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If you have been trying to lose weight for a long time, you may have come across the Cabbage Soup Diet. This easy to follow diet is a radical weight loss diet which claims that the more low-calorie cabbage soup you take over a period of 7 days, the more weight you will lose. In fact, this diet claims that you will see drastic weight loss of about 10 pounds within 7 days.

As this diet is designed for short-term weight loss and requires no long-term commitment, it is little wonder that it has become one of the most popular diet around. Another reason for its popularity is that with cabbage, which has negligible calorie, as the main ingredient of this fat burning soup, you need not worry about spending too much money on it or gaining weight.

So Does This Diet Work? This do-it-yourself diet claims that you can lose up to 10 pounds within a week. While that may be true, nutritional experts have pointed out that the weight loss is mainly due to water loss and not fat. They noted that it is quite impossible to lose that much fat within a week. Another point to note is that the loss of weight from this diet is temporary and hence you will probably gain back your weight soon after that.

Another point to note is that the original Cabbage Soup Diet tastes bland, hence many recipes for this diet has high salt content to make it palatable. For people who are not able to take such high sodium content, they should stay away from this diet. Dieters should should realise that there is practically no protein from this diet. As a result, people have reported feeling weak and light-headed during the course of the diet. One common reported side effect that result from the diet is flatulence. Hence, you should be prepared should you take up this diet. Of course, it is always advisable for you to consult your doctor before following this diet.

The fact is that Cabbage Soup Diet, although is a low-fat and high-fiber diet, is not a nutritionally balanced plan nor can it bring about permanent weight loss. With the emphasis on cabbage as a main ingredient, the diet lacks certain important vitamins and minerals. To follow this diet, you must also be prepared for the monotonous meals.

Personally I believe that this diet can be counter productive. Since the diet would force your body to go into slower metabolism, it would then encourage your body to hold on to your fat reserves. In the end, you may only be delaying your weight loss plan.

Discover the truth about fad diets at http://www.fatburnworks.com/Fad_Diet.html. Get FREE access to Fat Burning Secrets that can lead to permanent weight loss at http://www.fatburnworks.com.

Photo By OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

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Does Cabbage Soup Diet Help You To Loss Weight - Good Herald

There are so many diet plans available today that it could make your head spin trying to figure out which are the best diet plans to follow. Diet plans that promise quick weight loss or require you to avoid certain foods should be avoided like the plague.

When evaluating and choosing the best diet plans, look for those plans that include these four elements:

1. Avoiding food cravings 2. Avoiding hunger 3. Increased activity level 4. A plan you can live with for a lifetime not just a few weeks

Avoid Food Cravings Any diet plan that requires you to avoid certain foods will ultimately lead to food cravings and will be unsustainable in the long run. A craving is when you desire a certain food even when youre not hungry. When you finally cave into this desire you will likely overeat, and consequently pack on more weight.

Cravings are caused by your bodys needs for the six essential food ingredients: carbohydrates, fat, protein, vitamins, minerals, and water. When a diet plan requires you to strictly avoid one of these ingredients, your cravings will only increase because youre denying your body something it wants. The best diet plans will not only give you the flexibility to include all six ingredients in your diet, theyll require it.

Avoid Hunger Hunger is different than cravings in that your body desires not just one of the six ingredients, but all of them at the same time. In other words, it just wants food any food! If a diet plan causes you to be hungry all the time, you will inevitably overeat. To avoid this, the best diet plans will help you curb your appetite.

The best way to curb your appetite and avoid hunger is to keep your stomach full. The best diet plans will encourage you to eat 5-6 smaller meals throughout the day instead of 3 larger meals. Those meals should consist of fruits and vegetables, which have fiber, along with foods with protein and good fats. Each meal should be well-balanced and include as many of the six ingredients as possible.

Protein and fats are especially effective in suppressing appetite. The best diet plans will not require you to avoid fats. All fats are not the same. There are good and bad fats, and its the good fats that your body needs. The good fats are monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Keep your intake of saturated fats to a minimum.

Increase Activity Level You need to exercise to lose weight. When you exercise, you increase your metabolic rate, which is the rate at which you burn calories. You cannot achieve long term weight loss success without exercise. Any diet plan that claims you can lose weight simply by changing your diet alone or popping a weight loss pill should be avoided at all costs. The best diet plans will stress the importance of diet AND exercise. You need them both for sustained, long term weight loss.

A Plan You Can Live With For a Lifetime This is probably the most overlooked element by dieters as they look for the best diet plans, yet it is one of the most important elements. If you cannot live with a diet for life, you simply will not be able to keep the weight off over the long term. Its that simple. Talk to any elderly person who has managed to stay fit all their life and ask them what kind of diet theyve had over their lifetime. You can bet they will not say Atkins, Negative-Calorie, or some other short-term fad diet.

The best diet plans will encourage a balanced diet that includes all the six ingredients. Youve heard of the phrase, all things in moderation, and it especially holds true when it comes to a life-long diet. Those fad diets will work in the short term, but if your goal is to keep the weight off for good, then avoid them all together.

Looking for a diet plan you can live with for life? Check out some of the best diet plans at Travis Van Slootens site at http://www.mens-total-fitness.com

Photo By Unsplash from Pixabay

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Evaluating and Choosing the Best Diet Plans - Good Herald

May 30, 2017

Obesity, already a global epidemic, is on the rise. Over one third of the U.S. population is currently afflicted, according to the Centers for Disease Control and the monetary costs alone are approaching $150 billion dollars annually. Causes of the epidemic include changing diets and greater sedentism, though environmental factors may also contribute.

A new study compares the two most common surgical therapies for obesity, known as Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB), and laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding (LAGB). The results demonstrate that RYGBthe more aggressive of the two surgeries produces profound changes in the composition of microbial communities in the gut, with the resulting gut flora distinct from both obese and normal weigh patients. The results are likely due to the dramatic reorganization of the gut caused by RYGB surgery, which increases microbial diversity. The new research paves the way for new diagnostics and therapies for obesity. Microbial diversity in the human gut: The four images indicate the degree of microbial diversity in the gut in normal patients as well as in obese patients before and after undergoing two types of weight-loss surgery. The normal human gut has a high degree of microbial diversity, considered important for the maintenance of health. Obese patients have lost much of this diversity and while laparascopic band surgery effectively leads to weight loss, the low microbial diversity condition remains. By contrast, gastric bypass surgery results in the restoration of microbial diversity in the gut, though the composition of microbes is distinct from both normal weight and obese patients. Graphic by Jason Drees for the Biodesign Institute Download Full Image

The gamut of adverse health effects associated with obesity is broad, including such devastating illnesses as type 2 diabetes, coronary artery disease, stroke and certain forms of cancer. Patients often suffer loss of mobility, social isolation and inability to work. Currently bariatric surgery is the most effective treatment for morbid obesity, in terms of significant and sustained weight loss.

