You are wondering whether you would lose weight if you cut down on or give up the amitriptyline you take?

You are wondering whether you would lose weight if you cut down on or give up the amitriptyline you take? - Well the answer is that if you have gained weight as a side-effect of taking amitriptyline, you will almost certainly lose weight when you cut it down or gradually give it up. - But depending on how long you have been taking it and how high the dose, you may not be able to lose all the weight gained. - On the other hand, if you seriously reduce your intake of salt and salty food, it is actually possible to return to your previous weight or even lower! - Read about how amitriptyline causes weight gain, and about how to lose weight by eating less salt/sodium.

Dawn has lost a lot of weight by following my advice

Dawn started trying to lose weight at the beginning of January this year. She used to email me asking me for information and advice. (I can be emailed from my website.)

I told Dawn that for very overweight people like her, the fastest and safest way to lose weight is seriously to cut down on salt and salty food. She lost a lot of weight easily by following that advice.

But Dawn had a big problem that did not involve salt. This problem was her and her family's liking for sweet stuff, especially cakes and suchlike. For years she had been duped by the many misleading suggestions on the internet and elsewhere that by using artificial sweeteners instead of sugar, the lower calorie intake would result in weight loss. I explained to her that this was not true, but she found that hard to remember because of a lifetime's conditioning to believe the lies of the dieting industry.

I became very concerned about Dawn and sent her a particularly firm message about the dangers of eating artificial sweeteners - and indeed artificial additives of all kinds - and that message finally sank in, thank goodness. She gave up eating sweet and sugary foods. She severely cut down on carbs in general and instead ate mostly protein foods and foods high in healthy fat.

I'll bet you're wondering how much weight Dawn has lost since January. - Well she has lost well over 60 pounds in weight and looks set fair to reach a loss of 70 pounds, i.e. 5 stones, by Christmas! - That's a really impressive achievement, you will agree. - She has gone from a size 26 to a size 16! - And she is feeling sooo much better...(o:

Why is adding salt to food more harmful than in former years?

Adding salt to food is more harmful than years ago because in our developed world, a greater proportion of people are now sensitive to salt than used to be the case. There is both a higher incidence of salt sensitivity and the salt sensitivity itself tends to be more severe. - One of the factors contributing to salt sensitivity is the fact that these days, in general, most children- even toddlers -eat a diet that is too high in salt. Salt is especially bad for children. High salt intake, such as from salty snacks like crisps and salted nuts and junk like Cheesestrings, is a major cause of child obesity. - See Children and Salt. And a taste for salt acquired in childhood is not very easy to 'unacquire'. So the habit of eating over-salted food literally feeds a growing number of related health problems including high blood pressure, obesity, type 2 diabetes, arthritis, stroke, heart disease, depression, dementia and so many more.

 

But at least as important a causative factor in salt sensitivity as high salt intake in childhood is the ever-growing ingestion of pharmaceutical drugs. Pharmaceutical drugs are being prescribed more and more in the UK (and even more still in United States) and other industrialised countries. Most of the prescriptions are for drugs that cause sodium and water/fluid retention and salt sensitivity. I don't mean that they are prescribed with the intention of causing sodium and water retention, but problems with salt are the most common undesirable side-effects of the most frequently prescribed rugs. These include antidepressants, anticonvulsants, antipsychotics, steroids, birth control medications and many more.

 

When you couple the over-prescribing of these dangerous salt-sensitising drugs with the highly-salted processed food that is the norm for a majority of consumers these days, it is assuredly a recipe for disaster both on a personal scale and in the wider social context. - I suggest that you try to avoid prescription drugs as far as you safely can and cut down on salt and salty food as much as you reasonably can. You'll lose some excess weight and improve your health and you'll feel sooo much better!

SALT: it doesn't just kill slugs, it can kill people too

Some people kill slugs by sprinkling salt onto them. This draws the water out of their very watery bodies and produces a sort of slug sludge. It seems a peculiarly cruel death. The internet can supply more kindly ways to divest oneself of unwelcome slugs.

