Diet and Weight Loss Tips

Doctors and psychologists see it all the time: people who have substantial debts are highly stressed and often in ill health. They can suffer from an inability to focus, lowered performance, depression, relationship problems, frequent colds, poor sleep, overeating, digestive disorders, high blood pressure or cardiovascular disease. Although the problem is widespread, medecine doesn’t understand it very well, mostly because of the difficulty in designing appropriate tests (see the Washington Post article “In Over Your Head? Ask Your Body.”). But perhaps a bit of ancient Chinese wisdom can shed some light on the mechanisms involved—and provide a few tips on how to stay healthy in spite of debt and other long-term stressors.

Central to all ancient Chinese sciences, including Traditional Chinese Medicine, is a view of nature called the Law of 5 elements. It’s a way of classifying things according to their main characteristics and describes how they interact. Things that have the same characteristics reinforce each other. Things that are different influence each other along specific energy patterns.

Being in serious debt is a situation that causes a lot of worry and anxiety. Because it usually goes on for a long time, chances are that the ongoing attack will eventually affect our health. While the pattern is the same for everybody, the exact symptoms vary from person to person, depending on our individual strengths and weaknesses.

Directly affected is the digestive system. It belongs to the same group as worry and anxiety, which increase its energy. When we worry too much for too long, eventually our digestion becomes overstimulated. This can trigger all kinds of digestive problems.

Indirectly affected is the heart. It’s responsible for physical and mental activity, for joy and happiness, and provides energy to the digestive system. But when the digestive system is overstimulated, it drains energy from the heart. Our energy goes down, our activity diminishes, we can’t focus or produce, we feel down, even depressed. And, of course, we’re at greater risk for high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. In addition, low heart energy can easily upset our sleeping and make us gain weight.

These are the most common symptoms, but by no means are they the only possible ones. The excessively high energy of the digestive system increases lung energy and diminishes kidney and liver energy, all of which have their own associations, illnesses and symptoms. Both Chinese and Western medicine agree that stress can cause or trigger all kinds of health problems. Fortunately, there are some simple ways to protect our health in times of great stress, in addition to stress management and other coping systems.

• Worry and anxiety can be diminished with anger and grief. Sad books and movies, stories about injustices and hitting a sand bag are all useful.
• Sweet foods and drinks, beef, fruits, dairy products and eggs increase the energy of the digestive system. It’s best to reduce them as much as possible, but without eliminating them completely.
• Bitter foods, such as coffee, cabbage, broccoli, etc., provide energy to the heart, but it’s likely to be drawn into the digestive system. It’s better to eat vegetables (particularly leafy greens) and sour foods: these nourish the liver, which not only provides energy to the heart but also diminishes the energy in the digestive system.
• Spices and pungent foods can draw energy away from the digestive system.
• Fish, seafood, tofu and other soy products, summer vegetables (cucumbers, etc.) and, if allowed, some salty foods, all help restore energy to the kidneys.

It’s best to experiment with these suggestions and adjust them as needed. Listen to your body; use what works and feels good and eliminate what doesn’t. And with a bit of luck, you’ll be able to weather the stress until the debt problem is solved.

Ah, to be able to eat all manner of cakes, cookies, candy bars and other assorted sweets without having to pay the price of sugar overload! Such has been the dream of sugar addicts and diabetics—not to mention scientists and manufacturers—since the late 1800s, when saccharine, the first artificial sweetener, was discovered. Since then, there have been many more sugar substitutes, all promising better health and fulfilment of the sweet-tooth dream—but delivering only a dangerous delusion. Although these products provide zero calories, they’re still sweet, and therein lies the rub.