In the new study, appearing in the current issue of the Nature Publishing Group journal International Society for Microbial Ecology (ISME), Zehra Esra Ilhan, Rosa Krajmalnik Brown and their colleagues at the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State Univesity, along with researchers from Mayo Clinic, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, explore microbial communities in the human gut following RYBG and LAGB surgeries.

The results confirmed theirearlier researchwith a smaller sample size, showing that in the case of the more aggressive and irreversible RYGB surgery, microbial communities underwent a profound and permanent shift following weight loss. The resulting post-surgical composition of gut microbes observed for RYGB patients was distinct from both normal weight and obese patients, and displayed the high microbial diversity associated with a healthy gut.

The current study also applied the technique of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to examine the metabolome a composite of the metabolites produced by the various microbes in the gut, again noting significant alterations as a result of the RYGB procedure. In the case of the alternate treatment, LAGB, changes in the gut microbiota were mild and accompanying weight loss was less pronounced.

This is one of the first studies to show that anatomically different surgeries with different success rates have different microbiome and microbiome-related outcomes, noted Ilhan, lead author of the new paper. Further, the results indicate that correction of obesity tends to improve related metabolic conditions, including diabetes and high cholesterol.

One of the key findings of the paper confirms what we had already observed inearlier research. RYGP gastric bypass had a huge effect on the microbial community structure, Krajmalnik-Brown said. This fact may have profound implications for both the understanding and management of obesity.

The millions of bacterial microbes in the human gut perform a vast range of critical functions in the body and have even been implicated in mood and behavior. Among their critical responsibilities are the micro-management of nutrients in the food we digest, hence their central place in the regulation of body weight.

A tell-tale indicator of pathology in obese patients has been found in the gut, where a markedly lower diversity of microbial communities is observed. As Krajmalnik-Brown explains, diversity of gut microbes is essential to good health. Diversity is good because of what we call functional redundancy, she said. If you have 10 workers that can do the same job, when one of them gets sick, the job still gets done.

Low microbial diversity in the gut, by contrast, is associated not only with obesity but a range of ailments including inflammatory bowel disease, ulcerative colitis and autism. (Earlier research by Krajmalnik-Brown and her colleagues demonstrated diminished diversity in thegut microbiome of autistic childrenand in a more recent study, improvement in the symptoms of autism was demonstrated followingtransplantation of beneficial microbes.)

Competition in diverse microbial networks in the gut helps provide a system of checks and balances. Should diversity fall, a delicate democracy can be shattered and tyranny may prevail, as populations of microbes like Salmonella or Clostridium difficile usually subsisting at low levels in the gut expand and take over.

The study sought to explore long term changes in the gut in patients who had undergone either of the two surgeries at least 9 months prior, comparing them with normal weight and pre-bariatric obese patients. While the reasons for the sharp disparity of results between RYGB and gastric banding are not entirely clear, the results indicate that simply reducing the size of the stomach through gastric banding is not sufficient to induce the large changes in microbial communities observed for the RYGB group.

One hypothesis the authors put forward is that RYGB alters the physiology of the gut to such a degree that microbes formerly unable to survive conditions in the obese gut are able to flourish in their surgically-modified surroundings.

One of the things we observe from the literature is that the oral microbiome community composition is very similar to the colon microbiome composition after bariatric surgery, Ilhan said. Youre giving new microbes a chance to make it. Most of the species are acid sensitive, which supports the idea that changes in stomach pH levels may permit these microbes to survive and make it to the colon.

According to John DiBaise, a gastroenterologist at Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale and co-author of the new study, These new data on microbial community structure and function significantly expand our knowledge on how the microbiome is associated with weight loss following bariatric surgery.

While it seems clear that RYGB surgery produced permanent changes in bacterial communities in the gut, the resulting microbial community may also act to help maintain weight loss over the long term. Experiments have shown that transplantation of beneficial microbes from mice that have undergone RYGB surgery into obese mice induces dramatic weight loss. While these results have yet to be replicated in humans, the findings open the door to the eventual use of healthy microbial communities to treat obesity.

Although the RYGB surgery has been quite successful for many patients suffering from morbid obesity, it is a serious, invasive procedure that is not without risks. Further, some patients are not successful and regain the weight they have lost post-surgery, perhaps because they lack the favorable microbes necessary for permanent weight loss.

As Ilhan said, a probiotic that would replace surgery would be great. Another positive outcome would be if we can find a microbial biomarker that will identify the best candidates for surgery and sustained weight loss.

Read more from the original source:
Study shows dramatic shift in gut microbes, their metabolites after weight loss surgery - Arizona State University

Prevention.com

5 Easy Recipes For Your Perfect Day Of Weight Loss Prevention.com When you're starving or following a long list of wacky guidelines that don't allow you to enjoy real food in the real world, it's incredibly difficult to stick with it long-termwhich is why most people throw in the towel after a few days, and quickly ...

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5 Easy Recipes For Your Perfect Day Of Weight Loss - Prevention.com

Search for diet for weight loss on the internet, and within a fraction of a second, you have more than a million diet plans floating in front of you. It is easy, it is simple, and it gives you all kinds of low calorie, and several other types of weight loss plans. Many of these fasting diets have increased in popularity, with the 5:2 Diet Basics being one of the most read diet books in recent times.

Have you though about the diet plan which applies to you, or which plan suits your body needs the most?

Well, there is no straightforward answer. Selection of the perfect fasting diet for your weight loss goal may need some deliberation.

Here are four things you should know before you ride the diet wave:

Weight loss can be a goal for some, but once you have achieved the goal, your mission does not end there. Instead, now you will need to maintain your weight. Fasting, on the one hand, may work in short run. However, without proper planning and developing the right food habits, fasting can be more dangerous.

Risks like aloss in blood pressure, muscle mass, feeling of coldness, and the greatest among them is the craving for food after fasting. Many people, trying to lose weight through fasting, end up gaining more weight eventually.

Fasting without a proper diet plan and right motivation could just be a superficial solution for your weight loss goal.

While it may not be something we consciously do, all of us go through periods without any food and beverage consumption. Sleep is the most common form of fast and this is also how the term breakfast came about.

Breakfast being the first meal of the day is perhaps the most important meal. A good breakfast will energize you for the day and help you maintain focus at work. A well-balanced breakfast will replenish you blood sugar levels (which are at the lowest when you wake up after sleep induced fast) to the extent it is needed by your brain and muscles to function at their best.

