Losing Weight and Feeling Great

Archive for May, 2008

The “No S” Diet is something that’s come out that is rather interesting; I’m not sure I totally agree with it, but it does have some merits, so here goes.

The “No S” Diet really has three simple rules to follow:

• No sweets.
• No seconds.
• No snacks

There are exceptions made; i.e. on days that begin with an S (Saturday/Sunday) you can break these rules a little.  Not go overboard, mind you, but a little easing of the rules on the weekends, so that you can hold to the diet during the week.

While I heartily agree with the “no sugar” part, I take a slightly different stance on the seconds and snacks.  The reason being it depends on what your seconds and/or snacks are.

While I can’t condone a candy bar for a snack (it’s sugar anyway), how about a piece of string cheese and some raw veggies?  That helps stave off cravings while evening out your blood sugar.  I don’t think that unilaterally banning all snacks is necessary.

So that brings me to the “seconds” part.  What are your seconds?  If it’s another piece of lasagna or another hamburger, I’d agree — it’s not necessary.  But what if your seconds are steamed veggies without butter?  Or a leafy green salad with some low-calorie dressing?  I’m not sure I’d ban that kind of second.

I guess I could go along with the no sweets and no seconds (they make sense) but I have to disagree with the no snacks — at least the right kind.  Keeping your blood sugar stable is one of the things you very much need to do, to successfully diet for weight loss.

But what about you — would the “No S” diet help you keep to your weight loss plans?  Or would they drive you to distraction and make you fall into bad habits again?  What do you think?

I mentioned a few posts back that I was curious about if dieting (losing weight) could effect how sensitive your skin becomes to sunlight.  I trolled around the internet looking for a connection.  I kind of found one, and it has to do with the effect that your blood sugar has to do with the skin on your face.

If you’re a yo-yo dieter, you’re probably on a diet and off a diet.  If you suffer intense food cravings between meals, your blood sugar is probably spiking and diving.  And it’s this that ends up showing up on your rface.

High blood sugar in particular (and not just diabetes) can cause changes in your capillaries.  These changes can show up on your skin as inflammation — rosacea being one of the more commonly-seen inflammations.  These inflammations turn around and accelerate the aging process.  Yikes!

You can read the entire article, published on Discovery Health, here.

I guess it’s one more reason to limit the amount of sugar (directly linked with blood glucose spikes) in our diets, weight loss or not!  No need to look older before our time.