 

When salt kills people it is usually a more long-drawn-out death. Instead of the salt drawing water out of its victim's body as with the slug, it draws more water into the body. Salt's victims tend to be babies/small children, who are vulnerable to salt because of the immaturity of their organs and their blood vessels, or pregnant women, made vulnerable to salt by hormone changes in their bodies, or other groups made sensitive to salt, most notably by taking commonly prescribed drugs, including antidepressants and steroids. All of these groups, because of excess fluid retention (extra salt and water, mainly held in the bloodstream), tend to become overweight/obese/morbidly obese, with the health consequences attendant on that, including high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, cancer (especially stomach cancer), arthritis, insomnia, depression, impaired kidney function, liver problems, type 2 diabetes and many more, as well as emotional distress because of the stigmatising attitudes provoked by obesity in modern-day societies.

 

You could lose weight and reduce your risk of suffering from the unpleasant, unhealthy consequences of salt sensitivity/vulnerability, of early disability and premature death, by simply eating less salt and salty food. - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel sooo much better! - and, dare I say it? - less sluggish!

Are you overweight and apple-shaped? You could reduce this problem by reducing salt intake.

Are you overweight and apple-shaped? You could reduce the problem by cutting down on salt and salty food. Everyone who is overweight has a higher than normal blood volume because of excess water/fluid retention, and would benefit from eating less salt/sodium. 

(Steroid victims in particular are at risk of huge weight gain and the dangerous condition of being obese and apple-shaped, because they are so seldom informed that they need seriously to reduce their salt intake while taking the steroid meds.)

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, angina, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

As I gradually lowered my salt/sodium intake, this gradually reduced my excess weight. I lost 50 pounds in 14 months.

As I gradually lowered my salt/sodium intake, this gradually reduced my excess weight. I lost 50 pounds in 14 months. I weighed myself once a week while I was reducing my salt intake. Almost every week I had lost some more weight, though some weeks I stayed at the same weight as the previous week. There was only ONE week that I gained weight during the whole of that 14 month period. It was the week that I was out one day and bought a sandwich from a shop to have for my lunch. That week I gained a pound. (Shop-bought sandwiches are usually high in salt.) - I invite you to read my Mensa article about Obesity and the Salt Connection. And I invite you to try it yourself: lose excess weight by eating less salt and salty food. - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel sooo much better!

Sometimes 'just' just isn't 'le mot juste'

Sometimes 'just' just isn't 'le mot juste' (the right word). The most glaring instance of this, in my opinion, is when a member of that huge group - the Uninformed and Unthinking - intones that Big Untruth, namely that "Losing weight is easy. You just have to eat less and move more." - Just say NO to that nonsense. It isn't true. It doesn't work. - Here is a safe, easy way to lose excess weight: cut down on salt and salty food.

Woman's Hour: Why Diets Don't Work

The other day on Woman's Hour Jane Garvey was trying to obtain help for a listener who had written to the programme about being very fat and unable to lose weight, other than temporarily, by dieting. By clicking on "Chapter 3" on this page you can listen to the discussion.

"Diets don’t work – or do they? We’ve all known people who’ve had success losing pounds upon pounds following one diet or another. But what happens long term? Do they maintain their new weight for ever or do they slip back into old patterns, feeling out of control around food, putting the pounds back on, and starting yet another diet. Jane talks to a listener who has tried every diet under the sun and is still not happy with her weight. She is also joined by three people with radically different approaches to the question of dieting - Dr Susan Jebb Head of Diet and Population Health at the Medical Research Council Human Nutrition Research, Dr John Briffa, author of Escape the Diet Trap and Sue Thomason, a life coach specialising in body image and disordered eating."