Skipping breakfast leaves your body deprived of calories, and increases hunger inducing chemicals to run riot (food cravings). Starting your day without a well-balanced breakfast increases the chance that you will end up eating a lot more through the day than you intend to, and gain weight rather than losing it.

There are many types of fasting diets, which are becoming popular nowadays:

You can choose to adopt any of these methods. However, it is important to figure out which one works best for you. Understand that a long-term plan should be the one that you can continue for a long time, without feeling oppressed by it.

Since dieting is a long-term goal as well, why not select the method that you can work with for a long time.

Starting a fasting diet plan is easy, the hard part is to stick to it, especially when it affects your health. For a healthy fasting diet, you need to ensure that you follow the FAST formula:

F Fluids: Always ensure youre well hydrated

A Always listen to your body

S Supplement any diet plans with a holistic weight-loss approach that includes exercise and rest.

T Trial any diet you plan to embark on, and gradually progress to a full programme

Any new diet plan breaks the ongoing routine of your body, and fasting can be even more disruptive. It is important that you can implement your fasting diet plan without affecting your daily routine and work. For that, you will need to figure out which plan works for you.

Continue the diet plan which you enjoy or, at least, can implement most smoothly, all the while maintaining your health with FAST formula.

Fasting diet has been gaining popularity as one of the easiest to implement (no diet plan required, no searching for right food items every time you shop for groceries). Though fasting helps you control weight fast, it loses its value if you quickly gain weight after you stop this diet. Therefore, it has to become your diet plan for life and not just a few months or weeks.

Start your workday the right way with the news that matters most.

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4 Things You Need to Know About Fasting Diets - HuffPost

By: Dr. Joel Fuhrman - Updated: 1 hour ago

VALLEY Regaining the weight after losing it on a diet is much more common than keeping the weight off. Often dieters gain back more than they lost, and its a common experience to have an even harder time losing weight the next time. Weight cycling is the term for these repeating episodes of intentional weight loss followed by unintentional regain, also often called yo-yo dieting. One of the most important messages about weight loss is this: change your diet, lose the weight and keep your new, healthier way of eating forever.

The human body responds to weight loss the same way it would respond to starvation by conserving energy. The brain uses information about calorie intake and the bodys amount of stored energy to determine whether to release appetite-enhancing or appetite-suppressing hormones. One way the body adapts to weight loss is by altering the production of appetite-regulating hormones such as ghrelin and leptin, favoring weight regain by increasing appetite and promoting fat storage. Another way is by decreasing resting calorie expenditure.

These compensatory systems make going back to ones old unhealthy diet even more weight gain-promoting. The highly palatable low nutrient foods, which stimulate cravings via the brains reward system, are even more dangerous for someone whose calorie expenditure has fallen. Also, when you lose weight, some loss of muscle is unavoidable, and strength exercise helps to limit muscle loss. However, when you gain weight back after dieting, that weight is fat, potentially leaving you with a greater body fat percentage than before.

Studies have linked weight cycling to a greater risk of diabetes, hypertension, gallbladder stones, and shorter telomere length (shorter telomeres indicate more rapid aging). Weight cycling women were also found to have a greater waist circumference, and seem to gain more weight over time than non-cyclers who start off at the same BMI.

The bottom line is that making changes to your diet to improve your health and your weight need to be permanent changes, not temporary changes.

Why is gaining back body fat harmful? Adipose (fat) tissue is more than a vessel for storing excess energy. In addition to storing fat, adipose tissue acts as an endocrine organ: it contains macrophages (a type of white blood cell) in addition to adipocytes (fat cells); it produces and secretes compounds that affect the function of other types of cells. Obesity is accompanied by inflammation. Adipose releases compounds that can lead to negative consequences such as insulin resistance, higher triglycerides, and reduced immune function, and even growth promoters that can increase risk of cancer. As fat tissue grows, more of these pro-inflammatory compounds are produced, leading to chronic inflammation, which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer.

The key to losing weight and keeping it off forever is changing your diet forever. Stay away from extreme fad diets; they are not sustainable long-term. About 80 percent of dieters are unable to keep 10 percent of their original body weight off for more than one year. Feeling deprived and going back to your old diet is almost inevitable. However, if you use high-nutrient foods to resolve toxic hunger and achieve greater meal satisfaction with a smaller number of calories, it will be much easier to stick with your new way of eating and prevent future weight regain.

A study published in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine analyzed and reported weight loss results provided by 75 obese patients who had switched to the high-nutrient (Nutritiarian) diet I advocate. The average weight loss was 55 pounds, and overall their was no significant weight regain after three years. Compare these results to most weight loss intervention studies, which report average losses of only 6-13 pounds maintained after two years. One reason for the remarkable effects on permanent weight reduction with a Nutritarian diet is that the users are more fully educated regarding the long-term health and longevity benefits and it is adopted not merely for its weight loss benefits. Additionally, it has been demonstrated that this nutrient dense, plant-rich diet can suppress appetite and resolve food cravings and food addictions.14

My book The End of Dieting explains exactly how to break out of the cycle of physical and emotional addiction and overeating how to keep the weight off permanently.

Dr. Fuhrman is a #1 New York Times best-selling author and a board certified family physician specializing in lifestyle and nutritional medicine. The Eat To Live Cookbook offers over 200 unique disease-fighting delicious recipes and his newest book, The End of Heart Disease, offers a detailed plan to prevent and reverse heart disease using a nutrient-dense, plant-rich eating style. Visit his informative website at DrFuhrman.com. Submit your questions and comments about this column directly to [emailprotected]

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Why regaining lost weight is dangerous - Valley Courier

May 26, 2017 The four images indicate the degree of microbial diversity in the gut in normal patients as well as in obese patients before and after undergoing two types of weight-loss surgery.The normal human gut has a high degree of microbial diversity, considered important for the maintenance of health. Obese patients have lost much of this diversity and while laparascopic band surgery effectively leads to weight loss, the low microbial diversity condition remains.By contrast, gastric bypass surgery results in the restoration of microbial diversity in the gut, though the composition of microbes is distinct from both normal weight and obese patients. Credit: Jason Drees for the Biodesign Institute

Obesity, already a global epidemic, is on the rise. Over one third of the U.S. population is currently afflicted, according to the Centers for Disease Control and the monetary costs alone are approaching $150 billion dollars annually. Causes of the epidemic include changing diets and greater sedentism, though environmental factors may also contribute.

