Weight Watchers and The Zone Diet

I will review Weight Watchers and The Zone Diet today, wrapping up my coverage of some of the more popular diets (based on several website rankings) in use today. The final installment, part 4, will compare the reviewed diets. I consider these two diets to be more do-it-yourself type of diets, where food selection and preparation is largely left to the individual.

Do-It-Yourself Dieting

Weight Watchers is large enough, and has been around probably the longest (over 40 years), so that products in grocery stores and even meals in restaurants will show exchanges for the points system that this program employs. I know several people who have successfully lost weight on this program and kept it off for years. Of those diets I’ve reviewed, this one relies the most on foods available at the store, and has placed their own brand in the grocery aisle.

Criteria Comparison for Weight Watchers

The program meets 4 out of 5 of my criteria: #1, food variety (since you choose them yourself), #3, easy to follow (the points system is simple), #4, not too expensive (just buying regular foods) and #5, a maintenance plan (it appears they consider the program a way of life, not just a diet, so it becomes its own maintenance plan). Though it costs money to participate fully in Weight Watchers, either online or through a local group, I did not include that cost in determining if it met criteria number 4. Online membership runs $5/week, or roughly $250/year.

The one criteria not met is #2, preparation time. For me, that’s big.

Critical Note 1: When evaluating diet plans, eating and exercise regimens, please take the time to list what things are important to you. Then evaluate the program against your criteria, as it may be different than mine.

The Zone Diet, developed by Dr. Barry Sears (many of these have been doctor-developed), is another one that gives you complete freedom to choose what to eat. This program uses a simple 1/3 of a plate lean protein, 2/3 fruits and vegetables, plus a bit of fat (good, of course). Limited grains (oats and barley) are included in the 2/3 portion.

The Zone also sells supplements, specifically for omega-3 fatty acids, plus snack and meal replacements, but I think you can follow it without going the full way of adding the supplements. This program utilizes 3 meals and 2 snacks each day, expecting the meals to be filling enough to last 5 hours and the snacks 3 hours.

Criteria Comparison for The Zone Diet

The zone meets all the criteria if you choose to use their pre-packaged meals and snacks (which can be auto-shipped the same as Take Shape For Life). If you choose to make the meals yourself, then I would say it doesn’t meet criteria #2, preparation time. The one question I had about their plate was, what size? A 10 inch dinner plate? 8 inch? (Or is it 12 and 10? I’m not going to measure my plates!)

Warning: When looking at websites that rank or judge diets, be careful. They may not reveal their bias, or their affiliation with a specific program.

Disclaimer: I do not have an affiliation or arrangement with any program, but I am using the Take Shape for Life program. In the first 2 months I’ve lost 29 pounds.

Stay tuned next week for a side-by-side comparison of the diets reviewed.

Atkins Diet, Slim Fast, South Beach Diet

In Part 2 of Diets Demystified, I’ll look at 3 plans that include meal or snack replacements. These plans all include supplements easily found in your grocery store aisle.

Disclaimer 1: I have some friends on the South Beach Diet who have achieved good results so far. I’m not aware of anyone on the Atkins Diet or using Slim Fast.

Atkins Diet: The supplements you can buy at the store, ranging from snacks to full meal replacements, run from roughly 130 calories each to over 200.

They tend to be low in sugar, using sugar alcohols for sweetness, but one item, the Advantage Marshmallow Mudslide Bar contains 4.5 grams of saturated fat. Read the labels to avoid the fattier products when on this diet. Their online advertising appeals to your desire to be sexy, which seems to show they are targeting women more than men.

To find out if it’s right for you, you answer a short survey on their website. It’s very general, so it’s easy to say yes, it is right. As with the others, they stress putting you into a fat-burning mode, called ketosis. (Though I did not find that word on their website.)

The diet takes you through 4 phases, a jump start phase for quick loss, a steady phase for ongoing loss, a pre-maintenance phase followed by a lifetime phase.

Reminder: Weight loss is achieved through using more energy than you take in.

Most plans these days avoid having you count calories because it’s considered too cumbersome for most people. In phase 1 of Atkins, you could lose up to 15 pounds in 2 weeks. This is due to a severe carbohydrate restriction. Or what appears to be. I’m not sold on this idea that you can subtract fiber and sugar alcohol from total carbs to yield net, but the purpose is to show what carbs impact your blood sugar. These are the ones that would put you on craving swings.

One meal plan, where you would prepare 3 meals and include 2 supplemental snacks, came in at about 1300-1400 calories.

Atkins meets 4 of my 5 criteria, having balanced nutrition, easy to follow, not too expensive and a maintenance plan. With 3 meals to prepare, it doesn’t meet my minimal preparation time.

Slim Fast: I’ve drank Slim Fast shakes (they are very good) and snack bars in the past.

