Hamilton, April 15, 2009: ‘Rat Science’ Doesn't Work For Humans.
Obesity experts have failed to discover the secret to successful weight loss because their work with rats in the laboratory does not relate to real human experience. That's the opinion of one of Canada's leading lifestyle experts.
"In the past 11 years we have consulted with thousands of Canadians who are consistently consuming less than 1200 calories per day, often for months and years at a time without any weight loss," explains Keep America / Keep Canada Slim President Lee Fairbanks. “This flies in the face of traditional science which has always claimed that weight loss or weight gain is a simple equation of calories in versus calories out.”
Maintenance calorie levels for non-exercising women typically range between 1600 and 2000 calories a day.
"When I have discussed this phenomenon with researchers and scientists they simply tell me that all of these thousands of people have been lying constantly about what they actually eat. This is a personal insult to all involved and is also clearly invalid as an explanation of what we observe in the real world."
Keep Canada Slim is a weight control program that teaches a new approach to shopping, cooking and eating. It was founded 11 years ago by Fairbanks and is the only program in Canada which establishes minimum calorie levels for each individual client as well as maximum calorie levels. For information on Keep Canada Slim go to www.keepcanadaslim.com.
Fairbanks claims that a significant number of Canadians - "in the millions" - are currently undereating almost every day in a desperate attempt to either lose weight or maintain their current weight. This habit of undereating leaves them nutritionally deficient and increases their risk of degenerative disease later in life.
Perhaps more important to those trying to lose weight, Fairbanks says his research with real Canadians shows that this low-calorie lifestyle does not create ongoing weight loss and in fact has the risk of causing muscle loss in the absence of sufficient calories for energy from food.
Fairbanks says the fault lies in the way scientists use rats to study obesity.
"The human body has an amazing ability to adapt to whatever challenges it faces,” explains Fairbanks. “During repeated cycles of low-calorie diets leading eventually to a permanent low-calorie lifestyle, the body adapts its metabolic processes to allow it to survive for years without measureable health risk despite not receiving adequate levels of energy and nutrition.”
“In a lab rats are put through a single cycle of dietary adjustments and then killed so that the results can be measured. Because of this single cycle approach it's natural for scientists to conclude that weight control is simply a matter of calories in versus calories out. This equation does work in humans the first or second time they try it. However scientists never experience the cyclical nature of ongoing dieting and therefore do not observe the adaptation process.”
Fairbanks says that this knowledge is slowly creeping into academic circles (see reference below) but that it may be decades before scientists can agree on how this process occurs and be willing to put their reputations at risk by making these claims publicly.
"With advanced real-time measurement of human metabolism and continued studies of existing diet programs some scientists are starting to realize that the traditional explanations don't explain what is happening. There are clinical trials emerging which prove that people do not lose the expected weight based on the calories in - calories out equation. However no one has made this claim publicly.”
“In the meantime the millions of Canadians who are already undereating are still being told to eat less and exercise more. In our program it is routine for us to insist that clients eat more calories every day than they are currently eating. As soon as they surpass their minimum calorie level the adaptive process stops and weight loss restarts. This has been the case with thousands of real people living real lives. Lab rats are not people."
Fairbanks points out that Canadians have been following the “eat less” instructions for decades, and yet even highly-educated, highly-motivated people are not having success losing weight this way.
“Demographic researchers like to point out that obesity rates are higher among low-income and poorly-educated Canadians, but go to any $100-a-plate fund-raising dinner and you will see that obesity rates are too high in every level of our society. It’s time we stopped studying rats and starting learning what real people are doing every day. Then our message will have validity.”
Keep Canada Slim can be purchased through the company website at www.keepcanadaslim.com or through registered consultants at offices across the country in London, Simcoe, Alliston, St. Catharines, Timmins, Stoney Creek, Hamilton, Winnipeg, and Sundre, Alberta.
-30-
Contacts
Lee Fairbanks, President, Keep Canada Slim
bigskinny@keepcanadaslim.com
905.628.0279
Ref: Why do obese patients not lose more weight when treated with low calorie diets? A mechanistic perspective.
