Far too often people have the propensity to look for an easy way out when losing weight. While most of us lead busy lives and find it difficult to include exercise, ultimately it’s up to all of us to prioritize our health.
One example of how some people do not address the real issues associated with being heavy is through weight loss surgery. Liposuction has become the most popular plastic surgery, with more than 450,000 operations every year. While the vast majority of liposuction surgeries are done safely by highly trained physicians, there seems to be almost eerie side effect of having the procedure done. Read Full Post >
Mary Hartley, RD, MPH, is the director of nutrition for Calorie Count, providing domain expertise on issues related to nutrition, weight loss and health. She creates original content for weekly blogs and newsletters, for the Calorie Count library, and for her popular daily Question-and-Answer section, Ask Mary. Ms. Hartley also furnishes direction for the site features and for product development.
Calorie Count members want to know, “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” Here are a few of our readers’ favorite “Ask Mary” questions about the differences in dieting and weight between the sexes.
Ask Mary: Why do men lose weight more easily than women?
Compared to women, men just have higher calorie requirements. It’s easier for them to create the calorie deficit needed to lose weight. Men have high testosterone levels and testosterone makes them build muscle. Muscle is metabolically active tissue that burns calories. If you compare a man to a woman of the same height, weight, age, and activity level, the man will need 15 percent more calories than the woman. Coupled with a man’s tendency to be taller and bigger, it’s easy to see why men need more calories. And so when men eat less, there is a huge gap between the amount they need and they eat, which promotes quick weight loss. Women, on the other hand, have a completely different fat-to-muscle ratio with more fat to support the demands of pregnancy and lactation. Their day-to-day calorie requirements are lower and so their calorie deficit is less.
Tune in this Wednesday, January 26 to the Dr. Oz Show to learn all about the big O – Omega fatty acids.
By now, we all know that omega fatty acids, like those found in salmon, flaxseeds and walnuts are good for you, but do we really know the difference between an omega-3 fatty acid and an omega-6 fatty acid? Read Full Post >
Gary Taubes, a professional writer and journalist is the author of the critically acclaimed Good Calories, Bad Calories. Now his newest release, Why We Get Fat takes the long-held idea that the reason we get fat is the calories in/calories out hypothesis and debunks it. In essence, Taubes, through scores of research-backed evidence, suggests that it is not the amount of calories per se, but rather the carbohydrates in our diet that are responsible for fat accumulation.
Taubes proposes that in order to lose weight, we need to consume a very low carbohydrate diet. Protein, naturally-occuring fat, like those found in meat, poultry, fish, eggs, avocados and oils as well as leafy green vegetables should comprise the mainstay of our diet. The typical American diet of starchy carbohydrates, grains, sugar, processed food and even high glycemic vegetables and fruit needs to be given the boot if we want to avoid being overweight or obese.
Stepping on the scale and still not liking what you see? It could be that you’re unknowingly making common errors in your new-found diet plan. Check out these four misconceptions that dieters think will help with weight-loss but, in reality, are ineffective and often detrimental.
You avoid the foods you love:Deprivation diets don’t work, at least not for long. You can still eat chocolate and you can still put a slice of cheese on your sandwich. The key to eating these commonly-craved foods is eating them in moderation. Have a couple of fun-size Snickers bars to solve your chocolate craving, and relegate your sandwich to only one slice of cheese instead of two.
Far too often people have the propensity to look for an easy way out when losing weight. While most of us lead busy lives and find it difficult to include exercise, ultimately it’s up to all of us to prioritize our health.
