How to Lose Weight

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Americans are more overweight today than ever before. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), more than one third of U.S. adults – over 72 million people, were obese in 2007-2008. This includes 32.2% of men and 35.5% of women (CDC 2). With the high rate of obesity in the United States, dieting and weight loss is on the minds of many Americans. In the text book, “Nutrition – an Applied Approach”, Thompson and Manore describe a healthful diet as one that offers a variety of foods, is balanced, and that also provides an appropriate amount of nutrients to maintain a healthy weight (39). The best way to choose a diet plan is to evaluate which plan would be the healthiest for you, while enabling you to have the most success with your weight loss efforts. In reviewing diets, your choices include confined diets, money-hungry diets, and the wisest choice, the real world diet.

The two most popular “confining” diets are the Atkins Diet and the South Beach Diet, both of which restrict the amount of carbohydrates a person can consume. Dr. Robert Atkins, the founder of the Atkins Diet, addresses the fact that carbohydrates need to be burned immediately, and if they are not, then they are stored in the body as fat. His argument is that if you considerably reduce the amounts of carbohydrates you are consuming, your body would switch to burning fat, which would in turn lead to weight loss (Atkins 1). The Atkins plan consists of four phases, with the first phase being almost 100% confining, limiting daily carbohydrate intake to only twenty grams. This phase is to last a minimum of two weeks, and continue until the person is making considerable progress towards his or her goal weight. During the second phase, the dieter wou...

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...ime to look at the vast amount of information that is available and make the choice to lose weight in a healthy way. In order to reduce obesity rates, Americans need to focus on making healthy food choices and incorporating daily exercise into their lives.

Works Cited
Agatson, Arthur. “The South Beach Diet Online – How it Works”. www.southbeachdiet.com.

Web. 23 Feb. 2010.

Atkins, Robert. “Atkins Diet Program – Overview – How and Why Atkins Works”.

www.atkins.com. 1. Web. 23 Feb. 2010.

CDC. “Obesity – Halting the Epidemic by Making Health Easier”. Department of Health and

Human Services. Feb 2009. 2. Print.

CDC. “Nutrition”. www.cdc.gov. Web. 28 Feb. 2010.

Nutrisytem. www.nutrisystem.com. Web. 23 Feb. 2010.

Thompson, Janice and Melinda Manore. “Nutrition an Applied Approach”. Pearsons Education

Inc. San Francisco Ca. 2009. 126. Print.

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