Steven B Heymsfield, Joyce B Harp, Marc L Reitman, Joel W Beetsch, Dale A Schoeller, Ngozi Erondu, and Angelo Pietrobelli
Am J Clin Nutr 2007;85:346–54. Printed in USA. © 2007 American Society for Nutrition
Showing posts with label healthy weight loss. Show all posts
Showing posts with label healthy weight loss. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Recession Can Lead to Better Health
Good Time for Traditional Food Values
An economic recession is a great time to return to traditional food values. If you’re feeling the crunch financially you could save a lot of money on groceries while actually improving your health by cutting back on processed and packaged foods. And if you’re smart about your choices you can actually improve your health at the same time.
If you go through the store aisles you’ll find opportunities everywhere to save money. These savings can add up to hundreds and even thousands of dollars for a family over a period of months and years.
Some of the simplest strategies are to return to the lifestyle of our parents and grandparents. For instance rather than boxed processed cereals such as Frosted Flakes and Cheerios old favourites such as oatmeal offer superior health at about one third the price.
You can also save money on food by going on the Keep America / Keep Canada Slim weight loss program for another win-win. KAS is the lowest-priced complete weight loss program in North America at only $129.95 for the entire program of CDs, DVD, books and website support.
For more information go to http://www.keepamericaslim.com/.
Many of our most expensive foods are also high in fat and calories. A health-based weight loss program such as Keep America Slim will show you how to reduce the consumption of these choices, which will naturally save you money.
In the produce section, look for sale products. This week you might find broccoli and cucumbers for $.99 each but next week they are $1.99 and something else is on sale. Staple fruits such as bananas and bagged apples are less than $.99 a pound and provide tremendous nutritional value. More exotic fruits from tropical areas such as strawberries, grapes and oranges also go on sale even in the winter. It requires going to the store with a flexible shopping list, as opposed to simply buying the same things every week regardless of price.
It’s a great time to revisit the potato and to also eat more brown rice, basic starch products that provide a lot of energy per dollar. This is also a great time to endorse the highly recommended habit of reducing the portion size of animal protein products such as meat, chicken and fish which can be expensive, and eating larger portions of vegetables and starches which are much cheaper. Potatoes and rice both lend themselves to a variety of cooking options, such as baked, mashed, roasted and scalloped potatoes, or stir-fried rice with diced vegetables, teriyaki sauce and so on.
Sometimes frozen chicken and fish can be much less expensive than fresh, and purchasing store brands instead of name brands can save even more. Buy chicken with the skin on and bone in and remove the skin and bone yourself at home the way your parents would have. Beans and lentils also offer inexpensive high-quality protein sources as alternatives.
Frozen orange juice can usually be found for a dollar a can on sale, as opposed to $3-$4 for the same amount in a carton. Instead of buying bottled water buy a small carbon filter and make your own. A $7 Brita filter makes 150 L of bottled water with savings of about $50 compared to the equivalent number of 500 ml bottles.
It’s important not to sacrifice nutritional value when making these substitutions. There is a tendency to believe that good foods are all more expensive but this has never been true and is certainly not true today. There have always been healthy choices for people on a budget but sometimes it takes an economic crisis for people to re-evaluate their habits. Just don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. For instance, I wouldn’t eat white bread no matter what the price difference. I will continue to use cold-pressed olive oil for cooking and salad dressing, even though there are cheaper oils. The loss of nutritional value is just too great.
This would be a great time to spend a little extra time in the kitchen making foods that you have been in the habit of purchasing. These would include such things as tomato sauces, stews, salad dressing and snacks. Make your own muffins and cookies. You could spend a few hours in the kitchen on the weekend and make enough of these for a week or more.
Keep America Slim includes a cookbook with 60 easy recipes to start you on your way. Go to our What's in the Package page for more info.
You should check your neighbourhood for alternatives to the mainstream grocery stores that you may be more familiar with. Bulk stores and dollar stores today have a lot of non-perishable goods at cheaper prices and grocery stores. This would include pasta, rice, coffee, tea and flour.
