12A the university daily kansan
news
monday, february 2, 2004
Understanding fad diets key to weight-loss success
Matt Rodriguez
mdrroguez@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Understanding diets can be overwhelming.
Julie Shapiro, Overland Park junior, researched her options before committing to a diet. Shapiro, a diabetic, was turned off from the fatty foods associated with the Atkins diet. She sought professional help from her doctor before choosing the South Beach Diet.
Diet. For Shapiro, dieting is more than restricting food intake.
"Dieting is more of mental thing," Shapiro said. "By doing this I feel better about myself."
Dieting differs on a case to case basis, said Ann Chapman, Watkins Memorial Health Center Dietician.
Dietician Chapman recommend that dieters research their diets before committing to one.
Billy Santoro started his diet four months ago. The Scottsdale, Ariz., junior wanted to get back in shape.
shape. He felt a low-carbohydrate, high-protein program was the right choice for him.
"When you're in a college setting it's hard to stay in shape," Santoro said. "With the high protein diet I can still go to Wendy's with my roommates and follow my diet."
my diet.
The South Beach and Atkins diets are dominating the nation's diet trends.
Chapman said short term weight loss, commonly attained from dieting, works — but with a catch. She said dieters will eventually want to go back to their old eating habits and the weight will return.
"When you start putting the pounds back on, that's when you should see a dietitian," she said.
While the two diets both recommend low-carbohydrate intake, they are not the same.
The Atkins regiment focuses on eliminating carbohydrates and promoting protein and fats.
The South Beach Diet differs by identifying good and bad carbohydrates, using the glycemic index.
A glycemic index tells dieters how fast their bodies will turn carbohydrates into energy.
This index is a determining factor for which foods to eat and which ones to avoid.
These low-carbohydrate diets work by inducing ketosis. Ketosis causes the body to stop using carbohydrates as energy and switches to fat.
Beyer recommends that students be aware of what they eat, especially breads.
"Food coloring can be inserted into wheat bread making it appear to be whole grain, when it actually is not," Beyer said.
Students, faculty and staff can make appointments with Chapman by contacting Watkins Memorial Health Center.
The first consulting fee for students is $10. After that, the charge per visit drops to $7. Watkins charges faculty and staff a flat rate of $25 per visit.
Edited by Amanda Kim Stairrett
Local businesses cater to Atkins diet
By Steve Vockrodt
svockrodt@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Dieters are not the only one who have caught on to the nationwide low-carbohydrate diet craze known as the Atkins diet. Businesses, too, are following suit.
ing suit.
National chains with franchises in Lawrence, such as Subway, Applebee's Neighborhood Bar and Grill and Roly-Poly Sandwiches make no secret of their low-carbohydrate offerings.
Even some local businesses decided to join forces with the fad diet.
The Atkins diet stresses avoiding carbohydrates and consuming proteins and fats instead.
hiscade Vishal Patel, Shawnee senior, tried the Atkins diet a year ago.
The Atkins diet is the brainchild of the late Dr. Robert Atkins who first published a book on dieting in 1972.
Reina Bar, Roly Poly director of marketing, said less than half of Roly Poly customers asked for the modified sandwich wrap.
back.
"If you can stick with it, it's awesome," Patel said. "But there's such a limited supply of what you can eat."
Patel lost 17 pounds quickly, but did not stick with the diet.
In February, the sandwich shop will start offering menu items with a low-carbohydrate tortilla as an alternative.
He gained all the weight back.
increasingly a demand for Roly Poly Sandwiches, 818 Massachusetts St., allows customers wanting lower-carbohydrate meals to receive their wraps without a tortilla at no extra cost.
The new tortillas will cost extra because they are more expensive to make.
Patel said he would have tried low-carbohydrate selections at local businesses had he stuck with the diet.
Subway also advertises its Atkins-friendly alternatives.
Those options are becoming increasingly available.
Customers can request any 6.
The resulting meal comes more like a salad.
"I know they miss the bread. They tell us. They'll order salads and throw away the bread."
Katie Kutilek
Wheatfields general manager
inch sub with a low-carbohydrate tortilla instead of the higher-carbohydrate bread normally served.
The alterative costs an extra 80 cents.
"I know they miss the bread. They tell us," Kutilek said. "They'll order salads and throw away the bread."
Great Harvest Bread Company, 807 Vermont St., recently added a low-carbohydrate bread to its bread selections.
In response to customers' diet concerns, Kutilek decided to have nutritional analysis done to Wheatfields' products.
The single Atkins-friendly offering does not drastically change how Great Harvest does business and sells well, said Great Harvest head baker Deron Belt.
for the saintly. Honestly, working with different flours wouldn't work with the artisan breads we make," Kutilek said.
One business that remains guarded against the diet mania is Wheatfields Bakery, 904 Vermont St.
