Tips And Recommendations For Dieters

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Tips And Recommendations For Dieters

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/82096.php

After the summer holidays, miracle-diet adherents stick to their

diets to lose the weight gained in the last months in record time.

Gyms also become overcrowded with people making a final sprint of

sacrifice whose results do not exactly match previous expectations

and with few benefits for health.

In the field of nutrition, miracles do not exist: in the same way we

gain weight as years pass by, weight loss should be equally

progressive, states Professor Emilio ez de Munoz,

Head of the Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology Centro

Mediterraneo at the University of Granada (Universidad de Granada)

in Spain.

Energy balance

It becomes clear that the energy needed by the body to carry out its

functions comes essentially from food. Nevertheless, a whole range

of hormonal and nervous mechanisms take part in body weight

regulation, which makes such process a bit more complex.

When the amount of consumed calories is similar to that of calories

used during the day, the energy balance is kept stable and,

therefore, weight is kept constant. However, when consumed calories

exceed used calories this balance is disturbed and weight is gained,

as excess calories are stored as fat in the body. As an example,

Professor Martínez de points out that an energetically-

balanced girl who is given a chocolate cookie a day for four years

will gain 20 lbs (approximately 9 kg) in that time.

Easy lost, easy back

The researcher affirms that miracle diets are useless to get a

stable negative energy balance. There are no scientific foundations

behind the vast majority of these diets and they usually restrict

consumption of certain food groups, which entails nutrient

deficiency whose consequences are serious health problems. In

addition to this, miracle diets only help to lose weight in the form

of glycogen and water -- not fat -- that being the reason why

rapidly lost pounds are immediately recovered.

Among those panacea diets, and absolutely ignoring all medical

recommendations on what a healthy diet should be like, consumers

will come across the South Beach diet, a revolutionary plan that

allows you to eat as much as you wish while assuring that to lose

weight you will have to undergo a two-week purifying period based

upon the elimination of sugar and simple carbohydrates. Atkins

nutritional method is another example: with this diet you can eat

unlimited amounts of fats -- such as butter -- as well as of meat,

fish, eggs and dairy products, whilst restricting vegetables and

fruit. These are only two of the endless list of miracle diets, in

which the Artichoke diet or the Blood Type diet also occupy leading

positions.

Keeping weight under control

Prof. Martínez de insists that the best way to control body

weight is to combine a limited food intake with regular physical

exercise. In this sense, he states that with a 500 to 700 calorie

deficit, depending on body weight, age and physical exercise, a

person can gradually lose 6.5 lbs a month, with the guarantee of not

recovering double the weight they lost in half the time they lost

it.

In the same way, this researcher stresses the fact that a high-fibre

diet helps control obesity, as fibre-rich foods facilitate a lower

intake because their mastication time is longer and, due to their

volume, produce the filling sensation more quickly. Furthermore,

fibre speeds intestinal transit time while slowing food absorption.

All these data have been recently presented in the University of

Granada's summer course Healthy Food and Physical Activity

(Alimentación Saludable y Actividad Física), organised by the UGR's

Centro Mediterraneo.