Berkeley Parents Network: Advice about Losing Weight

Berkeley Parents Network

Advice about Losing Weight

Berkeley Parents Network > Advice > Advice about Health > Advice about Losing Weight

Weight loss resources: E-diets.com?

June 2003

I am looking for inexpensive nutritional advice to help me lose weight and I wondered about signing up for E-diets.com and talking to their nutritionists. (I am not interested in their menus, shopping lists etc. but I would like advice about how many daily calories I should aim for in order to get slow, steady weight loss without getting hungry.) Has anyone tried their service or can anyone recommend a good alternative? E.g. a nutritionist I could see for one session? I checked the website about nutritionists but the recommendations were all for people who do herbs, acupuncture etc. and I'm looking for plain- vanilla basic advice. Anonymous

I've done both Weight Watchers (several times over the years) and eDiets and had more success with eDiets plus it was a fraction of the cost of attending WW. I lost and kept off 13 pounds on eDiets first then switched to WW and lost 7 more. I think the nutrition advice available through eDiets is the meal plan itself and would encourage you to try it for a few months to see if you have success using it. Using the menu planning software, I spent 1-2 hours/week creating a meal plan for the entire week, went shopping for the groceries, and posted it on the fridge to remind me what I had previously ''chosen'' to eat. Perhaps you are better than I am at planning what to eat once you have general guidelines on how many servings of this or that you should have and how many calories, etc. but I found that I needed something much more specific to keep me on track. I stopped doing eDiets because I got tired of doing all that planning and am now stuck and haven't been able to lose the last 20 (I haven't gained any back though so that's progress). --Progress not perfection

Other recommendations received:

Nutritionist at the Y, health plan

Michele Vivas

Depressed and overweight

July 2002

Does anyone know of a weight loss doctor in the east bay, that perscribes appetite suppressants? Overweight and depressed!

This response may fall more into the category of advice than recommendations, since I do not know of any doctors who prescribe appetite supressants. But I had to write back to you anyway, since I have been ''overweight and depressed'' for much of my life. First on the topic of appetite supressants -- they can mess you up more than they help. When I was fifteen, my mother took me to a weight-loss doctor and had him prescribe an appetite supressant (Presate). It worked like a charm in terms of getting weight off, but the drug made me into a nervous wreck. My heart raced, my hands shook, and I had dreams that could have qualified as hallucinations. And while I did lose fifty pounds (in four months!), most of the weight came back on immediately once I stopped taking the drug. Of course there are many different drugs out there, and there may be one that doesn't make your life more complicated than it already is. But we all know about the drugs that have been taken off the market for their sometimes fatal side-effects. And replacing your own mental will with drugs is something that I believe will not work in the long run, since losing weight and keeping it off is about changing your life, ultimately without the help of drugs.

Just this past December, when I wasn't even consciously thinking about weight loss, I happened to get hold of a book called The 9 Truths about Weight Loss by Daniel S. Kirschenbaum, a weight-loss and sports medicine doctor. I don't think of it as a bible, and it isn't the most eloquently written book, but it offered a plan for weight loss that I felt I could try. You have to 1) write down everything you eat 2) cut back on fats and sweets to the least possible amount and 3) exercise every day. It was the last requirement that made the difference for me. His plan requires at least thirty minutes of aerobic activity every day. I started following this plan at the beginning of December and have lost twenty pounds (and this was through the holiday season).

It's the exercise that gets you out of the depression and helps you lose the weight even when you have trouble adhering to a stringent diet (I usually eat between 1500 and 1800 calories a day). I joined the local Y and go in almost every day (other days I jog, bike, or walk). I like it because I can choose my aerobic machine, a class, strength training, etc. You have to take an hour or so a day for yourself, and this is hard for parents. But I tell myself that in order to be a good parent, I need to be a happy, healthy parent. So I selfishly (!) take that time for my well-being. Another method that works is Weight Watchers, but you have to stick with the program, and it costs money. I lost weight with them, but when I dropped out because of cost, I found that I wasn't sufficiently self-motivated to stay on track.

Even if you are very overweight, you can start with the exercise plan I mentioned on a very low level -- short walks for ten minutes or so, for instance. It will make a difference on your scales and more importantly, in your mood. Good luck and God Bless. Formerly overweight and depressed

I'm afraid I don't have any doctors' names to give you, but I know many people who have had short-term success and long-term failure with drugs, not to mention the side effects and problems.

The bottom line, in my experience, is that most of us who have a problem with eating and weight aren't eating only out of hunger, so suppressing the appetite doesn't always eliminate the eating behavior. Weight lost on diets, augmented with drugs or not, tends to return. I have been struggling with food and weight for most of my adult life. I've weighed everything between 140 and 295 pounds, I've been on the commercial diet programs, fasting programs, etc.

I apologize if the following seems like unsolicited advice, but I want to share the existence of an alternative that has worked for me. For about a year and a half now I've been going to a support group called Overeaters Anonymous, and for the first time in my life I've lost weight without feeling deprived all of the time and without immediately gaining it back. OA is a fellowship of people who have problems with food who meet to share support. It is modeled on the 12 steps of AA, which people use to help them handle life without excess food. There are no fees for members, no weighing in, no requirements to follow a particular diet. Every person decides for themselves what way of eating they need to follow. You can contact OA at 510-273-9292 or the web site at oaeastbay.org

This may or may not seem like what you want right now, but if you didn't know about it I just wanted to let you know it exists. I used to feel very frustrated when people gave me advice about eating right and exercising and I felt that nobody understood me--''if I could just do that, I wouldn't be in this situation!'' At OA I'm not alone. It's not a perfect program, but it's given me more than any other way of addressing the problem. I've lost 70 pounds, and more importantly, I'm living my daily life free of the obsession with eating. Anyway, I wish you the best of luck in feeling better, whatever you pursue. divalent

The real issue about weight loss is your metabolism, how well does your body metabolise the food you eat. All the drugs and exercise and diets in the world will not help you if your metabolism is screwed up. There are ways to jumpstart your metabolism so that your body works with you instead of against you. I would first check with your regular doctor and ask him/her to give you a complete checkup (including all blood tests to include thyroid) just to make sure nothing is wrong physically. I say this only because I have a friend who had a thyroid problem and a weight problem. Once her medication was right, she began to lose weight and is now comfortable with herself.

There are many reasons people are overweight and they don't all center around diet and exercise or no self-control. You need to find the reason before you can really start successfully losing weight and that requires starting with your regular doctor. Or ask for a referral if you don't feel comfortable with the one you have.

Make sure you don't have a physical problem before you knock yourself for being overweight. marianne

The opinions and statements expressed on this website are those of parents who subscribe to the Berkeley Parents Network. Please see Disclaimer & Usage for information about using content on this website.