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Saturday 25 October 2014

Dieting

In more primitive times, dieting was not a concern as most individuals burned up the calories gained from the food they consumed through the rigors of their daily activities.

The first recorded wight loss regime, from the second century AD, included elixirs of laxatives and purgatives.

In 1087, William the Conqueror got too fat to ride his horse, so he went on an alcohol-only diet and died later that year.

Otto Von Bismarck liked his food. However once he was over 17 stone, the German Chancellor started feeling very bloated, which made him ill and very bad tempered. So for months Bismarck lived on a diet of herrings, which enabled him to lose over three stone and make a full recovery.

The American World Light Heavyweight Boxing Champion Archie Moore (1916-1998) learnt his diet secrets from an Aborigine. The key was chewing meat to extract the juices before spitting it out.

The founder of Weight Watchers, Queens, New York, homemaker Jean Nidetch, was inspired to start the company when she was mistaken for a pregnant woman at the supermarket. After losing 20 pounds (9.07 kg), and finding her resolve weakening, she contacted several overweight friends and founded a support group which developed into weekly classes, and incorporated on May 15, 1963, into the Weight Watchers organization.

The photographer Robert Cameron developed a diet, known as the Drinking Man's Diet. In 1964, he promoted the diet in his booklet The Drinking Man’s Diet: How to Lose Weight with a Minimum of Willpower. It was based on the observation that alcoholics drinks thousands of  calories per day and actually lost weight. It became one of the most popular diets of the decade, selling 2.4 million copies. Cameron lived to the age of 98.

Dr Robert Atkins rediscovered the high protein, low carbohydrate diet first made famous by an Englishman William Banting. His 1972 book Dr Atkins’ Diet Revolution sold millions of copies.

When he died, Dr Atkins (of the best-selling Atkins diet) weighed over 18 stone.

Elvis Presley was a fan of the “Sleeping Beauty Diet,” in which a person is sedated for days at time. The reasoning behind the diet is that a sleeping person won't be eating.

The world’s heaviest woman, American Pauline Potter, weighed 291.6 kg (643 lbs.) in 2011, when she was 47. She contacted Guinness World Records to secure her title in the hope experts would come forward to help her diet.

Jon Brower Minnoch (September 29, 1941 – September 10, 1983) was an American man who, at his peak weight, was the heaviest human being ever recorded. He also holds the record for the largest weight loss when he embarked on a strict diet of 1,200 kcal (5,000 kJ) per day after being admitted to hospital. After 16 months, Minnoch weighed 476 lb (216 kg; 34.0 st), having lost approximately 924 lb (419 kg; 66.0 st).

Because 3,500 calories equals about 1 pound (0.45 kilogram) of fat, you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in to lose 1 pound.


At any given moment, there are an estimated 108 million people on a diet in the US.

97 percent of dieters regain the weight they lost and then some within three years.

Exercise does not actually contribute much to weight loss. Simply eating better has a significantly bigger impact, even without much exercise.

Nutrition professor Mark Haub lost 27 pounds on a Twinkie/Dorito/Sugar diet to prove that weight loss is based on caloric intake, and not on nutrition.

According to new research, the brain may think of yo-yo diets as short famines, causing the body to retain fat in anticipation of scarcity.

The only over-the-counter weight loss supplement that passes reputable trials and is legal in the U.S. is green tea.

When you lose 10 kg of fat, 8.4 kg is exhaled as CO2 and 1.6 kg is excreted as water. Most of the weight you lose exits your body through your lungs.

Sources Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia,, Food For Thought by Ed Pearce

1 comment:

  1. Very useful info. Hope to see more posts soon! sos dieting Useful info. Hope to see more good posts in the future.

    ReplyDelete