Crash diets are not just unhealthy --- they don't result in long-term weight loss, because once you go back to old eating habits, the weight comes back, often with reinforcements, according to a variety of health experts, including the Mayo Clinic. Eating a balanced diet, changing how you eat, and burning more calories with exercise are the keys to taking weight off --- and keeping it off.
The Food Pyramid
Trying to lose weight eating only one type of food --- like fruit, or vegetables of a certain color, or high amounts of protein --- may deprive your body of vitamins, minerals, and other crucial nutrients. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's food pyramid recommends you eat a variety of foods, including fats, each day. Whole grains and complex carbohydrates, like breads, rice, cereals, and pasta, for the pyramid's base. Fresh fruits and vegetables follow, with lean proteins next. Healthy fats, like the monounsaturated fats in olive oil, and a few sweets top off the pyramid.
You may be confused by the USDA's reliance on carbohydrates to form much of the pyramid, given the tide of negative information about carbs. Too many calories from carbohydrates and not enough exercise can lead to weight problems --- just as if you eat too much protein, fat or sweets, and don't exercise.
Eat More Often
Eating more often doesn't mean eating more --- it simply means eating a sensible amount of calories during the day, spread among three meals and two or three snacks, so your body keeps working and burning calories. If you eat dinner, then skip breakfast the next day and don't eat again until lunch, you will be fasting for as long as 18 hours, triggering an insulin response that can result in weight gain, according to Mayo Clinic dietician Katherine Zeratsky.
Start your day with a breakfast based on the food pyramid; have a mid-morning snack; lunch; a mid-afternoon snack; then dinner, making sure that by the end of the day you have followed the pyramid. If you're going to have a big piece of beef for lunch, for example, focus on carbs at dinner.
The Best Exercise
That $750 exercise machine won't do you any good if you stow it in the garage or basement after a few weeks. The best exercise you can do to lose weight is anything you will continue to do --- which means it has to be enjoyable. If you don't like running on a treadmill, go biking. If you don't like lifting weights, use a rowing machine. If you can't handle jogging, play tennis or pickup basketball. Try adding more than one activity so you don't get bored. Brisk walking, jumping rope, skating, swimming, walking a dog, and dancing can all help burn calories and improve your heart health --- and do it all much better than an elliptical machine under you bed.
The American Heart Association recommends exercise like brisk walking five times per week, or more intense aerobic exercise three times per week.
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