It seems to be a sign of our times that just as people are searching for a quick and easy way out of their financial problems, more and more people are searching for a quick and easy way to lose weight.
One diet popular during the last great depression was heavily promoted by the citrus farming interests and was called the Hollywood 18 Day Diet. All you had to do was to eat 600 calories a day of nothing but grapefruit and oranges. If you didn’t lose weight I’m sure it at least succeeded in keeping you regular.
Another oldie but goody is the Cabbage Soup Diet. This old-timer is still around despite being over 30 years old. This one was sometimes called the Mayo Clinic Diet to give it a certain air of authority. This was despite the fact that the actual Mayo Clinic repeatedly denied having anything to do with it. Apparently, according to this one, if you eat nothing but cabbage soup you will lose weight. Possibly inspired by the siege of Leningrad, this one sounds like a good plan if you don’t mind the accompanying loss of muscle mass, energy, hair and skin tone as well as the long term damage to your body from lack of vitamins and minerals.
The latest diet to be embraced by the Hollywood glitterati is called the Baby Food diet. A simple diet, it consists of eating nothing but up to 14 jars of baby food a day. The diets proponents claim Jennifer Aniston loves this one. Unfortunately, this came as a big surprise to her. She says that she’s been on solid food for as long as she can remember.
But how could a baby food diet be bad for you, you might ask. In fact, health experts say eating nothing but baby food is just fine for little babies and it won’t hurt you to either. But how long can you keep that up? When you eventually get tired of strained peas you will simply resume the old eating habits that caused you to become overweight in the first place and then the weight comes right back.
Gaining extra weight didn’t happen overnight. It stands to reason that losing it isn’t going to happen in a couple of weeks either. While fad diets often come with questionable results, sticking to the old tried and true methods of weight loss always seems to work. Here’s three of them.
1. Give up junk food. All your weight loss efforts will do down the drain if you cannot keep yourself from eating junk and processed foods. These foods have high calorie content and will add to your pounds.
2. Eat lots of small meals. Five or six small meals is much better for your body than one huge one. When you eat, your body takes what you need for metabolism and whatever’s left gets stored as fat. Stop eating before you get to that point and skip the fat saving step.
3. Make exercise a part of your day. If you’re serious about losing weight, exercise is a must have. There’s an added bonus that you eat even more because you’re burning even more. And as you workout, your metabolic rate is increasing and this rate will stay higher even when you’re not at the gym. The extra muscle you gain will burn calories at an even higher rate.
No matter what diet you choose, if you find one that includes these three key points you know you’ve found a winner in the weight loss battle.
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