Business has changed somewhat at Wheatfields in light of customers avoiding carbohydrates.
"We haven't decided we won't do it, but we're just kind of riding it out," said Katie Kutilek, Wheatfields general manager.
The bread came in response to customer requests for low-carbohydrate alternatives in a bakery that sells mostly carbohydrate-laden breads.
—Edited by Stephanie Lovett
The bakery does not offer any specifically low-carbohydrate selections.
Belt:
"The customers like it. In terms of low-carb bread, it's pretty good," Belt said.
And introducing a low-carbohydrate bread would be difficult for the bakery.
The Atkins diet and others like it have caused the food-conscious to take an even closer look at what they eat. In response, many local restaurants, such as Roly Poly Sandwiches, Great Harvest Bread Company and Subway have added low-carbohydrate items to their menus.
High stress eased by high-fat foods
Boca Evahhoe
bevanhoe@ku.edu
Kansas staff writer
Nutrition-rich vegetables might be good for the body, but researchers found that foods high in fat and sugar may reduce stress hormones. Health professionals say there are other ways to reduce stress.
Photo Illustration by Kit Leffler/Kansar
Hannah Hohendorf loves vegetables. But for some reason when midterms came into sight last semester, it wasn't carrots and celery that she craved.
and celery that she bacon Instead, Hohendorf found herself eating the foods that give cardiologists nightmares: guacamole, sausage, alfredo sauce from a jar, and buttered tortillas. One day she even polished off an entire package of bacon.
By the time mid-terms were over, the 5-foot-9-inch, 140-pound Kanss's City, Mo., freshman had gained 15-pounds.
But in times of prolonged stress, like mid-terms week,
Hohendorf said she typically ran to the convenience store to buy junk food like chips, ramen, and Stove Top stuffing.
"During times of high stress, a
milk margarita
"Under normal stress, I usually eat the foods I have at home," Hohendorf said.
Researchers at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), may have finally figured out why stress is often paired with over-eating. High-energy food laden with fat and sugar seems to shut off the brain's production of stress-causing chemicals.
Frank DeSalvo, director of counseling and psychological services said that it is normal to associate levels of stress with the amount of readily accessible food we eat when stressed.
Hohendorf went through a common experience for college students; chronic stress.
lot of students open up a bag of chips and find the bottom pretty quickly." DeSalvo said.
To replicate stressful times UCSF researchers subjected laboratory rats to stress tests and allowed them to react with a number of behaviors such as drinking sucrose, eating lard, or running on a wheel.
running findings. The findings showed that the rats that ate lard and sucrose had lower levels of a stress-related chemical called adrenocorticotropin — and fat bellies. Although the rats with sugar-rich diets showed a more marked reduction in stress-causing chemicals, Myra Strother, chief of staff at Watkins Memorial Health Center, said that there are probably better ways to relieve stress that do not include over indulgence.
"Overeating is a common way that college students deal with that — but certainly not the healthiest way," Strother said.
heathness, way,
The UCSF scientists proposed
that under normal stress, hormone
production turns itself off after the
stressful event is over. However,
when outside stress-causing
events continue for more than a
few days, the body switches on
what researchers call the "chronic
stress response system" and
releases the hormone continually.
Since the research was done on
Like the rats in the experiment, students can easily develop abdominal obesity - unhealthy guts-from pigging out on the usual comfort foods like chocolate-chip cookies or greasy pizza. Weight from these kinds of food tends to go to the stomach, which can lead to Type 2 diabetes and stroke.
rats, not humans, Strother said it was important to recognize the study as a first-step toward understanding over-eating behavior. And that students should also avoid the trap of thinking that eating fatty foods is the only way of shutting off the body's stress system.
the body Salvo, most folks acknowledge that there's a connection between body and mind, but they often override their body chemistry with mental determination or control. An example is how athletes experience pain from lactic acid build-up in the muscles, but continue running.
A common way to relieve stress is to exercise, which not only avoids the calories of comfort foods, but causes the brain to release endorphins, the body's natural feel-good hormones.
Strother also suggests looking for healthy ways to relax, like yoga, a hot bath, reading a book, or spending time with supportive
friends. Another good idea is to evaluate lifestyle and eliminate unnecessary stress from bad decisions, such as financial problems, excessive drinking or drug use.
DeSalvo advised students to begin preparing for mid-terms and finals early to avoid excessively high-level stress during those times.
If stress becomes too much of a problem, Strother said that students could see a counselor to help deal with anxiety or self-esteem problems that can create stress.
problem.
Hohendorf is followingexperts' advice. She has lost the pounds from last fall's over-eating and changed her diet. This semester she has been eating more vegetables and healthy pasta dishes, and hopes she'll be able to keep it up when classes get more stressful.
which means,
“It's a lot cheaper to eat healthier,” Hohendorf said. “And I feel a lot better, too.”
Edited by Paul Kramer
M
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