Today Dr. Oz presented 7 Weight Loss Short Cuts that will result in you losing 55 pounds in a year, if you incorporate all of them. Amazing, huh?
Here they are in a nutshell, with the amount of weight you will lose in a year if you adopt the change:
- Eat an apple before lunch, to fill you up and prevent overeating (5 lbs)
- Refrigerate your cans so you can skim off the solidified fat on top (6 lbs)
- Dilute your juice with water to cut calories in half (13 lbs)
- Fake a carbohydrate (pureed cauliflower is fake mashed potatoes) (12 lbs)
- Substitute applesauce for 1/2 the oil when you make brownies (6 lbs)
- Get a workout partner (13 lbs)
Let’s take a closer look at these weight loss “short cuts” and see if they really make sense.
- Eat an apple before lunch. The idea here is to fill your stomach with water and fiber from the apple, so that you will eat less food at lunch. This is probably a pretty good idea, but keep in mind that eating 1/2 ounce of nuts (almonds or walnuts) with a glass of water is likely a better way to prevent overeating.
- Refrigerate your cans. This tip amounts to nothing more than reducing your fat intake. We already know that low-fat diets are not very effective for long-term weight loss, so why would you move toward a low-fat diet? Besides, good food rarely comes in cans, especially cans with congealed fat on top…
- Dilute your juice. For this one, Dr. Oz uses cranberry juice as an example. For the record, Dr. Oz meant to say “cranberry juice cocktail”, since pure cranberry juice is quite low in sugar (that’s why the manufacturer has to add so much sugar to make it taste sweet). Cranberry juice cocktail is typically 37% cranberry juice, and 63% sugar water. Dr. Oz said that if you drink two glasses of cranberry juice a day, you can slash 24 pounds of sugar each year just by diluting each glass of juice 50% with water (1/2 juice, 1/2 water). So by not consuming 24 pounds of sugar, you will “lose” 13 pounds in a year. Perhaps you shouldn’t be drinking any cranberry juice cocktail, as it’s pretty much the same as soda as far as the sugar content goes. If you must have juice, try pure orange or pomegranate, dilute it 50% with water, and add a splash of 100% cranberry juice (available at Trader Joe’s).
- Fake a carbohydrate. I’ve got mixed feelings about this one. This is a bit like the “Tofurky” at Thanksgiving, or the meatless “Boca Burgers.” Why do you have to pretend that you’re eating something else? According to Dr. Oz, you can recreate the taste and texture of mashed potatoes by pureeing cooked cauliflower and adding some milk, oil and salt. He also says that spaghetti squash make a wonderful substitute for real spaghetti noodles. Have you tried that one? I have…it tastes nothing like pasta. There’s nothing wrong with cooking vegetables and eating them as if there were…vegetables!
- Substitute applesauce for 1/2 of the oil when making brownies or other baked goods. This goes back to #2 above: Low-fat food. And this low-fat food is worse than many others, since brownies are typically made with flour and sugar. If you want to eat brownies, I strongly advise against making them low-fat, and I happen to have posted an excellent recipe for Real Brownies Here. Let me know if you try them! Real is always better than Fake…
- Get a workout partner. This is great in theory, but the hard truth is that you are your best workout partner. Sure, your neighbor or co-worker will work out with you for a few weeks or maybe even a few months, but it’s a good idea to come to grips with the fact that only you are responsible for getting your workouts in.
Did you see this episode? It originally aired in November of 2010. Let me know your thoughts with a comment!
Robert J. Stone