Diet and food fads

We now live in a world where many people are overweight or downright obese. It didn't use to be this way. I remember the time when very few had weight issues. But current lifestyles are to blame when our jobs require sitting at our desks for most of the work day. Lack of spare time is often an excuse not to exercise to make up for the inactivity throughout the day.

- RAYMUND W. LO, MD, FPSP

Neither did the rise of fast-food restaurants help in this respect. Since lunch breaks are only an hour, we tend to buy food as quickly as possible. So, we order burgers, fries, sodas, and desserts which are all loaded with lots of empty calories with no nutritional value. And we wonder why we're gaining weight?

Then, we resort to dieting. There have been so many diet fads in the modern era that it's easy to lose count. Here are a few that comes to mind.

The Atkins diet became the rage in the early 2000s. In fact, I went on it to lose a few pounds, as I was starting to gain weight. Most people couldn't stay on it because it required total abstinence from carbohydrates for the first two weeks to induce ketosis, which burns your fat tissues for energy since carbohydrate sources are not available. I did lose weight and since I've always stayed below my basal metabolic rate (BMR) caloric consumption, I've managed to maintain the same weight of 20 years ago.

The Zone diet was popularized by the actress Jennifer Aniston and involves eating 40 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent proteins and 30 percent fats. Although this diet appears to be of merit for emphasizing protein and omega-3 fatty acids, it requires calorie-counting which can be tedious.