Want a really simple thing that will work (if you stick to it): Stop the carbohydrate you eat the most of (bread/potatoes/rice/corn/pasta) and sodas (pop).

I guarantee you will lose weight. Substitute the carb with a green vegetable and/or salad.

Don't believe me? Try it for a month....but don't deviate.

...and if a person is an alcoholic, just not drinking will help, and if they're a smoker, just not smoking will help.  Both of us know the statitics of how many people "just" quit their drug of choice without dealing with the root cause.  And, yeah, "just" doing the right thing is the intelligent way to go about things, and a lot of the people who fail to "just" do the right thing are extremely intelligent people -- why do they fail, Seth?

SIN-Imperium is pretty spot on when he says a lot of people can't afford all the resources it takes to achieve success at winning the battle of the bulge.  It doesn't help that we live in a capitalistic society where somebody somewhere is going to make bank regardless of whether we, as an obese society, lose or gain weight. (somebody makes a profit if they sell the abiliti device, somebody else will make a profit on the potato chips that caused a person to NEED the abiliti device, and the advertising people behind all those products have run studies and tests to get inside our head, and flip the switch in our reptilian brain that makes us feel that whatever it is they're selling, we need just as much as we need oxygen for our next breath).

OP that is so very wrong in so many ways.

 

It reminds me of the over the counter electrical muscle stimulators where the client could supposedly get a workout without working out, insane.

Yeah--if you are a childless or single child PROFESSIONAL couple you can swing a good lifestyle pretty well.  If you have more children, a single household income or two non-professionals look at the suggested diets, lifestyle activites, medical care and it is absolutely out of reach for most people.

Not excusing or judging but people on assistance here in the US are often very obese or their children are and it's simply that the food you can AFFORD to buy is high carb, high sugar, high fat.  People in third world countries have the same problem just getting subsistence levels of food due to the price.

So the answer here is, "You should have gone to college, not married and not had children.".  Sadly, that's exactly what some people think should be forced on people.  Do that and the next remedy is, "Well--you shouldn't have been born"...and how will they recommend that be fixed?

At the turn of the century when a lot of new progresive movements began in the US, eugenics and "racial control" and the like were some of the avant garde liberal ideas--Planned Parenthood's founders for example advocated compulsory sterilization of the genetically diseased, retarded and generational poverty families.  Right about the same time the Nazi party was forming.  All things old are new again.

Back again to what SIN-Imperium said -- who can afford to exchange their carbs for vegetables at the checkout?  I've switched my diet, Doc, and I know what happened to my food bill.  I'm making the financial sacrifice because I can't afford health insurance and I'm past 50 -- stuff's going to start going wrong -- it's let my house go into foreclosre and pay more for food or end up dead.

I'll give you the sodas, though.  People really should drink more water.

The simplest things are the Hardest to do. I think that is one reason why I don't quit UPS. I have to eat about 3,000 calories or I will pass out due to all the moving I have to do with that job. Don't start to get fat, don't bother to have to lose the weight. At 5'10" and 145 LBS.

For probably as many reasons as there are people, Karen.

We know what's right, but can't do it. Not just food. It's a question of will at it's base, I believe.  I do know that if you want something badly enough, you'll do what's necessary to get it...

Not at all. Your example is not parallel to the device described. I suppose cardiac and deep brain stimulators don't work, either?

The external stimulator you describe is more properly comparable to a girdle. Incidentally, people affected with strokes, fractures and Landry-Guillian-Barre Syndrome do benefit from external muscle stimulation to prevent atrophy.

This OP has to do with direct vagal stimulation (Rt. Vagus nerve). And there's nothing "wrong" about it apart from value judgments.

     I firmly believe in low carbohydrate dieting, fat doesnt make you fat carbs do mostly, like bread and potatoes. Carbs raise blood sugar and raise insulin and insulin tells you to store fat, this is why the Atkins diet works. A lot of people do low-fat, high carb and end up yoyoing on their weight because insulin forces fat to stay in your adipose cells and you get an undershoot of nutrients and after a high carb meal you have almost no blood sugar or fats to use as energy.

