Elfin Recite

Doctors at the Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center in Houston have established a significant inspiration to drop even a unassuming amount of weight.

“Obesity appears to be the central factor of the metabolic syndrome. Our research has delivered that weight loss of as little as 7 per cent in persons with the disease outcomes in extensive reductions in blood pressure, triglycerides, glucose and total cholesterol, all factors that tends to heart disease,” said Christie Ballantyne, MD, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at the Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center and Baylor College of Medicine.

“These exciting results occur early in the weight loss, well before individuals even begin to approach their ideal body weight,” the expert added. Every risk factor of the metabolic syndrome can be tied to increased risk for heart disease. However, research shows that all risk factors were reduced by even moderate weight loss and equivalent benefits from medications may have required three different drugs for blood pressure, lipids and glucose.

Continued weight loss shows significant improvements in both blood pressure and triglycerides. The study demonstrates that weight loss is an effective tool to lessen the cardiovascular risk factors associated with the metabolic syndrome.

Why it’s important: You’ve perhaps heard about probiotics, those friendly microbes that help normalize digestion- But to utilize more of them, you require probiotics, carbohydrate fibers (i.e. oligosaccharides) that your stomach and small intestine can’t digest. Once these fibers reach your large intestine, bacteria break them down, feeding the good microbes. “Probiotics increase the number of beneficial bacteria in the intestine and help maintain the populations of friendly bacteria already present there,” says James Versalovic, M.D., Ph.D., the director of microbiology at Texas Children’s Hospital and an associate professor of pathology at Baylor College of Medicine.

How to make the grade?

Along with taking a daily dose of a billion units of probiotics, consume 5 grams of probiotics. Quality yogurts and other fortified dairy products provide plenty of the former, artichokes, wheat-based cereals, onions, garlic, and bananas are particularly rich sources of the latter. Probiotic-fortified foods are also available—look for the words inulin and fructooligosaccharides on a product’s list of ingredients. Or mix a 3-gram scoop of Jarrow Formula’s Inulin FOS with juice or water and drink it twice a day.

Why it’s important: Fiber constitutes bulk to stool, accelerating its transfer through the intestine so your body has less time to absorb toxins. “Many of the strong microbes lining the colon use fibers as their food.” says Walter J.Coyle, Doctorate in gastroenterology program director at Scripps Clinic Torrey Pines (La Jolla), California. 

How to make the grade?

Aim for 25 to 30 grams of fiber a day, including seven to nine servings (1/2 cup each) of fruits and vegetables. “Their fiber has phytochemicals and antioxidants that benefit your colon lining,” says Dr. Coyle. Need help topping off your tank? A methylcellulose-based fiber supplement, such as Citrucel, won’t cause flatulence.
Gut goof-up: Don’t go from 3 grams to 30 overnight, or you’ll pay an embarrassing price. “That will lead to bloating and flatulence,” says Dr. Coyle. “Start slowly, and gradually increase your intake from there.”

The significant lesson Biggest Loser participants learn is that their healthy lifestyles don’t finish when the contest ends. “There’s no finish line. That’s a large pill for people to ingest,” says Harper. “Every single day for the rest of your life, you are going to have to make better food choices, and move around a bit more.”

Michaels calls it “composing a life.” “You use fitness to re-structure a different set of practices and outlook: You go from past experiences of ‘I’m a loser, I’m fat, I’m worthless’ to ‘I’m capable. I’m strong, I’m confident.” Once you’ve made that paradigm shift, Harper and Michaels say you’ve won.

One day per week at the Biggest Loser farm, is preferred as a high-calorie day, where the participants can go over their calorie and diet limits. “We do it to for the point that this isn’t going to be a life of dispossession,” explains Harper. “You can’t sustain that. You want to develop healthy habits you can live with.” The participants usually choose to order out for burritos. ‘The next day, they really could feel the effects of all the sugar and sodium-filled food,” says Harper. “They sense like crap. It clearly illustrates that a healthy body that’s getting shaped with exercising and eating right doesn’t want all that fat and processed scrap.”

