If you live the life of a couch potato, you might be reading the wrong blog. Nonetheless, you may be in the perfect position to earn around $36 000. A company in the UK is looking for couch potatoes to do nothing, eat more and test the fat binding properties of their new weight-loss product.

The firm, Proactol Ltd, is looking for men and women to 400 extra calories every day by eating fatty meals like pizza and chips so they can test their new product ‘in the real world’. Participants, who will be monitored by doctors, will be paid an annual salary of $35 750 to eat 16% more calories a week with “no strings attached”.

“We are looking to hire the ultimate average Joe who isn’t afraid to eat more, be themselves and become a professional couch potato for a living,” the ad says. “The ideal candidate should not already be on a diet but eat a healthy balance of carbohydrates, fats and proteins and be prepared to increase their existing calorie intake by 16% a week by eating fatty foods such as Chinese takeaways, fish and chips, pizza or McDonalds.”

According to a spokesperson for Proactol, the individual will assist their team of scientists and doctors to better understand the benefits of their drug, which they claim absorbs up to 30% of fat intake. The tester will at first be observed in their facility, but will soon be able to ‘work from home’ with the weight-loss product delivered to his or her door.

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Ever since I can remember, I’ve been told to rather buy fresh vegetables than frozen ones. But with the current rise in fresh produce prices, I’m having a tough time putting fresh veggies on my dinner table. Recent findings, however, say that buying cheaper, frozen veggies may not only be better for your wallet but also for your diet as they retain more nutrients than their fresh counterparts.

The study conducted by the Institute of Food Research for frozen foods company Bird’s Eye, found that 80% of shoppers think fresh vegetables available in supermarkets are only four days old, when in fact they could be more than 16 days old! And the older they are the more nutrients they’ve lost. Breaking it down into specifics, the study says at times green beans can lose up to 45% of its nutrients, broccoli and cauliflower 25%, garden peas 15% and carrots 10%.

When compared to vegetables that are frozen soon after harvesting, it’s pretty obvious that frozen produce retains more nutrients than fresh ones.

“We must disregard the mistaken view that ‘fresh’ food is always better for us than frozen food,” says researcher Charlotte Harden. “Frozen food can be nutritionally comparable or in some cases nutritionally superior.”

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If you’re having difficulty shifting those last three pounds, it may be because you’re not on the right diet. And choosing the perfect weight-loss program for you may be as simple as a DNA test. This is the latest news in the growing field of nutrigenomics – an area of study where scientists look at the how food interacts with genes.

Previous studies have found that people with a different genetic makeup react differently to different nutrients. But new preliminary research into the weight-loss programs of 101 women found that DNA testing could determine whether you’d lose more weight by simply changing diets.

Researchers at Stanford University divided the Caucasian female participants into three genotypes (low carbohydrate diet responsive, low fat diet responsive and a balanced diet responsive) and found that the women on the matching diet for their genotype lost two to three times more weight over 12 months than when on a different diet.

“It fits pretty well with some of our own studies which show that certain genotypes are more responsive than others to certain types of fats, e.g. diets high in omega-3 fatty acids,” Professor Christine Williams, from the University of Reading told the BBC.

Because the results are still preliminary, more research is needed before DNA-testing can be used commercially.

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Despite the nation’s alarming obesity figures, the Food and Drug Administration’s latest Health and Diet Survey shows that Americans’ nutrition knowledge has in fact increased over the years. The results of the telephone survey conducted with more than 2 500 adults, was released today.

According to the survey, the 10th since 1982, more than 50% of consumers read the food labels of products they’re buying for the first time. There’s also been an increase in the number of consumers who know the link between diet and heart disease – this figure has increased by 8% since 2002.

In the same year, the survey discovered that only 53% percent of Americans knew that unhealthy fats are related to heart disease. The latest figures show this knowledge has increased by 9% to 62, while the awareness that trans fats might raise the risk of heart disease has nearly doubled, from 32% in 2004 to 62%.

With a margin of error of 2 percentage points, the survey found that 54% said they eat breakfast (8% skip it completely) and 86% eat dinner every day (1% say they skip it). The survey also found that less than half of Americans trust the information on food labels: 41% believe all or most ‘low fat’ and ‘high fiber’ claims, compared to 56% who say only some or none are true.

Celeb Diet Doc Says..
These are encouraging results. But of course the best foods do not come with a label… and this fruits and veggies of course! So skip the labels and think whole foods for optimal health and weight loss!

