Which Diet?
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In my 20 plus years in the weight control industry, I have asked that question countless times as I have worked to keep abreast of every new discovery - and every false dawn - that has come along.
I must tell you upfront that I am a Herbalife Distributor. You may think that I am biased, or you may conclude that after 20 plus years of studying everything out there, if there was something better, I would be doing it.
I know you don’t want a long drawn out affair, so allow me to take you on a brisk trot through the dieting world. The least that can happen is that you will get a much better idea of what works and why. The best that can happen is that you will find the answers personal to you.
If you want to jump to whatever interests you or to read through from beginning to end, it doesn’t matter, as long as you are able to leave here with the ability to make better choices.
Alkaline Diet: involves eating certain fresh citrus and other low-sugar fruits, vegetables, tubers, nuts, and legumes, and avoiding grains, dairy, meat, sugar, alcohol, caffeine and fungi to keep the metabolism slightly alkaline.
Comment: Probably quite good for you. Tricky to maintain good nutrition though as food choices are limited.
Fact: Herbalife gives you all the metabolic benefits by giving the body optimal balanced nutrition. After just a few days, I just felt… well!
All About W8 Diet: This is a Very Low Calorie Diet or VLCD
Comment: VLCD’s are to be avoided in my opinion. They give you less than 800 calories a day which stresses the body and is harmful to the liver (phenylketonuria). They cannot be sustained in the long term.
You are likely to burn muscle rather than fat.
Fact: Herbalife, a partial replacement plan, is completely safe because its nutritional support enabled me to lose weight on a comfortable 1,200 calories a day.
Alli: Helps you absorb less fat from the food you eat.
Comment: The Medical establishment in the US and UK have for 20 years told us that fat is the big villain and that low fat diets are the way to go. In the pursuit of these low fat diets the population has got fatter, because fat is really a minor villain, and some unsaturated fats are actually fine, and in some cases (omega 3’s) highly beneficial. Sugar, refined carbohydrates and a lack of nutrition are the real baddies. Consequently, fat blocking products like Alli (there have been loads over the years) don’t make a lot of difference.
Fact: Herbalife provides the best nutrition money can buy, is low in carbohydrates, and brought out the first and the best product to help you absorb less saturated fats (the bad ones) nearly 20 years ago! When will the rest of the world catch up?
Artificial Sweeteners: Aspartame, Saccarin etc. are sugar replacements used to sweeten foods and drinks.
Comment: When the mouth detects an artificial sweetener, the body is tricked into believing that calories are on the way, but of course, they do not arrive as expected. The next time that calories do arrive, the liver over-reacts and secretes too much insulin. Your blood sugar level plummets, and before you know it, you’re murdering the biscuits.
Fact: After just one week on Herbalife, all my sugar craving went. Who needs sweeteners?
Atkins Diet: involves eating a lot of protein and fat and few or no carbohydrates. It is supposed to stop the body burning sugar and encourage it to burn fat instead.
Comment: Unfortunately, excess protein is broken down into sugar anyway so it’s rather pointless. I have seen Atkins dieters lose some weight, but most of it seemed to be muscle rather than fat. Refined carbs and sugar are the bad guys it’s true, but low to moderate unrefined carbs are fine and supply fibre.
Fact: Herbalife gives you a perfect balance of everything! I lost fat and regained all the lean tissue I had lost on previous diets.
Blood Type Diet: is based on a theory that your body reacts to different foods according to your blood type: O, A, B or AB.
Comment: Battle rages over whether it’s true or not. Modern food is not as nutritious as it once was, so restricting your food choices makes it difficult to nourish yourself properly
Fact: If you use Herbalife to supplement this diet it may work well for you. I no longer need to lose weight, but I have used Herbalife every day for 20 plus years because it keeps me so well!
Cabbage Soup Diet: What it says!
Comment: It’s a fad. Don’t do it.
Fact: The limited nutrition in the Cabbage Soup diet will leave you depleted and STOP you losing weight. Herbalife works because it nourishes you so completely. I have kept the weight off for 20 plus years.
Cambridge Diet: Cambridge offer their traditional VLCD (very low calorie diet) an LCD (low calorie diet) and a maintenance programme.
Comment: Any VLCD (very low calorie diet) should be avoided in my view. It stresses the body and can cause liver dysfunction (phenylketonuria). It cannot be sustained in the long term. The Cambridge LCD is still too low in calories.
Fact: On Herbalife, I was taking a safe 1200 or so calories a day, and I lost 21 pounds in 8 weeks!
Chinese Herbs: The Chinese have been using herbs to promote health for at least 5,000 years.