A new study compares the two most common surgical therapies for obesity, known as Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB), and laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding (LAGB). The results demonstrate that RYGBthe more aggressive of the two surgeries produces profound changes in the composition of microbial communities in the gut, with the resulting gut flora distinct from both obese and normal weight patients. The results are likely due to the dramatic reorganization of the gut caused by RYGB surgery, which increases microbial diversity. The new research paves the way for new diagnostics and therapies for obesity.

The gamut of adverse health effects associated with obesity is broad, including such devastating illnesses as type 2 diabetes, coronary artery disease, stroke and certain forms of cancer. Patients often suffer loss of mobility, social isolation and inability to work. Currently bariatric surgery is the most effective treatment for morbid obesity, in terms of significant and sustained weight loss.

In the new study, appearing in the current issue of the Nature Publishing Group journal International Society for Microbial Ecology (ISME), Zehra Esra Ilhan, Rosa Krajmalnik Brown and their colleagues at the Biodesign Institute at ASU, along with researchers from Mayo Clinic, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, explore microbial communities in the human gut following RYBG and LAGB surgeries.

The results confirmed their earlier research with a smaller sample size, showing that in the case of the more aggressive and irreversible RYGB surgery, microbial communities underwent a profound and permanent shift following weight loss. The resulting post-surgical composition of gut microbes observed for RYGB patients was distinct from both normal weight and obese patients, and displayed the high microbial diversity associated with a healthy gut.

The current study also applied the technique of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to examine the metabolomea composite of the metabolites produced by the various microbes in the gut, again noting significant alterations as a result of the RYGB procedure. In the case of the alternate treatment, LAGB, changes in the gut microbiota were mild and accompanying weight loss was less pronounced.

"This is one of the first studies to show that anatomically different surgeries with different success rates have different microbiome and microbiome-related outcomes," notes Ilhan, lead author of the new paper. Further, the results indicate that correction of obesity tends to improve related metabolic conditions, including diabetes and high cholesterol.

"One of the key findings of the paper confirms what we had already observed in earlier research. RYGP gastric bypass had a huge effect on the microbial community structure," Krajmalnik-Brown says. This fact may have profound implications for both the understanding and management of obesity.

The body's personal assistants

The millions of bacterial microbes in the human gut perform a vast range of critical functions in the body and have even been implicated in mood and behavior. Among their critical responsibilities are the micro-management of nutrients in the food we digest, hence their central place in the regulation of body weight.

A tell-tale indicator of pathology in obese patients has been found in the gut, where a markedly lower diversity of microbial communities is observed. As Krajmalnik-Brown explains, diversity of gut microbes is essential to good health. "Diversity is good because of what we call functional redundancy," she says. "If you have 10 workers that can do the same job, when one of them gets sick, the job still gets done."

Low microbial diversity in the gut, by contrast, is associated not only with obesity but a range of ailments including inflammatory bowel disease, ulcerative colitis and autism. (Earlier research by Krajmalnik-Brown and her colleagues demonstrated diminished diversity in the gut microbiome of autistic children and in a more recent study, improvement in the symptoms of autism was demonstrated following transplantation of beneficial microbes.)

Competition in diverse microbial networks in the gut helps provide a system of checks and balances. Should diversity fall, a delicate democracy can be shattered and tyranny may prevail, as populations of microbes like Salmonella or Clostridium difficileusually subsisting at low levels in the gut expand and take over.

The study sought to explore long-term changes in the gut in patients who had undergone either of the two surgeries at least 9 months prior, comparing them with normal weight and pre-bariatric obese patients. While the reasons for the sharp disparity of results between RYGB and gastric banding are not entirely clear, the results indicate that simply reducing the size of the stomach through gastric banding is not sufficient to induce the large changes in microbial communities observed for the RYGB group.

Operation weight loss

One hypothesis the authors put forward is that RYGB alters the physiology of the gut to such a degree that microbes formerly unable to survive conditions in the obese gut are able to flourish in their surgically-modified surroundings. "One of the things we observe from the literature is that the oral microbiome community composition is very similar to the colon microbiome composition after bariatric surgery," Ilhan says. "You're giving new microbes a chance to make it. Most of the species are acid sensitive, which supports the idea that changes in stomach pH levels may permit these microbes to survive and make it to the colon."

According to John DiBaise, a gastroenterologist at Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale and co-author of the new study, "These new data on microbial community structure and function significantly expand our knowledge on how the microbiome is associated with weight loss following bariatric surgery."

While it seems clear that RYGB surgery produced permanent changes in bacterial communities in the gut, the resulting microbial community may also act to help maintain weight loss over the long term. Experiments have shown that transplantation of beneficial microbes from mice that have undergone RYGB surgery into obese mice induces dramatic weight loss. While these results have yet to be replicated in humans, the findings open the door to the eventual use of healthy microbial communities to treat obesity.

Weighing future research

Although the RYGB surgery has been quite successful for many patients suffering from morbid obesity, it is a serious, invasive procedure that is not without risks. Further, some patients are not successful and regain the weight they have lost post-surgery, perhaps because they lack the favorable microbes necessary for permanent weight loss. As Ilhan says, "a probiotic that would replace surgery would be great. Another positive outcome would be if we can find a microbial biomarker that will identify the best candidates for surgery and sustained weight loss."

Explore further: Metabolic benefit same with similar weight loss after surgery

More information: Distinctive microbiomes and metabolites linked with weight loss after gastric bypass, but not gastric banding, International Society for Microbial Ecology, 2017

(HealthDay)Early metabolic differences following laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding (LAGB) and Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) in obese individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) disappear when weight loss reaches ...

One in five patients who undergo one of the most popular weight-loss surgical procedures is likely to develop problems with alcohol, with symptoms sometimes not appearing until years after their surgery, according to one ...

Obese patients who underwent Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) lost much more weight than those who did not and were able to sustain most of this weight loss 10 years after surgery, according to a study published online by ...

(HealthDay)For obese patients without diabetes, bariatric surgery improves insulin sensitivity (IS), with more pronounced improvements for Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) than for laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding ...

(HealthDay)Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery (RYGB) strongly predicts insulin cessation after surgery in insulin-treated type 2 diabetes (I-T2D) patients, independent of weight loss, according to a study published online ...

Among obese participants with type 2 diabetes mellitus, bariatric surgery with 2 years of a low-level lifestyle intervention resulted in more disease remission than did lifestyle intervention alone, according to a study published ...

Changing the natural electrical signaling that exists in cells outside the nervous system can improve resistance to life-threatening bacterial infections, according to new research from Tufts University biologists. The researchers ...

