Nutritionists advise their clients to eat healthy foods (like lean proteins, whole grains, fruits and vegetables), but the type of foods people eat is not the only factor in maintaining a healthy diet. It is also critically important to eat food in healthy portions. This is why many people who try to eat healthy decide to weight and/or measure their food before eating it. They want to make sure that what they are eating is genuinely one portion. After all, even when people eat healthy foods most of the time, if they are eating excessive amounts of some healthy foods, they can still gain weight.

In other words, the number of calories that one ingests on a daily basis is still an important factor in weight control. Some people quickly get a sense of how much food constitutes one cup or half of a cup or a certain number of ounces and from that point on they can just “eyeball” the amount of food they are eating because they have such a strong sense of amounts (and therefore the number of calories) in a given portion of food. For many people, they find that portion control is the answer to their dieting prayers.

Even foods that are not so great can be consumed once in a while if they are consumed in small portions. In other words, people do not need to do ridiculous things like try to subsist on lettuce (which is NOT healthy). They can actually eat foods that they enjoy eating as long as they are mindful about it and as long as they pay close attention to the amount of food (caloric intake) they are eating during each meal and/or snack. So be sure to investigate the power of healthy portion control if you are looking for sensible ways to lose or control your weight. First Lady Michelle Obama is working to help children and families eat better, and portion control is one of the methods she advocates.

When it comes to weight loss, a lot of people are looking for a “quick fix” which is partly why the notion of a “fast diet” (meaning either a liquid diet or an extreme diet) can hold such a powerful allure for so many people. After all, food addiction is different from so many other forms of addiction.

Think about it. If a person is an alcoholic, he or she can work very hard to quit drinking alcohol. However, people who suffer from a food addiction cannot simply quit eating food. They can fast on a temporary basis (under a doctor’s care). But they cannot stop eating food forever. It is not healthy and it is physiologically impossible to continue living on no food whatsoever. With food addiction, the only solution is moderation, that is learning how to eat healthy food and learning how to eat in moderation. Add more fruits and vegetables to your diet. Fiber is also important, especially in the form of whole grains.

But do not stop eating!! That is never the answer. Some people might take a fast diet too far, which is why this blog is devoted to the idea of eating healthy food in  moderation rather than seeking out a fast diet or a fad diet. It’s not about dieting at all, as a matter of fact. It’s about developing a healthy lifestyle that includes healthy eating and exercise. Extremes are never the way to go because they can be extremely destructive and harmful to one’s physical, emotional and spiritual health.

Walking for fitness is a great form of exercise. It involves walking “briskly” perhaps with hand weights or ankle weights to add some resistance. A lot of people who are not big fans of other forms of exercise enjoy walking and find that they are able (and willling) to incorporate a walk into their days. Leslie Sansone is a fitness guru who specializes in walking for fitness. She creates walking DVDs that teach people how to walk indoors to stay fit when it is cold outside. That way you can continue walking even during the bitter winter months.

Your body, as they say, is your temple. When you care for your body and nourish it on a consistent basis with moderate portions of healthy, nutritious food, you are doing right by yourself. On the other hand, when you binge eat or overeat regularly and then “punish” yourself for a binge eating session by going on a fast diet or a fad diet of one kind or another, you are doing yourself several different types of disservices. For one thing, the initial binge eating session constitutes a punishment because you are putting a strain on your digestion and you are going to feel physically and emotionally horrible afterward.

Then, you are only punishing yourself further (that is, you are punishing your body, your mind mind and your soul) if you follow a session of overeating (or several sessions of overeating) with a very restricting period or a fast diet of one sort or another. Yo-yo dieting, as you probably know already, is not good for you in any way. You are sending your body mixed signals. And you are definitely not caring for your body/temple when you engage in any of these self destructive behaviors.

