I wanted to make you aware of this story as I feel it really highlights our insecurities with weight and the implementations it has on our self esteem and confidence levels to be of a certain size. I am not saying we should all be unhealthy – I am suggesting we all take measures to be healthy in the skin we are in, rather than conforming to celebrities, models, magazines, the media and society’s parameters.

Summary

Reader’s Digest commissioned a survey in 16 countries, published in February issue, finds that Brazil feels most pressure to be thin, while China swallows most diet pills. U.S. Tops List of Women Wanting Husbands to Lose Weight, but 68% Say We Pay Too Much Attention to Size. France Blames America for Fast-Food Eating Habits That Have Contributed to Its Nation’s Girth
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The BBC reports:

Nine out of 10 mothers questioned in a British Heart Foundation (BHF) survey misunderstood the nutrition information on children’s foods.

The BHF says mothers believe claims such as “a source of calcium, iron and six vitamins” mean a product is likely to be healthy.

A “mish mash” of different food labelling styles is fuelling confusion among shoppers, it added. But manufacturers insisted their nutritional labelling was clear.
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Last month in the UK it was announced that one man was costing the NHS £100,000 to treat due to his obesity. This started a debate across the nation if he should be treated as he was the cause of his size for eating over 20,000 calories a day.

The One Show covered the story last week forming a perspective from formerly obese Charlie Walduck who lost 35 stone from his 50 stone frame. I am glad they used someone with a direct relation to Paul Mason – the gentleman that is currently suffering with his weight. The program looked at many perspectives using experts; Tim Fry from the National Obesity Forum, Dr. Matt Capehorn from Rotherm Institute for Obesity and Fatima Parker of the International Size Acceptance Association.

There did seem a bias argument in the documentary with Fatima having very little time to express her perspective but I must admit that good points were raised from the exploration. Fatima expressed everyone should be looked after no matter their size and that you should “try and look after yourself, fat or thin.” Which confirms the point I was making with my previous article on Fat Acceptance; health can be achieved at any size.

Rather than putting obesity into a blame situation, it is a serious illness and should be treated as so, rather than ridiculed and debated over. As Dr. Capehorn expressed, it is the cause which should be tackled before over-eating happened. The cause of obesity is not over-eating but a reason much deeper to which eating becomes the only way out. Food in this instance then becomes addictive, just like drugs; we treat drug addicts so why should anyone in society be singled out for the cost on the NHS and the treatment they need?

I would really appreciate your comments and views on this subject matter, please view the program below and let me know your thoughts.

If loosing weight for the holiday season is something you have been thinking about then take a look at GMTV’s new weight loss plan.

The plan; Drop a Dress Size for Christmas offers advice from nutritionist, Phil Mundy and LA fitness trainer, Tracey Mallet. The programme intends to follow dieters that have enlisted the help of GMTV to target their ‘problem areas’. This is about fitting activity into your normal daily routine, it is not about impossible targets and unrealistic fad dieting, it is about you and catering a healthy living plan to your needs.
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Among the selection of today’s most popular diets, the Mediterranean diet has proven to be the most beneficial to our health, gaining praise from nutrition experts and home gourmets alike.

But while few would dispute the health benefits of such a diet, what is it about the Mediterranean menu that makes it so healthy?

A study released in the online edition of the British Medical Journal has answered this very question. Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and the University of Athens Medical School in Greece looked at more than 23,000 Greek men and women participating in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC). Over the course of about eight and a half years, the researchers compared the health of the participants against their devotion to a Mediterranean diet.

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If you are looking to go away this summer but have too many body quibbles to even think of the bikini then don’t panic, it can be simple and easy to obtain the silhouette you’re after with GMTV’s bikini diet!

Don’t be put off by the word Diet, this is not some fad, it is about making small changes to your lifestyle so you can feel happy in your bikini and all with the support of Mr Motivator and the GMTV crew and website. There is a dedicated section on the website offering a full resource on how you can achieve your goals in 4 weeks, along with the TV programme whereby you can watch other women like you loose inches off their waists each week.

The Bikini diet is based on you and you only, simply enter your measurements (nobody will ever know – just the computer calculator!) of your waist and hips, as the bikini diet is about loosing weight in these particular areas and from your body shape you can pick one of three plans that will be best suited to you. After joining your bikini diet you can download shopping lists for each week so you can follow set recipes on the website and get help with the exercises you need to do.

This isn’t an intense diet and nor should any diet be. It is about tonning your curves and eating the right foods so you feel good in your body. A diet should never make you feel ill or weak and you should not skip meals as this makes your body go into panic mode and it stores fat as it thinks it is being starved. A clever survival tactic if our lifestyles changed dramatically!!

Visit the website to start your bikini challenge today and report back to 100% so we know what you will be doing this summer and how well you are getting on with the bikini challenge.

