SLIMMING

There are a hundred and one reasons why people want to slim, but probably the most common is fashion. So much coverage is given in the media to keeping slim and keeping fit that ‘slim’ has almost become synonymous with beauty.

Casting aside all thoughts of beauty, there should really only be one reason for dieting and that is if you are overweight. If you are overweight, then you are not healthy. You are putting an unnecessary strain on your heart. You are not able to exercise your body properly and you are more prone to minor ailments.

A CHOICE OF DIETS

Before selecting a diet that suits your lifestyle, we should first examine the so called ‘miracle’ diets. This is of course a misnomer. There are several published diets that can cause quite drastic weight loss, but they can be very damaging. Do remember that a safe weight loss should be between two and three pounds a week. Any more than that can be dangerous. Your body needs a regular, balanced diet in order to function efficiently – cut out certain essential vitamins and minerals and your health will suffer.

Many people need the stimulus of following a rigid diet plan in order to keep weight in check, and it is now generally recognized that those plans based on either calorie counting, carbohydrate or fat control are the most successful. There is certainly no shortage of such diets, the choice is yours.

Calorie control a calorie is simply a unit of heat or energy. Your body needs to take, in form of food, sufficient calories to balance the number expended in daily living. If you eat and drink more calories than your body expends, then the excess is converted to fat. Therefore, by restricting your calorie intake, you cut down on this fat storage. Depending on your daily output of calories, a safe weight loss can be obtained by restricting your diet to an intake of between 900 and 1200 calories per day.

Fat control most successful diets work on the basis of cutting down on the intakes on the basis of cutting down on the intake of fat. It is quite safe to cut out the recognizable fats, such as butter, oil and margarine, providing the diet contains sufficient ‘hidden’ fats, such as those found in meat, some fish and dairy products.

Carbohydrate control your body gains its heat and energy from the intake of carbohydrates. A low carbohydrate diet, although often very successful, should be rigidly followed in order that the body can gain its vital energy from other replacement foods. There are two main groups of carbohydrates: sugar, including all sweets, chocolates, jams, biscuits, cakes and tinned fruits: and starch, found in bread, flour, grains and cereals, tinned pod vegetables and dried peas, beans and lentils.

With certain diet plans, it is important to avoid any deviation by replacing certain foods with others, the reason being that they are based on an accurate balance of foods that burn up fat more quickly. It is not strictly true that some foods interact with others, neutralizing their fattening effect, rather that they affect the way the body burns up fat. This is particularly true in high protein diets which involve the complete cutting out of carbohydrates. Protein makes the body burn its fuel quickly, and without carbohydrates the body has to turn existing fat into energy in order to break down the protein. This process would not work if you included just a few carbohydrates in order to vary the diet. This common ‘changing’ of diet plans is often one of the main causes for diet failure.

There is one product that is vital to successful and healthy dieting and that is water. At least three pints a day is essential and it can also be taken in the form of tea or coffee, unsweetened and without milk. There are no grounds at all for believing that drinking a great deal will lead to water retention. The reverse is true because water encourages the kidneys to function more efficiently.

DIET ACIDS

For those people who find calorie counting a problem, meal replacements and special slimmers’ food can be a great help as this job has already been done by the manufacturers. It is quite safe to substitute for up to two meals a day a specially formulated meal replacement drink. There are three different kinds: those mixed with milk, those mixed with water and those based on a high protein content . the first two types provide the essential nutrients for health; the latter should never replace more than two meals as an excess of protein can be harmful. In the case of slimming biscuits, these are designed to be a meal replacement and should be eaten with a glass of milk. They should not be eaten as a snack as they are still fairly high in calories.

DRASTIC MEASURES

There is really no substitute for will-power when embarking on a diet yet many people will still turn to any outside help that is available – even if the measures seem somewhat drastic.

For some, a course of hypnosis does seem to help to control eating patterns, yet this should never be undertaken lightly. In the hands of an amateur it is very dangerous. There are a number of doctors who will hypnotize patients, and, in some cases it can be successful – as it sometimes is with stopping smoking.

The ancient art of acupuncture has also calimed some success in the field of appetite control. In most cases tiny needles are inserted just in front of the ear and moved either electronically or by hand. This action is said to relieve the symptoms of food cravings, but it needs to be repeated on a continual basis to have any chance of success.

If is even possible to remove excess fat from localized areas with plastic surgery. This is only undertaken in very drastic cases of obesity and no reputable surgeon will undertake the removal of excess fat unless he or she is absolutely sure that it is necessary. Likewise, suppressing the appetite by the use of amphetamine-like drugs is a practice which should be reserved strictly for the very obese. In any case, the drugs are only helpful where a person is already on a diet, and will only be prescribed for a limited amount of time because of the dangers of addiction.

Laxatives and diuretics should never be used as diet aids. If you suffer from constipation when dieting, increase your intake of roughage and use a laxative only if absolutely necessary. Never take quantities of laxatives to increase the loss of body waste as this practice can be dangerous. Diuretics are useful for those people who suffer from chronic water retention and are available on prescription. Often water retention can be helped by cutting down on the intake of salt and increasing the amount of water drunk each day. It is dangerous to take diuretics without keeping the intake of water at a desirable level as this could cause considerable dehydration. For this reason it is important for dieters to keep up their intake of fluids.

EXERCISE

Exercise is vital to overall health – it stimulates your circulation, it increases your oxygen intake, it keeps joints supple and muscles in trim. But it does not slim you. Nevertheless, to make any diet work properly, you must exercise. Only by doing so can you hope to gain all the benefits from a trimmer body. The golden rule is to work yourself gradually into your chosen routine whatever it may be. Never rush out and run for two miles if you are a sedentary worker whose normal exercise is a short walk to the pub.