I have heard of what they call the cabbage diet.  When one woman started gaining weight that she couldn’t take off with a certain prescription medication, she claimed to take off 12 of the 30 pounds she had gained off and she was able to maintain that particular weight loss, even though her doctor attributed it to bad diet and no exercise program.

But cabbage does have valid attributes that would explain this.  Obviously, you only eat it, so you lose weight for that reason.  But also, cabbage is packed with vitamins and minerals such as vitamin C, K, A, B1, B2, B5, and vitamin E.  It even has more vitamin C than oranges surprisingly enough.  Then it is also good for digestion and elimination for digestive health, because it is packed with healthy fibers.  Third it is good for skin health, as it has been known for its anti aging benefits and has even been suggested to reduce acne, eczema, psoriasis, skin ulcers, wounds, and arthritis.  And finally, of course with any good food, you prevent the buildup of damaged cells associated with cancer, especially with powerful antioxidants.  With all these differing attributes, it is really no wonder why people are flocking to cabbage and moreover actually seeing results.

Exercise is extremely important to weight loss, not only because it effectively burns more calories, which is obvious, but because it builds muscle tone.  Muscle tone is extremely important.  It makes the metabolism function better in general, and it therefore allows your body to keep burning calories at a more efficient rate than before. 

There are certainly varying choices if you are looking for the right exercise programs.  It depends partly on the individual needs of the user.  But dieters and those who would like to achieve better results in general should always use some kind of cardio.  Whether you are walking to protect the joints or running for more accelerated results, you need to get the heart rate up and get the body working.  Second, lift weights.  You don’t have to lift big weights or build up huge muscles.  But greater tone and otherwise with weight lifting greatly helps to accelerate and build your results. 

However, one of the biggest factors in exercise is that you should not measure your success by weight loss.  This sounds contradictory.  But you should measure your results by inches lost.  If you are using the combination of cardio and weight lifting as you should, you will actually lose less weight and muscle weighs significantly more than fat.  You will still lose weight depending on your regimen.  But the inches per pound will be significantly greater.  For this reason, I suggest definitely breaking out the tape measure instead.

But no matter what kind of plan you participate in, make sure you are exercising at least 3 times per week if not more, and generally the best way is to work for 30 minutes at a time on whatever daily schedule you decide.  After 30 minutes, many find it is not as effective.

There are many who like the idea of controlling fast food restaurants to make them “healthier” or otherwise.  There are even publications that tell you which fast foods you should eat instead of eating other fast foods to help you still lose weight while eating said fast foods.  The biggest trend lately is those who want to require chain restaurants to provide calorie counts on the menu.

This may sound extreme to some of course, I realize that.  But did it ever occur to people in general to stop eating fast food or eat it oh once a week instead of every day or every other day?  That could very well contribute to a lower rate of obesity in and of itself.  As we saw on a number of documentaries surrounding our “fast food nation”, even the salads at many of these places are ultimately unhealthy, some would even say that some of them are worse than the burgers and fries served at the same organizations.  So logic would follow, stop eating fast food or at least drastically lower your general intake thereof.

But the logic behind many people who want to require this calorie counting is that they want users to be able to count their caloric intake and stay under a number of calories.  Again, whether you count calories or not, if all of those calories are made up of fat, the likelihood is you are going to suffer severe vitamin deficiencies, and you are not going to lose weight.  In essence, these are all the different ways that I like to encourage staying away from fast food in general and using common sense rather than making a big media production that would require more money in general to be spent.

While kids definitely don’t necessarily need to be on a diet, you should of course use common sense when teaching your kids about healthy habits.  They are better able to learn when they’re young than when they’re older and have already developed basic habits that can be hard to break.  Doctors definitely disagree on diets being good for children, let alone diet drinks.  It certainly sends a certain kind of message among other things.  But if you want to start your kids off on a healthier note in general without pushing a diet, try getting them into lower sugar drinks of course in balance with sugary drinks.  They shouldn’t feel restricted as compared to their classmates.  But at the same point in time, it helps them to develop good habits early.

First and most obvious, give them water.  The average person should be drinking 8 cups of water per day anyway.  So give them a head start.  Second, try lemonade.  And not kool-aid lemonade keep in mind.  Try real lemonade with a little bit of sugar.  Country time and crystal light are not bad choices.  Third, strawberry dacquiris are actually a good choice.  You’d be surprised.  Finally, try making your own popsicles out of your own juice.  These are not drinks, we realize.  But at the same point in time, they can be significantly healthier. 

While you should not put your child on a diet and we are certainly not advocating that, you can start early in teaching your kids healthy habits.  And with that, you can start them on the pathway to success in health and the healthy weight in their future.

While many are trying to lose weight, many are also failing to lose weight.  This could be because of the wrong diet, the wrong exercise plan, or the lack of both.  It could be due to medical conditions as well, but this isn’t as common as many like to think.  There are different options, but two that I’ve picked below are rather temporary options that nonetheless can jump start a good diet.  They should not be used as mechanisms of a regular diet.

First of all, you can use apple cider vinegar.  Apple cider vinegar has been around for years, and it is usually used in detoxifiers that are again used to jump start a diet plan rather than being the entire diet plan or supplement.  It can be found in pills, but you should find it really in its original form to avoid tampering, watered down formulas, etc.  But it has been linked to the reduction of acid reflux disease, diabetes, cholesterol problems, high blood pressure, heart health, and sinus and allergies.  It can be mixed into various other things and mixed with elements like honey to reduce the bitter taste.

On the other hand, coconut oil can be used for a longer period of time.  It has a reputation for being high in saturated fat, which can protect the vitamin E in the body and produce the good fat benefits.  It has no cholesterol, and it has medium chain fatty acids.  It has lauric acid, generally found in breast milk, and it is an effective anti viral and anti bacterial.  It can stimulate a healthy thyroid, and it cooks well.  Adding it to a healthy diet and exercise can substantially help your efforts.

In all my efforts to tone up, lose weight, and everything like that through the years, I have found one thing.  Well, I correct myself, I’ve found out a lot of things.  But there is one thing that has been more recent and more to the credit of a friend who was on a sudden kick to lose weight whereas mine has mostly been to maintain.  Anyway, part of what I’ve learned is that while running is great, running is good, running helps you to stay in shape, it is not always the best way to lose weight.  If you have sensitive knee joints among other things, it makes it literally impossible to keep doing it.  In addition, it takes some serious work, and you could really get the same caloric burning qualities doing something else.  They say you should do interval training, but that gets extremely tiring extremely fast, especially in the beginning.

Anyway, back to the alternative.  The best thing to do is walking.  Now if your knees are really bad, I would suggest just walking on a level surface.  But whether you have a hill near your house or a gym with treadmills, the incline is the best thing since some kind of diet pill.  A small incline makes a small difference to some degree.  But a big incline is somewhat of a fat killer. 

From what I’ve seen with myself and with others, the best way to do it sometimes is to put your treadmill if you are going that way at a 15 incline, which is essentially the highest you can get, and it is steep.  You can still walk up it, but it’s considerably high up.  Anyway, while at a lower incline, you should walk faster.  It depends on your leg length in part.  While 3.5 is a relatively high walking speed for someone with my leg length, some of you may be able to go up to 4 or 4.5mph.  It’s a relative thing.  But when you put your treadmill at that kind of incline, you can take bigger steps, not worry about the whole thing of speed, and I started out taking my speed down to 2.5mph and have now moved it up to 3.0mph.  2.5mph seems slow at any time.  But with that incline, it can definitely feel different, and everybody I’ve seen has experienced big results with just 15-30 minutes of this.  Some lost a lot of weight, but most combined that with quite a few inches and a greater level of general toning.

In the 90’s many people followed what was known as the “grapefruit diet.”  Some did their research and followed the stipulated diet, and others did not actually do the research, assumed that all you ate was grapefruit, and still lost weight because when you only eat one nutrient dense food all the time, you tend to lose weight.  

The grapefruit diet was developed by Dr. Ken Fujoka, who discovered in a study that patients who followed this general diet lose 3.6 pounds and some lost 13 pounds in about 12 weeks.  I’ve seen placebo groups who lost about 3.6 pounds in 8 weeks.  But that aside, in that particular study, the placebo group actually lost less.

The grapefruit diet, if followed, requires you to either eat half a grapefruit or drink an 8oz glass of grapefruit with every meal.  Outside that, you should obviously eat a balanced diet full of antioxidants, fibers, vitamins, minerals, healthy foods in general, and a healthy exercise program.  But apparently, many think that it works.  However, for many reasons such as the results or lack thereof, many people have forgotten about the grapefruit diet since the 1990’s.

It seems that though obesity can literally afflict people in any part of the world, it statistically speaking tends to afflict more Americans, of all ages and races now, than anywhere else in the world.  So it’s not racially related so much as regionally related and culturally related at this point.  It can be the most difficult handicap for any one person to handle, and some have even called it a literal disability. 

And to some degree, you could say it.  After all, obesity can cause serious problems to the health, to the ability to interact in your own life.  And yet, this disease of sorts seems to be one of the few diseases, along with those like depression, that we seem to blame the sufferer for.  We seem to think that it is all their own fault and therefore they somehow deserve it. 

I am by no means saying that it is completely out of the sufferers control or that they should not take some personal responsibility in this case.  In fact, I think a lot of the responsibility does lie on the individual.  But at the same point, when people have other problems, we run to help them.  We run to get them medical care, to adjust to their schedules, to help them to deal with and overcome their problem.  But with obesity, it is almost like we undermine them at every turn, not to mention the fact that the obese often feel abandoned by their family, friends, and everyday acquaintances.

Now in extreme cases, you may experience issues such as being too big to fit in a regular chair, having a hard time finding clothes that actually fit, and in some cases, even finding it hard to fit through regular sized doors.  And while the rest of us have our own issues I am sure, they have issues of their own.  After all, nobody wants to be a downer, everybody wants to fit in with their friends.  So you often get the stereotype of the jolly fat guy, when that is simply not the case. 

Essentially speaking, obesity is a self defeating thing.  When you try to be happy or pretend to be happy anyway, you often delve into deeper depression, binge eating, comfort food, and all self defeating practices.

I remember years ago, always hearing about the perils of living in the South in terms of obesity.  There were certain Southern states that were deemed to have the highest rates of obesity, and there were certainly some that should have been.  One of the major ones I heard about from friends who had lived there was Alabama.  Louisiana was apparently not as bad compared, even with major Cajun cooking.  But from what I was told, in Alabama, everything is fried!  Likewise, Georgia has cornbread, barbeques, peach cobblers and pies, and a 21.1% obesity rate.  Just 10 years ago, Georgia’s rate was 9.5%, and that is not to say they didn’t have all the same foods.  So what is the difference?

Well, whatever has come to be, it has changed everywhere.  Some would blame it on the rise of McDonalds, busy schedules, and quick fixes for meals.  We are now too lazy to make peach cobbler, cornbread, barbeque, etc.  Instead, we depend on fast food chains to make even fattier foods for us.  In 1970, just a few years ago really, McDonalds had one size of French fries.  Now, that size would be called medium.  But of course we had the documentary “Supersize Me” and since they still have huge portions of fries most choose.  You could have technically bought two of the small ones, but now that we have bigger ones, people don’t feel so piggish when they just order one.  It’s simple numbers really.  It encourages a smaller rate of self awareness.

One could also say that Bill Gates made us fat.  After all, he is the biggest computer and technology mogul in the world, and now we do all our shopping, eating, newspaper reading, and traveling using that technology.  So technically, all the active things we used to do are now done in front of a computer in that same old chair.  But ironically, obesity rates are higher in states where people have a smaller number of computers.  Even after you make the appropriate allowances for income and so on, it is still true. 

Then there’s smoking habits.  After all, smoking is an addiction, and when many try to stop, they turn to another addiction, which is often food.  They eat more, because some were actually replacing food with cigarettes for oral fixation.  Now they need something else for oral fixation fulfillment.  In 25 states surveyed, the rates of obesity did rise by 55% when smoking fell during the 90’s.  But at the same point in time, obesity rates still rose in the 25 states where smoking rates were on the rise.  They actually increased by a larger number, 59%. 

Essentially you are getting the idea.  The factors that we all commonly blame for obesity do not actually hold up often times in the harsh light of day.  We think it’s simple, but yet the facts counteract the assumptions we have about things, the assumptions that seem to based on some kind of logic.

Obesity has been connected to things that mothers can control to some degree such as the food given to children at younger or more advanced ages, rates of breastfeeding, etc.  But some researchers have now conducted studies on the potential connection between the child’s risk of obesity and the age at which the mother first menstruated.  All in all, one study was conducted in the UK sampling 6000 children. 

This particular study showed that those who had mothers who experienced puberty at an earlier age also had a higher risk of obesity.  These children had a tendency to grow faster as babies and become heavy children.  I would be curious however to see the children at older ages or samplings of older children in the same families.  It is a commonly seen phenomenon for children to “grow out of” their obesity, to be bigger babies, even bigger toddlers or small children, but to lose what some call “baby fat” as they get older.  This study has not been replicated at this time.

But they are also suggesting that this affects adults as well.  In short, those women who menstruate early are more likely to be overweight as adults and they are more likely to be short in stature.  This faster rate of overall development is passed genetically to her children.  Researchers state that the “earlier age at menarche may indicate a transgenerational influence toward a fast tempo of childhood growth, which is transmitted from the mother to her offspring.”  If you are wondering what early menstruation would be defined as, the line was drawn at mothers who had their first periods at the age of 11 as opposed to those who started menstruating at 15.

Some studies or rather researchers have also suggested that children who suffer from a higher risk of childhood obesity and come from early puberty mothers may experience a higher risk of psychological issues due to accelerated growth rates. 

While there are studies, to date there are only a few studies, which should make readers and potential believers skeptical in general terms.  There are a lot of causes of increased susceptibility to psychological issues, most of them genetically based or in connection to certain traumatic experiences.  Likewise, there are quite a few causes of obesity, mostly in the realm of diet and exercise habits, which are often learned through the habits of the parents, not passed on through some genetic link in the brain that would be activated no matter where they were raised.  In terms of short stature, some countries have experienced higher rates of a shorter stature due to smaller amounts of protein, milk products, etc. in the general diet.  And some countries tend to have noticeably lower rates of obesity, not because of race, but because of nationally accepted eating standards among other things.  So while I am not ready to say this is completely wrong, I do encourage readers and individuals in general to watch with a certain amount of skepticism.