Originally published August 15 2005
Make simple changes to see the pounds melt away
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A doctor shows how simply understanding the beneficial parts and bad parts of foods can aid dieters in losing weight.
Picture, if you will, four scales sitting on a counter in front of you.
The first scale has 1 ounce of protein (no fat marbleized within), the second has 1 ounce of carbohydrates (such as pasta noodles or table sugar), the third 1 ounce of fat and the fourth 1 ounce of alcohol.
Protein has 114 calories per ounce, carbohydrates the same at 114 calories per ounce, fat has 255 calories per ounce and alcohol has 199 calories.
Specifically, all factors being equal, people can lose weight by simply changing the type of foods they eat without having to change greatly the amount or bulk of food they consume.
For example, a 7-ounce potato (which contains no fat, protein or alcohol) that is baked in the oven and topped with 3 ounces of nonfat cottage cheese is approximately 275 calories.
In each case the quantity of food eaten was about the same, but the latter option is obviously the poorest choice.
Thus, when people ask me about losing weight, my first response is to ask them to aggressively look for and decrease fat (and alcohol) in their diet.
Although this approach usually accounts for only a few pounds lost over several weeks, it's an approach that does work without going hungry.
Please note that this approach can be a challenge if you dine out a lot -- simply because we live in a society where super-sizing is the rule, not the exception.
For starters, build up to about 20-30 minutes of walking or swimming each day.
This amount of exercise won't make a big dent in terms of weight loss but it will help a bit, as well as improve mood and self-efficacy.
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