Obesity, already a global epidemic, is on the rise. Over one third of the U.S. population is currently afflicted, according to the Centers for Disease Control and the monetary costs alone are approaching $150 billion dollars ...

(Medical Xpress)A team of researchers with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York has found that giving a certain antibody to menopausal mice resulted in less weight gain and reduced bone loss. In their ...

A new study has uncovered a molecular mechanism in the prion protein, a protein responsible for neurodegenerative diseases, which may explain why nerve cells degenerate in these disorders.

(Medical Xpress)A European team of researchers working at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet has found evidence that suggests that humans have an olfactory defense against contagious diseases. In their paper published in Proceedings ...

A 12-month study mapping bacterial diversity within a hospitalwith a focus on the flow of microbes between patients, staff and surfacesshould help hospitals worldwide better understand how to encourage beneficial microbial ...

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Original post:
Dramatic shift in gut microbes and their metabolites seen after weight loss surgery - Medical Xpress

Like most people, Kevin Hall used to think the reason people get fat is simple.

"Why don't they just eat less and exercise more?" he remembers thinking. Trained as a physicist, the calories-in-vs.-calories-burned equation for weight loss always made sense to him. But then his own research--and the contestants on a smash reality-TV show--proved him wrong.

Hall, a scientist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), started watching The Biggest Loser a few years ago on the recommendation of a friend. "I saw these folks stepping on scales, and they lost 20 lb. in a week," he says. On the one hand, it tracked with widespread beliefs about weight loss: the workouts were punishing and the diets restrictive, so it stood to reason the men and women on the show would slim down. Still, 20 lb. in a week was a lot. To understand how they were doing it, he decided to study 14 of the contestants for a scientific paper.

Hall quickly learned that in reality-TV-land, a week doesn't always translate into a precise seven days, but no matter: the weight being lost was real, speedy and huge. Over the course of the season, the contestants lost an average of 127 lb. each and about 64% of their body fat. If his study could uncover what was happening in their bodies on a physiological level, he thought, maybe he'd be able to help the staggering 71% of American adults who are overweight.

What he didn't expect to learn was that even when the conditions for weight loss are TV-perfect--with a tough but motivating trainer, telegenic doctors, strict meal plans and killer workouts--the body will, in the long run, fight like hell to get that fat back. Over time, 13 of the 14 contestants Hall studied gained, on average, 66% of the weight they'd lost on the show, and four were heavier than they were before the competition.

That may be depressing enough to make even the most motivated dieter give up. "There's this notion of why bother trying," says Hall. But finding answers to the weight-loss puzzle has never been more critical. The vast majority of American adults are overweight; nearly 40% are clinically obese. And doctors now know that excess body fat dramatically increases the risk of serious health problems, including Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, depression, respiratory problems, major cancers and even fertility problems. A 2017 study found that obesity now drives more early preventable deaths in the U.S. than smoking. This has fueled a weight-loss industry worth $66.3 billion, selling everything from diet pills to meal plans to fancy gym memberships.

It's also fueled a rise in research. Last year the NIH provided an estimated $931 million in funding for obesity research, including Hall's, and that research is giving scientists a new understanding of why dieting is so hard, why keeping the weight off over time is even harder and why the prevailing wisdom about weight loss seems to work only sometimes--for some people.

What scientists are uncovering should bring fresh hope to the 155 million Americans who are overweight, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Leading researchers finally agree, for instance, that exercise, while critical to good health, is not an especially reliable way to keep off body fat over the long term. And the overly simplistic arithmetic of calories in vs. calories out has given way to the more nuanced understanding that it's the composition of a person's diet--rather than how much of it they can burn off working out--that sustains weight loss.

They also know that the best diet for you is very likely not the best diet for your next-door neighbor. Individual responses to different diets--from low fat and vegan to low carb and paleo--vary enormously. "Some people on a diet program lose 60 lb. and keep it off for two years, and other people follow the same program religiously, and they gain 5 lb.," says Frank Sacks, a leading weight-loss researcher and professor of cardiovascular disease prevention at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. "If we can figure out why, the potential to help people will be huge."

Hall, Sacks and other scientists are showing that the key to weight loss appears to be highly personalized rather than trendy diets. And while weight loss will never be easy for anyone, the evidence is mounting that it's possible for anyone to reach a healthy weight--people just need to find their best way there.

Dieting has been an American preoccupation since long before the obesity epidemic took off in the 1980s. In the 1830s, Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham touted a vegetarian diet that excluded spices, condiments and alcohol. At the turn of the 20th century, it was fashionable to chew food until liquefied, sometimes up to 722 times before swallowing, thanks to the advice of a popular nutrition expert named Horace Fletcher. Lore has it that at about the same time, President William Howard Taft adopted a fairly contemporary plan--low fat, low calorie, with a daily food log--after he got stuck in a White House bathtub.

The concept of the calorie as a unit of energy had been studied and shared in scientific circles throughout Europe for some time, but it wasn't until World War I that calorie counting became de rigueur in the U.S. Amid global food shortages, the American government needed a way to encourage people to cut back on their food intake, so it issued its first ever "scientific diet" for Americans, which had calorie counting at its core.

In the following decades, when being rail-thin became ever more desirable, nearly all dieting advice stressed meals that were low calorie. There was the grapefruit diet of the 1930s (in which people ate half a grapefruit with every meal out of a belief that the fruit contained fat-burning enzymes) and the cabbage-soup diet of the 1950s (a flatulence-inducing plan in which people ate cabbage soup every day for a week alongside low-calorie meals).

The 1960s saw the beginning of the massive commercialization of dieting in the U.S. That's when a New York housewife named Jean Nidetch began hosting friends at her home to talk about their issues with weight and dieting. Nidetch was a self-proclaimed cookie lover who had struggled for years to slim down. Her weekly meetings helped her so much--she lost 72 lb. in about a year--that she ultimately turned those living-room gatherings into a company called Weight Watchers. When it went public in 1968, she and her co-founders became millionaires overnight. Nearly half a century later, Weight Watchers remains one of the most commercially successful diet companies in the world, with 3.6 million active users and $1.2 billion in revenue in 2016.

What most of these diets had in common was an idea that is still popular today: eat fewer calories and you will lose weight. Even the low-fat craze that kicked off in the late 1970s--which was based on the intuitively appealing but incorrect notion that eating fat will make you fat--depended on the calorie-counting model of weight loss. (Since fatty foods are more calorie-dense than, say, plants, logic suggests that if you eat less of them, you will consume fewer calories overall, and then you'll lose weight.)