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At some point or another we’ve all had our mothers scold us for eating too quickly and told to slow down. There might be some truth to the old wives tale that eating slower will help you lose weight too, according to a new study.

Published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, the study conducted by researchers at Athens University Medical School in Greece was to determine whether eating the same meal at different speeds produces different post-meal hormones (glucagon) that signal feelings of satiety and fullness to the brain.

Participants were each given the same serving of ice cream on different occasions but were told to eat the first serving within 5 minutes and the second serving within 30 minutes. Blood samples were taken after participants ate each serving and insulin and gut hormone levels were measured.

It was found that the participants’ bodies produced more glucagon when they ate slowly, which meat they felt fuller quicker. As a result, if you feel fuller quicker, you naturally tend to eat less – therefore cutting the amount of calories you consume.

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Over the years there’s been a significant rise in the amount of meal delivery weight-loss programs. We take a look at some of the most popular, and what they will cost your pocket…

eDiets
Each meal is freshly prepared then flash frozen and shipped to you chilled. There are weekly deliveries with no long-term contracts or commitments, but the food won’t go bad for 10 to 14 days. You can speak to registered dietitians and personal trainers telephonically as well as chat to the community online. The program costs $19.95 a day ($139.75 a week, $559 a month) plus $19.95 for shipping per week. You can customize your plan with more than 100 meals for breakfast, lunch, dinner and a snack or dessert.

Healthy Chef Creations
Consisting of organic ingredients and free-range meats, you may order a week’s supply which is FedExed in a cooler. Shipping is included in the $59.95 a day, $419.65 a week or $1,678.60 a month fee. The meals, breakfast, midmorning detox shake, lunch, mid-afternoon snack, dinner and mini dessert, or planned for you but you may make specific requests. Specific calorie ranges and vegetarian requests are accommodated. Although the meals are very similar, you won’t receive exactly the same one twice in four months.

Jenny Craig
It’s not just a meal plan as it encompasses weight management consultations, over the telephone or in person, and motivational materials as well. There’s a $20 three-month trial membership; otherwise $359 for a year and the meals, which are either frozen, shelf stable or canned, cost extra. The food costs $12 to $18 a day ($84 to $126 a week, $330 to $504 a month) and you can purchase them at a centre near you. Otherwise shipping costs are $2.32 a day or $65 for a four-week shipment. With more than 80 entrees and snacks, seasonal items are introduced every six to eight weeks.

Nutrisystem
Delivered on a monthly basis, all meals are shelf stable, but you also gain access to telephonic counseling. For $369 a month for men and $333 a month for women ($18 for shipping), there are 150 meals to choose from which include breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. But you can also have your meals pre-selected for you.

Do-It-Yourself
It you prefer to create your one meal plan, Healthy Choice, Kashi and Lean Cuisine microwave meals are the way to go. The price depends on your location but shouldn’t be more than $5/meal. The meals have very small portions and calorie counts, which means you’ll need to supplement them with fruit, vegetables, soup or salad.

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As long as people are trying to lose weight and as long as corporations are trying to make a quick buck, there will always be fad diets. The Five Bite Diet is one (not-so-new) fad diet that’s being punted in the book Why Weight Around? Changing The Weight Loss Strategy. It’s basic premise – eat only five bites of your food and you’ll start to lose weight.

Created by Dr. Alwin Lewis, the dramatic portion-control diet is designed to help dieters follow a strict regimen that Lewis says is the equivalent of stomach stapling. The diet allows you to drink as much of anything as you want as long as it doesn’t contain calories, take only 5 bites of any food at lunch, take 5 bites of anything at dinner, take one multi-vitamin every day and eat some protein daily as part of your 5 bites.

The strange thing about this diet is that in the interview above Lewis sounds so serious about his diet and completely believes that it’s actually a healthy way to lose weight.

Celeb Diet Doc Says…

Dr. Alvin considers his the diet equivalent of having a gastric bypass.. basically you eat 10 bites of food a day. The moderator in the video clip had 2 snickers bars a day for 2 weeks, (560 calories) and dropped 20 lbs. Dr Alvin lost almost 60 lbs in 40 days on 10 bites of food a day. The doc himself eats a double/double from McDonalds and In and Out Burgers and is of the school that you can eat any type of food on his diet.  He considers it a weight loss tool and you’re back on your regular diet after you reach your goal.

This diet smacks of an extreme starvation type diet and it would be easy to write off this physician as a crack pot. For the record I do not recommend very low calorie diets or any diet consisting of snickers bars and McD double/doubles. However, this is in fact a great portion control idea and reminds me of Victoria Beckhams 3 bite rule. One of the biggest problems is portion control distortion and dieter’s are frequently underestimating their portion sizes. This type of portion control completely eliminates any type of error because it’s based on the number of bites you eat not on visual cues..  so I consider this technique rather ingenious.

