Boys and their appetites

In my last post, I profiled Daniel Greenlees, a teenager who lost 70 pounds at a gym with the help of a personal trainer. The topic brought up some questions for me: How much do teen boys eat anyway? Should you limit calories or carbs or anything? Or should you just encourage more activity?

I had two sisters, who each had two girls. I had no close male cousins or even an uncle. By having a boy, I broke up the family sorority. So I know nothing about boys and their eating habits. But I hear they're prodigious. Already, I feel like a short-order cook. The eating orgy seems to last from the minute he's home from school to the minute he goes to bed.

As my son approaches puberty, I can see his body changing. He's not a stick on chicken legs any more. But I don't know what's normal. Will he pack on pounds and then stretch out? Should I be concerned about his dimply middle? Or should I just trust that he'll get enough exercise to even it all out in the end? His diet is not the worst it could be, but it's not the best. Should I keep a closer eye on sugars and fats?

Any advice from you who have experience feeding boys would be great. I'm totally in the dark here. My mother says she had -- and lost -- a monumental battle with me and my sisters over breakfast. We refused to eat it apparently. She finally gave in. Should I be worried about my son's habits yet? Or should I just give in and hope for the best?

A Few "No" Diets

In my last post, I told Fred Schenck's weight loss story. His "avoid the whites" eating plan was a do-it-yourself project. Yet this is a commonly used approach to weight loss, actually. Probably the most popular of these plans is  Dr. Gott's No Flour, No Sugar Diet

Dr. Gott is a retired physician and syndicated newspaper columnist who for many years has urged patients and readers to try his approach to weight loss. As with many of the home remedies he champions—Vicks VapoRub for toenail infections, bars of soap under the sheets for restless leg syndrome—Dr. Gott’s diet is simple and inexpensive. You need not count anything, but you must read labels. If flour or sugar is there, it's off limits.

The plan's simplicity is appealing: “It is a wonderful diet that was easy for me to follow,” says Joan Petrillo, who lives in the next town over from me and used it to lose 20 pounds.

In Dr. Gott's plan, though, avoiding flour means not just white flour, but any kind of flour, including rice, wheat or corn. Sugars on the banned list include cane sugar, glucose, sucrose, beet sugar, honey, maple syrup, high fructose corn syrup and molasses.

Dr. Gott replaces these foods with whole grains such as brown rice, and starchy vegetables like corn and potatoes; and for sweets, fruits and sugar substitutes. In addition, he includes lean meats, legumes, low-fat dairy products and fresh vegetables, emphasizing nutrient-dense foods that satisfy hunger.

The whole idea of this grand switch is to cut your daily calorie intake. "The key to weight loss is simply to burn more calories than you take in," he says. "I have found, and my patients’ successes have verified, that eliminating flour and sugar from your diet is a simple way to cut calories instantly. "

In my next post, though, I'll talk about two camps of weight loss: those who totally avoid certain foods (like Dr. Gott) and those who swear by moderation. I've had comments from people who believe moderation is the way to go, because they see it as an approach they can maintain for life. Others, though, find success only through avoiding their "addictive" foods. Both approaches can work!

Jimmy Moore: Livin' La Vida Low-Carb

Jimmy Moore is Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb. That’s the name of his book, and it’s the theme of his life.

At age 32, Jimmy weighed 410 pounds. He was being treated for high cholesterol, high blood pressure and labored breathing. He had no hope for his life.

“I believed that was just the way I was supposed to be,” he says. “My family was fat, and I had been fat my whole life. My mom was a single mom who had to feed three growing kids, so she bought what she could afford, which was pretty much junk food.”

Over the years, Jimmy tried many diets, all of them low-fat. But even when he dieted, he piled on the sugar. “I was addicted to Twizzlers—a naturally fat-free food!” he says.

In 1999, he lost 170 pounds on a zero-fat diet. But he was grumpy and "psychologically messed up,” he says. And, ultimately, he couldn't stick with it. After one slip-up with a McDonald's meal, he quickly gained back all 170 pounds.

In the fall of 2003, Jimmy attended a church festival that featured a climbing wall. He thought that at 6-feet, 3-inches tall, getting to the top would be a breeze.

“I started up and on the first step, my foot slipped and I fell,” he says. “I tried again, and again I fell. On the third try, I slipped again and this time, I sprained my ankle.”

At that moment, the defeated climber thought to himself: “Jimmy, you are out of control!”

Jimmy knew two people who had succeeded on the Atkins diet. On January 4, 2004, he began. Right off, he ran into trouble. “That first day, I thought I was going to die. I had the worst headache, my body ached. I pleaded with my wife to just kill me,” he says.

Within a few days the symptoms subsided, and in two months, Jimmy lost 70 pounds. Some of the loss was undoubtedly because Jimmy started using a treadmill, but obviously, he was thriving on a diet comprising about 60-70 percent fat, but just 20 grams of carbohydrates a day, including two cups of low-carb vegetables.