This is another plan that requires 6 meals/snacks per day (similar to Take Shape for Life). They recommend a 500 calorie meal for your main meal, and their supplements typically run around 200 calories each. One advertisement mentions being able to go 4 hours without feeling hungry.

The website has a community forum where you can stay in touch on line and also consult with health advisors.

When I looked at the Slim Fast labels, they appeared to be high in sugar; shakes having 17-18 grams, meal bars running 15 grams with an additional 10 or more grams of sugar alcohols, snack bars running 7-9 grams for 120 to 140 calories.

Slim Fast appears to run about 1200 calories, roughly, per day, depending on the meals you cook.

It meets 4 of my 5 criteria: balanced nutrition,  easy to follow, not too expensive and a maintenance plan. It falls short on the minimal preparation time. For those of you who like to cook, any of today’s reviewed diets would work.

South Beach Diet: Another plan espousing eating more frequently. This one touts a dessert in addition to 3 meals and 2 snacks. When I look at a sample day I come up with 1100-1200 calories.

It includes pre-packaged snacks and desserts and even meals you can heat up, in addition to recipes you can follow if you like to cook and prepare your own meals. On this plan you could follow it without buying any of their products. It also has a shopping list planner which I know one person following the diet found very helpful.

It again meets 4 of my 5 criteria, the minimal prep being the one that it doesn’t.

Today’s diets run in the 1100-1400 calorie range, so you should be able to find some success with them. The key, once again, is finding one that you can follow.

I’ll wrap up next time with 2 more diets and an overall comparison.

Until then, to your good health and you can follow my progress on my blog: Fit Past 50.

Fruits of the Month: Pluots © and Apriums ©

While they may sound strange, it tastes delicious! A Pluot is a registered trademark and a late 90′s invention of Zaiger Genetics from Modesto, CA. They are essentially hybrid fruits that combine both plums and apricots, though they take most after the plum. The Aprium is also a hybrid of the plum and the apricot but this hybrid takes after the apricot side.

Choosing Fruits
Since pluots take after their plum parent, you’ll need to look for smooth skin, resembling plum. Apriums will have a slightly fuzzy skin. Both fruits should be plump, firm, and not green or blemished. You can find both fruits available between the months of May and September. The fruits are mostly grown in California and Washington.

Preparing to Eat
Like all fresh fruit and vegetables, you should thoroughly wash and dry them before eating. Both fruits have a pit in the center, which you can remove by cutting the fruit in half. You can also enjoy Pluots and Apriums cooked. Since both fruits are hybrids of other sweet fruits, both contain more natural sugar than either a plum or an apricot. These fruits are known for their juicy sweetness and tasty flavors.
Read more

Diet Plans

Diet plans! Atkins, Body for Life, Nutri-System, Take Shape for Life, Weight Watchers, The Zone–just a few of the many programs to help you lose weight. How can you possibly decide which one is right for you? How can you determine their value?

Disclaimer 1: As you’ll read with any plan, consult your physician before beginning any diet or exercise program.

Corollary to Disclaimer 1: Get a physician.

Does your weight yo-yo up and down when you go on and come off plans? I will take some in-depth views of the different plans and give you the pros and cons of them, from my perspective. I have battled weight issues for over 20 years, lost 40 pounds on one plan almost 10 years ago, only to see 30 of them return!

The first plan I will look at is called Take Shape for Life, and uses the Medifast products.

Disclaimer 2: I am currently using this plan, which is why I’ve chosen it to lead off the discussion. I know people who have been successful with several other plans, so I am striving to be as objective as possible, and when it sounds like I’m getting into a sales pitch, I’ll mention that and make my best attempt to back off!

If you are interested, I am currently blogging about my life on this plan here. After 48 days on the plan I lost 25 pounds!

What is the Take Shape for Life plan and what is it good for? The plan is a low-calorie, low-carb, high-protein diet for those who want to lose 25 pounds or more, in a short time, and keep it off. It is designed for those who don’t want to think about what they are going to eat and either aren’t cooks or don’t want to spend a lot of time preparing food. In other words, it fit all of my requirements!

Not all, actually. I also look for a plan that has balance, that isn’t focused on one ingredient or one food to reverse bad eating habits that I would continue to follow. In a discussion with an uncle of mine, he mentioned that one author said the problem with America was that the people wanted to continue unhealthy and self-destructive habits and just add a pill or supplement to counteract them and keep them out of trouble. I thought, yeah, we want to have our cake, and eat it too!

My top 5 criteria in choosing a plan:

1. Must have a variety of foods to choose from, with balanced nutrition

2. Preparation time should be minimal (whether I choose the foods or they supply them)

3. Must be easy to follow (there’s my cake!)

4. Should not be too expensive (I can’t afford a private nutritionist!)

5. Should have a plan for maintenance after my weight-loss goal has been achieved.

I will use these criteria in reviewing the different plans.

