Giving Egg Nog A Chance

This is one holiday favorite that often gets the thumbs-down on a low carb diet. But, what is the main ingredient you’re trying to avoid? Of course, the rum comes to mind, but surprisingly, rum is not high in carbs or even sugars. The alcohol is known to turn into sugar when ingested, but this is not a beverage that is considered high in carbs or one that you would drink a lot of.

So, where does the fear of egg nog’s high carb status come from? It’s the creaminess, of course. This is an easy fix. Use low carb milk products like almond milk or even whole cream. Find a recipe you like and tweak it to fit your own personal taste. In my experience, most recipes use too much rum, so start with less, which is another way to cut back on the alcohol-sugar that many low carb diets warn against.

This is another case of thinking before using a recipe. There are often ways to reduce sugars and carbs in a recipe when you just take a minute to look at the labels. Many people would assume that using skim milk would improve the recipe to be healthier. However, if you are eating, or in this case drinking, a low carb diet, you’ll learn that low fat often means high carb. Remember, read the labels and tweak your recipes accordingly. That way you can enjoy many of your favorite holiday beverages without guilt.

After Dinner Irish Whiskey Coffee

Enjoying a cup of coffee after dinner is a nice treat and a familiar tradition after a big holiday feast. But, for special occasions we often like to dress our coffee up a bit with a little cream and a splash of spirits. Never fear. Your treat can be low carb if you watch your ingredients.

Whiskey is carb-free, of course, but remember, the alcohol itself does turn into sugar in the body, so limit yourself. Use a nice, rich coffee, decaffeinated or not, and fill a large mug, then add the whiskey. You will probably add less than the recipe calls for if you taste the coffee before adding more. Now, again, the trick is in choosing the cream. Go ahead and put a big dollop of whipped cream on top. The carbs are just about nonexistent and the sugar is relatively low, but the calories are something to be aware of. However, you aren’t going to have more than a dollop, so enjoy.

Cocktail Time Tricks

If you like a traditional cocktail, like a Tom Collins or a Cosmopolitan, for instance, you’ll have to rethink using the sweet ingredients. The easiest way to make these kinds of beverages low carb is to replace any sugar with artificial sweeteners. There is really no way around it.

Using unsweetened lemonade, cranberry juice, or other mixes will give you the ability to add just the right amount of artificial sweeteners. Sweeten your cocktail with artificially sweetened powdered drink mixes like Crystal Light instead of sugar to make the carbs and calories easier to calculate. Remember to taste before sweetening, as I have time-and-time again noticed that most recipes call for too much sweetener, no matter if it’s artificial or regular sugar.

Wonderful Wine

A nice glass of wine with dinner is a classic holiday treat. Unfortunately, this is one alcohol beverage that contains carbs, both from sugars and the alcohol. No matter what kind of wine you drink, white, red, or rose, you will be getting a couple grams of carbs in a small glass of wine; small being about a 3 to 4 ounce glass. Considering that most wine glasses hold a lot more than that, you have to be careful and measure.

Even though many wine lovers argue that red has more carbs than white, or that white has more carbs than red, the truth is it’s all about the same. With the exception of sweet or ‘dessert’ wines, which have a great deal more carbs than either red or white table wines. If you want to reduce the total carbs in your wine beverage, there is the option of adding a low carb ‘wash’ such as a sparkling water and turn your wine into a spritzer served over ice. Toss in a few berries or fruit to make the spritzer more beautiful.

Sure, you can enjoy a spirited beverage during your holiday feast, as long as you measure, tweak the recipes, and pay attention to the ingredients. Don’t expect your beverage of choice to be entirely low carb and diet friendly, but with a little common sense, you can enjoy the spirit, and the spirits, of the season.

That it’s for people who lack the self-discipline to lose weight on their own? That it’s hugely expensive? That it’s more about vanity than health? If you thought “yes” to any of those then you’ll be surprised to hear what Dr. Kai Nishi has to say on the subject. Nishi is a surgeon at LA’s Khalili Center for Bariatric Care, which aims to make weight loss surgery just the first step in a whole lifestyle transformation that includes education about nutrition, exercise and stress management. Here are a few of the surprising things I learned from him:

Weight loss surgery is not a cosmetic procedure.

“There’s still a perception, even among some primary care doctors, that weight loss surgery is primarily a cosmetic procedure.  But the only reason we do it is to make somebody healthier, the goal is never to make them look good. Also there’s a perception that when somebody chooses to have weight loss surgery they are taking the easy road, but people don’t realize that diet and exercise doesn’t usually work long-term.”

For many people, weight loss surgery is the only option.

