Debunking Weight Loss Myths: Separating Fact from Fiction

You may have noticed that there is a lot of consciousness about weight, body build, figure and health in our society. People are willing to spend money just to look fit. Naturally a whole new type of products and services are being developed to meet this demand. You need to balance the energy you spend with the energy you get from the foods you eat to maintain your body weight. But people, who are obese are looking for a new weight reduction method that will miraculously melt away accumulated body fat. So you find that reducing regimens are promoted as quick remedies. Unpleasant realities such as changing diet and eating patterns, exercise and the need for will power are ignored. The result is a lot of disillusionment, loss of money and faith.

Let us examine some of the fallacies people have about weight reduction. Some obese people think that everything they eat turns to fat; they are fated to be fat while others are lucky to be slim. As you know, everything eaten in excess of the body's expenditure turns to fat. So you find obese people frequently tend to nibble at high calorie snacks and take soft drinks when they watch TV or play a game of cards. But they hardly spend any energy for physical activity at work as also in leisure hours. On the other hand, the slim person tends to eat well at meals but does not need snacks in between meals, and drinks water rather than soft drinks to quench thirst; the activity level is generally higher. Thus it is the life style that decides how fat or thin you will be.

Another misconception is that it is dangerous for an obese heart patient to lose weight. As you know, obesity puts an extra burden not only on the heart, but the whole body. So weight reduction is not only desirable but also a vital need for such a person. It is important to impress on such a patient that she should seek guidance and supervision of a well qualified dietician or a physician, to lose weight.

There are obese people who skip meals in the hope of losing weight. But it usually results in their being too hungry to control food intake at the next meal. Eating small three or four meals permits you to exercise judgement and reduce food intake.

There are so many new reducing diets you hear or read about. Some are dangerous and most do not result in a sustained weight loss. How will you decide if these are reliable? Whenever you see a new reducing diet, you should check if:

1. It is nutritionally balanced by using the daily food guide.
2. It is really low in calories.
3. It provides a variety of well-liked foods and you can keep it up.
4. It helps you to develop new eating habits.
5. It can be followed, with appropriate modifications, after you reduce weight to the desirable level.
6. It fits into your normal food budget.

How should you make a balanced diet plan?

A balanced diet contains different types of foods in such quantities and proportions that the need for calories, minerals, vitamins and other nutrients is adequately met and a small provision is made for extra nutrients to, withstand short duration of inadequacies. So we can say that a balanced diet deals with the following three aspects.

1) It should include a variety of food items.

2) It should meet the nutrient needs based on the recommended dietary allowances (RDAS).

3) It should provide a "little extra" for those times when you do not meet your nutrient needs adequately.

Following are important points in the use of the daily food guide in planning a meal 

1) Select foods from each of the three food groups like energy giving foods, body building foods, protective/regulatory foods

2) Choose at least the minimum number of servings from each of the food groups described above

3) Make choices within each group. Please remember that foods in each group are similar, but not identical in food value.

4) Try to include at least one food from body building foods in each meal.

5) Use fresh vegetables and fruits, which are in season to ensure high quality at reasonable cost.

Please remember, you can add more foods from all groups to the minimum servings suggested, to make the meals satisfying. As there are a large number of foods in each group. So you can choose foods which you like from each group and meet your nutritional needs. In a tropical country like India, we have a large variety of vegetables and fruits available in each season. You can choose any leafy vegetable, for they are all good sources of the pigment beta-carotene. You must include sufficient amount of food from each group. The particular food you choose and the way you season it, is a matter of your choice.

One of the questions that may worry you is, will nutritious food be more costly than what you eat at present? Or can you afford nutritious food? The answer is an emphatic No for the first question and Yes for the second. Cost is not related to nutritive value of foods. It is dependent on availability and season; not on its nutrient content.

The foods, which have a great variation in prices are vegetables and fruits. You know that those which are in season cost the least. What you should know is that at the peak of the season, each vegetable and fruit has the highest nutrient content, flavor and taste. There has been extensive research in this aspect and it has been proved that the nutrient content and yield of any plant food, whether it is spinach, beans, oranges or mangoes, is highest at the peak of the season. When you buy seasonal foods you buy the best in terms of quality and nutrients at a reasonable price. Another point to note is that inexpensive fruits such as amla and guava are excellent sources of vitamin C, but apples and grapes, which are costly, are poor sources of this vitamin.

You can meet the needs of different members of your family by using the food guide. For example, the teenagers in your family can take more servings of body building foods to meet the protein requirements for growth and more servings from energy giving food to meet the high energy requirements of body building.

One last word of caution. Be moderate in the amount of food you take from any group, even if you like it very much; otherwise you may not be able to include enough amounts of food from all food groups.

