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.

Eggs are in.  Eggs are out.  One minute they’re wonderful for a diet — the next they should be banned.  How in the world can you know what to believe?

Well, you really can’t, so you have to go with your instincts on this one, along with a modicum of information to help you decide, if you’re on the fence about these ovoid wonders.

Eggs are high in protein. That is, the egg whites are high in protein; the whites of three large eggs with some sauteed (use PAM or some other spay) veggies is a wonderful way to start your day.  And even better, egg whites are very low in calories.

Eggs are high in cholesterol.  The egg yolks, that is.  If you’re the type of person where your cholesterol never goes about 180 no matter what you eat, this may not even be a concern to you.  If your cholesterol is on the "watch out" list, you may want to consider using Egg Beaters instead.

Eggs linked to reduced breast cancer. Now this is interesting.  The intake of choline may be related to breast cancer; a study found that women who had a high intake of choline had a reduced chance for breast cancer.  But the flip side is this — choline is only found in the yolk of the egg, not the whites.  Argh!

And while this blog is really more female-oriented, there are probably men in your life who’s health you may be concerned over.  Here’s just one more thing to worry about — another study found that men who ate seven or more eggs a week had a higher risk of dying sooner.

And if diabetic men ate any eggs, that raised their chances of dying sooner even more!  Depressing if the men in your life crave eggs — you can read the story here.

To egg or not to egg in your diet — that’s a tough one.  Studies change all the time, so what’s good one day is bad the next.  Most likely, moderation is in order — like with anything else.

Just what do vanilla aromatherapy candles have to do with dieting?  Actually a fair amount!

I like aromatherapy, so I look for more ideas on using it from time to time.  I came across an article the other day which linked using vanilla aromatherapy with dieting success.  Naturally intrigued, I had to read more!

The gist of the study (performed by St. George’s Hospital in London) was this:  the vanilla scent (used as skin patches)  soothed and relaxed and made the test subjects less likely to snack on sweet foods.  Fewer sweet foods caused fewer blood sugar swings.  Fewer blood sugar swings reduced cravings.

See where I’m going with this?  By not giving into cravings, the subjects ate less and took in fewer calories.  And with the fewer calories came weight loss!

OK, so in the study they used true vanilla aromatherapy (i.e. with essential oils).  I love the scent of vanilla (yum!) but most essential oils don’t have a really good scent life once they are out of the bottle.  And vanilla isn’t exactly inexpensive as essential oils go.

So, my idea of using vanilla aromatherapy candles! 

The only catch — you need candles that come with an authentic scent, and not mixed with other flower or fruit aromas.  I know, they are hard to find, but they are out there!  (I found a good source, so leave a comment if you want more info.)

So, will you try vanilla-scented aromatherapy candles?  I sure am — I’ll take any help I can get, when it comes to dieting and weight loss!