Posts with tag weight loss

The Flat Belly Diet is currently the hottest you gotta do this one! eating plan. Six pack abs are dreamy, but apparently the stress of the 2008 presidential election has us all packing on the beer bellies and love handles. Since there isn't much time for us to take it off before holiday parties make it even worse, people are all over this quick fix diet -- you'll supposedly see results in the first four days.

Let's start off by all agreeing that Courtney Love is a mess. She just is. And when she dropped a tremendous amount of weight in a very short time, we didn't believe her for a second when she said it was through a strict diet. Puh-lease -- a strict diet takes self control and restraint, which are qualities we know Courtney just doesn't have, so we've always assumed she had some sort of medical assistance.

Fat behinds ruin the lines of Calvin Klein, and Dior doesn't come in plus sizes. It's time for a diet! But which one? A new one pops up every day. We help you sort them out with Fad Diet du Jour.

The catchy name: Maple Syrup Diet, Lemonade Diet, Master Cleanse

The story: Originally developed by Stanley Burroughs and popularlized in The Master Cleanser, published in 1976. Reintroduced to the world in 2005 by Peter Glickman in his much peppier and promisorily titled book Lose Weight, Have More Energy and Be Happier in 10 Days. The idea is that your body is full of toxins, which get stored in your fat cells, and that makes you sick. If you take some time off from ingesting new toxins, i.e. don't eat for a couple of weeks, your body can expel the built up toxins.

The scrawny celebrity dieter: Confirmed: Beyonce, Robin Quivers. Rumored: Ginger Spice Geri Halliwell, lemon-faced skeletar Renee Zellweger,

The anti-diet propaganda: "It's detox, not a diet! Oh, sure, some people also lose weight..."

For the past few weeks the product "Portion Pals" has been popping up in random places. At first I thought it was some freaky weight loss program (ala Jenny Craig) until I started reading the recommendations on ThisNext.

Apparently this is a magical weight loss program, which I typically scoff at such thing but after reading up on it, this thing makes sense. A lot of sense. It is a tool that helps you do what you are supposed to do to lose weight. No need for a dramatic carb free diet or a crash diet of power bars and diet coke -- just sensible everyday food in the correct portion sizes.

Portion Pals are discs that double as cutting boards that allow you measure out the proper amount of food you should be putting in your body. Do they work? According to the site, ThisNext users, fashionistas, and celebrities they do. I am ordering a set right now, so you know I believe the hype.

Yes, yes, I know, it is big news, right? When a supermodel gains some weight it's big news?

According to Brazilian gossip writer Anderson Antunes of Glamurama, Gisele Bundchen, now in her global model goddess-ness known simply as Gisele, gained 14 pounds in order to participate in Milan Fashion Week, which now has strict guidelines regarding models' weights and BMIs. If you recall, back in September, there was much ado about the nothingness of model's figures in Spain, which banned underweight models from the runways. Milan followed suit with a similar restriction, saying that it was trying to discourage eating disorders.

Are we surprised that Gisele packed on 14 pounds? It sounds like a lot, but not unusual for someone who claims to nosh on red meat and McDonald's burgers.

[via: New York Post]

Related posts:
Models turned away from runways as too skinny
Milan follows Madri's lead
BMI: the Good , the Bad, and the Ugly
Gisele's surprising diet

Watch any diet commercial on television, and inevitably there will be at least one woman who says she wants to lose weight for her wedding day. That fact aside, I doubt that many other brides would be willing to undergo Elizabeth Hurley's rigorous bridal weight loss program.

The actress and model plans to marry Arun Nayer in March, so between now and then she has set her sight on a few rather drastic measures to help her fit into her Versace wedding gown. First off, Hurley has given up on eating after 4PM. But before 4PM, Hurley has decided that she will only eat egg whites, vegetables and steamed fish.

I'm just going to say it: Elizabeth Hurley is crazy if she thinks she needs to lose weight. But that gripe is really beside the point. Elizabeth Hurley is getting married -- shouldn't she be thinking more about the marriage than the size of her waistline on her wedding day?

If you are looking for an easy way to drop some of those holiday pounds, you might want to try thinking about it. Researchers at Hull University in the UK determined that subjects who thought about the muscles they were exercising tended to work out harder.

By monitoring the electrical activity of 30 people doing bicep curls, the scientists concluded that when subjects were asked to focus on muscle mechanics, their bodies showed significantly higher levels of electrical activity. (Electrical activity is a useful way of measuring how hard the body is working.)

Of course, brain work will never replace body work in the battle of the bulge, but focusing on your muscles might give you a more effective work-out. So if you're planning on hitting the gym next week, remember to think (and breath and have good posture and maintain proper alignment).

[via bbc.co.uk]

Living in a culture obsessed with thin, it can only be expected that hundreds - nay, thousands of weight loss products will be showcased by the media in a single calendar year. South Beach, Hydroxycut, Atkins, TRIMSPA, The Zone - we've heard them all, and while some of these programs stick around with some semblance of longevity, most are just a flash in the pan.

I think most of us know now that weight loss doesn't come in pill form. Exercise gurus and nutritionists have drilled the mantra "eat right, exercise at least 3 times per week, and you'll be fine" into our heads enough to know that we are going to have to work a little for the weight to drop off and stay off.

However, an old diet tactic is making new rounds. It cleverly combines work ethic with immediate gratification, appealing to just about any American consumer interested in dropping a couple of pounds. The diet is called the "Master Cleanse", and involves surviving for 10 days on a mixture of lemon juice, cayenne pepper, maple syrup, and water. And that's all.

Sound tough? It is. But it works, and the diet has many devotees, including celebrities such as Beyoncé Knowles and Denzel Washington. Joy Bauer, a New York City based nutritionist, estimates that if performed correctly, the cleanse will provide about 650 calories per day, 950 calories less than the minimum recommended for a woman trying to maintain her weight. "Of course you're going to lose weight," Bauer said. "You're starving yourself." Cleanse supporters quell their critics by citing the program's many benefits, including supposed help for ulcers and other internal ailments and the purging of impurities and toxins like pesticides and food additives.

So what do you think? Is the "Cleanse" just organized starvation, or is it the anecdote to our immediate gratification-style weight loss obsession?

In the wake of BMI-based bans on dangerously thin models first in Spain, then in Milan, a British television station has plans to show Super-Skinny Me: The Race to Size Zero, a documentary that will follow the efforts of a group of female journalists to drop down to a British size 2 (US size 00). The documentary will be aired some time early next year.
Recent studies in the UK have found that the average dress size of a woman is 14, equivalent to a US size 10. However, according to a spokesperson for the television station, "the super-skinny American fad is spreading to the U.K. and question whether it is spawning an extreme, collective eating disorder." The goal of the documentary is to "highlight the dangers of aiming for a super-skinny look, and expose the serious health risks of extreme weight-loss methods."

Though there are plans to have medical support and expert guidance through every stage of filming the documentary, Britain's Eating Disorder Association is worried about the potential health effects on the journalists who will be participating.

Yep, I am pretty certain that there will be negative effects on the women who drop to a size 00.