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MD and I wish all of you a most prosperous and healthful New Year!<\/p>\nMD and I wish all of you a most prosperous and healthful New Year!<\/p>\n
We\u0092ve had a great time with family and friends over the holidays, but now it\u0092s time to get back into the swing of things.\u00a0 We ended the year last night with a great dinner for friends.\u00a0 MD went all out on one of her mega dinners, which, of course, included foie gras, her all-time favorite food.\u00a0 (That’s my serving of foie gras pictured on the left.\u00a0 The little jelly-like stuff is a pomegranate pepper jelly that was out of this world and well worth the four or five carbs.)\u00a0 We had a terrific time ringing out the old year and ringing in the new. I, myself, could have done with a few fewer glasses of wine and the champagne we drank to toast in the new year.<\/p>\n
MD’s menu for our New Year\u0092s Eve feast:<\/p>\n
Various wines for the different courses and champagne at midnight.<\/p>\n
I\u0092ve just now barely recovered.<\/p>\n
Everyone is busily making resolutions for the new year, and I suspect that in many cases the list includes weight loss.\u00a0 In cruising through the web today while regaining my sobriety, I came across a number of posts offering to help by giving weight loss recommendations.\u00a0 As a weight-loss method, it seems this year that caloric restriction is all the vogue.\u00a0 Most of the articles I read had a sort of smarmy condescending nature to them, as in, hey, guys, it\u0092s really, really simple to lost weight.\u00a0 All you have to do is just cut your calories and you\u0092ll lose.\u00a0 It\u0092s not difficult.\u00a0 Just do it.<\/p>\n
One particular article on losing weight<\/a> that was representative of most was in Wired Wiki How-To<\/em>.\u00a0 By his tone, it\u0092s pretty obvious that the author of this article figures he\u0092s found the holy grail of weight loss.\u00a0 It\u0092s easy and fast and foolproof.<\/p>\n What does he recommend?<\/p>\n First, you decide how much you want to lose and how long you want to diet. You then multiply the amount (in pounds) you want to lose times 3,500 (the number of calories in a pound of fat).\u00a0 Take this number and divide it by the number of days you plan on dieting, and you\u0092ve got the number of calories you\u0092ve got to cut back by to lose the weight you want to lose.<\/p>\n The article even gives an example to show how it works.\u00a0 Let\u0092s say you need to lose 10 pounds and you\u0092re willing to spend two months dieting to lose the weight.\u00a0 You multiply 10 times 3,500, which gives you 35,000 calories you need to get rid of.\u00a0 Divide this 35,000 by 60, and you find you need to reduce your intake by 583 calories per day, and, Voila!, your ten extra pounds will be gone at the end of the month.\u00a0 What could be easier?\u00a0 Why didn\u0092t I think of that?<\/p>\n The author even presents a version of the energy balance equation to show what he\u0092s talking about.\u00a0 It\u0092s just a system, says he, and all you\u0092ve got to do to be thin is operate the system.<\/p>\n If it were only that easy, no one would be overweight.<\/p>\n Here is the energy balance equation:<\/p>\n Change in weight = Calories in – Calories out<\/strong><\/p>\n Below is another way of stating the same thing:<\/p>\n Change in weight = Calories from food consumed – Calories from BMR and exercise<\/strong><\/p>\n It all sounds so easy.\u00a0 If your calories coming in from food are balanced by the calories you get rid of during daily living, then your weight remains constant.\u00a0 If you decrease your intake of calories and keep the calories going out the same, then you\u0092ll decrease your weight.<\/p>\n Problem is, these two terms \u0091calories in\u0092 and \u0091calories out\u0092 aren\u0092t independent of one another.\u00a0 If you reduce the number of calories coming in, you\u0092ll also reduce the number of calories you burn.\u00a0 Your metabolic rate will drop, you will decrease your activity more, and your weight won\u0092t change as much as you would expect.\u00a0 If you ratchet up your exercise, then you\u0092ll compensate by unconsciously increasing the food you eat by a bit.\u00a0 The fact that these two components of the energy balance equation aren\u0092t independent is what makes losing weight by counting calories so difficult.<\/p>\n In my opinion, it\u0092s much easier to lose excess body fat by following a diet that both restricts calories without your having to think about it and that does it in a way that doesn\u0092t really cause you to drop your metabolic rate.\u00a0 Plus, a good diet followed correctly actually gives you a little boost in that it provides a small metabolic advantage.\u00a0 In other words, you lose a few extra calories (maybe up to 200-300 per day) without having to do anything to lose them other than following the diet.<\/p>\n Take a look at this post on Is a calorie always a calorie?<\/a> I wrote a couple of years ago to see what I mean.<\/p>\n But beware.\u00a0 This post comes with a caveat.\u00a0 If you are in the least bit psychologically unhinged, you might not want to read the post.\u00a0 It was this very post that pushed Anthony Colpo over the edge.\u00a0 It inspired him to launch a jihad against me and against anyone else who might possibly believe that a slight metabolic advantage exists.\u00a0 He wrote an entire book that he made available free to anyone who wanted it showing how Gary Taubes, Richard Feinman, and MD and I were idiots.\u00a0 Of course, my redneck genes, such as they are, compelled me to answer.\u00a0 For those of you who weren\u0092t readers in those days, the end result of the whole affair was that after receiving a number of pretty severe canings on this blog, our friend Anthony just sort of drifted away, never to be heard from again.<\/p>\n All this aside, read the post and come to your own conclusions as to what the best diet is for simple, quick weight loss and act accordingly should one of your New Year\u0092s resolutions be to lose weight.<\/p>\n If you need some motivation to jump in with both feet and do it, then read this post<\/a>, this one<\/a> and this one<\/a>.<\/p>\n Best of luck with all your resolutions.\u00a0 I look forward to continuing our journey together in 2010.<\/p>\n