Diet and Weightloss News

Anti Salt Bill Goes Too Far?

‘ve heard of the government trying to regulate health and other aspects of our lives and the decisions we make with it, but now this one I think is going way overboard.  Apparently there are some in New York who think that New Yorkers need to be forced to cut back on their salt intake. Yes, salt intake here in the US is disgustingly high, and it probably has been the cause of certain health issues, however, so have fats and calories.

I am one who thinks that cutting out certain types of foods or trying to legislate them in public places where people dine is only going to go so far as to hurt business, and I am against anything that hurts businesses right now. I mean, if you want to really control salt intake, you would have to have a presence not only in the restaurants that citizens frequent, but also in their homes, and even in the grocery stores.

Think about it, you can only regulate the public places, not a person in their own home, so what is the point of hurting business when you know you can’t regulate it all the time?

Of course, chefs in New York are in a tizzy (I would be too).  While there may be such a thing as social responsibility, being forced to not add any salt or salt spices to your dishes is downright “absurd” and is the government going overboard. I would have to  agree.

I know that I need to cut my salt intake down, but if I were forced to eat a saltless, less flavorful dish at a restaurant every time I dined out and wanted to enjoy myself, well I’d be a little bit salty (ok I think I just committed one of the worst puns ever).

The bill has been introduced by a Democrat in New York, and it proposes to fine restaurants in violation of using salt or salt derivatives in it’s cooking $1,000 per violation.  I can’t believe we’re focusing on something so ridiculous. How many lives do they really think they’re going to save by doing this?  Let’s hope this bill gets squashed pronto.

Jillian Michaels Sued for Supplement Claims?

Apparently there was a not so happy customer of a supplement that Jillian Michaels, the most famous personal trainer in the world right now and one of the stars of Biggest Loser along with Bob the trainer, endorses.  Let me preface this story by telling you a piece of my mind. I’m getting awfully sick of the sue happy mentality of people here in the US. This person actually wants to start a class action lawsuit over what she claims are false claims made by the diet supplement which claims to suppress the appetite by taking two pills before each meal, called “Maximum Strength Calorie Control”.

The woman says that the pill did not suppress her hunger as claimed and also did not cause her to lose weight as the product claimed. Now, I’ll admit, I’m all for supplements, and they have helped me immensely in my life, not only in my quest to lose weight when I need to shed a few extra pounds, but also in many other facets of my life, so I may be a little biased, but this seems like it’s really nothing more than a bid to get paid for something that didn’t make you lose weight.

I’m not sure why this angered her so much that she wanted to start  a class action lawsuit over it .I mean, shoot, if I had a nickel for every time a product didn’t do exactly what I wanted it to, I might be rich, but at the same time I know that I was also to blame, I maybe didn’t follow the instructions or I didn’t actually do my part to get the expected results either. I’m a realist, and I wouldn’t want to waste my time or anyone elses with such claims.

I just have this fear that lawsuits like this, where no one was actually hurt, maimed or otherwise psychologically really hurt, don’t set the bar for the way things are going here, because there are much more important things to waste time on, where people actually suffer terrible side effects or become ill in some way, not where their expectations just weren’t met all the way. I think this type of litigation is dangerous to free enterprise.  That’s just my opinion, and it’s a free world for me to express it.

Extreme Weight Loss Measures : Topped!

It seems like there is always some completely over the top, scary way that people are trying to lose weight and endangering their health.  The last really scary one I can remember was a lot of women and men, rumored to be a trend in the ever-looks conscious Hollywood and the reason behind some starlets drastic and sudden weight loss, was  trend to start taking a dangerous drug that wasn’t even meant for human consumption.

The drug I’m talking about is Clenbuterol, otherwise known as Clen, and it’s a horse asthma medication that causes dramatic weight loss and fast fat loss and body mass decline very quickly.

It also happens to do serious and very fast damage to the heart of people who abuse it.  It apparently can lose it’s effectiveness very quickly as well.  That was probably the second scariest one I heard of, but this one actually tops it simply because it makes me squirm since it has to do with creepy crawlers that aren’t meant to be in the human body.