The first adviser we heard from was Dr Susan Jebb. She spoke about how to stick to an eating plan and about utilising friends and family, and the importance of motivation and getting help from groups. But as Jane pointed out, her advice boiled down to going on a diet and joining groups, and the listener had tried all that many times and had no success. Jane was spot on there. This sort of advice won't help. We hear it all the time and it doesn't work. - If you keep on doing what you've done before, you can't expect to get different results, can you? I hadn't expected Dr Jebb's advice to be any use actually, because she is a member of the board of Change4Life, about which I have a very low opinion. - See my little blogpost.

The next adviser was Dr John Briffa, one of my faves because he gives advice that is based on proper scientific research and evidence, not opinion and dogma. He explained that generally diets don't work and he explained why they don't/can't work - because body mechanisms come into play and metabolism goes down when calories are restricted. He tried in a very short time to explain the significance of the hormone, insulin, and that to lose weight carbohydrates need to be restricted. He suggested basing diet on meat, fish, eggs, nuts, fruit, vegetables, and avoiding carbohydrates, and not going for a low fat intake.

The last adviser was Sue Thomason, a Life Coach. She said take the emphasis off losing weight. She talked quite a bit, but I couldn't make any sense of it, and I did listen pretty carefully. There was nothing practical there. I think I'd categorise her contribution as verbal garbage, and I'm not a fan of verbal garbage.

Frankly, Chapter 3 was altogether a bit too rushed, in my opinion. And unfortunately Sue, the listener who was wanting help to lose weight, didn't find any of the advice helpful. - Dr Briffa's advice would help her, I'm certain, but there was too little time for him properly to explain his points, and Sue firmly rejected the low carb idea, because she said the protein foods would be too expensive for her. - Well, there you go. - I don't honestly think it would cost her a lot more, and I'm sure any extra expense would be worth it...

Anyway, here's my twopenn'orth of advice for Sue: cut down on salt and salty food. It's not the only way to lose weight, but it's the fastest, the simplest, the cheapest and the safest. - It does work and it benefits your health in countless ways. I do hope she happens to read this and decides to have a go at cutting down on salt.

New Year Resolution Suggestions

If you've not yet decided on your New Year Resolution, here are some suggestions that will benefit the health of your body, the efficiency of your brain and the happiness of your spirit:

1) Give up dieting. It is a major cause of ill-health and depression. Dieting to try to lose excess weight is ineffective, unnecessary and harmful. Calorie counting and advice about increasing exercise and reducing fat intake to reduce obesity are ineffective, counter-productive and often damaging. - See the article in the British Medical Journal of November 2003 http://www.bmj.com/content/327/7423/1085.full for actual research on what happens when this advice is followed! - Over 800 obese adults were put on energy deficit diets, given diet sheets and plenty of instruction and help from trained staff, and apparently, visited fortnightly for a year, at the end of which they had GAINED weight! This mirrors the real experience of obese people, viz. - dieting makes you fat.

It is commonly accepted now, except by the 'experts', that less than 5% of dieters actually lose weight, and most gain weight as a result of dieting. - Even the ones who manage to lose weight do not usually improve their health. - See http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/jun/27/sciencenews.research for a report in The Guardian of Monday, June 27th 2005. It is about a huge research study of nearly 3000 people over a period of 18 years. The study found that overweight people who diet to reach a healthier weight are more likely to die young than those who remain fat. It also found that dieting causes physiological damage that in the long term can outweigh the benefits of the weight loss.

2) Seriously cut down on salt and salty food.

3) Avoid prescription drugs, especially antidepressants, steroids and painkillers, unless they really are necessary and you have checked out their side-effects. The adverse effects of pharmaceutical drugs are often far more damaging than the problem for which they have been prescribed.

I wish you better health, success and happiness in this New Year of 2012!

If your medication causes sodium retention you will gain weight and may become obese

There are many medications that cause sodium retention/fluid retention/water retention/weight gain/obesity/edema/swelling. Here are some of them: steroids and HRT, most antidepressants, antipsychotics, anti-epileptics, anticonvulsants, and more.