If these products truly delivered what they promise, if calories truly were the only yardstick by which to measure the effect of sweet foods on the body, then a simple test would show the superiority of artificial sweeteners. Take some people eating something made with sugar and some people eating the same food but made with a sugar substitute, follow them for a while and compare the results. Without a doubt, the second group would be healthier. That’s exactly what researchers from the Boston University School of Medicine did (see article sources below). They tracked some 9,000 people for several years and compared the health of those who drank regular sodas and those who drank diet sodas. To everyone’s surprise, the two groups had roughly the same risk of heart disease. Only people who drank less sodas altogether, whether regular or diet, were at lower risk. Clearly the artifical sweeteners fared no better than sugar. And the experts have no explanation—only theories.

An explanation can be found in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). According to TCM, the taste of a food, among other things, determines how it affects us. For example, a cheese sandwich, a ham sandwich and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich affect our body differently, even if the sandwiches are adjusted to have the same caloric value.

Sweet foods have the characteristic of lowering heart energy. Over time, a diet that’s high in sweets is likely to cause heart problems. It doesn’t matter whether the sweetener is sugar, honey or an artificial substitute, the result will be the same.

There are a few easy steps you can take to minimize the risk to the heart:

1. reduce the amount of sweet foods and drinks in your diet
2. choose foods that are less sweet; in general, naturally sweet foods are better than foods made with concentrated sweeteners, such as refined sugar and sugar substitutes
3. eat more sour, spicy and pungent foods; they counteract sweetness
4. eat some beef or beans; they help sluggish digestion, which is often the cause of the craving
5. learn to listen to your body’s signals; it will usually tell you what your body really needs.

If you try any or all the suggestions above, chances are that you’ll soon be giving up artificial sweeteners for good—and improve your health and well-being in the process.

• Study: Diet Soda Linked to Heart Risks (AP)
• Diet, sugary sodas alike linked to heart disease factors (CNN)
• Diet soda, metabolic syndrome linked (LA Times)
• Cut out the sodas - cut down the metabolic syndrome risk! (News-Medical.Net)
• No safe haven: Diet sodas linked with health risks (Reuters)
• Soda linked to increased metabolic risk (Reuters)
• Soda linked to increased metabolic risk (Reuters)
• Study: Diet soda linked to heart risks (USA Today)

A recent study indicates that a diet low in fat and very high in fruits and vegetables does not prevent breast cancer from returning (see list of articles below).

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, cancer is caused by a condition called “excessive dampness”. A diet appropriate for cancer patients would be high in foods that reduce dampness and very low in foods that increase it. Vegetables, especially leafy green vegetables, reduce dampness. So do sour fruits, but sweet fruits increase it and are best minimized.

But even beneficial foods can have a negative effect if overdone. Too much of a food with a desired effect causes the opposite effect. Excessive amounts of vegetables and sour fruits thus increase dampness, rather than reduce it. To find out exactly how much we need, we only have to learn to listen to our body. When we feel we’ve had enough of something, it’s time to stop.

Please read the disclaimer before using any of the information presented here.

• Fruits, Veggies Don’t Stop Cancer Return (AP)
• Extra fruits, veggies fail to prevent breast cancer’s return: study (CBC)
• Low-fat, high-produce diet doesn’t cut breast cancer return (CNN)
• No Cancer Shield Found in Fruit and Vegetable Diet (New York Times)
• Good Diet May Not Help Breast Cancer (Time)
• Intensive Vegetable-Fruit Diet Shows No Effect on Breast Cancer Return (Washington Post)
• Fruits, Veggies Don’t Stop Cancer Return (Washington Post)

(Corrected 31 Jul 2007: the words “an excess of” were inadvertently left off the title, which changes the meaning significantly.)

An essay on the topic of weight regain used an example of a patient; who after undergoing gastric bypass regained 80% of the weight she had lost. Keeping in mind that such a surgical intervention leads to weight loss as much as 60% of your initial body weight, this is some serious weight regain.

Just to give you the numbers, if the lady weighed 350 pounds with the gastric bypass she could have weighed 140 pounds having lost 210 pounds. But with the regain she would weigh about 308 pounds having regained over 160 pounds.

The question then that comes to mind is how in heavens name do you gain all that weight back on 5% of your stomachs capacity, that restricts food intake and re-routed intestines which minimally absorb calories?