Other factors that influence me:

I’ve read The China Study and have tried to follow Vegan diets in the past. I don’t eat red meat intentionally, though I’ve had a slice of pepperoni pizza once or twice a year. I don’t eat much meat either, though chicken is awfully difficult to give up. I would say I eat meat maybe twice a week, on average.

June Veggie of the Month: Okra

Typically found in Cajun, Creole, and Southern food dishes, okra is a green vegetable, with a fuzzy texture that is actually a member of the cotton family. This vegetable is chock-full of nutrients, especially Vitamin C. Okra is also low in calories and is a fat-free food.

Choosing Okra

While okra is available all year around, it’s peak growing season is in the summer. You can select either frozen or fresh okra. When choosing okra, look for ones that are medium to dark in color with a skin that contains no blemishes. Okra can be picked after only two months of planting. They are generally picked when they are 2-3 inches long while they are still young so they remain tender. Older okra becomes tough.
Read more

The ABC’s of Vitamins

Vitamins are found in foods and are required for biochemical reactions to occur within the body.  There are 13 different vitamins – four that are fat-soluble (A, D, E and K) and are stored for months in the body; and nine which are water-soluble vitamins (C, and the B-complex vitamins B1, B2, B6, B12 which can be stored for a few weeks in the body.

Keeping yourself healthy requires you have a good balance between foods you eat and ensuring you get the right amount of vitamins your body requires, and exercise.  While you can obtain vitamins from supplements, the best source of nutrition comes from the foods you eat.  The longer your food is off the tree it grows on or out of the ground and sitting in the grocery store – the more the nutritional value of the food decreases.  Fresh foods contain the highest amounts of vitamins and nutrients.

Food scientists have discovered that food simply doesn’t have the nutrients it contained 50 years ago because it travels further and sits on store shelves longer; and also how we prepare it.  Steaming broccoli for as little as one and a half minutes will remove all of the nutrients.
Read more

Improving Your Exercise Routine And Nutritional Needs

Improving your exercise routine and meeting your nutritonal needs takes some time and planning. Getting regular exercise and eating a balanced diet are the two main factors in living a healthy and fit life.  You control your weight by the number of calories you take in and burn off each day.  If you are not careful when and what you eat, it may be hard to draw the line between losing and/or maintaining weight and not getting enough calories for your body to perform at its best.  Did you know how you eat before and after your workout can determine if calories are used for energy or stored (as fat) for later use?  The following information can help you ensure you are getting the right amount of food and fluids at the right time.
Read more

Eating Healthy for Your Heart

When making the decision to eat healthier, to get into shape, and become more fit, you also need to consider eating better for the health of your heart. You need to include more fresh vegetables and fresh fruits and stick with leaner proteins to promote your heart health.

Also in order to maintain the health of your heart, consider the following:

Stay away from canned and prepackaged foods. These typically are high in sodium and eating too much salt will lead to high blood pressure and eventual problems with your heart.

Choose to eat smart protein foods, including fish, chicken, and lean meats. Non or low-fat dairy products and legumes are also heart-smart sources of protein.

Don’t skip out on fat. You should stay away from trans-fats and saturated fats but consume monosaturated fats such as those found in olive oil and omega-3 fatty acids, which you can get from fish, certain vegetables, and nuts.
Read more

REVIEW: Kentucky Fried Chicken

Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) is a popular fast food chain with headquarters based in Louisville, Kentucky.  Serving over eight million customers around the world each day, it would seem that this franchise has a secure spot in the fast food market.  Here we will cover how it all began, what makes it special and whether or not a trip to KFC is a healthy option for you and your family.

How It All Began
Born in 1890, Harland Sanders was an American entrepreneur who started cooking at the age of five when his father passed away and his mother began working to support the family.  He eventually left home and worked various jobs before enlisting in the army when he was sixteen.  It wasn’t until age forty that he began cooking and selling food to customers.  Given the title “Kentucky Colonel” by the then governor in 1935, he began calling himself simply “Colonel”.  He used his first social security check of $105 to fund visits to potential franchisees and faced over one thousand rejections before co-founding what we now know as KFC.
Read more

What is Organic?

The term “organic” is used to describe how agricultural foods are produced.  It also is used to describe the methods of processing.  The goal of growing organic foods is to improve the health of people and animals, as well as the soil and plants.  Growing organic foods and using organic methods for processing them is considered low impact to our environment, and helps balance agricultural practices with the needs of nature.

Farmers with certified organic land must never use chemicals that might pollute the air, water or food.  Organic farmers use methods that respect the land and help nurture the animals who live on it.  Instead of using chemicals to boost growth of plants and try to discourage pests from damaging crops, organic farmers use sustainable farming techniques including composting and crop rotation to improve the fertility of the soil, and non-toxic pest control methods like spraying vegetable oil on crops.
Read more

« Previous Page — Next Page »