The 10 Most Proven, Effective, and Safe Ways To Lose Weight

By The Editors of Medpreneur

Approximately 300,000 adult deaths in the United States each year are attributable to unhealthy dietary habits and physical inactivity or sedentary behavior.

The medpreneur editors carefully selected SAFE and EFFECTIVE ways to lose weight that include both diets and exercise.

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Media Entertainment, Ltd.
• Release date: Jan 15, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452490861

Book preview

Introduction

Losing weight, if not a national obsession, is often uppermost in our minds when we think of getting and staying healthy. We've tried many methods to do so. Some of those have been respectable choices, while others have been ill-advised. What we want to do here is discuss some well-known and even obvious choices and some not so well-known choices that have been proven to be safe and effective.

There is something here for every weight loss devotee. If you prefer to count calories, you might find the Smart Calorie Restriction option to be of interest. Counting calories too much of a trial for you? Take a look at the Mediterranean Diet. There are options for exercise enthusiasts, like Strength Training, and even something for those who don't believe in exercise, like N.E.A.T.

The weight loss options here are meant to begin the discussion or start you on your search. Of course, you will need to get more information and consult your physician. But you get a nice overview of 10 proven, safe, and effective methods. Get started here and you're on your way.

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1. Smart Calorie Restriction:

Name: Smart Calorie Restriction

Average weight loss: Varies based on beginning weight

When started: 1934

Origin: In 1934 Mary Crowell and Clive McCay of Cornell University found that laboratory rats fed a reduced calorie diet while maintaining nutrient levels increased life spans while simultaneously reducing fat levels and losing excess weight. They had life spans lasting twice as long as expected. These findings were explored further and validated by Roy Walford and his student Richard Weindruch in 1986.

Key Benefit(s): Improve health, reduce aging, and lower blood pressure.

You may have heard time and again from fitness gurus and on talk shows that crash dieting just won't cut it as a safe way of losing weight but may be harmful to your health. And to keep off the extra pounds is to lose it gradually. But there are just times that we need to lose the weight fast for that high school reunion, beach vacation (fitting in to your latest swimwear) or just about any important occasion where have you absolutely got to look your best and be a few pounds slimmer.

To lose it fast, some have resorted to calorie restriction diets. Calorie restriction has been a hot topic lately as it has been credited for prolonging research animals' lifespans in a long-term dietary study. Some of us might find this way of losing weight to be way too restrictive, not to mention very depriving. Calorie restriction is not equivalent to juice fasts, cabbage soup diets and fat-burning pill regimens. These crash diet programs are also what most of us start on to lose weight fast. But as research after research show, they aren't effective because almost everyone regains (and some regain more than) what they lost.

With all the evidence going against crash dieting, how is it different as calorie restriction? For starters, calorie restriction is about cutting back at least 20% to 40% of your daily calorie consumption. This could be done with maximizing the more nutritious aspects of one's diet and cutting back on the unhealthy fat (animal), simple carbohydrates (sugar) and additive-laden junk any person regularly eats.

Though the diet plan has attracted negative press about making bones brittle, recent research has shown that the claims of naysayers are overblown or simply false. Researchers from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana have found out that there was no significant bone loss among participants in a 2008 study of calorie restriction diet plans.

The study