Tell yourself you are going to take your life (and your eating habits) in hand. You are going to take control of food rather than letting food control you. And you are going to be kind and loving to yourself and your body by eating healthy food, not by overeating or going on any kind of dangerous unsupervised fast diet. Sometimes it helps to look at famous people who have gone from unhealthy eating habits to healthy eating habits. for example, tennis great and former “Dancing with The Stars” contestant Monica Seles, who gained weight for a period of time and then managed to take it all off and keep it off started to listen — really listen — to her body and her hunger and the moment she started really paying attention (and doing long 90 minute brisk walks rather than going to the gym which she states she had always hated), the weight came off and stayed off.  A fast diet is rarely the answer to long term weight loss.

Jillian Michaels first found fame as a nutrition and fitness expert on the television show “The Biggest Loser,” and her fame only continues to grow. Recently, she was asked by a reporter from Self magazine about what she eats day in and day out.

After all, it is one thing for fitness and diet experts like Jillian Michaels to give people general or vague advice like “Eat a lot of fruits and vegetables.” And it is another thing altogether for such an expert to tell people precisely what she eats on a daily basis in order to achieve and maintain her own health and weight related goals. She is not a fast diet advocate, mind you, but rather she advocates coming up with daily menu plan that fills you up, tastes good and that you can really stick with over time.

Her most caloric meal is breakfast. (You always heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. After all, you burn far more calories during the day than you do at night when you are sleeping.) Jillian Michaels admits to eating not one but two whole grain English muffins. (The English muffin brand she likes is Ezekial.) The spread she uses on them is almond butter. The caloric total for this breakfast is around 500 calories. She also confesses that at some point during each day she indulges her sweet tooth by consuming around 200 calories worth of dark chocolate. (There are actually some health benefits associated with dark chocolate.) Isn’t it nice to

For lunch, she typically has fish. Her favorite is salmon, as well as lots of fresh vegetables or a salad. She explicitly states that she stays away from cheese. In the afternoon, she eats a snack. Her favorite snacks are baked corn chips and salsa (not too many), or carrots dipped in hummus. At dinner time she tries to stay away from carbs and eat primarily organic meals.

Once again, as you can see from studying what Jillian Michaels actually eats, she is no fan of any sort of fast diet. Rather, she is a fan of healthy, nutriotious eating that gives you energy to work out and maintain good overall health.

Many people interested in going on a fast diet or a diet on which they will lose weight very rapidly make the decision to try fast diet pills of various kinds. There are several problems with many diet pills, however.  Not all fast diet pills cause you to experience the jitters, for example, but many of them do. Not all of them cause people to feel nausious, but then again, many of them do. This is bacause many of them are loaded up with very stimulating substances, such as caffeine.

Therefore, if you are considering dieting using fast diet pills of any kind, you will want to familiarize yourself with all of the ingredients beforehand. And I don’t just mean that you should read the bottle casually and then start popping them. You really need to research the ingredients, each one of them, before you try any of the diet pills on the market.

Beware of the marketing that the manufacturers of fast diet pills use. After all, these marketers know all of the right buttons to push in their customers and/or potential customers. They want to persuade you that their product is the best one by far, and that you will lose weight faster using their product than you will using any other kind of diet pill on the market.

The fact remains, however, that when it comes to losing weight and then keeping the weight off over the long haul, the only way to really achieve this goal is to watch what you eat and get more exercise. All of the shortcuts can yield temporary results, and sometimes very dramatic ones, but they can also cost a lot of money, cause you to experience some extremely uncomfortable side effects, and can even cause or worsen serious health conditions. Your body is your temple and you need to treat it with tender loving care at all times.

Over the years, singer Alanis Morisette has talked quite openly about her struggles with extreme dieting. As a teenager in the music business, she has confessed to developing various eating disorders (including anorexia and bulimia) as a direct result of being pressured by powerful people in the music business who demanded that she stay within a certain weight range. She has said in interviews that there were periods during her youth when she subsisted on nothing more than pots and pots of black coffee, bits of melba toast, and not much more. She knew it was not healthy, but at the same time, she felt extreme social pressure (and industry pressure) to conform to a certain body weight, and so she did.