If you have become overweight/obese because of drug-induced sodium retention, you need to reduce your salt intake in order to lose weight. If you do not reduce your salt intake you will continue to gain weight, regardless of how many or how few calories you eat.

Study links high salt intake by elderly people with increased risk of dementia

A Canadian study links high salt intake by elderly people with increased risk of dementia, as the Daily Mail reports. So salt can impair brain power and memory, as well as increasing blood pressure, risk of stroke, heart attack, heart disease, diabetes, depression, arthritis, asthma, kidney damage, liver damage, most cancers, osteoporosis, increased risk of fractures and many other degenerative health conditions.

The good news is that if you have had your health damaged by eating too much salt, you can immediately, dramatically and safely improve every aspect of your health and every organ of your body by seriously cutting down on salt and salty food. - And if you are overweight or obese you will also lose weight when you reduce your salt intake. - Go on! - Try cutting down on salt and salty food! - You will feel sooo much better...(o:

Are you aware that HRT is steroid medication that can cause massive weight gain?

Are you aware that HRT is steroid medication that can cause massive weight gain? Read more about HRT and Steroids here. Read my Mensa article about weight gain caused by HRT and Steroids here. And read about how to lose weight by eating less salt and salty food.

Diet Drinks will not help you lose weight or inches

Calorie-free Diet Drinks will not help you to lose weight or inches and they are particularly bad for your waistline. Read about the harm done by artificial sweeteners in this excellent article from the Daily Mail. In general it is best to avoid putting synthetic chemicals into your body.

Good, safe, natural ways to lose excess weight and reduce your waist measurement are to cut down on salt/sodium and salty food and to eat plenty of vegetables and fruit. - The natural potassium in vegetables and fruit displaces some of the sodium from the body. The body then loses some of the excess fluid it has been holding in the bloodstream. This extra fluid (water weight) is excreted in the urine and so you lose weight, have more vitality, feel tons better and less bloated, can think more clearly and move more easily, and altogether you will be sooo pleased with your new, healthier, happier self that I hope you will be motivated to make lower sodium intake a permanent feature of your (longer) life...(o: - Read also about safe, natural ways to reduce Fat Retention.

High salt/sodium intake is a major cause of heart disease, hypertension and stroke

High salt/sodium intake is a major cause of heart disease, hypertension and stroke. It is also a major contributor to obesity, especially in children and other vulnerable groups. You could improve your health and lower your risk of many degenerative health conditions as well as reducing excess weight by cutting down on salt and salty food. - Lose weight by eating less salt and salty food! - Go on! try it! - You will feel so much better!

Meniere's Disease? Vertigo? Tinnitus? Feeling of pressure in the ear due to fluid build-up? You can reduce these problems by cutting down on salt.

Meniere's Disease? Vertigo (a form of dizziness where your surroundings appear to spin)? Tinnitus (an abnormal ringing noise inside the ear)? Feeling of pressure or fulness in the ear due to fluid build-up? Fluctuating hearing loss? These health problems are all caused or exacerbated by fluid retention, and fluid retention can easily be reduced by seriously cutting down on salt and salty food. So here's what to do:

Obviously try to give up sprinkling salt on your food. But also, as far as you can, eat fresh food you cook yourself, instead of processed foods, ready meals and takeaways, because these convenience foods are usually very high in salt. See Foods High and Low in Salt/Sodium. Other health benefits you will experience from eating less salt are that you will lose some excess weight, reduce high blood pressure, have more energy, and feel much better. You will also reduce your risk of stroke, diabetes, coronary heart disease, heart attack, most cancers, dementia and many other degenerative illnesses and conditions that are also related to fluid retention and salt sensitivity.

