Low Fat Diets, Aerobic Exercise, and Weight Loss: How Does It All Fit? :: Dieting Eating Papers

Low Fat Diets, Aerobic Exercise, and Weight Loss: How Does It All Fit? Introduction: These days it seems that almost everywhere in the media there are claims about the effectiveness of low fat diets and aerobic exercise on weight loss. From billboards, to magazines, to TV, everyone seems to know exactly how to lose weight by eating a low fat diet and /or by exercising on a regular basis. Sample menus and hypothetical exercise routines that are designed to help people lose weight consistently appear in the media, and most come with some type of guarantee that weight loss will follow the "correct and continued use" of the plan. These claims and examples vary from seemingly practical to downright outrageous, with a multitude in between. The problem is that all of these claims and examples are so different from one another the consumer has no way to know which, if any, is the most effective way to lose weight. Is eating less that 15 grams of fat, and exercising 30 minutes each day the most effective way to lose weight? Is eating anything you want, and exercising 90 minut es each day that is the most effective weight loss strategy? Or, is it something completely different? Medical research shows that exercising regularly and eating a well-balance diet that is low in fat can assist in weight loss, as well as provide for better overall health. Finding the best combination of the two is the difficult part. The weight loss business. The weight loss business is booming. The idea of a company developing their own strategy for weight loss, and selling it has been a successful one. Companies such as, Weight Watchers (http://www.weight-watchers.com), and Jenny Craig, have become very well known and very economically successful. Each of these companies has its own theories about losing weight, however, the majority of these companies use a combination of a low fat diet and a regular exercise program to promote weight loss. Many also use a support mechanism such as weekly, or monthly group, or individual meetings to help their clients maintain the program. (http://www.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Companies/Health/Weight_Loss/Diets_and_Programs/) For example, Jenny Craig offers a program that includes daily menus of selected foods, which they package and provide to the client, and weekly counseling sessions with an employee of Jenny Craig. The daily meals are designed to provide a specific number of calories, which is predetermined by the client’s weight and self-assessed activity level.