And speaking of coffee, the recession might actually be beneficial to some companies such as Dunkin’ Donuts. I see a lot of people switching from designer coffees at five dollars a crack and going back to DD. You can feed a family of four for a week for the same price as a designer coffee every day.
So remember, there is always a silver lining in every cloud. This recession may be just what you need to get you committed to a healthier lifestyle!
An economic recession is a great time to return to traditional food values. If you’re feeling the crunch financially you could save a lot of money on groceries while actually improving your health by cutting back on processed and packaged foods. And if you’re smart about your choices you can actually improve your health at the same time.
If you go through the store aisles you’ll find opportunities everywhere to save money. These savings can add up to hundreds and even thousands of dollars for a family over a period of months and years.
Some of the simplest strategies are to return to the lifestyle of our parents and grandparents. For instance rather than boxed processed cereals such as Frosted Flakes and Cheerios old favourites such as oatmeal offer superior health at about one third the price.
You can also save money on food by going on the Keep America / Keep Canada Slim weight loss program for another win-win. KAS is the lowest-priced complete weight loss program in North America at only $129.95 for the entire program of CDs, DVD, books and website support.
For more information go to http://www.keepamericaslim.com/.
Many of our most expensive foods are also high in fat and calories. A health-based weight loss program such as Keep America Slim will show you how to reduce the consumption of these choices, which will naturally save you money.
In the produce section, look for sale products. This week you might find broccoli and cucumbers for $.99 each but next week they are $1.99 and something else is on sale. Staple fruits such as bananas and bagged apples are less than $.99 a pound and provide tremendous nutritional value. More exotic fruits from tropical areas such as strawberries, grapes and oranges also go on sale even in the winter. It requires going to the store with a flexible shopping list, as opposed to simply buying the same things every week regardless of price.
It’s a great time to revisit the potato and to also eat more brown rice, basic starch products that provide a lot of energy per dollar. This is also a great time to endorse the highly recommended habit of reducing the portion size of animal protein products such as meat, chicken and fish which can be expensive, and eating larger portions of vegetables and starches which are much cheaper. Potatoes and rice both lend themselves to a variety of cooking options, such as baked, mashed, roasted and scalloped potatoes, or stir-fried rice with diced vegetables, teriyaki sauce and so on.
Sometimes frozen chicken and fish can be much less expensive than fresh, and purchasing store brands instead of name brands can save even more. Buy chicken with the skin on and bone in and remove the skin and bone yourself at home the way your parents would have. Beans and lentils also offer inexpensive high-quality protein sources as alternatives.
Frozen orange juice can usually be found for a dollar a can on sale, as opposed to $3-$4 for the same amount in a carton. Instead of buying bottled water buy a small carbon filter and make your own. A $7 Brita filter makes 150 L of bottled water with savings of about $50 compared to the equivalent number of 500 ml bottles.
It’s important not to sacrifice nutritional value when making these substitutions. There is a tendency to believe that good foods are all more expensive but this has never been true and is certainly not true today. There have always been healthy choices for people on a budget but sometimes it takes an economic crisis for people to re-evaluate their habits. Just don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. For instance, I wouldn’t eat white bread no matter what the price difference. I will continue to use cold-pressed olive oil for cooking and salad dressing, even though there are cheaper oils. The loss of nutritional value is just too great.
This would be a great time to spend a little extra time in the kitchen making foods that you have been in the habit of purchasing. These would include such things as tomato sauces, stews, salad dressing and snacks. Make your own muffins and cookies. You could spend a few hours in the kitchen on the weekend and make enough of these for a week or more.
Keep America Slim includes a cookbook with 60 easy recipes to start you on your way. Go to our What's in the Package page for more info.
You should check your neighbourhood for alternatives to the mainstream grocery stores that you may be more familiar with. Bulk stores and dollar stores today have a lot of non-perishable goods at cheaper prices and grocery stores. This would include pasta, rice, coffee, tea and flour.
And speaking of coffee, the recession might actually be beneficial to some companies such as Dunkin’ Donuts. I see a lot of people switching from designer coffees at five dollars a crack and going back to DD. You can feed a family of four for a week for the same price as a designer coffee every day.