Comment: I remain cautious of any claims of a Chinese herb making you lose weight on its own.
Fact: Herbalife contains a wide range of Chinese herbs chosen for their health giving properties. Herbalife Nutrition is designed to promote your health as well as to help you lose weight. My daughter has used Herbalife in the womb (I used Herbalife for nutritional support when pregnant at age 41) and every day for 18 years. She has never needed to lose weight and is the healthiest person I know.
Cookie Diet: There have been a few ‘Cookie Diets’ over the years. Dr. Siegal’s, one of the better ones, went bust in 2006.
Comment: It is technologically not possible (yet?) to produce serious life changing nutrition in a cookie.
Fact: Herbalife was originally developed by the scientists who created foods for the NASA Space Program and DOES produce serious life changing nutrition. It certainly changed mine!
Crash Diet: is merely near starvation.
Comment: Don’t do it! Even if you do lose a small amount of weight, it will be mostly muscle. You will quickly put back the weight and more with pure fat.
Fact: I have treated many crash diet victims. I have always found Herbalife Nutrition to be the best way to restore their health, to normalise their metabolism, to get them losing fat and to replace their lost lean tissue. One 30 year old victim I treated hadn’t had a period in 2 years. After 3 weeks on Herbalife, her periods returned.
Detox Diet: There are many such diets which purport to force the body to detoxify itself.
Comment: The efficacy of these diets is unproven and some appear to be very strenuous for the body.
Fact: Improving the quality of your nutrition with Herbalife will automatically encourage your body to detoxify naturally. After a couple of weeks on Herbalife, I felt clean and clear instead of tired and bogged down.
Diabetic Diet: There are loads of ‘Diabetic’ diets, all advising different things.
Comment: Diabetes ‘experts’ contradict each other constantly which doesn’t give me much faith in them.
Fact: Diabetes 2 can be completely reversed if properly nutritionally treated and Diabetes 1 can be better managed, enabling reduced insulin needs and minimised complications. (Only reduce your medication under doctor’s supervision) I have helped many diabetics with Herbalife Nutrition products. One diabetes 2 sufferer (and amputee) was able to reduce her insulin needs to a third and avoid further surgery.
As a general rule, if you are diabetic, you can eat moderate low GI carbs but AVOID high GI carbs.
Exercise: Moderate exercise is good for everybody.
Comment: Many gyms and sports clubs claim that exercise will help you lose weight. This is at best half true. A little exercise (a walk, the vacuuming) will jog your metabolic rate along a bit, but furious exercise won’t jog it any more than that. The most important factor in losing weight is nutrition.
Fact: On Herbalife, I lost 21 pounds in 12 weeks and have kept it off for 20 plus years and my only exercise is turning a steering wheel.
Hay Diet: Dr Hay came up with several ideas. Some work and some don’t.
Comment: Dr Hay’s recommendation that we avoid high GI refined carbs and sugar and processed food generally was spot on and years ahead of everyone.
His idea of separating carbs and proteins into different meals is bunk. I tried it for 3 months straight. All that happened was that I got EXTREMELY windy!
Fact: Herbalife nutrition is low GI and nutritionally complete and doesn’t make me windy!
Jenny Craig Diet: A pre packaged food diet.
Comment: The Jenny Craig programme is very expensive in my view. It is endorsed by Queen Latifah and Kirstie Alley, neither of whom could possibly be described as ‘slim’.
Fact: I could not afford Jenny Craig. On Herbalife, I lost four and a half inches from my waist (my major trouble spot) and actually saved money on my total food bill.
Homemade Diet: So you’ve read a load of stuff in magazines, and tried a few diets which failed, so you’re an expert!
Comment: Don’t bother! Before I knew better, I made up a Guinness and Mars Bars diet (the two things I couldn’t live without!) After a couple of days I was too ill to continue.
Fact: More recently, I had a customer who had been on her own diet for 30 years. In the end, she was gaining weight on 400 calories a day! Using Herbalife, we reversed this trend, restored her health and helped her lose 21 pounds.
High Protein Diet: High protein and precious little else.
Comment: This diet is faddy but followed by some bodybuilders. It is nutritionally very limited so likely to deplete the body. The body has to burn muscle for energy, so it is ultimately self defeating.
Fact: When Frank Castro won the American Veteran (40 plus) bodybuilding crown using Herbalife, his body was only 6 per cent fat! This is an incredible bodybuilding achievement.
Leptin Diet: See Rosendale Diet
LighterLife Diet: A copy of Herbalife but without the health promoting Chinese Herbs.
