Embrace spring, recharge your weight loss efforts

Our weekly general interest
e-newsletter keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics.

Sign up now

In Minnesota, where one of the sites of Mayo Clinic is located, the winters are long.  So, this time of year people are anxiously awaiting springlike weather. This can be a great time of year to recharge your weight loss efforts.

As you move outside in the spring, you naturally become more active. Spring cleaning in the garage, working in the yard, and just moving around in the warmer weather all contribute to burning more calories. In fact, there's some evidence that it may be easier to lose weight in the spring for this reason.

Getting a garden plot ready not only increases activity, but also sets the stage for wonderful vegetables in late spring and summer. Because vegetables differ as to when they're ready to harvest, it's possible to have various types of greens early on, followed by sweet peas, peppers, carrots, squash, and many others as the growing season progresses.

By planting different varieties of tomatoes, they can be enjoyed for many weeks (my favorite is the sweet, small, orange Sun Golds!). If you don't have a garden, support your local farmer's market.  Even regular grocery stores often have good specials on whatever is in season.

Take advantage of the warmer weather and incorporate regular activity into your schedule and seasonal foods into your diet. Instead of New Year's resolutions, make some springtime resolutions. Make it part of your lifestyle to go for a walk in the evening. It's a great way to see the neighborhood, burn some calories, and I guarantee you'll feel better. Although it takes a little time, what better way to spend it? After your walk (or before), prepare a seasonal garden salad as part of your dinner.

Embracing spring can be a great way to experience the change of seasons, shed some of those winter pounds, and enjoy improving your health. If you have springtime activities or foods you'd like to share with others, please let us know.

blog index

View the original article here

Take control of challenges to weight loss plan

Our weekly general interest
e-newsletter keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics.

Sign up now

In one of the previous blogs, I mentioned we all experience challenges in trying to manage weight. I just returned from a trip away for a couple weeks. Traveling is one of these challenges and can often make it difficult to keep up efforts to eat well and be physically active. And there are many other challenges. Combining this with a tendency to resort to old habits that may promote weight gain, it's no wonder that it's difficult to lose weight and keep it off.

So, how can we deal effectively with these challenges to our weight loss efforts? In "The Mayo Clinic Diet," we discuss being ready to lose weight. This includes not only being ready initially, but also ready to continue efforts long-term. Dealing with these challenges is part of this long-term readiness. One of the most important aspects of effectively managing challenges is to expect them. While individual challenges may vary, virtually everyone will experience them sooner or later.

If you expect them, once they occur you can use problem solving strategies to deal with them in a constructive manner, rather than taking the path of least resistance and reverting back to old habits that promote weight gain.

In "The Mayo Clinic Diet" there is an Action Guide in which we have listed a number of challenges that people face (e.g., not eating breakfast) and strategies on how to deal with them.  When I was traveling, I was exposed to increased calorie foods and on occasion a lot of it (buffets!). I knew this would happen, so some of the strategies I used were to:

Decide ahead of time what I was going to eat at a buffet instead of mindlessly eating.Try and make sure I ate plenty of vegetables and fruits to help fill me up, even when there were plenty of high-energy dense tasty foods around.Make an extra effort to get physical activity in. Many of the people I was with bemoaned the fact that they had fallen out of their exercise routine. I got up a little earlier some days and on others made exercise a top priority. The payoff was well worth it in terms of feeling better as well as burning more calories.

Don't let circumstances turn your program upside down. Expect challenges, take control when they happen, and stay on your weight loss journey. Please share your tips.

blog index

View the original article here

When it comes to weight loss, there's no magic bullet

Our weekly general interest
e-newsletter keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics.

Sign up now

Human nature being what it is, we want to believe there's a quick fix somewhere to help us lose weight, and we just need to find it.  This belief can be strong, so strong that even when we know something makes little sense, we still want to try it, hoping that at last we've found the magic bullet for weight loss.