After a difficult breakup in recent years, her weight went up and she decided she wanted to do something about it, but she did not want to go on a fast diet or a fad diet or a crash diet or a starvation diet. She wanted to be healthy in her approach to eating. At this point, she has also mentioned publicly, she read a book on the subject called “Live to Eat,” which she found very inspiring. She also started to work out quite intensely. In fact, she is training for a marathon and hopes to raise money to help other people who have struggled with eating disorders. For her, she finds that she feels healthiest when she is on a vegan diet and works out on a regular basis.

She finds that this is a lifestyle change that she has been able to maintain for some time and hopes to keep it up forevermore. Of course, a vegan diet is not the right choice for everyone. But for her it is. The point is, she opted not to jump on the latest fast diet or fad diet bandwagon but instead chose the right set of lifestyle changes for herself, as everyone should do for themselves. A fad diet or fast diet can work for a while, but permament lifestyle changes that include getting plenty of exercise and eating healthy, energizing food are the long term solutions.

(FYI: It is important to note that the book that Ms. Morisette advocates, Eat To Live, is not written exclusively for vegans or vegetarians. It actually contains diet plans and diet advice for both vegetarians/vegans and non-vegetarians.)

If an individual goes on one fast diet (or fasting diet or starvation diet or crash diet or starvation diet) this decision will not necessarily lead to disordered eating patterns of any kind or an actual eating disorder such as bulimia nervosa or anorexia nervosa. However, if a person goes on one fast diet after another, and starts to become obsessed with their own eating behaviors and ways to curb hunger and lose weight, this can become dangerous. After all, any unhealthy obsession with food, dieting, eating and other related topics can certainly lay the groundwork for an actual eating disorder.

If you or someone you love seems to be getting obsessed with going on one fast diet after another or starving, or binging (or binging and purging), it might be helpful to talk to a trusted friend or family member and/or to start working with a therapist on eating issues. There are no shortcuts to having a healthy body and a healthy mind and a healthy attitude toward eating and exercising. What works is eating food that is healthy and nutritious, not eating excessive amounts of it, and burning enough calories on a daily basis to maintain a healthy weight.

This is not only a lifestyle that helps people maintain a healthy weight. It is also one that helps them feel energetic, strong and ready to take on the world. If you are feeling sluggish and weak and even depressed, take a long hard look at your eating and exercise habits. If you have gotten into a cycle of going on a fast diet followed by normal or binge eating, this may be part of what is causing your sour mood and general sense of malaise and dissatisfaction.  Developing an eating disorder is extremely serious. Often inpatient treatment is required. And people can die from abusing their bodies with disordered eating patterns of various types, including anorexia and bulimia.

If you are interested in reading an interesting memoir about a man who struggled with bulimia for much of his life (and who later worked as a food critic for the New York Times!) you might be interested in checking out Frank Bruni’s new book “Born Round.” Many people don’t realize that many men are often just as susceptible to disordered eating patterns and even full blown eating disorders, and his book has been educating a lot of people on this serious topic.

Let’s face facts. People want to lose weight and they want to do it fast. It’s simply a fact of life. You can tell them the truth until you are blue in the face. That is, you can tell them how (for the most part) it is much safer to lose weight slowly rather than quickly. Your body will thank you if you lose weight at a moderate pace because moderate weight loss does not wreak havoc with your mineral and electrolytes balance. It does not cause dangerous shifts in your  blood sugar levels or cause gallstones or other health problems. Slow but steady wins the weight loss and weight maintenance race. You can tell people this until the proverbial cows come home.

