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Solar Suits -- Just Dumb

In my almost ten years of teaching fitness classes, researching diets, reading what works and what doesn't work, I can unequivocally state that Solar Suits and the other plastic workout clothes people put on to lose weight is the stupidest gimmick that I've ever seen.  About as stupid as those vibrating belts that let you burn fat while sitting around doing nothing.   Let me not mince words, if you are wearing one while working out STOP.  Anyone who comes to my class wearing one, I make them take it off or leave.

http://health.msn.com/fitness/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100163531

Water In Your Body

The human body is about two-thirds water. And wearing plastic “solar suits” can squeeze some of the water out and decrease the amount of fluid the body holds. Even though you can drop a few pounds immediately this way, you’re losing water, not fat and important electrolytes along with it.

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Water Cools You Down

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A review in the International Journal of Sports Medicine noted that sweat must evaporate from the skin to produce a body-cooling effect. If it doesn’t then, not only does the rapid water loss dehydrate you, but the pent-up heat accumulates, raising your core temperature. With less water available to cool you down, the heat continues to rise. 

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When Dehydration Gets Dangerous

Athletes who compete in different divisions based on their body weight are famous for the extraordinary lengths they go to lose weight. The Journal of the American Medical Association reported the weight-loss practices of three college wrestlers in 1997: All three men restricted food and fluids while over-exercising for several weeks, dropping around 15 percent of their body weight. All three wore plastic sweat suits while performing intense exercise in a hot environment. All three died.

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Water Loss Weakens You

Even a little dehydration can hurt you. Sweating off 2 percent of your body weight—a 175-pound person losing about 3 ½ pounds—can significantly impair performance. You’ll feel fatigued and weak, you’ll be more sluggish, and you won’t be able to push yourself to walk faster or have the stamina to hike up hills, for example. In other words, dehydrating yourself will slow you down. And slowing down burns fewer calories.

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Is a Plastic Suit Helpful At All?

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Trash the suit, drink up, and start incorporating sprint walks or mini-jogging intervals into your hour-long walks to get the weight-loss results you want.

Let me repeat, wearing a plastic bag while working out is dangerous and stupid.

Seventeen Fitness Truths to Get You Into Shape

A great article for anyone just starting out...

http://zenhabits.net/2008/02/17-fitness-truths-to-get-you-in-great-shape/

The ups-and-downs of my fitness efforts have highlighted some important points for me. Key among those points: don’t quit. If you mess up, and stop for awhile, that doesn’t mean you should quit altogether. Just keep going. You’ll get there eventually.

And during this journey, which hasn’t stopped and probably won’t ever stop, and I’ve learned a lot over these last couple of years, about what works and what doesn’t.

What follows are some of the more important truths I’ve learned, in the trenches, that I’d like to share with you. Take from them what you will — everyone will find different things that work for them, but I think just about all of them are important to share.

Making Your Friends Fit Your Diet

I had a few people come up to me who read my previous article about how the studies showed that having overweight friends could make you gain weight (Do Fat Friends Make You Fat). Yes I knew that article was going to be controversial but I just put it out there anyway. Just read another article today about how eating out with friends causes you to gain weight -- whether or not they are overweight. I have written about this previously -- Weapons of Mass Creation.

On average, if you dine with one other person you will eat about 35 percent more than if you were alone. (Spouses don't have this effect because couples tend to get into a regular eating pattern and consume about the same amount.)

If you eat with a party of seven or more, you will gobble up 96 percent more, or nearly twice as much. Sound like Thanksgiving? And if you get a table for four, you will end up right in the middle, eating about 75 percent more calories than if you dined alone. (MSNBC:Make Your Friends Fit Your Diet -- Not Blow It.)

What's the solution?

Decide how much you're going to eat before the meal instead of during it. Some other suggestions:

1. Try to be the last person to start eating.
2. Pace yourself with the slowest eater at the table
3. Avoid the “just one more helping” request (and temptation) by always leaving some food on your plate, as if you are still eating.
4. Preregulate consumption by deciding how much to eat prior to the meal instead of during the meal.
   

Links For the Day:
360TotalFitness: Weapons of Mass Creation.
MSNBC: Make Your Friends Fit Your Diet -- Not Blow It.

Sleep the Pounds Off

No this is not a miraculous new diet plan....

An analysis of recent data suggests sleep deficits are making people fat. In studies, 1) sleep shortage in babies and toddlers correlated with obesity at age 7, 2) sleep shortage in adults correlated with high levels of a hormone that tells the brain to eat, and 3) kids who woke up tired got less exercise, which in turn would have helped them sleep. (http://www.slate.com/id/2151600/)

I'm sure you heard eight hours, but where did this number come from?

In a classic study, researchers placed a volunteer in windowless, light-controlled room for 30 days. The light was on for 16 hours and off for eight hours, but the study participant could also turn the lights on and off at will. Before the experiment began, the subject routinely got about six and a half hours of sleep. During the first night of the experiment he slept eight hours, the second night 10 hours, the third night 12 hours, and the fourth night 14 hours. Over the next several days, he began to reduce the number of hours slept, eventually falling to a steady eight hours and 13 minutes. This experiment was performed repeatedly with all types of people, with similar results, and this is where the recommendation of eight hours comes from.

Links for the Day:
USAToday - Sleep Loss May Equal Weight Gain.
WebMD - How Much Sleep Do You Really Need?

Emotional Eating

In Why Diets Don't Work, I wrote that one of the many reasons diets fail is that we try to lose the weight without losing the reason. We often eat for emotional reasons. In a nutshell...

Emotional eating is eating for another reason than because you’re hungry. If you overeat often, chances are that food has become your drug of choice, as well as your body’s programmed response to factors such as stress, loneliness, boredom, or sadness. Rather than dealing with a negative event or emotion in a solution-oriented manner, you may have learned to numb your problems with food.

The Diet Channel:
Emotional Eating Part 1: What is Emotional Eating?
Emotional Eating Part 2: How to Identify Your Overeating Triggers.
Emotional Eating Part 3: Common Food Binging Cycles.
Emotional Eating Part 4: How to Change Your Eating Patterns Permanently.

Six Red Flags to Determine Whether a Diet Will Work

From the Today show:

1. Diets that promote/promise drastic weight loss: When you start a diet, you can potentially drop a lot of weight during the first two weeks (some will be water weight).
2. Diets that claim they work because of special supplements, creams or potions — no diet and exercise needed. Or diets that make you buy MEGA supplements in order to follow the program: If it sounds too good to be true, it is!
3. Diets that are entirely different than the way you currently eat (or like to eat): If a plan is incompatible with your lifestyle, the chances are slim you’ll stick with it.
4. Diets that have less than 1,000 calories: Difficult to sustain and can often leave you cranky, irritable and with a bad headache. Not to mention hungry and lethargic.
5. Diets that claim they are effortless: No such animal. Losing weight takes focus and effort.
6. Diets that cut out entire food groups or focus on only a few foods: Not realistic for the long haul … the sign of a plan you’re soon to go off.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/20811889/