The worst part about this dangerous trend is that unscrupulous companies in China are offering this as a weightloss method on the internet, and it’s actually a good way to either get yourself very sick or possibly even cause your own death.  It’s a trend especially right now in Hong Kong, the metropolis the offers many of life’s most guilty pleasures and also some of it’s most dangerous.

The diet products have the ascaris worm in them, which is a type of roundworm.  Because the worms can lay thousands upon thousand of eggs per day in the system, and consume much of your food before it can be absorbed by your body, you lose weight. But along with the weight loss you also get severe diarrhea, cramping and malnourishment because you aren’t absorbing any of the nutrients, the parasites in your system are.  I’m kind of surprised that with China’s strict internet policies and patrolling, they have not caught these guys yet and taken them down. Maybe as of this moment they have!

Mediterranean Diet May Prevent Dementia and Mental Decline

Well, we’ve been hearing more and more about the mediterranean diet, which is a diet that is rich in fruits, vegetables and omega 3 fatty acids, and eschews a lot of animal and dairy protein in favor of plant based proteins and fish.  Just hearing that makes it sound healthy to me.

I think of how much healthier I feel when I’m foregoing a whole lot of red meat and other types of meats, and instead going for plant proteins like hummus, nuts, and whole grains and fish, and it makes total sense to me that this also helps with mental function because when I’m eating a diet that resembles this, I totally feel like I’m on my A game mentally.

Which is why researchers are finding that being on the mediterranean diet actually helps do two things. First, it helps you to stave off mental decline and dementia, and it also helps to increase your mental acuity, your “fastness” and your total brain power, which makes you feel, well just a whole lot smarter and more focused!

People who were on this diet were found to be almost 50% less likely to suffer from dementia and other mental decline symptoms, showing much higher ability to focus and concentrate, and to recall things and think clearly.  This is a huge reason, amongst other benefits like heart disease and stroke prevention and anti cancer properties, that people should really think about trying this type of diet out.

You don’t even have to go 100% on the commercialized version of the mediterranean diet, as long as you follow some semblance of the principles of this type of diet, you should notice a substantial increase in energy, a better ability to focus, accelerated fat loss, lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and a whole bushel of great health benefits that are just waiting to be plucked off the tree for your picking.

Reason 1,001 To Not Be a Couch Potato

As anyone with common sense of a realistic outlook on life and the way that fitness and weight maintenance works, you know that being a couch potato does not serve you in any way at all. First off, sitting in front of a computer or a TV all day often involves activities that are time wasteful and not getting anything accomplished, unless of course you are working.

I myself work a lot at a computer and can attest to the fact that it’s only about 60% work and 40% other things that happen to catch your attention and make you drift off.

Watching television for hours a day is even worse. Really, what does watching TV accomplish for you?  Nothing. It doesn’t serve any purpose.  Occasionally you may learn something useful by watching TV, but in general, it is a colossal waste of time.

Of course, the physical fitness and weight part of it is that sitting all day does nothing for your metabolism. It is as stagnant as it can be when you are in a seated position all day, and this is awful for your blood flow (circulation), so you know that it’s not good for you heart or your circulatory system either.

Now though, there is real evidence, including statistical numbers that just might blow your mind, that show the couch potatoes – those that sit down for long periods of time habitually, whether it be watching television or doing some other seated activity, are more likely to die earlier than those that are more active throughout their day.

Most of the danger to this type of lifestyle is the damage it can do to your heart, especially if you are overweight as well, although skinny people bear some risk as well if they are inactive.

Scientists took into account other factors as well, and still singled out sitting down for long periods of time relaxing as one of the common denominators in early death.  This included factors like gender, waist measurements (a lot of belly fat and larger waists have been correlated to shorter life spans and higher incidence of coronary issues), age, and level of fitness activities.

Sitting for long periods of time actually can increase the levels of sugar (blood sugar) and fat in your blood, increasing your risk for a variety of life threatening and life shortening issues.

Why Eating Processed Foods is Bad For Your Weight and Health

Don't Do It!

