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How to Lose Weight on a Low-Fat Diet

©2006 Publications International, Ltd.Choose to Lose plan limits fat intake.

The low-fat diet plan has become a popular choice among dieters in recent years. We
present you with two different low-fat diet plans to help you decide what is best for you.

Choose To Lose Diet: The Premise

Nancy and Ronald Goor have been writing and rewriting their Choose to Lose series for
the past 15 years. Billed as a "food lover's guide to permanent weight loss," this 500+
page volume tells you everything you need to know, and more, about eating healthy and
losing weight. Taking the opposite tact of many diet books, Choose to Lose encourages
carbohydrate consumption, as long as most of it comes from fruits, vegetables, and
whole grains. The focus of the diet is fat: finding it, counting it, and budgeting it. It
explains how to plan your own personal fat budget, read food labels, ferret out the fat in
the foods you eat, fat-proof your home, eat out healthfully, and switch to healthy fats.

They encourage dieters to keep a food diary, at least in the beginning, to learn about
their own food habits and to reveal their weaknesses. One of the reasons the book is so
long is that it provides a comprehensive food table with the nutrient content of each
food, plus discussions of everything, literally, from soup to nuts. The information tells
dieters what's good (low-fat, high-fiber, and most nutritious), what's bad (high-fat, low-
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fiber, empty calories) and how you can plan your new diet to keep some of your favorite
foods on your weight-loss menus.

What's for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner? The Goors' diet provides more information
about specific foods than most other diets, and it gives a week's worth of sample menus
and recipes. More than 250 of the book's pages are devoted to food tables that give the
calorie, fat, and saturated fat content of foods. You'll find brief, informative sections on
such foods as bread, potatoes, cereals, chicken, seafood, popcorn, and pretzels, just to
name a few. A typical day's menus might include oatmeal and whole-wheat toast with
jelly, cottage cheese, strawberries, and skim milk for breakfast; chickpeas, whole-wheat
pita, tangerine, carrot sticks, and orange juice for lunch; tortilla soup, chicken, green
beans, rice, squash, cauliflower, nonfat yogurt, and blueberries for dinner; and nonfat
yogurt and popcorn for snacks during the day. Total calories: 2,300. Guidelines are
provided for cutting calories to 1,500 to 1,600 -- the minimum they recommend.
Supplements are not recommended. Follow a balanced diet, they say, and supplements
shouldn't be necessary.

Fact or Fiction: What the Experts Say Information is power, and the Goors' plan
provides dieters with power over their diets and, ultimately, their health. The diet plan
goes hand-in-hand with what most experts currently recommend, and it meets the
needs of seniors as well. It's a diet high in complex carbohydrate -- mostly from whole
grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes -- with limited fat intake, most of it from healthy
fats such as olive oil. Though it's not billed as such, the diet is in line with dietary
recommendations for reducing the risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure,
and cancer.

Gains and Losses/What's the Damage?

If you follow the Goors' plan, using the recommended calorie adjustments, it should
allow you to lose weight successfully. You get a lot of variety and choices on this diet,
which also offers much-needed guidance for keeping the diet balanced and realistic.
One chapter is devoted to exercise, which they sum up as "Eating Right + Exercise =
Perfection."

Now let's consider another low-fat diet, the Eat More, Weigh Less program. Click to the
next section to find out more.

This information is solely for informational purposes. IT IS NOT INTENDED TO

PROVIDE MEDICAL ADVICE. Neither the Editors of Consumer Guide (R), Publications
International, Ltd., the author nor publisher take responsibility for any possible
consequences from any treatment, procedure, exercise, dietary modification, action or
application of medication which results from reading or following the information
contained in this information. The publication of this information does not constitute the
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practice of medicine, and this information does not replace the advice of your physician
or other health care provider. Before undertaking any course of treatment, the reader
must seek the advice of their physician or other health care provider.

QUICK TAKE OTHER SIMILAR DIETS

 A balanced diet that includes a wide variety of foods

 Encourages fresh foods but makes great allowances for convenience foods

 Allows occasional splurges

 Encourages exercise

 Not just a weight-loss diet, but a healthy eating plan

 Richard Simmons

 Weight Watchers

Eat More, Weigh Less

The Eat More, Weigh Less diet is a program based on a very low intake of fat.

Eat More, Weigh Less: The Premise

Dr. Dean Ornish is famous for his strict low-fat diet program that reduces heart disease
risk and even reverses arterial damage. The findings from his now-famous "Lifestyle
Heart Trial" research, which show that major lifestyle changes can significantly reduce
the risk of developing atherosclerosis and heart disease, are so well accepted that
participation in one of the lifestyle program's hospital sites is even covered by some
health insurance companies. His program restricts fat intake to 10 percent or less of
daily calories and prohibits animal products, oils, and sugar.

What's for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner? Eat More, Weigh Less provides more
recipes than most diet books -- and with good reason. It's tough to buy and prepare
foods with such a low fat content. In fact, more than half the book's pages are devoted
to recipes. A typical day's menu might include Scrambled Mexican Tofu, salsa, whole-
wheat toast, and orange juice for breakfast; Black Pepper Polenta with Bell Pepper
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Sauce and Shiitake Mushrooms, Italian Bean Salad, tossed green salad, and Melon
Sorbet for lunch; Roasted Tomato Sandwiches, Anasazi Bean Soup with Corn and Chili,
Oven-Roasted Potatoes with Fresh Herbs, green salad, fresh fruit, and Apples and
Raspberries in Apple-Ginger Consommé for dinner. A table of some common foods and
their nutrient content is also provided at the end of the book.

Fact or Fiction: What the Experts Say

Most experts acknowledge Ornish's body of research showing the dramatic opening of
clogged arteries experienced by most people following his program. However, the
biggest problem most experts have with Ornish's diet is that it's just not realistic for most
people. The real test of any diet program is how easy it is to stick with over the long
haul. Regardless of how healthful a diet may be, it's useless if you can't stay on it. That
lack of stick-to-it-ability may be the downfall of Ornish's plan for most people.

Gains and Losses/What's the Damage?

There's no doubt that if you're able to stick with it, Ornish's diet works. The question is
whether you're willing to go that far with your dietary changes -- and maintain those
changes. Though exercise is encouraged, especially walking, few specifics are provided
about how to get started and keep going. And because the diet is so low in fat, you'll
need to do some special food preparation every day if you want to avoid meal
monotony. While the diet should help lower your risk of cardiovascular disease, it could
be low in some fat-soluble vitamins, such as vitamins D and E, if you don't supplement
them. The same is true of calcium. While calcium-rich, fat-free dairy products are
allowed on the diet, the sample menus provide only about one serving a day -- not
enough to meet your calcium needs.

That's the wrap on low-fat diets. Good luck as you decide on the diet that's right for you.

This information is solely for informational purposes. IT IS NOT INTENDED TO

PROVIDE MEDICAL ADVICE. Neither the Editors of Consumer Guide (R), Publications
International, Ltd., the author nor publisher take responsibility for any possible
consequences from any treatment, procedure, exercise, dietary modification, action or
application of medication which results from reading or following the information
contained in this information. The publication of this information does not constitute the
practice of medicine, and this information does not replace the advice of your physician
or other health care provider. Before undertaking any course of treatment, the reader
must seek the advice of their physician or other health care provider.

QUICK TAKE OTHER SIMILAR DIETS

 A very low-fat diet (10 percent of total calories)

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 Includes lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes

 Prohibits sweeteners and refined carbohydrates

 Requires meal preparation to ensure variety in the diet

 Encourages meditation and exercise

 The Pritikin Weight-Loss Breakthrough