Besides using the food guide to plan meals, you can use it to evaluate your present diet and modify if necessary. You can also use it to check the diet plans of institutions for nutritional adequacy. There are two aspects you need to consider when you evaluate diets or diet plans with the help of the daily food guide. First, you must check if each of the food groups is included in the diet plan. Secondly, you must note if the minimum number of servings from each group is included or not. You should evaluate the diet plan with the help of a good nutritionist. They can suggest changes to improve it.

Maintenance of your body weight

Everyone is interested in his body weight. Some want to lose it, some need to put on weight, while others, who have managed to be of normal weight, wish to maintain it.

If you are not one of those people who are worried about their weight, you will wonder why weight is so important? Undesirable weight can affect our vitality, our appearance and our emotional life. It affects our longevity also. Weight is one of the gross parameters of our health. You will be interested to know that the life insurance companies collected data about weights and heights and developed the first tables of desirable weight for height to guide their agents to determine the premium to be paid by their clients. The clients, who were underweight or overweight were found to be at greater risk, and therefore had to pay higher premium. Thus our weight indirectly affects our financial liability too.

There are three factors, which affect our normal or desirable weight. These are our age, height and body build. By the time we reach 25 years of age, the body building process is complete and so also our need to add weight. It is advisable for us to maintain the weight throughout life.

If you have reached your desirable weight for your height by 25 years of age, your weight should not increase after that. When you are 40, there is no reason to weigh more than what you were at 30. The same is true of after years. But you will observe a number of men and women gain half a kilogram a year after the age of 35 or 40. You may think it is insignificant to worry about a gain of as little as half a kilogram. But when it continues for 10 to 15 years, those extra kilograms are certainly visible. By taking balanced diet plan (with a good nutritionist) according to your body requirements and changing in lifestyle helps you to maintain the weight.

Height and body build are determined by heredity. So you have little control over height and body build, but you can decide and control the weight you carry on this body frame. The desirable weights for men and women of different heights are given in Table below. This table was prepared by the Life Insurance Corporation of India.

Table: Weight for Height for Men and Woman

Height (Feet & Meters)	Men's Weight (kgs)	Women's Weight (Kgs)
5'-0" (1.523 m)	50.8-54.4	50.8-54.4
5-1" (1.548 m)	51.7-55.3	51.7-55.3
5-2" (1.574 m)	56.3-60.3	53.1-56.7
5-3" (1.599 m)	57.6-61.7	54.4-58.1
5'-4" (1.624 m)	58.9-63.5	56.3-59.9
5'-5" (1.650 m)	60.8-65.3	57.6-61.2
5'-6" (1.675 m)	62.2-66.7	58.9-63.5
5'-7" (1.700 m)	64.0-68.5	60.8-65.3
5'-8" (1.726 m)	65.8-70.8	62.2-66.7
5'-9" (1.751 m)	67.6-72.6	64.0-68.5
5'-10" (1.777 m)	69.4-74.4	65.8-70.3
5'-11" (1.802 m)	71.2-76.2	67.1-71.7
6'-0" (1.827 m)	73.0-78.5	68.5-73.9
6'-1" (1.853 m)	73.3-80.7	73.3-80.7
6'-2" (1.878 m)	77.6-83.5	77.6-83.5
6'-3" (1.904 m)	79.8-85.9	79.8-85.9

Record your weight regularly. Remember three things when you weigh yourself. First, weigh at regular intervals, say once a month, at the same time of the day and as far as possible, on the same scale. Your weight may vary as much as a kilogram or more during a single day. This variation is due to the water you drink (about 1 kg per day), the food you eat (each meal may weigh 600-750 gm) and loss of weight through urine and faeces. If you have a scale at home, the best time to weigh is in the morning, before you eat or drink anything. If you weigh away from home, try to use the same scale each time you weigh yourself, so, that the error due to the scale may be minimal. 

Secondly, try to wear similar light clothing. Please weigh yourself without wearing shoes or chappals. If you are carrying a purse, a briefcase or a bag of books please put these down before weighing yourself. Most of these can add 0.5 kg. or more to your weight and thus give a wrong value.

Thirdly, record your weight in your diary or a notebook along with the date. Compare your weight with the desirable weight for your height. Compare your weight with the record of your weight last month and the month before that also. Suppose you weigh 55 kg today and you find that it is half a kg more than last time. You may think it is not important to worry about it, since your weight varies more than that in a day. But check your weight record and see if there is an increase. If that is the case, it is the time to take action, before it gets difficult to manage. If you are underweight, you need to watch too, to see that you gain steadily, until you reach the desirable weight for your height and body build.