That's not what happened when people went low fat, though. The diet trend coincided with weight gain. In 1990, adults with obesity made up less than 15% of the U.S. population. By 2010, most states were reporting obesity in 25% or more of their populations. Today that has swelled to 40% of the adult population. For kids and teens, it's 17%.

Research like Hall's is beginning to explain why. As demoralizing as his initial findings were, they weren't altogether surprising: more than 80% of people with obesity who lose weight gain it back. That's because when you lose weight, your resting metabolism (how much energy your body uses when at rest) slows down--possibly an evolutionary holdover from the days when food scarcity was common.

What Hall discovered, however--and what frankly startled him--was that even when the Biggest Loser contestants gained back some of their weight, their resting metabolism didn't speed up along with it. Instead, in a cruel twist, it remained low, burning about 700 fewer calories per day than it did before they started losing weight in the first place. "When people see the slowing metabolism numbers," says Hall, "their eyes bulge like, How is that even possible?"

The contestants lose a massive amount of weight in a relatively short period of time--admittedly not how most doctors recommend you lose weight--but research shows that the same slowing metabolism Hall observed tends to happen to regular Joes too. Most people who lose weight gain back the pounds they lost at a rate of 2 to 4 lb. per year.

For the 2.2 billion people around the world who are overweight, Hall's findings can seem like a formula for failure--and, at the same time, scientific vindication. They show that it's indeed biology, not simply a lack of willpower, that makes it so hard to lose weight. The findings also make it seem as if the body itself will sabotage any effort to keep weight off in the long term.

But a slower metabolism is not the full story. Despite the biological odds, there are many people who succeed in losing weight and keeping it off. Hall has seen it happen more times than he can count. The catch is that some people appear to succeed with almost every diet approach--it just varies from person to person.

"You take a bunch of people and randomly assign them to follow a low-carb diet or a low-fat diet," Hall says. "You follow them for a couple of years, and what you tend to see is that average weight loss is almost no different between the two groups as a whole. But within each group, there are people who are very successful, people who don't lose any weight and people who gain weight."

Understanding what it is about a given diet that works for a given person remains the holy grail of weight-loss science. But experts are getting closer.

For the past 23 years, Rena Wing, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University, has run the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) as a way to track people who successfully lose weight and keep it off. "When we started it, the perspective was that almost no one succeeded at losing weight and keeping it off," says James O. Hill, Wing's collaborator and an obesity researcher at the University of Colorado. "We didn't believe that was the case, but we didn't know for sure because we didn't have the data."

To qualify for initial inclusion in the registry, a person must have lost at least 30 lb. and maintained that weight loss for a year or longer. Today the registry includes more than 10,000 people from across the 50 states with an average weight loss of 66 lb. per person. On average, people on the current list have kept off their weight for more than five years.

The most revealing detail about the registry: everyone on the list has lost significant amounts of weight--but in different ways. About 45% of them say they lost weight following various diets on their own, for instance, and 55% say they used a structured weight-loss program. And most of them had to try more than one diet before the weight loss stuck.

The researchers have identified some similarities among them: 98% of the people in the study say they modified their diet in some way, with most cutting back on how much they ate in a given day. Another through line: 94% increased their physical activity, and the most popular form of exercise was walking.

"There's nothing magical about what they do," says Wing. "Some people emphasize exercise more than others, some follow low-carb diets, and some follow low-fat diets. The one commonality is that they had to make changes in their everyday behaviors."

When asked how they've been able to keep the weight off, the vast majority of people in the study say they eat breakfast every day, weigh themselves at least once a week, watch fewer than 10 hours of television per week and exercise about an hour a day, on average.

The researchers have also looked at their attitudes and behavior. They found that most of them do not consider themselves Type A, dispelling the idea that only obsessive superplanners can stick to a diet. They learned that many successful dieters were self-described morning people. (Other research supports the anecdotal: for some reason, night owls tend to weigh more than larks.) The researchers also noticed that people with long-term weight loss tended to be motivated by something other than a slimmer waist--like a health scare or the desire to live a longer life, to be able to spend more time with loved ones.

The researchers at the NWCR say it's unlikely that the people they study are somehow genetically endowed or blessed with a personality that makes weight loss easy for them. After all, most people in the study say they had failed several times before when they had tried to lose weight. Instead they were highly motivated, and they kept trying different things until they found something that worked for them.

"Losing weight and keeping it off is hard, and if anyone tells you it's easy, run the other way," says Hill. "But it is absolutely possible, and when people do it, their lives are changed for the better." (Hill came under fire in 2015 for his role as president of an obesity think tank funded by Coca-Cola . During his tenure there, the NWCR published one paper with partial funding from Coca-Cola , but the researchers say their study, which Hill was involved in, was not influenced by the soda giant's financial support.)

Hill, Wing and their colleagues agree that perhaps the most encouraging lesson to be gleaned from their registry is the simplest: in a group of 10,000 real-life biggest losers, no two people lost the weight in quite the same way.

The Bariatric Medical Institute in Ottawa is founded on that thinking. When people enroll in its weight-loss program, they all start on the same six-month diet and exercise plan--but they are encouraged to diverge from the program, with the help of a physician, whenever they want, in order to figure out what works best for them. The program takes a whole-person approach to weight loss, which means that behavior, psychology and budget--not just biology--inform each person's plan.

"We have a plan that involves getting enough calories and protein and so forth, but we are not married to it," says Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, an obesity expert and the medical director of the clinic. "We try to understand where people are struggling, and then we adjust. Everyone here is doing things slightly differently."

In most cases, people try a few different plans before they get it right. Jody Jeans, 52, an IT project manager in Ottawa, had been overweight since she was a child. When she came to the clinic in 2007, she was 5 ft. 4 in. tall and weighed 240 lb. Though she had lost weight in her 20s doing Weight Watchers, she gained it back after she lost a job and the stress led her to overeat. Jeans would wake up on a Monday and decide she was starting a diet, or never eating dessert again, only to scrap the plan a couple of days, if not hours, later. "Unless you've had a lot of weight to lose, you don't understand what it's like," she says. "It's overwhelming, and people look at you like it's your fault."

A March 2017 study found that people who internalize weight stigma have a harder time maintaining weight loss. That's why most experts argue that pushing people toward health goals rather than a number on the scale can yield better results. "When you solely focus on weight, you may give up on changes in your life that would have positive benefits," says the NIH's Hall.

It took Jeans five years to lose 75 lb. while on a program at Freedhoff's institute, but by paying attention to portion sizes, writing down all her meals and eating more frequent, smaller meals throughout the day, she's kept the weight off for an additional five years. She credits the slow, steady pace for her success. Though she's never been especially motivated to exercise, she found it helpful to track her food each day, as well as make sure she ate enough filling protein and fiber--without having to rely on bland diet staples like grilled chicken over greens (hold the dressing). "I'm a foodie," Jeans says. "If you told me I had to eat the same things every day, it would be torture."