In a little over a year, Jimmy lost 180 pounds. Today, he continues with Atkins, limits carbs to 30-35 grams a day, engages in aerobic exercise and works out with weights.

Succeeding at the Atkins diet has literally changed Jimmy Moore’s life. In 2005, he self-published Livin' La Vida Low-Carb: My Journey from Flabby Fat to Sensationally Skinny in One Year. He is at work on his second book, 21 Life Lessons From Livin' La Vida Low-Carb: How the Healthy Low-Carb Lifestyle Changed Everything I Thought I Knew. He blogs, writes for nutrition and health-related websites, and creates podcasts and YouTube videos for the low-carb cause. Read Jimmy's blog here and tune into his podcasts here.

Jimmy pleads with others to take control of their lives, no matter what weight loss plan you choose.

“Do it like you’ve never done anything before,” he urges. “It’s not about will power; it’s about steadfast resolve. Commit to it, even when it hurts. It is so worth it.”

Politics, religion and the Atkins diet

We’ve all been warned not to mention politics or religion at the dinner table. You might want to add a third caveat: Don't bring up Robert Atkins either.

Atkins is, of course, the famous doctor and author whose diet advice turned conventional wisdom on its head with the publication in the 1970s of Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution, updated today as Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution

At the time, almost every doctor, dietician and government researcher preached, “Eat less sugar. Eat less fat. Bread and potatoes are where it’s at!”

Dr. Atkins’ revolutionary thought was that it wasn't fat, but refined carbohydrates and starches that were making us fat. Most experts of the time—and still today—consider that fats, being calorie-dense, lead to obesity, and the name of the game is to cut calories. Dr. Atkins believed that carbohydrates are more directly linked to obesity because they stimulate the body’s production of insulin and cause it to store fat tissue.

I think that even before I knew about the Atkins diet, I tried it. One summer I had a job slinging hash on a steam line at a GM parts factory, hair net, scratchy uniform and all. I rebuffed the pressure from my fellow cafeteria workers to have a smoke, but when they talked up a diet that allowed me to eat the bacon, cheese, eggs and fried chicken we were serving up, I couldn’t resist. Hand me a tray fast, someone!

Apparently, I didn’t get the full Atkins memo, because while I happily mounded up my plate, I somehow didn’t get the message about cutting out the carbs. I came back for seconds on the French fries, bread and pieces of pie, too. Neither did the idea of lean sources of protein occur to me. Needless to say, my so-called diet didn’t work.

Today, the debate about the Atkins diet rages on. Does it work? Does it damage your heart? Yet without Dr. Atkins we probably wouldn't look at the nutrients in our food the way we do now. Virtually every diet in existence today suggests limiting your intake of refined sugars and flours.

Within the next few days, I'll be posting the story of one incredible Atkins dieter who lost 180 pounds -- and maintains his loss -- on the Atkins diet. He's one inspiring guy.

Heidi Bylsma: Her Goal Was a Harley

One of the first people I talked with about weight loss was Heidi Bylsma. Heidi lives in Cool, Calif. She's a mom, a writer and a horse enthusiast, among many other things.

At her heaviest, Heidi weighed 250 pounds. Over the years, she had lost as much as 100 pounds on several programs, including Weight Watchers and Weigh Down. But the stresses of her life -- including homeschooling two children and parenting an autistic child -- brought back the pounds. In 2002, the family moved to the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, but soon the move seemed senseless.

“We had moved to the country so we could have horses, and now I was afraid to ride them for fear of hurting them,” Heidi says.

As a writer, Heidi had once worked with Judy Halliday, the author of Thin Within, a faith-based weight loss program. Although her weight struggles continued, she loved the Thin Within concept of listening to your body's cues of hunger and satisfaction -- eating when you're hungry, and stopping before you're full.

When her scale read 250 pounds, Heidi went back to this simple concept and she started losing weight again.

“No obsessions! No gimmicks! God freed me of 100 pounds by the simple method of listening to hunger and satisfaction and running to him for everything else I need,” she says.

Heidi did reach a low weight of 150, but in time realized she couldn't maintain that weight without indulging an obsession with diet soda. Today, she maintains a weight of about 167 pounds, which you can see from her after-photo is a good weight for her as a 5-foot, 7-inch woman.

For Heidi, the high point of her weight loss journey came one day when she was able to once again hop on her horse.

“In May of 2007, I rode my horse Harley for the first time in three years! He was the horse I always dreamed of having,” Heidi says. “Riding him bareback with a halter—gosh, riding him at all—was a lifelong dream come true. I was free! Free from all the extra weight, free from fear of my horses, free from the fear of dying young.”

To read more about Heidi's life and her weight loss journey, read her blog at http://godisdoinganewthing.blogspot.com/.