Author: Rebecca Welch

Jelly Belly. Love Handles. Dunlap Disease. Whatever you want to call it, the excess fat around your midsection that wiggles and jiggles in all the wrong places just isn’t pretty. Not only is belly fat unattractive, it can be downright dangerous to your health. Extra fat carried around your abdomen can increase your risk of heart disease. With so many pills, potions and programs flooding the weight loss industry today, many people are left feeling just plain confused about how to effectively reduce belly fat.

The first thing you must know about how to effectively reduce belly fat is that there is no magic bullet when it comes to weight loss. Reducing body fat levels requires a three pronged approach that doesn’t come from popping diet pills or gulping down foul tasting drinks. Belly fat also won’t come off by trying to spot reduce only doing sit-ups or crunches. It’s just not possible to spot reduce, so don’t waste your time.

So, the question remains, how do you effectively reduce belly fat? Here is a safe, practical three pronged approach to get rid of belly fat.

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Whilst searching for newly released books that would help our community members and readers rather than hinder them into thinking they need to eliminate one food group to achieve the body of their dreams, I came across an American writer; Dr. Nancy Snyderman.

Dr. Snyderman is the chief medical editor for NBC News. And starting on the 29th June she will also have her own show, “Dr. Nancy,” covering health, medicine, and social policy, daily at noon on MSNBC. The Boston Globe carried out an interview with her about her new book; “Diet Myths That Keep Us Fat: And the 101 Truths That Will Save Your Waistline – and Maybe Even Your Life”.

Here’s what she had to say;

A lot of the myths you cite – carbs are bad vs. carbs are good, for example – are both familiar and contradictory. Why do we hold on to them anyway?

“We as Americans embrace extremes. We love myths – they give us excuses, I think, to escape reality. And it’s a post-World War II phenomenon. We have learned to hate our bodies, we see food as the enemy, and we have forgotten to come to the dinner table. We went from having fresh bread to eating crackers, from buying our meat every two days to buying in bulk and throwing it in the freezer. We raped our schools of recess time and phys ed, we built beautiful suburbs with no sidewalks, and we totally changed how America consumes food. It’s a perfect storm.”

In your book, you encourage people to treat themselves, to indulge their cravings. Why is that?

“If I say, ‘Don’t smoke, eat a good diet, and exercise,’ people will go, ‘Yawn, yawn, yawn.’ But if I say, ‘Eat dark chocolate, white foods are good for you, red wine’s great for your heart, and you can eat after 8 at night,’ they say, ‘Hey, I want to check out this diet.’”

You also talk about not eating fake food.

“I was once in Paris with Julia Child – one of those experiences you know will stay with you forever. You couldn’t have gotten her to eat a fake anything. And she said, ‘Why would you use a fake sugar, when a teaspoon of sugar is only 13 calories?’ It’s one of the little myths. Diet Coke – the sweetness just makes your brain want more. Julia knew how to eat food, how to love food, and how to push herself away from the table. Food is the reason for bringing people to the table for conversation and family. We’re cramming it down, not using it for pleasure and for community.”

So how do we restore a sense of pleasure to our relationship with food?

“You’ve got to figure out what works for you. There’s no magic. Your body is going to crave things that my body isn’t. I would never eat a fake cheese, but I would drink a diet soda as a treat. If you are craving chocolate cake, for God’s sake have it.”

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The doctor’s diary is a weekly insight into life in a busy GP practice which is published on the BBC website here. This week Dr Nicola Jones looks at fad diets, the diet pill and how one patient has found an alternative to years of yo-yo dieting.

Here is what she had to say about the fad diets that all of us are guilty of trying, the next time you think about picking up diet information, consider her thoughts:

“There is very little evidence behind most fad diets, and if you hear recommendations that seem too good to be true, then they probably are.

Diets that completely eliminate an entire group of foods are probably not that healthy. The only sure-fire way to lose weight is to eat fewer calories than you burn off in physical activity.

To be healthy you need to eat some foods containing carbs, protein, fat, vitamins and minerals. And your best chance of sustained weight loss is to change the way you eat and exercise forever – to do that you need to find a way of eating that works for you and to build physical activity into your life.

A loss of 5-10% of your weight can be a real benefit to your health. And you don’t need to get down to a size 10 for it to be worthwhile.

Recently there has been a lot of publicity about diet pills because one of them is now available to buy over the counter.

For people who choose to use the pills, either from the pharmacy or from their GP, the important thing is to eat a healthy low fat diet and to exercise. Unless you do that, they are not going to work.”

Watch the full video here.

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Ian Marber, co-founder of The Food Doctor Clinic and author of a number of books on food and diet; his latest, ‘Supereating: Getting the best out of your food’, shares his thoughts on why diets don’t work.

Ian Marber is 45 and it wasn’t until his early 30’s that he decided to study nutrition based on his own quibbles with food since he was a child. His real turning point was at age 27, he was diagnosed with coeliac disease and told what he could and couldn’t eat.

As the nations focus in the rising risks of obesity and our unhealthy relationship with food is ever increasing, the Food Doctor answers, what are we doing wrong?

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