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WEIGHT-LOSS SURGERIES: STOMACH STAPLING AND THE INTESTINAL BYPASS-THERE’S ONLY ONE WAY

admin — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 04:10:31 +0000

These drastic remedies require full-blown surgery. For stomach stapling, a portion of the stomach is stapled shut, reducing the size of the portion of the stomach that receives the food. The theory behind stapling is that if you can’t hold as much food as you used to, you’ll eat less and lose weight. The intestinal bypass surgery takes a different approach, disconnecting or

removing a portion of the small intestines (where much of the food we eat is actually absorbed into the body). The idea is that food that can’t be absorbed in the shortened small intestine will simply pass out of the body.

Both of these surgeries have an enticing premise: Don’t worry about what you eat, it can’t harm you once we doctors have surgically altered your body. Unfortunately, the surgeries

themselves can be dangerous. Any time you undergo any surgery you run the risk of suffering complications—including death. In addition, stomach stapling can cause scarring, eating can

become uncomfortable, and overeating can cause the stomach to stretch out or pop its staples so that it returns to its original size, making the entire procedure a waste of time. Complications of the intestinal bypass include tremendous diarrhea, urinary stones, infections, liver failure, and malnutrition. (Being unable
to absorb excess calories may be great, but the surgery also cuts down on your ability to absorb nutrients.)

Stomach stapling and intestinal bypasses take very paternalistic approaches to weight loss (i.e., “Don’t worry about anything; we’ll take care of you.”). The people who subject themselves to these surgeries don’t learn how to eat or exercise or otherwise improve their health. In fact, they knowingly risk their health. Such drastic surgeries may be necessary for the morbidly obese who are in danger of dying from complications of the weight. While there are successes, I have treated many patients who’ve had such horrendous side effects from these surgeries that they’ve sworn “never again.” With a very few exceptions, it’s much better to avoid stapling and intestinal bypass altogether.

There’s Only One Way-Fad diets, pills, “metabolic enhancers,” devices, shots, and surgeries will come and go. But there’s only one way to lose weight and keep it off—eat sensibly, exercise, use Chitosan, and live for optimal health. If you focus on great health in this way (with just a little attention to your waistline), you’ll lose weight while setting the stage for a long, zestful, healthy life.

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LIQUID PROTEIN DIETS

admin — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 04:07:54 +0000

The diets, which were all the rage in the 1970s contained large amounts of protein but very few carbohydrates. You can lose weight on liquid-protein diets, and/or other high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets. But you can also lose your health, and possibly your life. Here’s how these diets work: Your body can burn either carbohydrates, fat, or protein for energy. Your body prefers to burn carbohydrates because they are burned the most efficiently and are the safest energy source. Carbohydrates are stored as an energy source in the liver and muscles in the form of glycogen. But after a couple of days on a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet, the glycogen will be completely depleted. As they are exhausted, your body begins to lose a great deal of water, causing you to lose a lot of weight. You also lose a great deal of sodium and other minerals, especially magnesium and potassium (which are essential for the health of your heart). As you continue on the diet your body goes into an unnatural state (ketosis) due to the influx of ketones (incompletely burned fat) into the bloodstream. This causes the blood to become more acidic and is dangerous to your health. (This is especially dangerous when you’re pregnant, since ketones in the bloodstream can harm the fetus. Don’t ever go on this kind of diet if you are or might possibly be pregnant.) As water and precious minerals are lost, and the level of ketones in your bloodstream rises, your immune system may become damaged.

Meanwhile, your body will be searching for a different energy source since there are no carbohydrates left in the body. Seizing upon any fat or protein it can find, it begins to break down organs and muscles to release protein for energy. This is akin to pulling down the walls in your house to burn in the fireplace for warmth. It may be effective for a while, but disastrous in the long run.

If, and only if, you are perfectly healthy, you may be able to get away with this kind of diet for a while; but even if you are in perfect health, you will be taking years off your life. You may weather the storm now, but the damage you sustain will take its toll at some point later in your life.

Liquid-protein diets attempted to get around some of these problems by supplying the dieter with predigested animal protein. It was believed that the body would burn the liquid protein for energy when its supply of carbohydrates was gone, rather than eating into the muscles and organs. Unfortunately, the theory doesn’t pan out. What really happens is that many people suffer marked fatigue, dehydration, cardiac arrhythmias, and other serious problems. In the 1970s when these kinds of diets were the rage, they caused the deaths of over 50 people.

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FOCUSINGON WEIGHT, INCHES, OR CLOTHING SIZE

admin — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 04:05:22 +0000

Obsessing over a number on the scale, a dress size, or a waist measurement is bound to result in negative thinking, and at its extreme (which I see all too often in my patients), self-loathing. Don’t let this happen to you. Ignore your weight and measurements for a while. Just start down your healthy eating-sensible exercise path, take Chitosan as appropriate, and smell the roses! Try it for as long as you can—say for a couple of months. Then see how you’re doing. Don’t expect miracles. But if you’ve lost even a few pounds or a half inch here or there, that is a sort of little miracle. Because, perhaps for the first time in your life, those pounds and inches are gone forever. As long as you stay on this simple, easy plan and take Chitosan, there can be no rebound effect.

Not allowing for personal vulnerability-Too many dieters take a hard-line approach with themselves. They have to be perfect; they have to follow their diets to the
letter. If and when they fail to do so (as they must because their diet is too harsh to stay with), they beat themselves up, getting frustrated and eventually abandoning their diets. By starting out slowly, planning treats into your diet, asking yourself only for small improvements in your food intake and exercise patterns at the outset, but blocking many of the fat calories with Chitosan, this program provides the best of both worlds—a chance to be less than perfect, and the assurance that you are not ruining your health or waistline!