Natalie Casagrande, 31, was on the same program that Jeans was on, but Freedhoff and his colleagues used a different approach with her. Casagrande's weight had fluctuated throughout her life, and she had attempted dangerous diets like starving herself and exercising constantly for quick weight loss. One time, she even dropped from a size 14 to a size 0 in just a few months. When she signed up for the program, Casagrande weighed 173 lb. At 4 ft. 11 in., that meant she was clinically obese, which means having a body mass index of 30 or more.

Once she started working with the team at the Bariatric Medical Institute, Casagrande also tracked her food, but unlike Jeans, she never enjoyed the process. What she did love was exercise. She found her workouts easy to fit into her schedule, and she found them motivating. By meeting with the clinic's psychologist, she also learned that she had generalized anxiety, which helped explain her bouts of emotional eating.

It took Casagrande three tries over three years before she finally lost substantial weight. During one of her relapse periods, she gained 10 lb. She tweaked her plan to focus more on cooking and managing her mental health and then tried again. Today she weighs 116 lb. and has maintained that weight for about a year. "It takes a lot of trial and error to figure out what works," she says. "Not every day is going to be perfect, but I'm here because I pushed through the bad days."

Freedhoff says learning what variables are most important for each person--be they psychological, logistical, food-based--matters more to him than identifying one diet that works for everyone. "So long as we continue to pigeonhole people into certain diets without considering the individuals, the more likely we are to run into problems," he says. That's why a significant portion of his meetings with patients is spent talking about the person's daily responsibilities, their socioeconomic status, their mental health, their comfort in the kitchen.

"Unfortunately," he says, "that's not the norm. The amount of effort needed to understand your patients is more than many doctors put in."

In an August op-ed published in the journal the Lancet, Freedhoff and Hall jointly called on the scientific community to spend more time figuring out how doctors can help people sustain healthy lifestyles and less on what diet is best for weight loss. "Crowning a diet king because it delivers a clinically meaningless difference in body weight fuels diet hype, not diet help," they write. "It's high time we start helping."

Exactly why weight loss can vary so much for people on the same diet plan still eludes scientists. "It's the biggest open question in the field," says the NIH's Hall. "I wish I knew the answer."

Some speculate it's people's genetics. Over the past several years, researchers have identified nearly 100 genetic markers that appear to be linked to being obese or being overweight, and there's no doubt genes play an important role in how some people break down calories and store fat. But experts estimate that obesity-related genes account for just 3% of the differences between people's sizes--and those same genes that predispose people to weight gain existed 30 years ago, and 100 years ago, suggesting that genes alone cannot explain the rapid rise in obesity.

What's more, a recent study of 9,000 people found that whether a person carried a gene variation associated with weight gain had no influence on his or her ability to lose weight. "We think this is good news," says study author John Mathers, a professor of human nutrition at Newcastle University. "Carrying the high-risk form of the gene makes you more likely to be a bit heavier, but it shouldn't prevent you from losing weight."

Another area that has some scientists excited is the question of how weight gain is linked to chemicals we are exposed to every day--things like the bisphenol A (BPA) found in linings of canned-food containers and cash-register receipts, the flame retardants in sofas and mattresses, the pesticide residues on our food and the phthalates found in plastics and cosmetics. What these chemicals have in common is their ability to mimic human hormones, and some scientists worry they may be wreaking havoc on the delicate endocrine system, driving fat storage.

"The old paradigm was that poor diet and lack of exercise are underpinning obesity, but now we understand that chemical exposures are an important third factor in the origin of the obesity epidemic," says Dr. Leonardo Trasande, an associate professor of pediatrics, environmental medicine and population health at New York University's School of Medicine. "Chemicals can disrupt hormones and metabolism, which can contribute to disease and disability."

Another frontier scientists are exploring is how the microbiome--the trillions of bacteria that live inside and on the surface of the human body--may be influencing how the body metabolizes certain foods. Dr. Eran Elinav and Eran Segal, researchers for the Personalized Nutrition Project at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, believe the variation in diet success may lie in the way people's microbiomes react to different foods.

In a 2015 study, Segal and Elinav gave 800 men and women devices that measured their blood-sugar levels every five minutes for a one-week period. They filled out questionnaires about their health, provided blood and stool samples and had their microbiomes sequenced. They also used a mobile app to record their food intake, sleep and exercise.

They found that blood-sugar levels varied widely among people after they ate, even when they ate the exact same meal. This suggests that umbrella recommendations for how to eat could be meaningless. "It was a major surprise to us," says Segal.

The researchers developed an algorithm for each person in the trial using the data they gathered and found that they could accurately predict a person's blood-sugar response to a given food on the basis of their microbiome. That's why Elinav and Segal believe the next frontier in weight-loss science lies in the gut; they believe their algorithm could ultimately help doctors prescribe highly specific diets for people according to how they respond to different foods.

Unsurprisingly, there are enterprising businesses trying to cash in on this idea. Online supplement companies already hawk personalized probiotic pills, with testimonials from customers claiming they lost weight taking them.

So far, research to support the probiotic-pill approach to weight loss is scant. Ditto the genetic tests that claim to be able to tell you whether you're better off on a low-carb diet or a vegan one.

But as science continues to point toward personalization, there's potential for new weight-loss products to flood the zone, some with more evidence than others.

When people are asked to envision their perfect size, many cite a dream weight loss up to three times as great as what a doctor might recommend. Given how difficult that can be to pull off, it's no surprise so many people give up trying to lose weight altogether. It's telling, if a bit of a downer, that in 2017, when Americans have never been heavier, fewer people than ever say they're trying to lose weight.

But most people do not need to lose quite so much weight to improve their health. Research shows that with just a 10% loss of weight, people will experience noticeable changes in their blood pressure and blood sugar control, lowering their risk for heart disease and Type 2 diabetes--two of the costliest diseases in terms of health care dollars and human life.

For Ottawa's Jody Jeans, recalibrating her expectations is what helped her finally lose weight in a healthy--and sustainable--way. People may look at her and see someone who could still afford to lose a few pounds, she says, but she's proud of her current weight, and she is well within the range of what a good doctor would call healthy.

"You have to accept that you're never going to be a willowy model," she says. "But I am at a very good weight that I can manage."