I must admit, processed foods taste darned good sometimes. Let’s face it, sometimes that box of Cheezits is calling your name, and those grapes or rawveggies with dip just aren’t cutting it as a snack.  We naturally crave processed foods often because they are, by their very nature, very addictive. Their naturally higher levels of certain types of preservatives, salt and sugar make us crave them because they are chemically addictive to our systems.  So, in a way, eating processed foods once makes us somewhat of a junkie, unless we can sort of de-program ourselves and detox against this type of “addiction”.

Breaking your addiction, or even cutting way down on your processed food intake is always good for not only your health, but your waistline as well because they are not only bad for your blood pressure and triglyceride (cholesterol) levels and other readings which determine your likelihood toward certain types of disease and ailments, but they are also bad for your weight because they add pounds on like nothing else.

Think about some examples of raw, natural, less processed types of foods vs. foods that are processed, and how you feel after you eat them. Do you feel satisfied after eating processed foods, or are you often ravenous a few short hours later, or worse, just an hour later?  Are you full of energy and get up and go after eating processed foods, or more likely to tackle heavy focus and heavy lifting tasks after eating a healthy, whole meal with minimally processed foods?

When you compare the two in the ways that they fill you up and satisfy you, prepare you for a lot of mental focus and physical activity, and how they make your body feel physiologically after you eat them – as in, is your heart rate timely or is it beating fast (a symptom of a high sodium meal)?  Is your blood sugar stable, and can you focus, and do you feel full but not painfully so, suppressing your hunger for hours comfortably rather than leading to huge spikes in blood sugar?

These are all reasons to eat more minimally processed foods. This is not even including the massive amounts of chemicals, preservatives, and unidentifiable ingredients in the labels, but the salt and sugars are also a huge detractor to your health and weight maintenance goals.

The general rule of thumb is that you should stay away from foods that have a lot of unidentifiable ingredients in the label.  The more foreign sounding names you read on the ingredients label, the more you should steer clear of these types of foods, and your body will thank you for it.

Obesity Up, Not Down in Last Decade

Apparently health organizations (I believe commissioned by the US government), gauge Americans success on several different scales, as it relates to things like premature and underweight births of children, blood pressure, obesity, dental care, diabetes, and basically anything you can think of that is one of the bigger health concerns here in the US, or happens to be at near epidemic levels.

Actually, the news isn’t as good as you’d think it might be with all the advances in medical technology and increased awareness of what it actually takes to be a healthy person these days. In fact, it’s gotten worse, which to me is alarming when we are supposed to be advancing as the human race becomes more and more evolved.

For one thing, children who are born underweight have actually increased. This fact stunned me, especially with the advances in prenatal care we have today. I wondered if it was because we cannot afford to give the poor and disadvantages the same prenatal care, or that they don’t have the proper coverage, and hence their babies don’t receive the same attention that those with coverage would?

This wasn’t the only fact that stunned me.  The other one had to do with obesity, which it seems like we never get good news about any more.  Instead of going down, as was predicted and was the goal for the health organizations tracking our various progress on vital health issues, obesity numbers went up as follows. A decade ago, about 25% of all adults were considered in the obese weight range.  That number in itself was pretty staggering for me to look at.  The goal was to have the obesity rate for adults at 15% by the end of the decade, aka 2010.  Well, we did not make that mark, in fact, we back pedaled to the tune of about 9%.

About 34% of all adults are now considered obese.  This is a huge problem, and one that needs to be addressed as part of preventive health care and education, because not only are too many adults obese, but too many also suffer from obesity related illnesses, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer and diabetes.  These obesity related health issues could take a dramatic drop if we just made sure that not so goshdarn many of us fell into the heavy category.

However, if the past is any indication, it looks like these numbers just may keep increasing over the subsequent decades. Unless we really put a stop to people eating tons of processed, highly salted, fatted and sugared foods, which is pretty darn near impossible since it’s been ingrained in our culture and our very being.

Do You Think Brittany Murphy Had Eating Disorder?

When I consider the tragic news of Brittany Murphy dying at such a terrible young age of 32 years old from a seemingly incomprehensible cardiac accident, which is normally reserved only for those with either older hearts or extremely taxed and perhaps pre existing conditions, I do wonder if she had an eating disorder because of her rather frail and slight appearance the many times I’ve seen pictures of the doe eyed beauty.

She was a lovely young woman, and very talented, but when I see her now compared to when she first was in the hit movie Clueless years ago when she bounced onto the acting scene, I can’t help but see the disparity in her weight from then to now. Naturally slim people tend to be naturally slim their whole lives, so it does make one wonder how her metabolism could have magically sped up so much as she got older, and more suspiciously, as she undoubtedly started to realize the pressures of Hollywood women to keep themselves thin to a fault to get movie roles and be considered “beautiful”. It really is sad if you think about it, that societal pressure could have helped lead to her way too early demise.

Some friends and colleagues, incidentally, have voiced their concern that she appeared to be losing quite a bit of weight lately and appeared emaciated and even more frail recently when seen out and about.  Apparently she had acknowledged that she needed to put weight on as well, which makes one wonder if she did have anorexia, or even perhaps bulimia, since her grieving husband has insisted that she had a healthy appetite and ate like a horse, refuting rumors of anorexia.

However, the one thing that doesn’t add up there is that bulimics usually aren’t excruciatingly think like anorexic people are, because they do retain enough of the calories to keep some fat on their body. Hmm….that’s just my observation, not that I’m an expert by any means, that’s just what I’ve read.

No matter what the reason or reasons are behind Brittany Murphy’s death are, it does need to be addressed that women in Hollywood and the entertainment industry in general are under ridiculous pressures to maintain virtually fat free physiques.  Women are supposed to have body fat, that’s how our bodies were designed so that we may give birth to babies without losing too much weight and so that we may bear children in the first place. It’s a darn shame that we have to feel bad about how our bodies were meant to be.

New Diet Product for the New Year

I decided to talk to you about a newer diet product that we recently decided to start promoting here at Diet Blog because we really believe it is the best hoodia diet pill out there today. It’s called Unique Hoodia, and it’s the only one I’ve found that is actually a high dosage of pure, unadulterated hoodia gordonii powder.  Hoodia, of course, is that plant from Africa that was used by the San bushmen to go on long hunting excursions so they could substantially curb both their hunger and their thirst. It works off of what’s called a P57 molecule, which is what is thought to be responsible for the significant hunger suppression.

I’ve tried it and it does reduce hunger significantly, because I am usually one hungry girl, however I went hours without getting cravings or hunger pains, whereas I normally am hungry pretty much 24/7.  I also noticed that it seemed my blood sugar was much more even, i could focus and concentrate whereas with other hoodia diet pills that had a lot of caffeine added to them, I would lose focus, shake, and become totally discombobulated (ok, I don’t even think that is a word, but I just used it even though I admittedly hate it) after it kicked in.

With Unique Hoodia, there are no shakes or side effects because all it contains is 100% hoodia extract, which is what is the ticket to getting that hunger suppression with out the shaky, nervous and brainless feeling you get with many stimulant diet drugs and supplements.

Ok, enough on that one. Of course, there is also Proactol, which is still supposedly selling like hotcakes as well. I expect to see all the sales of diet products go up in January, but not really as much as they have in the past since we are still in a recession and anything that’s not a necessity pretty much falls by the wayside on people’s priority lists, including and especially diet and well being products like diet pills.

Christmas is Coming..

‘Tis the night before Christmas, and I just wanted to wish all my Daily Diet Blog readers a lovely, warm, wonderful Christmas day tomorrow.  Let’s take a break from thinking about working out, watching what we eat and constantly obsessing over those last five pounds, and instead take a moment to think of what we are grateful for.  It might be anything, your job, your family, your health, your friends, a new love in your life, but just focus on that and I promise you’ll realize that everyone is truly blessed in some way, even if they don’t have everything they think they want.

I think that the current situation the world finds itself in has taught us that we should be thankful for what we have, and it has also taught us to take a bit more of a minimalist attitude towards life and belongings and materialism. I hope this marks a new era for America, where less is more (it would be nice if this translated into our supersize portion mentality too, but we won’t talk about that right now), and where we realize what’s really important in life.

Merry Christmas everyone, I feel truly special that you read with us and share in our experiences, and hope that you will continue to do so next year.