Strength training with weights creates an after burn effect that keeps your body churning through calories at a higher rate, even at rest. And it’s widely known that muscle is more metabolically active than fat. So, biggest looser contestants pump weights about 2 hours a day. “In the beginning we focused a lot on weightlifting to build up the muscle,” says Brantley. “Then we switched to more cardio to shed the pounds.” The key with cardio is to find something you enjoy doing to beat boredom. “I hated the elliptical; it was too easy, I didn’t feel like 1 was doing anything. Now the spinning cycle, that’s fun, and it is a real workout. I’ll do 2 hours a day on that.”

After six seasons with the show, nutritionist Cheryl Forberg, R.D., says the two most common mistakes made by nearly all the contestants who’ve passed through the ranch are skipping meals, particularly breakfast, and not consuming enough calcium. “They i feel they don’t have time to plan ahead, but skipping meals can lead to grabbing fast food and overeating because you’re starving,” she says.
To keep their metabolism revving high, Biggest Loser contestants are trained to eat five or six times a day—breakfast, lunch, and dinner, small meals made up of high-water-volume vegetables and fruits, whole grains and lean protein, plus two or three snacks. “Most people don’t get enough dairy products in their diet,” Forberg says. “Men need 1,000 milligrams of calcium. You can achieve that through three servings of milk, yogurt, and/or cheese a day. We encourage a low-fat cheese stick with a piece of fruit for between-meal snacks.”

The first thing Vilcan did when he returned home from the ranch was buy a food scale. “Portion size can get away from you in a heartbeat,” he says. “If you want to lose weight, you have to know what a serving is and how many calories are in it.” Do you really need to order that 16-ounce filet when the 8-ouncer will fill you up? Each Biggest Loser contestant’s daily calorie limit is calculated using a formula that considers starting weight, body-fat percentage, activity level, and goal weight- For Vilcan, it’s between 1,750 and 2,000 calories, depending on how-much he’s exercising. “Realizing how much exercise it takes to expend the calories in food really puts things into perspective,” he says. “I mean, look at these cheese fries from Outback Steakhouse. They’re 2,900 calories. No friggin’ way am I gonna eat that.”

It took sometime, but Ed Brantley finally realized he had a food addiction. “The cravings would come and I would ho like, “hey, let’s get high,” says Brantley. “I was literally hooked on the euphoria of eating.” It didn’t help that he and his wife. Heba, had a full social calendar with many an opportunity to wine and dine. “If we want to have children, and we do. We knew we had to change our lifestyle and take control of this,” he says.
Brady Vilcan took a hard look at his life and realized he was setting a poor example for his two kids. “We rarely got a lunch break at CVS,” says Vilcan, a pharmacist. “I’d often go all day without touching food. If Vicky cooked, I might have three large servings. But mostly, I’d pick up cheeseburgers or pizza.” He would also bring candy home from the pharmacy for the family. While watching TV he might have two or three howls of ice cream. “My grandfather was heavy. I remember going to Weight Watchers with my mom when I was a kid. Now my 4-year-old daughter, Lucy, outweighs my 7-year-old son. Chance, we’ve got to break this chain.”

This is a tale of two fat men and their quest to lose big. Their journey began 8 months ago, when both were morbidly obese and at high risk of premature death. That’s when they became contestants on The Biggest Loser, the popular NBC reality show that challenges dangerously overweight people in a weight-loss competition. Almost instantly, the men’s waistlines—and lives—were dramatically transformed.

In fact, after just a few weeks on the show, their combined weight loss totaled more than 160 pounds. (Tune into the season finale to find out their final weight-loss numbers.) Do the math, and you might think losing that much fat, that fast, is impossible. But these guys are clear proof that its not. So how’d they do it? You’re about to find out…