By this time of the year every magazine on the shelves is promising to help you drop weight fast. Of course a lot of what you're being sold is just hot air. Get the inside track on what works and what doesn’t. We break down popular diets, exercise strategies, and supplements, and provide a little advice of our own…

Diets

Low Carb

One thing is for sure – most people lose weight when they start a low carb diet. Weather they lose fat is a little less certain. Carbohydrates tend to bind water and keep it in the body. When you cut carbs you can lose 3 to 5 pounds of water weight fast. It’s not easy to discriminate water weight from fat weight without sophisticated scientific equipment, so many people are duped into thinking their low carb plan is working wonders for their waist line when in actuality all they’re losing is H₂O.

That said, a lot of people experience real weight loss on low carb plans. Some of this weight loss is generally muscle, but a lot of it is fat as well. So should you be cutting carbs? If you drop your carb levels too low, you’ll wreck your metabolism. Levels of critical hormones like thyroxin and testosterone, which are necessary for burning fat and maintaining lean muscle, tend to crash when you don’t eat enough carbs. This leaves you feeling tired and weak, and makes it almost impossible to burn fat. On the other hand, eat too many carbs, and you’ll end up with high blood sugar and high insulin levels, which will lead you to store fat.

So how many carb calories are enough?  Here’s the rub: There is no one size fits all diet solution. All of us need a different balance of carbs, protein, and fat to keep our bodies energized and our metabolisms high. To get a sense of your ideal balance (and a nutrition plan designed to work with your individual metabolism) sign up for your free ReEvolution Fitness Action Plan.
           
Getting the right percentage of carbs in your diet (most people do best getting between 20% and 60% of their calories from carbohydrates - the ideal percentage varies from person to person) should help you lose weight and feel more energized. But even more important than eating the right amount of carbs is eating the right type of carbs. Processed carbohydrates like sugar, white flour, most breads, snack foods, pastas, and cold breakfast cereals are toxic to everyone’s metabolism. Processed carbs rapidly elevate blood sugar, then bring it crashing down. This leaves you fatigued, hungry, and powerfully predisposes your body to store fat (See Controlling Appetite and Cravings for more). On the contrary, whole carbohydrate foods like beans, chickpeas, whole oats, quinoa, barley, lentils, wild rice, and truly whole grain breads (look for sprouted grain breads) help maintain consistent blood sugar, meaning you stay energized and satisfied, and tend not to store fat. Check out Simple Enjoyable Healthy Eating for more information on choosing healthy carbs and healthy eating in general.
 

Low Fat

In the 1980’s the FDA fingered high fat foods as the culprit behind a rising tide of obesity and heart disease in America. The fat was stripped out of hundreds of foods, and millions of Americans adopted a low fat lifestyle. An epidemic of obesity and diabetes, and a continued rise in heart disease was what ensued. Low fat is not a healthy way to live! The human body is designed to get a good percentage of its calories from fat. Your ReEvolution Fitness Action Plan will help you get a sense of how much fat you should be eating as well. When we don’t get enough fat, it wrecks our body and brain chemistry, leaving us exhausted and, frequently, depressed. In addition, getting enough fat is absolutely essential to feeling satiated. Fail to eat enough fat, and you’ll feel hungry all of the time. Finally, starving the body of fat will slow down your metabolism and actually cause your body to start producing and storing fat. In the end, low fat diets lead to ill health and weight gain for most people.

Good Fat, Bad Fat

This isn’t to say that all fat is healthy. Trans fats are one of the worst things you can eat. Fortunately people are waking up to this, and trans fats are beginning to be removed from our food supply. Yet most processed foods still contain hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils (types of trans fats). If you see these ingredients on the label leave it on the shelves. A number of vegetable oils aren’t especially good for our bodies or our waistlines either. Some of the worst vegetable oils are soy oil, corn oil, and safflower oil. These commonly used oils contain a very unhealthy ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 fat, which has been shown to promote heart disease and obesity.  In general, the only healthy oils are olive oil and coconut oil.

Canola oil is often sold as a healthy oil because it bears some chemical similarities to olive oil, but there is no evidence of any health benefits associated with canola oil. Canola oil is a product of modern food manufacturing techniques, altered from its originally toxic form and introduced into our food supply because it’s cheap to produce. Try to avoid canola oil and other vegetable oils, and rely on olive oil for sauces and salad dressings.