     Many people who lose wait on high carb low cal gain weight back because they are starving and lose lean muscle mass. We can digest meat as the stomach has a pH of 2 to denature proteins and bile salts to emulsify fats. Many indiginous people eat mostly meats and vegetables and have lived healthily, and some, like the Inuit and Masai, live on basically meat only diets. So people are know to eat veggies and meats in their natural forms, but no human on earth eats a stick of wheat, but processes it into bread, which makes it the one unnatural food that is now supposedly a health food in whole grain form. However whole grains still easily spike your blood sugar and should not be consumed in excess. In fact this is how cows are fattened, the corn and wheat feed is all starch which becomes high blood sugar and promotes fat storage, cows must eat grass because they have bacteria that creates fats and proteins from fiber, this is why factory farmed animals fatten up so fast and are sick from nutrient deficiency.

If people fail on low fat diets, they really should try low-carb, and add meat back into their lives while cutting bread and rice. your body only needs small amounts of carbs like 50-120g. after a certain threshold your body goes into fat making mode because it doesnt like lots of blood sugar. Your brain is practically made out of saturated fat and cholesterol, but it is the only part of the body that NEEDS glucose to work, which your body can make from gluconeogenisis from proteins or ketosis from triglicerides.

No mammal ever eats a low fat diet, herbivorous mammals have gut bacteria that digests fibers which are indigestible polysaccarides to mammals and turns them into short-chain saturated fatty acids and "animal" proteins, in other words, the fiber is turned into fat and protein by gut bacteria, a process nearly absent in humans. All mammals thrive from high fat and high protein, you should try it as well. If you can do well on a veggie diet then whatever works for you, but if it hasnt worked you should try low-carb. most people fail on lowfat diets so pharmacueticals manufacture shit like this to make money. Watching the Weston A. Price foundation's presentation should get you to understand what we should eat and to become skeptical of mainstream government advice and inform your self.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frBbQb5HD_Y&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Also look up the documentary fathead on hulu, and look up journalists like Gary Taubes and Malcolm Kendrick to see what the literature really says and watch their lectures

Sugar: the bitter truth, By Robert Lustig  is also a good refernce to watch, he gives nearly endless evidence about how bad sugar is and how it makes you fat. The one thing i do disagree with him is about fibre since he did not mention the evidence or any pathways about how fiber helps you

Edit: As for gluconeogenisis and ketosis its basically the production of glucose and ketones from protein and triglycerides. glucose is basically blood sugar, ketones are basically alternative fuel that actually MAY have the heart and brain functioning more efficiently. There are apperent studies that show that ketones damage kidneys, but the studies have only been done on people who are born with bad kidneys, and ketosis makes it worse. In normal people there should be no problem with ketosis. Just think about it, in nature, would u always have food available? or would u need to cope with starving.

If you need anything further explained or clarified (yes i am a bad writer) let me know . and I am up for a friendly debate as well for meat eating

^ Precisely right. Nice to see that. Try breaking it up with paragraphs, princeofstar... and I doubt if most folks know what gluconeogenesis is... just the same, sound physiology.

My apologies for my crappy writing which can make me seem dumb, I admit i am a bad organiser with essays and floats from topic to topic in my writing, but i hope this will suffice for a forum

I made an edit which basically says what ketosis and gluconeogenisis are in basic terms

P.S. on another note, im honored to get my first karma from the doctor that has insane karma , and as a general note if i need to clarify anything in my writing, anyone should let me know i just type a tad quickly and miss points that i should discuss or clarify on

Man is that correct and exactly what is wrong with the world. A lot of it for the wrong reasons.

If those low carb diets work for you, more power to you.  Personally, I don't have any diabetes in my family history.  I DO have cancer and heart disease, so I'm going to stick with my Mediterraen diet which stresses fiber, a few carbs, plant protein, and most of all flavor and enjoyment in sharing a meal with those you love, and leave the red meat and cholesterol for those of you who want them.

^ Besides which you are an Orthodox Mediterraneo-Pastafarian Journeywoman belonging to the Church of the Late in the Day Munchies. . We all know it. So don't bother to deny it.

