February 17th, 2009
It seems that ever since the Atkins Diet showed up on everybody’s radar there have been several other “gimmick” diets rearing their ugly heads. Diets such as “The Chicken Wing Diet” have promised to help people shed unwanted pounds.
It might be true, but why stop at chicken wings. For my experiment I used the following guidelines for a man and woman:
Man: 30 years old 5 feet 11 inches 200 pounds
Woman: 30 years old 5 feet 4 inches 150 pounds
At these numbers and with very little daily activity or exercise, a man will burn about 2269 calories per day and a woman will burn about 1664 calories per day.
With these numbers in mind and the fact that a person has to burn about 3500 calories to lose 1 pound, I came up with a couple of gimmick diets that might amaze you.
The Burger King Whopper Diet (for men)
1 Burger King Whopper (no cheese) - 670 calories, 40 grams of fat, 48 grams of carbs
Eat a Whopper for breakfast, lunch and supper for a grand total of 2010 calories.
You will then lose 1 pound of weight roughly every 13.5 days without any effort at all.
The Wendy’s Spicy Chicken Sandwich Diet (for women)
1 Wendy’s Spicy Chicken Sandwich - 440 calories, 25 grams of fat, 48 grams of carbs
Eat a Chicken Club Sandwich for breakfast, lunch and supper for a grand total of 1320 calories.
You will then lose 1 pound of weight roughly every 10.5 days without any effort at all.
You might see a pattern emerging, I’m picking foods that fall within a specific guideline that on the cover indicate a positive result but in reality we all know better (remember the documentary Super Size Me).
Each diet may meet the proper calorie goals you have set for yourself, but in reality you are taking in almost 3 times the daily fat recommendation for an average person and for people trying to lose weight you are taking in almost 3 times the daily carb recommendation.
Speaking of carbs, let’s look at the Atkins Diet.
One of my favorite snacks used to be Pepperettes, I have since banned this from my refrigerator.
The Schneider’s European Style Pepperette Diet
1 Schneider’s European Style Pepperette – 130 calories, 9 grams of fat, 3 grams of carbs
It has been said that to be successful in the Atkins Diet, a person should aim for 20 – 60 grams of carbs per day which works out to 20 pepperettes exactly on the high end. While I’m meeting one criteria, I am absolutely destroying others to the tune of 2600 calories and 180 grams of fat. In other words, the 30 year old man listed above would be gaining 1 pound every 10.5 days and taking in over 3 times the daily fat recommendation.
I’m sure by now that everyone is thinking there must be a point to this blog, especially since I am destroying every gimmick diet that I can think up. Well there is a reason and that is for everyone to make sure that they are utilizing a diet that has balance. Eventually, everything will always come down to calories but fat and carbs to name only a few are very important factors as well.
Somebody doing the Atkins Diet might be looking at the Schneider’s Pepperettes and thinking, “only 3 grams of carbs per stick! That’s perfect!”. They aren’t looking at the whole picture though.
Everyone needs to be careful about what they are putting into their bodies and make sure you educate yourself on some of the other nutritional information that is provided on food labels.
Most gimmick diets are overloading you on one item because it is a shortcut and this is why people are often unsuccessful in losing and then keeping off the weight.
The most important thing to remember is that too much of anything is NOT good for you.
Categories: Health and Diet
January 29th, 2009
I don’t know how many of you actually use a treadmill but I’m sure most of you own one.
Physically, I use mine on occassion, definitely not everyday, and I burn about 250 – 300 calories in a 20-25 minute range depending on the incline and speed levels.
Mentally, however, I use my treadmill every day. How do you use a treadmill mentally you say? It’s pretty easy actually.
Over the course of one’s life there are many indulgences and mine used to be Starbucks. A tall caramel macchiato in the morning sure got my engine running but it also cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of 180 calories at a time.
Now if you are one of those people who have a Starbucks weakness, try running on the treadmill for 15 minutes before you go and fork over a fistfull of cash for your specialty coffee. Make sure to make a note of how many calories you burned in that treadmill session and then before you head over to Starbucks ask yourself if it is really worth it to almost nearly cancel out all the effort you just put in on the treadmill. Some might say that they are simply breaking even, 200 calories burned against 200 calories gained, and that might be fine if you are someone who is in decent shape.
The simple psychology behind what I’m saying is that you must recognize how hard you have to work to burn off the calories of something that is so easy to eat or drink. For me, giving up Starbucks was almost the equivalent of running on a treadmill for 15 minutes a day, without the cardio benefits of course. Now when I do run on the treadmill, it is actually a bonus calorie loss for me as opposed to those I mentioned above who prefer to break even in calories. There is a big difference in the approaches, one is losing weight and the other is maintaining weight.
If you are happy with your current health, then by all means continue breaking even and hope that your indulgences don’t soon increase and get the best of you. But if you are here reading this now, then at some point you must have searched for diet advice and losing weight is on your agenda.
Simply put, it is a numbers game.
On days where I don’t feel like doing a treadmill run, I’m appreciative of the fact that I was able to give up my daily ritual of a caramel macchiato. I lost nearly the equivalent calories by not adding them into my system in the first place.
Try a few runs and you’ll see what I mean. Even if you don’t eliminate your indulgence immediately, keep up with the running. Eventually you will get tired of cancelling out all your hard work. Don’t worry if you do break your indulgence and have an occassional relapse later, just make a promise to yourself to work extra hard on the treadmill those days to ensure that you more than cancel out those calories.
Categories: Health and Diet
January 11th, 2009
First of all, I would like to thank everyone who has been visiting fastfreediet.com for the last couple of years.
This is my first post in quite a while and the reason is because this site was getting very little traffic and it was basically a hobby for me. I started getting very busy in my every day life and before I knew it I was spending less and less time here.
However, a funny thing happened along the way. This site started producing visitors in my absence and I am getting a lot of hits every day.
So, with some new found enthusiasm and a new web host, I decided to take advantage and begin the first steps of a re-launch. This will be an active re-launch meaning that you will be able to access the site and blogs while I rework everything. The reason for this is because I want to be able to provide very good information here in helping people with their diets. So I want this info to be available all the time no matter what.
I will repost my previous blog entries very soon as I believe these were the reasons for the traffic increase over the past couple of years.
Also, I want everyone to remember that although the name of the site may suggest a fast method in losing weight, that is not the purpose here.
The quicker you lose weight, the quicker you will put it back on. When this happens it means that you are usually fluctuating in weight over short periods of time and this is very bad for your health.
Losing weight slowly and steadily is the healthiest method and requires the biggest committment. The more work you put into losing weight, the longer it will take to gain it back, IF you ever gain it back at all.
Thanks again for visiting and keep coming back to see new posts and better upgrades to the site.
Categories: Health and Diet