Fat-free crisps/Olestra: just because fake-fat contains no calories doesn't mean it will help you to lose weight

Read this abcnews report. Fat-free crisps/Olestra: just because fake-fat contains no calories doesn't mean it will help you to lose weight. It doesn't look as though it's even safe! - Why would it be? - Do you think a car would run OK on pretend fuel? - Why should we imagine that a human being could run OK on pretend food? ""It goes against what you might think -- you remove calories from food and you'll lose weight, but at the end of the day the chemical manipulation of food leads to increased weight. We don't understand exactly why yet, but research continues to show this is true," ABC News Medical contributor Dr. Marie Savard said. "

Forget about counting calories! Lose weight safely and simply by eating less salt and salty food! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Do you remember Energen Rolls? - Supposedly an aid to slimming...

I remember Energen Rolls. Were they from the 60s? or the 70s? - I'm not sure.- They were claimed to help with 'slimming' and were intended to be eaten in place of bread. They were roughly spherical, if I remember correctly, and 'slimmers' cut them in half and spread each half with butter - or more likely, a 'low-calorie' butter substitute 'low-fat' spread - and with other fillings such as what would normally go into a sandwich.

And again, if I remember correctly, they were made of cellulose! - more akin to wood than to what we think of as food! But they had been processed to be light and airy and easy to eat. - Energen Rolls were not really food for people, even if the people were 'slimmers'. Not being termites, people could not digest cellulose and so could not obtain calories or indeed any nutrition from these early junk foods.

But to lose excess weight, you don't need to play tricks on your body and to fool your stomach into thinking it's had a satisfying meal when it's really only had pretend food. The easiest, safest, fastest way to lose excess weight is to eat real food - the sort of food our paleolithic ancestors ate millions of years ago. That is the sort of food on which our bodies evolved and so it the food best suited to our species. - Leave the cellulose for the termites!

I don't know which species to suggest you leave the low-fat spread to! - It is a laboratory-invented concoction on which no species evolved. - Likewise artificial colorings and flavourings and other non-food additives. - Steer clear of them; they are up to no good, you may be sure! - Go for fresh foods, home-cooked and unsalted, not factory-produced processed junk.

Get rid of Water Weight by becoming a Salt Shunner!

Yes, that's right: shun the salt! If you are carrying a lot of excess water in your body - feeling heavy, fat, bloated, clumsy and uncomfortable because of fluid retention, you can reduce this problem dramatically by avoiding salt and salty food. You are sensitive to salt/sodium. - It's the sodium that is holding the extra water in your body.

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Antidepressants are more likely to harm you than to make you feel better

The people who benefit from antidepressants are not the patients who take them, but the people who gain financially from the profits of the drug companies who make and sell them. Antidepressants are more likely to harm you than to make you feel better. Antidepressants do not work for depression and seldom help with pain. They are sometimes helpful for insomnia, but most of them cause serious weight gain and many other adverse side-effects and also cause brain damage years later, so they are better avoided.

Dr Mercola has a good article today warning about the dangers of taking antidepressants and about other, non-drug ways to lift depression. I urge you to read it. He does not mention, however, the ways that I most favour, namely avoiding dieting, and cutting down on salt and salty food. Most of the people who email me having followed my advice about eating less salt and salty food, are eager to tell me they have lost weight easily and that they are feeling and looking much better. They also report that their mental acuity has increased markedly so that they can perform mental tasks much more quickly and their work performance is enhanced. There is a positive correlation between being overweight/obese and being depressed, so that is an additional factor to bear in mind: antidepressant drugs are highly likely to cause weight gain, and excess weight is linked to depression. - It's a no-brainer in my opinion!

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

New Year Resolution Suggestion: Give Up Dieting!

You've tried many diets. They didn't work. You know that dieting doesn't work. You know that you end up weighing more than before. To do again what you have done so many times before and expect a different outcome does not make sense. - Give up dieting! - Let the deadly dieting industry make money out of other people, not you, in 2011.

Eating fewer calories than your body needs is likely to cause you health problems like eating disorders and osteoporosis, and will NOT make you slim. - Here is how to lose excess weight without counting calories or going hungry: cut down on salt and salty food. This reduces the fluid retention which is the basic cause of overweight or obesity. You will definitely lose weight - and you will lose it rapidly and safely.

Salt/Sodium in foods