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STAYING MOTIVATED TO LOSE WEIGHT: AVOIDING EMOTIONAL TRIGGERS

admin — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 04:02:44 +0000

An incredible amount of eating is triggered by anger, anxiety, depression, happiness, frustration, boredom, fatigue, and other emotional states. Food is a sort of instant fix, a way to dull the pain and make ourselves feel good. Unfortunately, this instant fix can turn into a long-term problem if it’s overdone.

A 26-year-old woman named Jennifer came to see me because she was feeling weak and tired. When I asked her what was going on in her life, she replied, “My daughter died of leukemia, so I’ve been binge-eating, shoving down the equivalent of 3-4 meals at a time. I eat because it feels comforting-Then I realize I ate too much and don’t want to get fat, so I throw up.”

Jennifer’s case was extreme, but she’s not the only one to eat when she’s unhappy. Ann, a 48-year-old woman I hadn’t seen for a couple years, was red-faced when she came to my office. “I’ve gained 50 pounds, Dr. Fox,” she said. “The problem is I feel so alone and unhappy since my divorce. I have this wonderful job in which I get praised all day long. Then I come home to my apartment and my cat. The phone never rings on the weekend. It never rings at all. I just eat and eat; it’s the only thing that gives me satisfaction. It’s also made me 50 pounds heavier.”

We eat when we’re unhappy, and we eat when we’re happy-Weddings, graduations, birthday parties, confirmations, bar mitzvahs, promotions: We celebrate all our important life events and joys by eating. Joy is intimately associated with food.

But now that we’ve discovered the link between eating and emotions, we can plan alternatives. And where an alternative is either impractical or undesirable (after all, a slice of your daughter’s wedding cake is more than a mere snack), you can compensate by taking extra Chitosan.

However, if you find that you’re eating a package of cookies to make yourself feel better when you get angry, anxious, frustrated, or stressed out, try one of the following instead.

♦ Confront the problem or the problem person.

♦ Exercise. Go for a walk or a run, take a dance class, go to the gym and work out.

♦ Try relaxation techniques. Follow along with a relaxation tape, go to a yoga class, get a

massage, meditate, lie down and take a nap.

♦ Forgive the person who has harmed you. Remember that forgiveness is a gift to yourself. If

forgiving someone helps you avoid overeating and damaging your health, it’s a very important

gift indeed.

If boredom is the culprit that makes you eat:

♦ Keep your hands busy—clean out a cupboard or do a hands-on project.

♦ Visit a friend.

♦ See a movie.

Remember: Food is for satisfying physical, not emotional, hunger. Next time you get the urge to splurge, ask yourself, “Am I really hungry, or am I trying to make myself feel better for some other reason?”

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THE FAT BLOCKER EXERCISE PROGRAM: WHAT ELSE CAN EXERCISE DO FOR ME?

admin — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 03:59:39 +0000

Besides increasing your BMR, exercise helps ensure that your body breaks down fat instead of muscle as you lose weight. When the amount of food you take doesn’t provide enough energy to pay the bills, your body dips into its own energy stores. It will tend to break down fat first because that’s where it stores the extra energy it needs for hard times (which, in our modern world, rarely come). But it can also take apart some muscle tissue in order to get the calories that it needs to keep going. This will not be a major problem if you follow the program, but you want to avoid making it even a minor problem by preserving as much muscle tissue as you can. The more muscle tissue you have, the higher your BMR and the more likely you are to be fit. The only way to preserve muscle tissue is to exercise to at least a reasonable degree. The reason you don’t need much exercise to preserve your muscle mass is that whatever mass you now
have, be it that of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime or a typical couch potato, you have achieved it as the result of the exercise you now do. If you increase that level—even if the increase only goes from almost none to very little—you will increase your muscle mass to some extent. Having said that, however, now let me emphasize that within reasonable limits (ah, there’s that phrase again!) more exercise is always better than less.

So, let’s take a look at some of the wonderful things that exercise can do for you and your body.

1. Increase the basal metabolic rate, allowing you to burn calories faster.

2. Preserve and build muscle tissue, preventing it from being depleted by the body for use as energy.

3. Lower body fat stores.

4. Develop and increase physical strength.

5. Contribute to a faster, steadier, more permanent weight
loss.

6. Strengthen your heart and circulation.

7. Increase your energy and endurance.

8. Improve your sleep.

9. Improve your sex drive.

10. Improve your appearance.

11. Help regulate your bodily functions, such as digestion and elimination.

12. Reduce stress.

13. Slow the onset of some of the signs and symptoms of
aging.

14. Make all physical tasks easier to accomplish.

15. Contribute to a positive mental outlook and an improved sense of well-being.

16. Help control high blood pressure.

17. Help control blood cholesterol.

18. Help control diabetes.

19. Help prevent osteoporosis.

20. Help ease the pain of osteoarthritis.

21. Lower blood fats.

22. Increase levels of growth hormone, which in turn can help tone your muscles and help you look and feel more youthful.

The good news is that you can get all of these benefits without putting yourself on a terribly rigorous training schedule or spending 3 hours a day at the gym. All you really need to do is exercise moderately for 30 minutes a day, 4 times a week. You will get a benefit if you do less exercise than that—as long as it’s more than you did before. But you will get the full impact if you achieve that minimum. That’s a pretty small investment for such a large return.

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