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Weight Loss: Why Your Diet Isn't Working | Time.com - TIME

Losing weight is tough, both mentally and physically. New science shows that when the body starts to lose substantial amounts of weight, it fights viciously to gain it back. But despite the biological roadblocks, plenty of people are successful at losing weight and keeping it off over the long term.

But how? As part of its recent exploration of the new science of weight loss , TIME asked 9 weight loss and obesity experts their best advice for people who are trying to lose weight. Here are their top tips for what works when it comes to slimming down.

Avoid all sugary drinks, as they provide 'empty calories' that don't fill you up. The sugar may uniquely act on the liver to produce belly fat.

Dr. Dean Schillinger, chief of the University of California, San Francisco Division of General Internal Medicine

The calorie in, calorie out approach fails, because it disregards how food affects our hormones and metabolism. Pay attention to food quality.

Dr. David S. Ludwig, professor of nutrition at Harvard Medical School

MORE: You Asked: Whats the Best Way to Lose Weight?

The simple message is to eat a healthful diet and to engage in more moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. The challenge is how to actually accomplish that in an environment that seems to push us constantly in the wrong direction.

Dr. Stephen R. Daniels, pediatrician-in-chief at Childrens Hospital Colorado

Aim to achieve and improve health and reach a psychologically 'happy weight,' not an unrealistic 'ideal' weight that may be impossible to reach for most.

Dr. Jaideep Behari, associate professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

People need to have the mindset of someone who is ready and willing to make some permanent changes in the way they live. A number of treatments can create short-term weight loss without a great deal of effort from the person, but they dont allow for long-term weight loss.

Dr. Michael Jensen, obesity researcher at the Mayo Clinic

MORE: 'I Swallowed a Balloon For Weight Loss and Lost 40 Lbs.'

You need a program that satisfies hunger and has good food so it doesnt feel like a diet. Hunger erodes willpower, and thats the reason most diets fail.

Susan B. Roberts, professor of nutrition at Tufts University and founder of iDiet

Make small changes that stick, make changes as a family and keep it positive.

Dr. Stephen Pont, medical director of the childhood obesity center at Dell Children's Medical Center

The culprit is not bad choices by individuals. It is the toxic food environment in which calories are ubiquitous. Until the food environment changes, everyone must become aware of the calories they consume, especially those from beverages, sweets, and other calorie-dense foods.

Dr. Lawrence J. Appel, director of the Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology, and Clinical Research at Johns Hopkins University

MORE: If You Want to Lose Weight, Don't Eat Out

A person can eat almost anything they want, but the portion size has to be appropriate. For example, eat dinner on a salad plate rather than a dinner plate to cut the portion size in half.

Melinda L. Irwin, professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health

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9 Weight Loss Tips From Doctors: Diet and Exercise | Time.com - TIME

Spring is in the air, and so are new diet plans. Everyone wants that certain body type or to get rid of a few extra pounds before its time to pull out their summer wardrobe, and there are hundreds of diets out there promising results.

Most focus on weight loss, but weight loss alone isnt always an indicator of health. And diets that call for extreme eating changes arent always healthy or palatable long-term. You may be able to eat only cabbage soup for a week, but not for the rest of your life!

IS LASER TREATMENT FOR VAGINAL ATROPHY SAFE?

And often the fast weight loss these diets promise is gained back just as quickly, a phenomenon thats well-documented andmay be the result of diets that are too restrictive.

It might be time for something new on the diet scene.US News and World Reporthas released their diet rankings for 2017, and a diet youve never heard of has taken the 4thslot in the overall rankings, is 3rdin heart-healthy diets, and ranks 18thin weight loss. Its called the TLC diet, and its initials stand for Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes. It doesnt sound trendy, and thats because its not. Though weight loss is often a by-product of the diet, it doesnt promise a supermodel body or results within a certain time frame. It was developed to combat heart diseasethe number one killer of Americansby tackling high blood cholesterol with healthy lifestyle changes, but by adjusting your caloric goals you can target healthy weight loss too.

TIPS TO BE LEAN FOR LIFE

Theres a lot of flexibility within the diet that allows people to eat things they enjoy. Like most effective plans for weight loss, the TLC diet involves counting calories and staying close to the range recommended for your height, weight, and activity level. You might have to get out your calculator for the first few weeks, but the guidelines are simple and quickly become habit.

Cut saturated fat to less than 7 percent of your calorie intake. For a 1500-calorie diet, thats less than 10 grams of saturated fat, which often means less full-fat dairy and fatty meats. Trans fat, found mostly as hydrogenated oils in products like margarine and packaged foods, should be avoided if at all possible and is one of very few ingredients the TLC diet tries to cut out entirely. Theres no limit on unsaturated fats, but keep in mind that foods high in fat tend to be high in calories, so keep that calorie limit in mind when choosing foods that are high in healthy fats.

Saturated fat actually has a bigger impact on blood cholesterol levels than dietary cholesterol, but cholesterol should still be kept under 200 mg a day. Full-fat dairy products, shrimp, egg yolks, and organ meats are all high in cholesterol. These foods arent forbidden though. A 3.5 oz. serving of shrimp contains 189 mg of cholesterol. Just ditch the cream sauce, and opt for olive oil and herbs instead to stay under your cholesterol limit.

WHY TEENS SHOULD AVOID DIET PILLS

The TLC diet also recommends getting a lot of soluble fiber, at least 5-10 grams a day but preferably 10-25 grams a day. While insoluble fiber passes through the digestive tract pretty much undigested (giving your colon a nice workout), soluble fiber dissolves into a substance that actually coats the walls of your intestines and keeps them from absorbing dietary fat and cholesterol. Cereal grains like oatmeal, whole fruits, and beans are all good sources of soluble fiber.

Because of research that shows heart benefits for omega-3 fatty acids, the diet also recommends two fish meals a week. It also recommends avoiding foods high in sodium and restricting alcohol intake to one drink a day for women and two a day for men.

The last key part of the TLC diet is an important oneget 30 minutes of moderate-intensity activity most days of the week, preferably every day. Gardening, golfing (without a cart), playing tennis, biking, and brisk walking are all examples of moderate-intensity activities, and its important to pick something you enjoy. Join a group, class, or club to stay motivated!

Always check with your doctor before starting a new diet, and you can check out the complete guide to the TLC diethere.

This article first appeared on AskDrManny.com.

Dr. Manny Alvarez serves as Fox News Channel's senior managing health editor. He also serves as chairman of the department of obstetrics/gynecology and reproductive science at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey. Click here for more information on Dr. Manny's work with Hackensack University Medical Center. Visit AskDrManny.com for more.

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Could this be the next great weight loss secret? - Fox News

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