The key here is to employ this technique when you’re eating out, at a party or in any situation where you could easily overeat highly processed, calorie dense foods (chips, fried foods etc). And remember the more whole veggies and fruits you eat the more weight you’ll lose so it would be nuts to do any type of portion control with these.

At 700 pounds, Paul Mason is the world’s fattest man. And that’s after losing 280 pounds! Now Paul has begun writing his autobiography in which he plans to tell the world of his weight-loss secrets.

The 48-year-old Brit is a former postman and was forced to lose the weight so he could qualify for the life-saving gastric bypass surgery he underwent this week. After the surgery, however, Paul began putting his secrets down on paper while recovering at Chichester Hospital in West Sussex. The autobiography, titled The Journey, will detail how Paul lost the weight after firefighters had to destroy a wall in his house so he could be remove with a forklift and taken to hospital back in 2002 for a hernia operation.

To date, Paul has cost taxpayers about $156 000 a year in medical bills and some say over the last 15 years that sum can be totaled to more than $1.5-million. In previous interviews, the life-threateningly obese Brit has admitted to eating 20 000 calories – that’s eight times more than an average man!

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Just because you appear to have a normal Body Mass Index doesn’t mean you’re healthy; it could in actual fact mean you’re obese! A new study published in the European Heart Journal defines a new term ‘normal weight obesity’ – an individual who has a normal BMI but has a high ratio of body fat, which could lead to obesity-related diseases like heart disease, high cholesterol and diabetes.

The study examined 6 171 individuals who participated in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. All participants were older than 20 years of age, had a BMI within normal range and underwent various assessments of their body composition, blood and heart. Results revealed that 20% to 30% of participants who appeared to have a normal BMI actually had a high ratio of body fat to lean muscle, and were at risk of cholesterol, heart and blood sugar problems.

Dieters should always remember that BMI is not the be-all and end-all to a healthy body. If you appear to be thin with a normal BMI, you may be thinking that you’re not at risk of any health problems. But if you grow slack, your problems may just be beginning.

Celeb Diet Doc
Yes you could be Skinny Fat or Normal Fat… and a lot of starvation style diets will actually make your body fat percentage go up.

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Celebrity dietician and motivational speaker Tanya Zuckerbrot believes that you should never sacrifice taste just to lose weight. But with Super Bowl Sunday coming up it’ll be hard to resist all the high-fat foods and stay on the health eating wagon. The author of the The F-Factor Diet: Discover the Secret to Permanent Weight Loss shares her low-calorie recipes for game-time favorites: buffalo wings and potato skins.

Buffalo Chicken Wings
Tanya actually threads chicken breast strips on skewers and then bakes them in spicy buffalo sauce because there’s not much meat on chicken wings.
1. Pour 3 tablespoons hot pepper sauce, 2 tablespoons white vinegar, 1 tablespoon corn starch, 2 teaspoons paprika and 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper in a small pot and heat on the stove top until thickened.
2. Tenderize 2 pounds of chicken breast strips with a fork so the sauce can sink into the meat. Thread the chicken onto skewers.
3. Brush the chicken with the thickened sauce. Place in a casserole dish and bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees F. Brush the hot chicken with the remaining sauce. Turn and bake for another 5 to 10 minutes until done.
Serves: 8
Nutrition Content (per serving): 194 calories, 4 g fat, 1 g saturated fat, 2 g carbohydrates, 0 g fiber, 35 g protein, 217 mg sodium

Potato Skins
Potato skins in general are healthy, but it’s all the extra toppings like bacon, cheese and sour cream that turn this dish into a nightmare.
1. Scrub 3 medium potatoes, prick with a fork and bake at 400 degrees F for 40-45 minutes until tender.
2. When cool, slice each potato in half lengthwise and scoop out the inside leaving about a quarter-inch inch shell left.
3. Spray the inside of the potatoes with olive oil and then sprinkle with the salt and pepper.
4. Chop the salmon and top the potatoes with it.
5. Bake about 10 minutes more until the potato begins to brown.
6. Season with a dash of cayenne pepper and top with 4 ounces of smoked salmon.
Serves: 6
Nutrition Content (per serving): 81 calories, 1 g fat, 0 g saturated fat, 13 g carbohydrates, 2 g fiber, 5 g protein, 249 mg sodium

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