A history of diets

The first person recorded in history as trying to lose weight could have been William the Conqueror. In 1087, he discovered he was too overweight to ride his horse. He confined himself to bed and stopped eating – consuming only alcohol. How much weight he lost is unknown, but he was reported to have ridden his horse later that year.

Any can lose weight! The average 150 pound person burns about 1,800 calories a day just in the act of living. Add any kind of activity to that, and your body will need more fuel to maintain that weight. If you increase your activity but keep your caloric intake the same, you will eventually lose weight.

The bottom line: if you consume more calories than you burn, you will gain weight. And it doesn't take long. For every 3,500 excess calories consumed, you will gain a pound. You can do that every two months or so by eating one cookie a day. Or you could burn off that cookie by running a little under a kilometer or walking for 20 minutes at 4 mph everyday for 2 weeks.

Low-carb, low-fat, high-carb, high-fat (none of them matter) - to your body, a calorie is a calorie - and if you take in more of them than you need, you will gain weight.

Dieting is a multibillion-dollar industry as people look for ways to help themselves lose weight. Much research has been conducted to try to determine if some regimens do help people to lose weight.

Here's a quick review of some of popular ones.

Atkins

The Atkins diet sparked the current low-carb craze. Dr. Robert Atkins argued that traditional low-fat, calorie counting diets all include some degree of deprivation.
You never  feel satisfied. Low-fat, high-carb foods are digested quickly. They lead to blood-sugar spikes, which leads to blood-sugar nosedives, which leads to more hunger.

On a controlled-carbohydrate diet, which allows you to fill up on hunger satisfying proteins and fats and select the carbohydrates that don't send your blood sugar soaring, the theory says, you won’t feel as hungry.

The two main stages of the diet are weight loss and weight maintenance. After you reach your target weight, you switch to the maintenance mode during which some carbohydrates are reintroduced to the diet. The diet does stress that some foods should always be avoided - like sweets. The diet also says that once on maintenance, you can enjoy the occasional high carb food or potato.

Banting
The first documented low-carb diet was created by London undertaker, William Banting. He came up with a food plan that included four meals a day, chosen from protein (meat, poultry or fish), green vegetables, a little unsweetened fruit, several glasses of dry wine and a little dry toast. Banting shunned root vegetables, potatoes, bread, sugar, sweetened drinks and pastries or desserts. He lost 50 pounds at the rate of about one pound per week by eating in moderation and cutting out starchy extras.

Thrilled by his success, he wrote what would turn out to be the world's first diet book.
It becomes a bestseller.

South Beach

Devised by a Miami cardiologist for his patients in the 1990s, this diet shares several features with the Atkins diet. But the diet's creator, Dr. Arthur Agatston, stresses that South Beach is not a low-carb diet. He focuses on a healthy balance between "good" carbs and fats. Highly processed foods, like baked goods and soft drinks are banished on the South Beach Diet. Agatston argues that by decreasing these kinds of carbs, your body will metabolize what you eat better and will also improve insulin resistance, leading to weight loss.

In the first phase of the diet - which lasts two weeks - you cut all fruit, bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, sugar, alcohol and baked goods. In the second phase, you begin to reintroduce some of the banished foods, and in the third, you bring back some more. But you have to be choosy - and are advised not to fall back to your old eating patterns.

Scarsdale

Devised by Dr. Herman Tarnower, the Scarsdale Diet preached a high-protein, restricted calorie regimen. The breakdown is 43 per cent protein, 22.5 per cent fat and 34.5 per cent carbohydrates - and only about 1,000 calories.

Meats had to be lean - skin and visible fat removed before cooking. The diet also promised rapid weight loss - up to 20 pounds in two weeks. But the low calorie intake left many feeling weak.


Deal a Meal

Created by exercise and weight-loss guru Richard Simmons in the 1980s, Deal a Meal is more a product than a diet. The program relied on three basic premises: teaching good eating habits, emphasizing the importance of exercise and promoting a positive mental attitude.

Through a series of colour-coded index cards, people who bought the diet were taught proper food combinations. Dieting became more of a card game: once you consumed the proper combinations as dictated by your cards, you were finished eating for the day.

Weight Watchers

Founded in the early 1960s by Jean Nidetch, Weight Watchers became one of the most successful diet support groups. Jean began inviting friends to her Queens, N.Y., home once a week, to discuss how best to lose weight. Weight Watchers says it's more about giving people information on making the lifestyle choices that are right for them. Diet consists of a points program. Foods are assigned points and you are allowed a certain number in your individual program.

