Weight Loser Blog

Jenny Craig (born Genevieve Guidroz in 1932 in Berwick, Louisiana) is an American weight loss guru and founder of Jenny Craig, Inc.

Raised in New Orleans, Genevieve Guidroz married Australian Sidney H. Craig. Although neither had formal training in nutrition or exercise, Mrs Craig developed a weight loss regimen, after working for Nutrisystem for some time, that led to her creating a weight-loss company in the mid-1980s with her husband. Their company was one of the pioneers in transforming weight loss into a booming industry. In 1983, she started her first commercial weight loss program in Australia. The success of their program inspired the couple to expand to the huge American market in 1985 where they established headquarters in La Jolla, California, and eventually added weight loss centers in Canada, Puerto Rico and New Zealand.

The couple sold the majority of their interests in Jenny Craig, Inc., in 2002 to ACI Capital, a New York-based private investment firm, and MidOcean Partners, a New York and London-based private investment firm.

A high protein diet is often recommended by bodybuilders and nutritionists to help efforts to build muscle and lose fat. It should not be confused with low-carb diets such as the Atkins Diet, which are not calorie-controlled and which often contain large amounts of fat.

While adequate protein is required for building skeletal muscle and other tissues, there is ongoing debate regarding the use and necessity of high protein diets in weight training and bodybuilding. Various sources advise people to consume anywhere from 0.6 to 1.5g of protein per pound of bodyweight per day (1.4–3.3g per kg).

The Hallelujah Diet, also known as The Hallelujah Diet and Lifestyle, is one of the more popular biblically-based diets. It was developed by Rev. George Malkmus, Lit. D. in the 1970s from a dietary regemin he was taught by fellow pastor Lester Roloff based on a strict, all-natural diet that originated from the Bible in Genesis Chapter 1, Verse 29. The diet in its current form focuses on health and nutrition from a biblical standpoint. It follows vegan principles and consists of living (raw) foods, juices, and distilled remineralized water. A daily ratio of 85% raw and 15% cooked foods is followed. The lifestyle associated with the diet promotes exercise, proper cleansing, adequate rest, spiritual well-being, sufficient amounts of sunshine, and the elimination of stress

Islamic jurisprudence specifies which foods are halāl (lawful) and which are harām (unlawful). This is based on rules found in the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam. Other rules are added to these in fatwas by Mujtahids with various degrees of strictness, but they are not always held to be authoritative by all.

Islamic law prohibits a Muslim from consuming alcohol, eating or drinking blood and its by-products, and eating the meat of some carnivores and omnivores, such as pork, monkeys, canines, and felines (Quran 5:3, 5:90). Crab meat is also seen as prohibited by some of the Hanafi school, but the majority of Muslims consider all shellfish (including crabs, lobsters, shrimp, crayfish, and all non-poisonous mollusks) to be halāl.

The Hacker’s Diet is a diet plan created by the founder of Autodesk, John Walker, outlined in an electronic book of the same name, that attempts to aid the process of weight loss by more accurately modeling how calories consumed and calories expended actually impact weight. John Walker notes that much of our fat free mass introduces signal noise when trying to determine how much weight we’re actually losing or gaining. With the help of a graphing tool (Excel is used in the book), he addresses these problems. Factoring in exercise, and through counting calories, we can calculate our total energy expenditure (basal metabolic rate, thermic effect of food, and day-to-day exercies) and cut back our calorie intake, or increase our exercise to lose weight.

The Grapefruit Diet, also known as the Hollywood Diet, is an 18-day diet that dates back to 1930 Hollywood.

This fad diet regained popularity in the mid-1970s as a bit of Xeroxlore. It is occasionally attributed erroneously to the Mayo Clinic, which has expressed a decidedly negative opinion of the diet, considering it unbalanced and possibly dangerous.

The original diet was an Atkins Style diet with the addition of 1/2 grapefruit before every meal. The diet allowed only 3 meals a day and did not allow between-meal snacks. Promotion for the diet was either “lose 10 pounds in 10 days” or “lose 5 pounds in 5 days”, and also claimed “there might not be any weight loss the first 4 days, but on the 5th day, 5 pounds would be gone”. The grapefruit was supposed to have fat-burning enzymes, but there is no evidence that any such enzymes exist.

Still, the diet folklore continues today, so much so that doctors seem to be looking into the possibility that the grapefruit can, in fact, influence weight loss. In 2004 study led by Dr. Ken Fujioka at the Nutrition and Metabolic Research Center at Scripps Clinic found in a 12-week pilot study that, on average, participants who ate half a grapefruit with each meal lost 3.6 pounds and those who drank a serving of grapefruit juice three times a day lost 3.3 pounds. Additionally, many patients in the study lost more than 10 pounds.