Consider this — if there was a magic bullet, wouldn't everyone be using it and successful at losing weight? People spend literally billions of dollars on dietary supplements. Yet, despite the promises of all the many supplements out there, virtually none of them are effective in promoting long-term weight loss.

The only over the counter product that has any effect is orlistat, which is also available by prescription. However, weight loss is usually very modest at best, and at a relatively large cost. When it comes to supplements, save your money.

Fad diets have been popular for years and the list is long. Some of them were falsely called "The Mayo Clinic Diet", and they seemed to change from year to year. Cabbage soup, grapefruit, and bacon and eggs were some of the foods emphasized on these so called Mayo Clinic diets, but none of them were associated with Mayo Clinic.

The HCG diet has made a resurgence in the past few years. Years ago, it was originally used along with a 500 calorie per day diet — anyone would lose weight eating that few calories. But it's not safe and not recommended.

Recently, I looked at some of the fad diets that were popular years ago. I didn't recognize many and hardly any of them are still around.  Most tend to run their course until the next fad comes along.

When considering a dietary program for weight loss, you should ask some basic questions:

Is it safe? Does it promote good nutrition and improve health?Is it enjoyable? Is it practical and sustainable — can you continue it for a long time to keep excess weight off?

The answer should be yes to all of these questions before embarking on any weight loss diet.

While it's tempting to jump in and try a product or program promising effortless weight loss, consider it carefully before investing time and money. The old adage holds true in this case — if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

blog index

View the original article here

Can-do attitude, action plan key to weight loss resolutions

Our weekly general interest
e-newsletter keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics.

Sign up now

It's long past the time to make New Year's resolutions, but it isn't too late to assess how you're doing on the ones you made. Weight loss is one of the more popular resolutions, and one of the more challenging ones to continue.

Now is the time of year when you experience the many obstacles of sustaining health behavior changes to promote weight loss. Good intentions to begin the year require renewed vigor to reach your goals.

So, what can help keep you on track? Before going there, let's look at some things you should consider when you're beginning a weight loss program. Is this a good time in your life to do this? Are you able to commit the time? Or, are there things going on in your life that you need to attend to first? There are other similar considerations outlined in Chapter 1 of our book "The Mayo Clinic Diet".

Once you decide to make a commitment to continue your weight loss efforts, then you can identify obstacles you may be experiencing and consider solutions and strategies to deal with them. These obstacles may include time pressures or something more specific such as portion control. The important point is there are many obstacles, they vary for each of us, and the strategies to overcome them may vary individually as well.

When undertaking weight loss, everyone experiences obstacles and challenges. Expect them and use problem solving behaviors to address them. For every obstacle, there are strategies and potential solutions. They may not be perfect, but something can be done. By approaching obstacles in this manner, you can adopt a can-do attitude, which will make you much more likely to achieve your goals.

Beginning on page 180 in "The Mayo Clinic Diet", there's an action guide that describes many different obstacles in nutrition, physical activity, and behavioral change along with strategies on how to deal with them. You may have experienced others. Please share with us what obstacles you've experienced and how you've overcome them.

blog index

View the original article here

Myths about weight loss

Our weekly general interest
e-newsletter keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics.

Sign up now

Recently, there was an article in a medical journal on myths about obesity, and there are many. Why is this?

Losing weight is challenging as everyone knows. And much more complex than it seems. It's much more than just eating less and exercising more. Because we don't understand weight loss well enough to be more successful, we search for explanations — and myths are created. Here are a few of these myths:

The reason why I weigh more is my metabolic rate is low. As people gain weight they increase not only body fat, but also some muscle to support that fat. Approximately 20-30 percent of excess weight is muscle. Muscle tissue burns calories, so the more muscle someone has, the greater the metabolic rate. So in general, the more someone weighs, the greater their metabolic rate. This doesn't include calories burned through physical activity. The reason why I weigh more is my thyroid isn't working well. It's true that weight gain will occur in someone who has advanced hypothyroidism (low thyroid hormone). However, weight gain doesn't occur until someone has had hypothyroidism severely and for a long time. The vast majority of people whose thyroid gland isn't working properly have it discovered on a laboratory test when it's mild, long before it affects body weight. A simple blood test can tell if your thyroid gland is working properly. Small changes in calorie intake will cause large changes in body weight over time. Occasionally, someone will state something such as: If you eat one less cookie each day, and that cookie contains 100 calories, then by doing the math you should lose more than 10 pounds after one year. Yet, why don't we know more people who've accomplished this? It's because as we lose weight, we burn less calories (our metabolic rate decreases as discussed above). This is also one of the reasons why we hit a plateau when we lose weight, and one of the complexities of weight loss.

There are many other weight loss myths. In our book, "The Mayo Clinic Diet," we have tried to take some of the myths and complexities out of weight loss. We try to explain things simply and provide a program that people can understand and follow. While weight loss is still challenging, we believe this can help.

blog index

View the original article here

Positive attitude key in tackling weight loss

Our weekly general interest
e-newsletter keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics.

Sign up now

The reason some people aren't as successful at managing their weight as they would like to be can be traced to how they begin their efforts. You need to set yourself up to succeed.

What do I mean by that? In an area that's challenging and has many barriers and bumps in the road, you want to give yourself the best chance possible. This means preparing yourself initially as well as you can.

Attitude is extremely important, but often not appreciated. The common attitude associated with initiating weight loss is "Oohh, I've got to go on a DIET," often said with a forlorn tone that implies the joy has gone out of life.

This negative, restrictive attitude seems to anticipate the drudgery that is sure to follow. Sound familiar? This approach is destined to fail sooner or later because it isn't sustainable. It's like you're constantly trudging uphill toward an elusive goal.

A better approach is to focus on the positive aspects of undertaking lifestyle changes that can lead to better weight management. Yes, positive. For example, many people find that when they were more physically active, they felt better. Listen to this. Use this as motivation to continue to be active.

Does it take some effort to move regularly, especially when just starting? Sure. Will it take more time? Absolutely. But it's well worth it — for your weight, your health, and how you feel. And if you start out with the right attitude, along with a solid program, you can succeed.

In terms of changing the way you eat (it's much more than a "diet"), focus on the opportunities and what you can eat as opposed to what foods you're trying to cut down on. There are many wonderful foods and recipes to explore, and believe it or not we can learn to like new foods.

Think of something you didn't like when you were younger and now enjoy (for me it's cantaloupe and tomatoes, especially fresh garden varieties). There are so many traditional, healthy, ethnic foods to explore — Mediterranean (e.g., Greek salad, tabouli, pasta primavera and many others), Asian (stir fried vegetables, sushi — OK, we'll wait for a while on the sushi for some of you), and others. It can be a veritable gastronomic journey around the world instead of a restrictive "diet".

There are many other issues to consider before undertaking lifestyle changes to promote weight loss, many of which are discussed in The Mayo Clinic Diet (it's more than a "diet" also). Be sure you're ready and can give it your best effort. Starting out with the right attitude and feeling like you're on an enjoyable and sustainable journey will get you well on your way. Happy travels.

blog index

View the original article here

Share your tips for weight loss

Our weekly general interest
e-newsletter keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics.

Sign up now

Recently, one of our users suggested a blog posting where people can post helpful hints that have worked for them and share them with others, so here it is.  Please feel free to post things that have been particularly helpful for you in your weight loss journey that perhaps aren't covered in The Mayo Clinic Diet. We'd love to hear from you!

blog index var shareUrl=encodeURIComponent(window.location);var shareTitle=encodeURIComponent(document.title);

Privacy policy (Updated Aug. 10, 2012) Terms and conditions of use policy (Updated Aug. 2, 2011)

LEGAL CONDITIONS AND TERMS OF USE APPLICABLE TO ALL USERS OF THIS SITE. ANY USE OF THIS SITE CONSTITUTES YOUR AGREEMENT TO THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF USE.

© 1998-2013 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. All rights reserved.

View the original article here