Pritikin Program for Diet & Exercise

Developed by Dr. Robert Pritikin to deal with his own heart disease. It's a low-fat, high-fibre diet that includes a moderate exercise program. His objective was to help other people with similar medical problems restore their health. The diet is almost completely vegetarian, and encourages the consumption of large amounts of whole grains and vegetables. It is high in fibre, low in cholesterol, and extremely low in saturated fat and total fat, containing less than 10 per cent of total daily calories from fat.

Processed foods such as pasta and white bread are forbidden, as are most animal proteins. This diet was revised to include limited amounts of "healthy" fats high in omega-3 fatty acids.

The Beverly Hills Diet

Promises weight loss of up to 15 pounds over five weeks. Relies heavily on fruit. It recommends eating fruit by itself and never eating protein with carbohydrates, in order for food to be properly digested and not stored as fat. The diet begins with a 35-day plan that specifies items to be eaten at each meal, without counting calories or fat grams.

In the first 10 days, you can only eat fruit. On day 11, carbohydrates and butter are added and on day 19, protein is added. Fatty treats are permitted.

It grew in popularity when word spread that several Hollywood stars were on it.

Judy Mazel, actress and founder of the diet plan, promised not only that you’d lose weight, but that you'd be "skinny" too.

Grapefruit diet

Another very low calorie diet. The premise is to consume only 800 calories a day through eating lots of "fat-burning" grapefruits to kick-start your metabolism. The 21-day program calls for mostly grapefruits, some protein (mainly boiled eggs), and some vegetables. As much coffee as you like.  Obviously the coffee would better be substituted with brown or green tee.

The Cambridge Diet

A series of weight-loss programs developed in Britain. Originated as a very low calorie diet. If used as your sole source of nutrition, you buy prepackaged food from the company. Company says that approach is the surest way to lose weight quickly.

You can combine Cambridge products with conventional food for slower weight loss.

The Zone

Another diet that preaches the evils of refined carbohydrates like pasta, white bread and bagels. You are in The Zone if you eat five times a day, if the protein you consume is the size of the palm of your hand and your carbs are the size of your fist.

Relies heavily on the glycemic index, a ranking of carbohydrates based on their immediate effect on blood glucose (blood sugar) levels. The theory (as in other low carb diets) is that diets relying on foods with a low glycemic index make it easier to lose weight.

Off the beaten path…

The Last Chance Diet

Not so much a diet as a fast. Under this program, developed by Dr. Robert Linn in the 1970s, people ate nothing at all. But several times a day the fast was broken by a small drink of the concoction that Linn had invented called Prolinn. It was a liquid protein that provided fewer than 400 calories a day, consisted of ground-up and crushed animal horns, hooves, hides, tendons, bones and other slaughterhouse byproducts that were treated with artificial flavors, colours and enzymes to break them down.  Ewwwwww!  This is definitely not recommended.  To anyone who has tried it we ask, “Are you totally insane!?”
Go for it if you want that outcast from the pride and scavenging, lean lanky lion look.

Fletcherism

In 1898, Horace Fletcher advocated the slow chewing of food. He came up with the approach after he was denied life insurance because of his weight. Fletcher lost 40 pounds by chewing his food very slowly. All that masticating helps you digest the food better and you probably won’t eat as much because the waiter will take your plate away before you’re done.

Vinegar

In 1811, poet Lord Byron decided vinegar is the key to weight loss. He drenches his food in vinegar and goes from 194 pounds to less than 130.  No doubt all that vinegar rendered his meals inedible.

Dr. Sawdust

The Rev. Sylvester Graham, nicknamed "Dr. Sawdust," rails against the sin of gluttony, which he says leads to lust, indigestion and the rearing of unhealthy children. Graham devises a Spartan diet of coarse, yeast-free brown bread (including the famous Graham cracker), vegetables and water.

Conclusion

Your weight is a direct result of your calorie intake and activity level.
If you can cultivate the habit of exercising by being active over the next 25 days you’ll have rewired your brain to this new pattern of behaviour.  Your metabolism will increase and so will your muscle mass.  You’ll burn more calories just standing still and have more energy to get through the day.  Start with baby steps if you have been inactive for a time.  Work up to more challenging activities and claim your reward of a radiant and healthy body that defies the aging effects of time.