“If you look at medical literature for dieting there’s a 98-99% failure rate, so it’s just not really a reasonable option for most people. Most of our patients have tried their whole lives to lose weight. I’m not saying that it’s not possible, but to lose large amounts of weight and keep it off for 15 years is next to impossible.”

Weight loss surgery transforms more than your stomach.

“The act of going through surgery is often the light switch that goes on that helps people take better care of themselves.” {Also, I didn’t actually discuss this with Dr. Nishi, because the news broke after our talk, but a new study in the Archives of Surgery found that when an obese individual has weight loss surgery, other obese family members in the same household are likely to lose weight as well, presumably just from being around somebody who is eating less and feeling better.}

Weight loss surgery can cure type 2 diabetes.

“Now it’s pretty accepted that gastric bypass is the only permanent treatment for type 2 diabetes. After this surgery type 2 diabetics usually see their diabetes resolve within a few weeks, even before they’ve lost a lot of weight. NIH is doing studies on it right now. We still don’t understand exactly why it’s so effective, but when we bypass part of the small intestine it somehow affects the pancreas and hormonal mechanisms. I’ve had patients who have been on insulin for ten years, but six weeks after surgery they are completely cured of type 2 diabetes.”

It’s definitely possible to regain the weight.

“It’s certainly possible to regain weight lost after weight-loss surgery. Weight loss surgery is not the magic bullet or the end of the road. There are various reasons why people are overweight. So as part of treatment we teach our clients how to eat more healthfully, and they work with an RD. Surgery certainly makes it easier to eat less food, but if somebody doesn’t change his or her lifestyle at all there’s a risk of regaining the weight.”

Weight loss surgery is usually covered by insurance.

“If you have a BMI of 40 or higher, or even have a lower BMI but have medical problems related to your weight, your insurance company will likely cover weight loss surgery, and Medicare does too.”

According to The National Enquirer, Angelina’s shocking weight loss is not only due to her busy life as a mom, but also from the diet pills that she may be taking to keep her energy levels high!

Sources close to the actress reveal that she’s down to a alarming 93 pounds, and that she first started using them on the set of Wanted to keep her moving, and has now started up again!

The insider explains:

“Angie used diet pills a few years back, and everyone around her believes that she’s started up again. She’s burning the candle at both ends – juggling career demands with her human­itarian work and trying to keep up with her rambunctious kids. Angie believes the pills give her energy to help her get through the day. Angie starts her day with a double espres­so and drinks coffee until bedtime. She sucks on candy for a speed rush, and instead of eating balanced meals, she picks at the kids’ food. Brad begs her to eat, but she’s GO, Go, go all the time and doesn’t listen to him. Her erratic diet has become one of the biggest problems in their relationship.”

Furthermore, she apparently has been known to take the controversial South African herbal dietary supplement Hoodia, which contains amphetamine-like substances, to lose the baby weight from her pregnancy with Knox and Vivienne, and then again while filming Salt and editing her directorial debut In The Land of Blood and Honey!

Not good!

We have always commended her humanitarian efforts on top of her acting and role as a parent, but not at the expense of her health!

Hopefully, if these reports are valid, she’ll realize what a dangerous path she’s on and make a sincere effort to try and cut back – if not for herself, then for her children!

Read this article from Health.com

Five years ago, Juli Ackerman never thought she’d be able to buy an off-the-rack wedding dress. At 5-feet 10-inches, the software-company executive from Newport, Calif., then 40, was 280 pounds. Her weight had always fluctuated, but she decided that she wanted to slim down once and for all.

She stumbled upon the website of Hilton Head Health, a self-billed “weight loss spa retreat center” in South Carolina, and signed up. “I went there not knowing much about what I was in for,” she says. “I didn’t want to get pampered; I wanted to get healthy.”

Weight-loss retreats, spas, and resorts for adults—the grown-up version of fat camps—have been around for decades. But now, fueled by growing awareness of the health risks of obesity and the popularity of weight-loss shows such as “The Biggest Loser,” they seem to be on the rise. But do they work?

Yes, according to Ackerman. After two weeks of swimming and fitness classes, she lost 11 pounds. “It was a great jump start for me,” says Ackerman, who returned to Hilton Head Health twice and went on to lose more than 100 pounds. Last year, she was married on the beach; she weighed 165 pounds and was a trim and confident size 12.

But as they say in Jenny Craig ads, “Results not typical.” Experts caution that these retreats aren’t for everyone and don’t always work. The weight loss may not last, and it may not be worth the cost, which can be as high as several thousand dollars a week.

Nicole McLaren, a 26-year-old student from Washington, D.C., signed up for a month-long stay at Hilton Head, hoping to shed 30 pounds. She lasted just two weeks before throwing in the towel in July 2007.