So remember, there is always a silver lining in every cloud. This recession may be just what you need to get you committed to a healthier lifestyle!
Monday, February 16, 2009
Is Your Job Making You Fat?
Making Work, work for you
As most people know, many jobs require long periods of physical inactivity, often sitting at a desk for hours at a time. But lack of activity is not the whole story on why your job is making you fat.
Other careers require extended periods of concentrated efforts which dictate your day’s schedule, causing you to skip meals. Believe it or not, this work habit will also cause you to gain weight.
In our consulting program we often hear these explanations as to why people can’t eat properly during the day: “I’m too busy at work to stop and eat,” or “I’m not allowed to take a break between lunch and the end of the day.”
For more information about our program go to http://www.keepamericaslim.com/.
In both cases, their job or career is making them fat.
Consider this: a person can gain weight while eating 1500 calories per day; the same person can lose weight while eating 1500 calories a day – without any change in their activity.
The secret is in balancing meals – when you eat and how much you eat at each meal.
Let’s say at 7:30 a.m. you eat a typical breakfast of cereal with milk and black coffee. You might consume 200 calories. If you have a quick lunch at 12:30, maybe a salad with fat-free dressing, yogurt and an apple; or soup and half a sandwich; you might eat 300 calories there. Then you get home after a 60-minute commute, take an hour to settle and make dinner, then eat a 1,000-calorie meal at 7:30.
Because you have eaten so little during the day, your body is in ‘starvation’ mode by dinner time, something we explain in detail in our program. In starvation, you will store pretty much all of that dinner. In addition, you can’t burn off 1,000 calories before your next meal, so some of that storage is still there when you have breakfast the next day.
Compare that routine to this one: You eat a little more for breakfast – maybe add an egg and hit 300 calories. At 10:30 you have a low-fat muffin with low-fat cream cheese and an apple with your coffee – another 300 calories. At 3 o’clock you eat a whole wheat chicken wrap for another 300 calories.
When you get home, you’re not that hungry, so you have a small plate of pasta with tomato sauce and some fresh chopped veggies at 7 p.m., adding another 300 calories to your day. About 10 o’clock you feel like a snack so you have that last piece of apple pie you’ve been saving for another 300 calories.
The difference with this meal plan is that it has kept your metabolism moving at a steady pace all day. You never go into starvation metabolism, so you don’t store any of it.
Think of your metabolism as a fire. If you feed it wood regularly it will burn steadily, consuming the fuel, producing energy and leaving a little ash. On the other hand if you cut back on wood for extended periods of time the flame will die down. Then you dump three times the regular amount of wood on it and the flame is suffocated, causing incomplete combustion and leaving a lot of wood only partially burned.
That’s the way it is with your metabolism. Feed the flames a steady flow of fuel and you will not store it. This is one of the key strategies we teach in the Keep Canada Slim program
Keep Canada / Keep America Slim is a comprehensive weight control program sold through the website, http://www.keepamericaslim.com/ and through independent consultation offices across Canada.
As most people know, many jobs require long periods of physical inactivity, often sitting at a desk for hours at a time. But lack of activity is not the whole story on why your job is making you fat.
Other careers require extended periods of concentrated efforts which dictate your day’s schedule, causing you to skip meals. Believe it or not, this work habit will also cause you to gain weight.
In our consulting program we often hear these explanations as to why people can’t eat properly during the day: “I’m too busy at work to stop and eat,” or “I’m not allowed to take a break between lunch and the end of the day.”
For more information about our program go to http://www.keepamericaslim.com/.
In both cases, their job or career is making them fat.
Consider this: a person can gain weight while eating 1500 calories per day; the same person can lose weight while eating 1500 calories a day – without any change in their activity.
The secret is in balancing meals – when you eat and how much you eat at each meal.
Let’s say at 7:30 a.m. you eat a typical breakfast of cereal with milk and black coffee. You might consume 200 calories. If you have a quick lunch at 12:30, maybe a salad with fat-free dressing, yogurt and an apple; or soup and half a sandwich; you might eat 300 calories there. Then you get home after a 60-minute commute, take an hour to settle and make dinner, then eat a 1,000-calorie meal at 7:30.
