Weight loss programs and weight maintenance - ways to reach and maintain the weight at which you're happiest. We'll talk about weight loss programs and diet plans that keep you healthy, exercise and fitness programs to keep you gorgeous and strong, and how to manage the inner game so you love doing all this.
posted by
Di Roberts at 12:46 PM
1 comments
Some of the most (temporarily) effective, drugs for controlling the appetite have been discovered to work through increasing the effects of serotonin. Unfortunately, serotonin seems to have multiple effects, not just on appetite reduction. One of those other effects sometimes led to fatal heart valve abnormalities in people who took those drugs. Now researchers have been able to identify the pathway by which serotonin affects the appetite specificially. Thus, the drug companies hope, they will be able to make drugs that act in that pathway, rather than other pathways that should not be disturbed at all.
Of course the question always arises: What will happen to the appetite when the patient stops taking the drug? Even if they had a drug that only suppressed the appetite, would the patient learn to eat the foods that helped the body? Would the patient learn to read and respond to the body's normal signals that it has had enough food? Would the patient learn to think like a person at his/her Happy Weight? -Di
Some of the most important weight-loss drugs work by enhancing the effect of the brain chemical serotonin. These include sibutramine (trade name Meridia) and fenfluramine, which was recalled after the combination with dexfenfluramine, called fen-phen, was linked to potentially fatal heart valve abnormalities.
posted by
Di Roberts at 5:48 AM
0 comments
Here's a question from a lady who has tried just about every diet but is still above her Happy Weight and is getting a lot of flack from her daughter. She says she feels anxious, depressed, angry, guilty, and frustrated.
Sound familiar? There are a lot of us who know exactly what all the major diets say to do, and have done it for at least two days in a row, but just aren't getting down to where we feel and look wonderful.
The psychologist who is answering questions for this newspaper is giving good sound advice on how to approach a diet plan. But of course that's only one of the three components of getting to Happy Weight. This frustrated dieter also needs to fit some physical exercise into every day. Not just because it burns calories, which it does. Not only because it can help develop her muscles, which burn more calories than nonmuscle tissue. But also because exercise makes a body and a mind and a spirit feel good. You don't need to run ten miles to get runners' high, you know.
The biggest component to getting to one's Happy Weight is the inner game. Not just the "make a plan and stick to it" and "make small goals and celebrate when you reach them" type of behavioral modification steps. Those are very good but they aren't going to get at the core of the matter.
The psychologist points out that the writer has negative thinking from not being able to control her weight. Duh.. So why can she not control her weight? Until she has resolved her underlying issues, it doesn't matter how much good diet and fitness advice she gets. She won't stick to any plan long enough to make significant progress. What deep-seated need is she fulfilling by staying above her Happy Weight? Until she figures that out and decides whether that's a need she still wants to satisfy, there won't be any lasting resolution of her dilemma. -Di
Question: I'm a frustrated fat person. I've just about given up ever losing my excess weight. I've tried every diet that's come out in the past 20 years and cannot lose weight. On top of that, I have a 17-year old daughter who is relentless in her complaining about my weight. My husband does physical labor and is not fat. He'll eat whatever I put on the table and never complains about the food or
posted by
Di Roberts at 6:27 AM
1 comments
Have been working in biomedical research for a good many years now and I really love to find out new things and tell people about them. Get really irate when some people try to pull the wool over other people's eyes by using misleading or misstated "facts" or funny "statistics" and am always glad to point these out. Down with snake oil! Up with open-minded, evidence-based scientific exploration!