“I had this whole concept in my head of ‘The Biggest Loser’,” she says, referring to the intense (and compulsory) training the contestants get. That wasn’t what she found when she arrived. “Everything was optional, so a lot of people just sat around and talked about losing weight. The only thing you had to stick to was [that] they portioned your food to about 1,200 calories a day.”

The structured environment, exercise classes, and prepared meals had sounded promising, but the $2,400-a-week price tag seemed too high when she found meals were limited to one option, she had to share a room with strangers, and the exercise classes were geared toward the resort’s older clients. “I think I lost eight pounds, but that’s only because they starve you,” McLaren says. “When I left, all I wanted to do was eat!”

“Weight-loss camps are not an easy or quick fix,” says Jennifer Hester, a sports exercise and education researcher at Leeds Metropolitan University, in the U.K. “The short-term investment of time and money does not automatically equate to healthy weight management in the long term.”

Recent study has showed that dieters who sleep less than 6 hours a day tend to lose less weight than those who sleep more than 8 hours a day. Here is the report:

It may sound counterintuitive, but a study that randomly assigned dieters to different sleep regimens found that participants allowed only five and a half hours in bed at night lost less flab than those who spent eight and a half hours in bed and got more sleep.

The total amount of weight loss did not differ — both groups lost about six and a half pounds over two weeks — but the optimal outcome of a diet is to lose fat, not muscle, researchers said.

The sleep-deprived participants felt hungrier than the others, and had higher levels of ghrelin, a hormone that drives appetite, the study found.

“The bottom line is that if people are trying to diet and lose weight for health reasons, it makes sense to get a sufficient amount of sleep,” said Dr. Plamen D. Penev, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago and the senior author of the study, which is being published Tuesday in Annals of Internal Medicine. “If they’re not getting enough sleep as they diet, they may have higher levels of hunger and be struggling to adhere to the regimen.”

The study was small, including only 10 adults; they lived in a clinical research center for weeks at a time so their exercise, food intake and sleep schedules could be tightly controlled and monitored.

Conclusion: Lack of sleep definitely affects your own health. Sleeping is free. How about trying to adjust your lifestyle to include more sleep in your life.

You may want to read this: Can You Lose Weight by Sleeping?

For Carol Poe, obesity is the most painful problem in the world. She has tried everything to lose weight: from dieting to bariatric surgery, without success. Tired of being morbidly overweight, Poe volunteered for the most radical treatment ever devised for obesity — brain surgery.

In March 2009, she became the second person in the United States to undergo deep brain stimulation, or DBS, for weight loss. In this experimental treatment, electricity is introduced to specific parts of the brain believed to control particular behaviors, in Poe’s case, feelings of hunger and satisfaction.

Doctors inserted needles into “the part of my brain that controls the food,” said Poe, 62, before her surgery last year. Doctors then threaded wires under her scalp, down each side of her clavicle, to a battery pack. Since the surgery, doctors have been experimenting with sending electrical voltages to her brain, attempting to find a setting that will help her lose weight. At 5 feet 4 inches, Poe, a married mother of two, said that at her heaviest she weighed about 490 pounds. When she underwent the surgery, she weighed 285 pounds.

In an exclusive report, Nightline was with Poe eighteen months ago when she underwent the procedure. Did it work? And is deep brain stimulation the answer to the obesity epidemic? Watch this video

Personally, I won’t have the courage to go for a brain surgery in order to lose weight. To me, the important thing is whether I am determined to lose those excess weight regardless how hard it is. Then, I start to investigate what food or activities will cause me to put on weight. One of the common problems that we ladies face is snacking all day. If you cut that down, you will notice that you start to drop a couple of pounds. If not, you can follow a diet plan dilligently to lose weight. Don’t sit there, start moving.

[Source: ABCNews]

So-called fat dissolving treatments offered by spas do not eliminate fat and the companies should stop saying so, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said.

Lipodissolve, mesotherapy, lipozap, lipotherapy, lipolysis, are procedures offered at spas involving the injection of substances, not approved by the FDA, for body fat reduction purposes.

So the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is coming down hard on those facilities that offer “fat dissolving” treatments for “misleading” people.

Between Botox, “salt glows”, and reflexology, spas have turned into tropical plant adorned, Enya playing, modern day witch doctor huts.

Currently, the FDA has issued warnings to spas in five different states to stop claims of “fat dissolving,” saying these products/procedures do no such thing.

The FDA also warned a Brazilian company that markets so-called lipodissolve products on two Web sites.

In clinical trials – even when vitamins and minerals are added to the mix – these injections have failed to melt away the pounds.

You’ve got to be pretty naive to think a hippie, clad in a white doctor’s coat, injecting you with hard to pronounce chemicals, is a good idea.

If you’re skeptical, just Google images of people who have received these injections, it’s not exactly beauty in motion.

[Source: Reuters]