But this is not what people want to hear. People want a fast diet. More specifically, they want a diet that will yield fast results in the form of rapid weight loss. But as you know, if you have been reading this blog and any other sources on this topic, fast weight loss is not necessarily permanent weight loss. In fact, many people who are seeking the answer to the question of how to lose weight fast find this out the hard way. Maybe it’s just human nature. We struggle mightily with patience, even though we know it is a one of the bigger virtues. Maybe in the Internet era people are even more focused on instant gratification because so much information is so readily available at our fingertips.

But the instant gratification that a fast diet can provide is so often fleeting.  And that is not what any dieter really wants. Anyone who goes on a diet of any kind is hoping for real, lasting change. In other words, they want to know how to lose weight fast, but they also want to know how to keep that weight off permanently. They want it both ways! This is not to say that you can’t go on a fast diet (or crash diet or starvation diet), lose weight quickly, and then keep it off. It has been done successfully in the past and it will be done again. However, if you want to know how to lose weight fast but also in a healthy way, you will want to go on your fast diet under your doctor’s close supervision and monitoring.

Spam diets are not diets that encourage you to eat Spam. (That is certainly not the most dietetic food on earth.) Rather they are ads for the diet ideas and diet programs that arrive unsolicited in your email inbox, along with spam for just about every other kind of product you can think of under the sun. To get rid of the spam diets for fast diet programs that arrive in your email inbox, you can often remove yourself from their email lists. (A lot of companies provide information about how to do this right in the email itself, often at the very bottom of the spam message that they sent you in your email inbox.)

If there is no option to get your name off of their list, you also have a few other options. For instance, you could simply ignore their emails and eventually they may (or may not) stop sending you spam diets and fast diet programs (and/or other forms of email spam). Or, if you really find it terribly annoying to hear from them, you could email them directly (provided that there is an email address to which you can reply), asking them to stop sending you email about spam diets (and other types of spam).

If this does not work, you can always consider contacting the Better Business Bureau or another similar organization to file a complaint about them and to let them know that this company harasses people by sending out unsolicited advertising (spam) to their personal email accounts. Spam diets, unsolicited fast diet programs and all other types of spam are simply an unfortunate product of the Internet Era that we are all living in right now.

Above all else, never fall for these spam diets and/or unsolicited fast diet programs. Advertisers that contact you unsolicited are rarely to be trusted and their products almost always fall short of the promised that they make. This may be particularly true of spam diets, but it is also true of other types of spam that you might receive in your email inbox. As always, buyer beware!

Beware of fast diet scams. If you really think about it, a lot of fast diets (or crash diets or starvation diets) are scams in the sense that they promise you the sun, the moon and the stars, but what do they actually deliver?  Well, when you go on a fast diet, you starve your body for a period of time, a situation that reeks absolute havoc with your metabolic rate, causes you do lose water weight, perhaps a little bit fat, but also lean muscle mass.

Remember, muscle mass is exactly what you do NOT want to lose, because your muscle mass is what your body uses to burn more calories. If anything, you want to increase your lean muscle mass if you want to be in better shape. (This is one of many reasons that it is always important to exercise as part of any genuine lifestyle changing program.)

Think about it some more. There is a reason that all of the major and well respected fitness gurus and health experts are always telling people to make permanent lifestyle changes rather than going on one fad diet after another. Fast diets, starvation diets, fad diets and crash diets are all temporary by their very nature. You can’t keep them up over the course of time, nor would you even want to because that would be an extraordinarily unhealthy thing to do.

What you want — what all dieters really want — is not to fall for the latest fast diet scams but to change the way that they eat and exercise FOREVER. Not just for a little while, but for all time. And of course that is the key to good health and to proper weight control: making lifestyle changes that are good for you and that you can truly stick with from this point forward.

If you can train yourself to steer clear of fast diet scams and other diet programs that encourage you do starve yourself for any length of time, you will be doing yourself, your body, and your self esteem an enormous favor. After all, you don’t want to fall into a pattern of yo-yo dieting. And of course if you are already a yo-yo dieter, you really want to break free of that cycle.