You’ve tried diets, and the gym, and cleanses and meditation and acupuncture. The pounds landed– and stayed. Why are they still welded to your hips? The question baffles scientists and health professionals around the world, but here are a few possible (and unconventional) avenues to lighten your load:
- Avoid corn. Not the freshly buttered ears that grace Fourth of July picnics, but the processed corn that lurks in everything from catsup to bran flakes– high fructose corn syrup. Fructose metabolizes differently than regular sugar, and along the way interferes with hormones that blunt appetite.
- Save antibiotics for emergencies. They mess with the good bugs as well as the bad ones, and the good ones help keep you slim. Farmers learned decades ago that feeding antibiotics to animals will cause them to gain weight. And people are… well, animals.
- Hide the pink stuff. Also the blue and yellow stuff. The body senses sweeteners at two points in digestion– when they land trippingly on the tongue, and when they process through the lower levels. If there’s no second “hit” at the lower level, which there isn’t with the fake stuff, the body supposes that there’s been a hijacking somewhere and demands more. And while the sweeteners themselves have no calories, what they come in does.
- Use glass containers– modern ones. Avoid plastic if you can. Clear, hard plastics used to contain BPA, a plastic that interferes with natural hormonal balances. It has now been outlawed in many places and for many uses, but could be lurking in older plastic bottles and jars. And glass containers from days of yore? They used to be made with lead, which is not only poisonous but really heavy, right? And every ounce counts… (just kidding…)
- Sleep more. If you’re tired you’ll reach for a pick-me-up, and what’s better than chocolate, you say? Or a handful of jelly beans? Take a nap instead. Guaranteed non-fattening.
- Learn to cook. “Fast” and “food” are a contradiction in terms. Cook ahead and parcel it into known-quantity portions for re-heating. Tastes better, costs less, and you know what you’re eating. Also how much; take-out meals are huge.
- Go on a sodium cleanse. Salt retains water, and water weighs tons. Plus which, overuse of sodium is the #1 dietary risk factor for heart disease. No point in losing weight if you’re not around to enjoy it, right?
- Don’t start smoking. Because eventually you’re going to quit, and there’s a rebound effect. When you stop, you eat. And the munchies accompanying some non-tobacco substances are legendary. So, don’t start.
- Put a yellow filter on your computer. Or a timer. Blue light (the kind the sky and your computer provide) keeps you awake and a-lert. The world may need more lerts, but you need more sleep. See #5 above.
- Recycle your CFL lightbulbs. Old-style incandescents produced light mostly in the red and yellow spectra, and many new LEDs are color-corrected to emit in that range also. CFLs, on the other hand, spike in the blue and green ranges and can keep you awake. See #5 again.
- Unplug your microwave. The nation’s weight problem came on the scene at the same time microwave ovens did, and the rate of weight increase leveled off when 90% of the households had acquired a microwave. Could be a number of connections here:
- You get more exercise walking around the kitchen cooking than you do waiting for the “ding”.
- You nibble while you’re cooking the old-fashioned way, which blunts your appetite. You can’t do that with a microwave.
- TV dinners are a setup for eating the whole thing– no leftovers, because you can’t get plastic wrap to cling to those little oval trays. So you eat it all, and that’s too much.
- Anything that’s difficult to do, you’ll do less. If food prep is harder, you’ll eat less.
Or, maybe we all just need tinfoil hats. If you’re like me, you’ll try anything.