Because you have eaten so little during the day, your body is in ‘starvation’ mode by dinner time, something we explain in detail in our program. In starvation, you will store pretty much all of that dinner. In addition, you can’t burn off 1,000 calories before your next meal, so some of that storage is still there when you have breakfast the next day.
Compare that routine to this one: You eat a little more for breakfast – maybe add an egg and hit 300 calories. At 10:30 you have a low-fat muffin with low-fat cream cheese and an apple with your coffee – another 300 calories. At 3 o’clock you eat a whole wheat chicken wrap for another 300 calories.
When you get home, you’re not that hungry, so you have a small plate of pasta with tomato sauce and some fresh chopped veggies at 7 p.m., adding another 300 calories to your day. About 10 o’clock you feel like a snack so you have that last piece of apple pie you’ve been saving for another 300 calories.
The difference with this meal plan is that it has kept your metabolism moving at a steady pace all day. You never go into starvation metabolism, so you don’t store any of it.
Think of your metabolism as a fire. If you feed it wood regularly it will burn steadily, consuming the fuel, producing energy and leaving a little ash. On the other hand if you cut back on wood for extended periods of time the flame will die down. Then you dump three times the regular amount of wood on it and the flame is suffocated, causing incomplete combustion and leaving a lot of wood only partially burned.
That’s the way it is with your metabolism. Feed the flames a steady flow of fuel and you will not store it. This is one of the key strategies we teach in the Keep Canada Slim program
Keep Canada / Keep America Slim is a comprehensive weight control program sold through the website, http://www.keepamericaslim.com/ and through independent consultation offices across Canada.
Monday, February 9, 2009
The Magic Secret to Weight Loss - The Four Myths of Dieting
The 4 Myths of Dieting
Mention weight loss at any social gathering and everyone has an opinion to offer and a ready audience to listen. With 71% of Americans and 61% of Canadians overweight, people are always looking for the magic secret – the one thing that will instantly give them a solution to their lifetime of weight control challenges.
In truth, successful weight control starts by understanding why your efforts have failed so often in the past and then choosing a different approach. Chances are very high (90 per cent according to the Canadian Obesity Network) that you have lost weight in the past but gained it back – and usually more than you lost. Many people have done this several times. It’s called Yo-Yo Dieting.
Most people simply try the same approach every year, and get fatter and fatter because of it.
Many people today understand that success comes from a ‘lifestyle’ approach, but then turn around and choose a diet as their ‘lifestyle’, proving that they don’t really understand the difference at all.
To have long-term success and keep the weight off, you must avoid following the Four Myths of Dieting. How many of these do you believe?
To download your copy of the 4 Myths of Dieting go to http://www.keepcanadaslim.com/index.cfm?page=myths
Myth # 1: You must eat less to lose weight. Eat less than what? Ninety-seven per cent of people trying to lose weight are already currently under-eating. If you eat less than your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) requirements you will undermine your metabolism as you lose weight, then rebound once you are off the diet. Your BMR requirements are the minimum calorie level for basic metabolic function, i.e. if you are sleeping 24 hours per day. This is generally about 10 calories per day for each pound of your goal weight. Eating less than this causes the body to switch to ‘Starvation Metabolism’ and metabolize muscle while storing fat. Most people diet on between 800 and 1200 calories per day. This means their goal weight would be between 80 and 120 pounds. I think you can see why this equation doesn’t work.
Myth # 2: You must exercise more to lose weight. Exercise is an add-on, not a foundation of weight loss. If you make exercise the foundation of your weight control program sooner or later it will fail. Injuries, family situations, illness, lack of motivation, there are many reasons why people inevitably cut back on exercise. You must understand food to have permanent control. You must also understand food to have a successful exercise program. You need to eat more food on days that you are exercising to avoid yo-yo diet metabolism. Most people don’t do that. If you have tried exercise you have probably already experienced some of these drawbacks and therefore know that this is true.
Myth # 3: Faster weightloss is always better. Your body can only lose weight safely and permanently at a certain rate, usually 1-2 pounds per week. Faster weight loss can only be achieved through starvation (low-calorie) dieting or artificial stimulants. Both undermine your health and metabolism and make this weight loss temporary.