Dr. Fujioka found that the grapefruit diet appears to reduce insulin levels and, thus, affects blood sugar regulation. This is likely because the Grapefruit Diet is a low-carbohydrate diet, Bear in mind that the pancreas secretes insulin in response to the amount of carbohydrate ingested (also affected by the glycemic index and glycemic load of a food or meal) and that grapefruit, by itself, has a glycemic index of 25 (compared to 100 for glucose) and a glycemic load of 1.4

Another theory is that the fruit’s low glycemic index is able to help the body’s metabolism burn fat.

Still another explanation for the weight loss in the Scripps Clinic study can be found in the report — participants “slightly enhanced their exercise regimens.” Depending upon what “slightly enhanced” means, this might well account for the weight loss observed.

The Graham diet was invented around 1829 by Sylvester Graham, a self proclaimed “Physiological Reformer”. It consisted mainly of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole wheat and high fiber foods, and excluded meat and spices altogether (see vegetarianism). Very fresh milk, cheese, and eggs were permitted in moderation, and butter was to be used “very sparingly”.

Graham believed that adhering to the diet would prevent people from having impure thoughts and in turn would stop masturbation (thought by Graham to be a catalyst for blindness) among other things. He was a prolific writer and speaker for his cause, which was sternly opposed to “bad habits” of the body and mind. During the 1830s, the diet had a moderate response from the mostly puritanical faction of the American public, so much so that at one point it was strictly imposed on students of Oberlin College by David Campbell (a disciple of Graham’s). During the period in which it was enforced, some rebellious students ate off-campus, and at one point a professor was fired for refusing to stop bringing his own pepper for use with his meals. The diet was eventually renounced by the college in 1841 following a public outcry.

The Graham cracker, invented by its namesake as a staple for the diet, eventually became part of US-American popular culture.

The Glycemic index (also glycaemic index) or GI is a physiologically based measure of the effects of carbohydrates on blood glucose levels. Carbohydrates that break down rapidly during digestion releasing glucose rapidly into the bloodstream have a high GI; carbohydrates that break down slowly, releasing glucose gradually into the bloodstream, have a low GI. For most people, foods with a low GI have significant health benefits. The concept was developed by Dr. David J. Jenkins and colleagues in 1980–1981 at the University of Toronto in their research to find out which foods were best for people with diabetes. Since the 1980s, Professor Jennie Brand-Miller at the University of Sydney has researched the role of carbohydrates, the GI and human health and is one of the world’s leading authorities.

Carbohydrates that break down rapidly during digestion have the highest glycemic indices. Carbohydrates that break down slowly, releasing glucose gradually into the blood stream, have a low glycemic index. A lower glycemic index suggests slower rates of digestion and absorption of the sugars and starches in the foods and may also indicate greater extraction from the liver and periphery of the products of carbohydrate digestion. A lower glycemic response is often thought to equate to a lower insulin demand, better long-term blood glucose control and a reduction in blood lipids. The insulin index may therefore also be useful as it provides a direct measure of the insulin response to a food.

The glycemic index of a food is defined by the area under the two hour blood glucose response curve (AUC) following the ingestion of a fixed portion of carbohydrate (usually 50 g). The AUC of the test food is divided by the AUC of the standard (either glucose or white bread, giving two different definitions) and multiplied by 100.
The effect on blood glucose from a high versus low glycemic index carbohydrate

The average GI value is calculated from data collected in 10 human subjects. Both the standard and test food must contain an equal amount of available carbohydrate. The result gives a relative ranking for each tested food.

The current validated methods use glucose as the reference food, giving it a glycemic index value of 100 by definition. This has the advantages that it is universal and it results in maximum GI values of approximately 100. White bread can also be used as a reference food, giving a different set of GI values (if white bread = 100, then glucose ≈ 140). For people whose staple carbohydrate source is white bread, this has the advantage of conveying directly whether replacement of the dietary staple with a different food would result in faster or slower blood glucose response. The disadvantages with this system are that the reference food is not well-defined, and the GI scale is culture dependent.

A gluten-free casein-free diet (or GFCF diet) eliminates intake of the naturally-occurring proteins gluten (found naturally in wheat, barley, and rye) and casein (found in milk). The Autism Research Institute and other advocacy groups recommend the diet as a treatment for autism and related disorders. Studies supporting these claims have had significant flaws, so the data are inadequate to guide treatment recommendations.

The Gerson diet is a diet devised by Dr. Max Gerson (1881 - 1959).

Gerson believed that cancer and other degenerative and autoimmune diseases are caused by chronic malfunctions in cell metabolism, and that they can be effectively treated by restoring proper cell functioning through a diet which is high in potassium and low in sodium. He advised a diet of fresh vegetables and fruit, with minimum cooking and ideally without animal or dairy products, fats, or sugars.

