9 Weight Loss Secrets the Diet Industry Doesn't Want You to Know

Alternet has an interesting piece up called "9 Weight Loss Secrets the Diet Industry Doesn't Want You to Know"

The title is a bit sensationalistic, but some of the tips they offer are quite reality based. Excerpted below:

1. You have to exercise more than you think.

Example from Article: the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) -- a group of over 5,000 individuals who have lost an average of sixty-six pounds and kept it off for five and a half years -- exercise for about an hour, every day.

2. A half-hour walk doesn't equal a brownie.

Example from Article: I remember going out to eat with some friends after a bike ride. Someone commented on how we deserved dessert because we had just spent the day exercising; in fact, we had taken a leisurely twenty-minute ride through the park. This probably burned the calories in a slice of our French bread, but definitely not those in the caramel fudge brownie dessert. Bummer.

3. You have time to exercise.

Example from Article: If you have time to check email, watch a sitcom or two, surf the internet, have drinks/coffee/dinner with friends, go clothes shopping, and on and on, then you have time to exercise.

4. Eating more of something won't help you lose weight.

Example from Article: A prime example is the widespread claim that eating more dairy products will help you lose weight. However, a recent review of forty-nine clinical trials from 1966 to 2007 showed that "neither dairy nor calcium supplements helped people lose weight."

5. Calories in = calories out?

Example from Article: One is simply "empty" calories -- those that provide no real nutritional benefit and don't do much to combat hunger. Whether you ascribe to the simple idea of trying to burn more calories than you take in or focus on avoiding certain types of calories, you want to minimize intake of empty calories, and maximize nutrient-dense calories.

6. Your body is working against you.

Example from Article: Most people have noticed that it's hard to lose weight, but easy to gain it. This is a relic of harder times, when food was not as abundant as it is today. Our genetic taste buds made energy-dense food desirable because it was necessary to pack away calories so we could make it through the thin times. We feasted when we could, in preparation for the famine.

7. Our cultural environment is also working against you.

Example from Article: According to Linda Bacon, associate professor of nutrition at UC Davis, "We get a tremendous amount of pressure to eat for reasons other than nurturing ourselves, and over time, people lose sensitivity to hunger/fullness/appetite signals meant to keep them healthy and well nourished. It's hard for people to come to a healthy sense of themselves given the cultural climate, and nutritious and pleasurable options for healthy food are not as easily accessible as less nutritious."

8. Maybe you don't need to lose weight.

Example from Article: Gina Kolata, a New York Times science writer questions the notion that thin is a realistic or necessary objective for most. In her book, Rethinking Thin, she asserts that weight loss is an unachievable goal for many, and that losing weight isn't so much about health as it is about money, trends, and impossible ideals. Recent research also challenges the idea that being overweight is bad. A study in JAMA found that being twenty-five pounds overweight did not increase the risk of heart disease and cancer, and may even help stave off infections.

9. This is not a diet; this is your life.

Example from Article: The diet industry would have us all think that we can lose weight fast, and that's that. But most people who maintain their weight understand that eating and exercising are not temporary conditions, to be dumped once a pair of jeans fit. Instead, they are lifestyle choices, and ones to be made for the long haul.

I know that I can be guilty of #'s 1, 2, 4, & 9 in particular. Of those, 1 (you must exercise) and 9 (this is not a diet, its your life) are what I will be working on in particular over the next few weeks now that I no longer have the schedule from hell.

Go read the whole thing if you're interested. I read some of the comments and believe it or not they were quite positive; usually when I read articles on Alternet that have to do with Obesity, there's a lot of haters loving to call fat folks pigs. There's an article up today as well about domestic violence and the recession and the comment thread is totally dominated by MRA's screaming about how women are equally abusive and how domestic battery laws impinge on their rights, yada yada yada, so maybe that comment thread kept the a#@&(*#@ busy today.

Peace