 

Meat with saturated fats is the BEST food to raise HDL and lower fasting plasma triglicerides, as well as shift LDL from a small dense pattern, which slips under artery walls, to a larger, bouyant pattern, which is not atherogenic. Besides if your diet is working then the heart disease should NOT be there. Isn't it ironic how you have heart disease when you eat low amounts of animal foods? So do you think going even lower is gonna help? Every day The AHA and USDA whips Saturated Fat because we've gone so low and had so many problems, do you think going yet lower and lower is better? Meat is not all saturated anyway (huge misconception). Most beef and pork fats are about 45-55% saturated with about 35-45% of it monounsaturated (most unsaturated fatty acids in animal foods is oleic acid, which is what makes olive oil healthy) and low amounts of polyunsaturated fats, with omega-3s and Omega-6s in about a 1:1 ratio.

Americans also consume a lot of omega-6 polyunsaturated vegetable oils like corn and canola which create inflamation. Think about it, these vegetable oils are unnatural, when u squeeze an olive, u get olive oil. You don't get corn oil from squeezing corn, it must be chemically extracted which damages the the fragile polyunsaturates by boiling them, then they are deoderized because they smell terrible and are horrbly rancid. Hexane is also a solvent used to extract the oils, and bleach is used to give them a pretty color. All these fats cause inflammation

Also, the attack on saturated fat only has proven it is bad in the context of processed meats and starch, check out this pie chart of what the USDA says where our sat fat is coming from. A lot of it is comming from "grain-based deserts", processed meat, and pizza, as well as the huge ambigious "other foods" it's not saying meat or saturated fat is bad for you, its saying saturated fat is common with junk food that also contains processing toxins, starch(potato chips), and sugar(cake). 

http://rawfoodsos.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/usda_saturated_fat_sources.jpg

and look at a full critique here of some of the studies

http://rawfoodsos.com/2011/02/04/the-new-usda-dietary-guideline/

Eating meat doesnt mean Mcdonalds, i mean real, fresh meat. Mcdonalds processes meat with ammonia (which can burn your skin and make you blind if you get in contact with it) and cooks them with toxic trans-fats. If this is our source of meat, of course it is bad for us and we get cancer. (btw, a vegitarian activist group called the CSPI protested and forced Mcdonalds to stop cooking with natural animal fats and forced the shift to partially hydrogenated soybean oil, and now they are suing KFC for using trans-fat, when the CSPI forced trans-fat in the first place

Lets also dissect a typical fast food meal

The good:Sat fat from beef, Lettuce, tomato, onions

The Bad:

The ugly: Potatoes(starch, Omega-6 and trans-fat overload)

Coke( high fructose corn syrup)

Sauce(ketchup and BBQ also have HFCS)

White bread (white flour, empty carbs)

The trans fat in which the beef may be cooked in

Beef is processed with ammonia taken from slaugheterhouse cuts like head and hooves of a cow

This is the point im trying to make. In McDonalds are we really eating a whole lot of saturated fat or are we eating bad fats with lots of sugar and nasty toxins???

Also, I will admit we are wasteful with meat, we should eat the yummy steaks as well as the organ meats (liver has rediculous amounts of nutrients). Of course we stopped eating organ meats and wasted the fats in the animals that could be used to make lard or beef tallow. After all, we shouldn't be eating ARTERYCLOGGINGSATURATEDFATS (sarcasm) which has been falsely demonized and made into one word by the media.

Lastly, the meditarranean diet isnt what it is made out to be. The French eat 4 times the amount of saturated animal fat than americans, and Spain and Switzerland also have people eating high amounts of fats. I don't know about the Greek, but I know Armenians and Turks love their kebobs.

Lastly, The amount of cholesterol differs individually between people, as long as you have a High HDL/Total cholesterol ratio you are fine.

Heart disease in fact acts upon cholesterol, high cholesterol is an effect of inflammation, not a cause. Your body raises cholesterol to repair damaged tissue.

Basically the arguement to lower cholesterol to fight heart disease is as sound as this

1. You get an infection

2. Your white blood cell counts go up

3. The solution is simple, lower your white blood cell count and you will fight off the infection

See? A statistical association shows that something can be a cause OR an effect or a coincidence, but correlation does not prove causation.

Flawed logic like this is making the makers of Lipitor very rich

Oh, and about nutrient density: