard for many hours every day, you’ve probably experienced hand and wrist soreness or pain. The Cleveland Clinic’s Hand and Upper Extremity Occupational Therapy Department offers this advice:

• Stretch and take breaks. Bend your fingers into a fist, then straighten them. Flex your wrists up and down. Do these stretches three to five times and repeat a couple of times a day. And every 20 minutes or so, take a few minutes away from the keyboard.
• Maintain good posture. Keep your wrists in a neutral position (not bent up or down) and elbows at a 90-degree angle. Keep your back straight and thighs parallel to the floor. Position your chair so your eyes are level with the top of the monitor.
• Keep your mouse next to and level with your keyboard. This will reduce the stress on your wrist that comes with moving your hand back and forth.
• Think ergonomic. Try using a large-key keyboard or one especially designed with a slight curve and a break in the middle. Other helpful options might include wrist pillows, an ergonomic mouse, and software programs that limit the need to click a mouse.

Adapted from the Arthritis Advisor

What Is the Glycemic Index?

According to Andrew Weil, M.D.

The glycemic index ranks carbohydrate foods on the basis of how they affect blood sugar (glucose). This is important for many people because eating a lot of foods that rank high on the glycemic index will produce spikes in blood sugar that can lead over time to loss of sensitivity to insulin, the hormone needed to allow blood sugar to enter cells for use as fuel. Insulin resistance is associated with obesity, high blood pressure, elevated blood fats, and an increased risk of type 2 diabetes.

Carbs are not bad, despite the claims of the late Dr. Robert C. Atkins and other proponents of low-carb diets. Rather, there are better and worse carbs, the difference having to do with the glycemic index. I recommend using the glycemic index as a guide to healthy carbohydrate consumption. In general, avoid frequent consumption and large servings of foods that rank high on this scale. There are several GI index lists on the Internet, but one of the most complete seems to be this one: http://www.mendosa.com/gilists.htm

To create a scale for comparison, pure glucose is ranked at 100. Foods that rank over 60 are considered high glycemic index carbs. In most indexes (there is some minor variation between lists) these include potatoes, refined white and wheat bread, raisins and other dried fruit, bananas, carrots and watermelon. Foods ranked “moderate” (between 45 and 60) include most types of pasta, bulgur, baked beans, yams, green peas, sweet potatoes, orange juice and blueberries. Low glycemic index foods (below 45) include beans, cruciferous vegetables, yogurt, grapefruit, apples and tomatoes.

When using the glycemic index as a guide to food choices, you also have to consider “glycemic load,” a measure of how many grams of carbohydrate a normal serving contains. For example, carrots rank high on the glycemic index, but the amount of carbohydrates you would actually consume in a normal serving is pretty low, only 6.2 grams. The low-carb folks tell people to avoid carrots (and beets), but this is not good advice. Unless you eat huge portions of them, those vegetables will not disturb your blood sugar very much, and they provide important phytonutrients.

To calculate glycemic load, multiply the number (in grams) of the carbs you would consume in a serving by the food’s ranking on the glycemic index. Although glycemic index rankings are written as whole numbers, they actually are percentages, so if the GI of a food is 71, treat this as 71% when you do the math. Foods with a low glycemic load rank from one to 10; those with medium load range from 11-19 and those with high glycemic load rank at 20 or above.

While the concept of glycemic load is helpful, doing calculations for everything you eat isn’t always practical. Instead, to make better, simpler choices about carbohydrates, reduce consumption of processed and refined foods (such as snack foods, white bread, sweetened drinks, and sugary desserts). Eat more sweet potatoes and fewer white potatoes, less bread (unless it’s really chewy and grainy), more whole grains and fewer products made with flour, more temperate fruits (especially berries, cherries, apples, and pears) and fewer tropical ones, and more beans.