Comment: During Herbalife’s massive market growth from zero to 70 plus countries in 30 years, countless imitators have come and gone.
Fact: Herbalife costs a fraction of the price and works. I don’t need to lose weight any more – I use Herbalife every day to stay young and healthy, and to save money!
Macrobiotic Diet: Macrobiotics eat mostly whole grains and other foods in moderation.
Comment: I found Macrobiotic eating to be very good for my health and would recommend it, however modern food is so nutritionally compromised, that I still could not control my weight until I found Herbalife. Also, although my health had improved on becoming macrobiotic, it improved substantially more when I started using Herbalife Nutrition products.
Meal Skipping Diet: This is really another homemade diet, and is nothing more than semi starvation.
Comment: Skipping meals causes your metabolic rate to dip. You will lose muscle and regain fat, and crave sweet things into the bargain. Don’t do it!
Fact: Herbalife ensures that you are totally nutritionally supported all day every day. Within one week, all my chocoholic cravings were gone.
Montignac Diet: Montignac recommends us to use low GI (unrefined) carbs and omega 3 fats and avoid high GI (refined) carbs and saturated fats.
Comment: Montignac’s recommendations are good.
Fact: Montignac ‘invented’ his approach in the 90’s yet Herbalife Nutrition has used these principles since 1980. I look forward to the day when the rest of the world catches up with Herbalife. A Herbalife shake has about as much low GI carbs as an apple. You might like to incorporate Montignac’s principles with your main meal. I find Montignac and Herbalife go well together.
Rosendale Diet: Low protein, high fat, no carbs diet.
Comment: Rosendale is right that the big villains are refined carbs and sugar, and that fat in (moderation and unsaturated) is OK. His method is good for switching your body from sugar burning to fat burning but he does recommend NO carbs at all! I found it hard to get enough fibre without unrefined (whole) carbs and my system started to suffer. I don’t think that a total no carbs diet works for everybody.
Fact: A Herbalife shake has about as much low GI carbs as an apple. When eating your main meal (as part of the Herbalife programme) you might like to incorporate Rosendale’s principles.
Slimfast Diet: A Nutrition Shake and Bars system.
Comment: Better than many but does not have health promoting Chinese Herbs.
Fact: When you buy, you pay for the high profile advertising used to promote the product. With Herbalife, you only pay for the product. This enables Herbalife to produce the best quality, most nutritionally complete product for less. Also, Herbalife supplies the tonifying effect of Chinese nutritional herbs. You get a lot more bang for your buck!
Tony Ferguson Diet: Another Herbalife copy in my opinion.
Comment: Like with Slimfast, you are paying for the high profile advertising.
Fact: Herbalife is the best quality at the best price because it sells by word of mouth. One of Herbalife’s product formulators is a Nobel Prize winner, the original formulators produced foods for NASA, and no other company has gone to the effort and expense of incorporating Chinese herbs (a 5,000 year long technology) in their products. No one comes close, so I’m not changing any time soon!
Vegan Diet: A diet of conscience in which no animal products are consumed.
Comment: This is more an issue of moral choice, but some health claims are made for this diet. It is very difficult (some would say impossible) to get complete nutrition from modern food. Further restricting food choices can worsen the problem.
Fact: Herbalife contains no animal products. You can use the Herbalife Nutrition products and apply Vegan principles to your daily main meal.
Very Low Calorie Diet (VLCD): See All About W8 Diet and Cambridge Diet.
WeightWatchers Diet: A quite complex way of controlling the number of calories and recommending better food choices.
Comment: Weightwatchers is certainly better than an awful lot of diets out there, but in my view is based on the flawed concept that you can get all the nutrition you need from the foods available in the supermarket or whatever. This, I feel, is no longer true. The quality of food has fallen dramatically over the last 50 years.
Fact: Herbalife is guaranteed (and legally bound by labelling laws) to give you all the nutrients necessary to ensure optimal health. It contains what it says on the tin!
You may like to read some of my other articles:
Sports Fitness, Health and Nutrition
Seasonal Affected Disorder is SAD
Omega 3, Heart Disease and Arthritis
David Beckham, LA Galaxy and Herbalife
Lionel Messi, Barcelona and Herbalife
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Herbalife nutritional health products are FOOD, produced to pharmaceutical standards of purity. They have been accepted by the health regulators of over 70 countries, contain NO drugs and are NOT medications. The human body works the miracle of health and balance, and the Herbalife products merely facilitate this by supplying the most complete and
balanced nutritional support available.
To learn more, CLICK HERE
or call 020 8654 4034
copyright Leslie England & Tim Duce