Fruitarianism is a strict form of vegan diet that is limited to eating the ripe fruits of plants and trees. Fruitarians (frugivores or fructarians) eat in principle only the fruit of plants. As with other dietary practices, such as vegetarianism and raw foodism, some people consider themselves fruitarians even if their diet is not 100% fruit. According to these people, as long as the percentage is higher than 50%, they are (predominantly) fruitarian. Usually fruitarians who include foods other than fruit follow a vegan diet.

Food combining is the term for an unproven nutritional approach that focuses less upon the quantity and kind of food consumed, and more upon the timing of their consumption. For example, advocates sometimes recommend that carbohydrates and citrus fruits should not be consumed at the same meal, claiming that the enzyme that digests carbohydrates (amylase) can only function in an alkaline environment. Similarly, when proteins are consumed, the stomach releases pepsin, which is its enzyme for digesting protein foods. Alkaline and pepsin neutralize each other when in the stomach together, thus rendering the digestive juices less effective in breaking down foods that have been miscombined.

Advocates of such food combining believe that the result of too many “miscombined” meals is a backlog of undigested food in the stomach. They believe that this can lead to chronic conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, acne, and many other ailments believed to originate with an unclean colon. Among the proponents of this idea are some raw foodists who adopt the food combining philosophy to combat the ailments associated with an unclean colon, among other reasons.

Many of the assumptions used to justify food combining are not supported by biological and medical science, and there is currently little evidence supporting real-world success for these theories. One randomized controlled trial has been reported in the peer-reviewed medical literature, which found no evidence that food-combining principles were effective in promoting weight loss.

Flexitarianism is a term used in the United States to describe the practice of eating mainly vegetarian food, but making occasional exceptions for social, pragmatic, cultural, or nutritional reasons. There is a wide range in the circumstances and outer boundaries of their dietary practices, which resist easy classification.[1] The term semi-vegetarianism is used to convey roughly the same meaning as flexitarianism.

In 2003, the American Dialect Society voted flexitarian as the year’s most useful word and defined it as “a vegetarian who occasionally eats meat”

Fit for Life is a diet and lifestyle promoted by the American writers Harvey Diamond and Marilyn Diamond, which stems from the principles in Natural Hygiene. As the title of the original 1985 book suggests, Fit for Life claims that one can lose excess body weight and maintain good health via long term dietary and lifestyle practices, rather than short term dieting. In the Fit for Life book series many dietary principles are recommended including eating only fruit in the morning, eating predominantly “live…high-water-content” food (as per the raw food diet), and if eating animal protein to avoid combining it with complex carbohydrates (such as bread, rice, or pasta). Tony Robbins promotes the Fit for Life principles and veganism to increase energy levels in his book Unlimited Power. The original Fit for Life book was on the New York Times Best Seller list and the books in the series have sold a total of over 12 million copies worldwide.

In Fit for Life: A New Beginning (2001), Harvey Diamond claims to have experienced a series of fortuitous coincidences (also known as synchronicity) during his research period and writing of the Fit for Life books, recommending the book The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield.

Despite its popularity, it has received criticism from dietitians and doctors for espousing pseudoscientific theories, which include describing the human body as being “cleansed” or “clogged” and a variety of other claims that are inconsistent with medical science. Few would deny the value of eating more fresh fruit and vegetables, as it may lower the chance of developing heart disease, cancer and diabetes. Fit for Life, however, goes beyond this to argue that these can only be eaten in combination with certain other foods — a claim that the authors (now divorced) do not support with any evidence or studies in their book.

In Fit for Life II (1989) the Diamonds warned against eating artificial food additives such as hydrogenated vegetable oil, which at the time was being promoted by the food industry as a healthy alternative to saturated fat. The Diamonds’ claims were disregarded by the food industry and criticised by various dietitians.[dubious – discuss] Now nearly twenty years later hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated vegetable oil are regarded by health officials, such as those in New York City, to be so toxic that food containing the additive is classified on a par with food containing rodent droppings.

The Feingold diet is a food elimination program developed by Ben F. Feingold, MD to treat hyperactivity. It eliminates a number of artificial colors and artificial flavors, aspartame, three petroleum-based preservatives, and (at least initially) certain salicylates. There has been much debate about the efficacy of this program. Some mainstream medical practitioners deny that it is of any value, while other medical practitioners, as well as many people living with ADHD and parents of children with ADHD, claim that it is effective in the management of ADHD as well as a number of other behavioral, physical and neurological conditions. The debate has continued for more than 30 years, involving not only consumers and physicians, but scientists, politicians, and the pharmaceutical and food industries.