Weight regain after gastric bypass is a frustration many surgeons have to deal with, unfortunately the surgery only affects your digestive system. The surgeon does not operate on your mind. And if the patient chooses not to stick with a lifestyle consistent with managing a healthy weight, regain is inevitable.

In the case of the said female patients she regained all this weight by having a sleeve of crackers on her desk. She ate a cracker every 10 minutes throughout the day for months.

With gastric bypass, the restrictive end of the procedure reduces the stomach into a small pouch the size of a golf or tennis ball. You just cannot have a lot of food in one sitting. Even further, since the intestines are so close to the esophagus (the food pathway from your mouth to stomach) it is easy to develop dumping syndrome when you eat high sugar foods like crackers.

This is because the food attracts a lot of water that tend to "flush backward" making you nauseous and can make you vomit. Though not a desirable experience it is a good thing as it teaches an individual to eat little and avoid sugary foods by force.

However the said lady managed to beat the "system" by eating small amounts of crackers all day long, a phenomenon known as grazing.

Another method of regaining weight even with gastric bypass is retraining your stomach. By the sixth to ninth month the small pouch of stomach is completely healed. It usually has restored it ability to stretch. And with slow but sure training you can stretch it to carry more and more amounts of food.

Combine an expanding stomach pouch with a high glycemic index diet that gets you hungry just hours after eating and your bathroom scale will start that clockwise movement again. Studies show that one can regain some substantial weight in 5 years from surgery if they are not careful.

More on weight loss and related topics like weight loss tools e.g. body mass index, glycemic load as well as weight loss programs

While some diet programs claim that, when it comes to losing weight, what you eat is more important than what you do, the truth is that losing weight is a two-fold commitment. Exercise is an important part of health and wellness --and losing weight-- that can't be overlooked.

Everybody has different weight loss preferences and methods. I, for example, am the type of person who prefers to exercise rather than follow a restrictive diet. During a time when I wasn't careful about nutrition, but stuck with a good exercise routine, I was still able to continue losing inches. I had tons of energy and I felt great. But although I was buying smaller sized clothing, there was no evidence of real weight loss on the scale.

Through much trial and error, I've found that I can lose a small amount of weight by watching my diet carefully or exercising, but it is only when I combine both methods together that I see faster and longer-lasting results. Dieting alone is not enough for me to lose weight... and depending on your body and lifestyle, it may not be enough for you, either.

Balancing Calories

Some diets will have you believe that losing weight is all about "calories in" verses "calories out". In other words, you have to burn more calories than you eat in a day to create a calorie deficit. In theory, this makes sense. But I have discovered that my body doesn't really work that way. I have experienced plateaus and weight gain even when I do all the things I know I need to do to lose weight, including dieting and exercise to burn off more calories than I eat.

Losing weight is a complicated process that takes time and a real devotion to a healthy lifestyle. Water cycles, medication, salt intake, dehydration, adding muscle and other things beyond your control can interfere with your weight loss progress.

When Diets Fail

Even the best diets can lead you to a plateau where you are stuck at one weight for an extended period of time. Often this happens because your body adjusts to the food and exercise routine you've adapted. This is a good time to evaluate your weight loss plan to see what's working and what isn't. Mix up your routine to keep things fresh and keep your metabolism fired up.

Plateaus can also occur at your body's natural "set point". My set point, for example, is unnaturally high. Getting beyond a certain point seems nearly impossible. By keeping a positive attitude, staying motivated and pushing forward rather than giving up, I know I can push past my set point to reach a new low.

I know that dieting alone is not enough for me to lose weight. I need to workout, have the right support system in place, maintain a positive attitude, and stay motivated to keep reaching for success. Try to find out what helps and hinders your weight loss goals, and make changes in your life that will reflect in your body.

Toronto LaparoscopicBAND Centre offers a safe, stable and sustainable way to lose weight with Laparascopic Band surgery. http://www.tlbc.ca/

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