Myth # 4: Measuring pounds lost is the true measure of success. Your body is made up of six kinds of weight. These are fat, muscle, organs, bone, water and fecal matter. If you are only measuring pounds, you could be losing healthy weight as well as fat. Anorexics are often clinically obese when they die, and can die of heart failure because they have lost so much heart muscle tissue through starvation dieting. You’ve been doing much the same thing on diets. Post-menopausal women can lose up to 3% of their bone density in six months on a low-calorie diet. The weight you want to lose is bodyfat, so start measuring that. Healthy men should be between 11-19% and women between 17-25%. High performance male athletes may be lower.
Keep Canada / Keep America Slim is a comprehensive weight control program sold through the website, www.keepamericaslim.com and through independent consultation offices across Canada.
Mention weight loss at any social gathering and everyone has an opinion to offer and a ready audience to listen. With 71% of Americans and 61% of Canadians overweight, people are always looking for the magic secret – the one thing that will instantly give them a solution to their lifetime of weight control challenges.
In truth, successful weight control starts by understanding why your efforts have failed so often in the past and then choosing a different approach. Chances are very high (90 per cent according to the Canadian Obesity Network) that you have lost weight in the past but gained it back – and usually more than you lost. Many people have done this several times. It’s called Yo-Yo Dieting.
Most people simply try the same approach every year, and get fatter and fatter because of it.
Many people today understand that success comes from a ‘lifestyle’ approach, but then turn around and choose a diet as their ‘lifestyle’, proving that they don’t really understand the difference at all.
To have long-term success and keep the weight off, you must avoid following the Four Myths of Dieting. How many of these do you believe?
To download your copy of the 4 Myths of Dieting go to http://www.keepcanadaslim.com/index.cfm?page=myths
Myth # 1: You must eat less to lose weight. Eat less than what? Ninety-seven per cent of people trying to lose weight are already currently under-eating. If you eat less than your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) requirements you will undermine your metabolism as you lose weight, then rebound once you are off the diet. Your BMR requirements are the minimum calorie level for basic metabolic function, i.e. if you are sleeping 24 hours per day. This is generally about 10 calories per day for each pound of your goal weight. Eating less than this causes the body to switch to ‘Starvation Metabolism’ and metabolize muscle while storing fat. Most people diet on between 800 and 1200 calories per day. This means their goal weight would be between 80 and 120 pounds. I think you can see why this equation doesn’t work.
Myth # 2: You must exercise more to lose weight. Exercise is an add-on, not a foundation of weight loss. If you make exercise the foundation of your weight control program sooner or later it will fail. Injuries, family situations, illness, lack of motivation, there are many reasons why people inevitably cut back on exercise. You must understand food to have permanent control. You must also understand food to have a successful exercise program. You need to eat more food on days that you are exercising to avoid yo-yo diet metabolism. Most people don’t do that. If you have tried exercise you have probably already experienced some of these drawbacks and therefore know that this is true.
Myth # 3: Faster weightloss is always better. Your body can only lose weight safely and permanently at a certain rate, usually 1-2 pounds per week. Faster weight loss can only be achieved through starvation (low-calorie) dieting or artificial stimulants. Both undermine your health and metabolism and make this weight loss temporary.
Myth # 4: Measuring pounds lost is the true measure of success. Your body is made up of six kinds of weight. These are fat, muscle, organs, bone, water and fecal matter. If you are only measuring pounds, you could be losing healthy weight as well as fat. Anorexics are often clinically obese when they die, and can die of heart failure because they have lost so much heart muscle tissue through starvation dieting. You’ve been doing much the same thing on diets. Post-menopausal women can lose up to 3% of their bone density in six months on a low-calorie diet. The weight you want to lose is bodyfat, so start measuring that. Healthy men should be between 11-19% and women between 17-25%. High performance male athletes may be lower.
Keep Canada / Keep America Slim is a comprehensive weight control program sold through the website, www.keepamericaslim.com and through independent consultation offices across Canada.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
