What has the phlogiston theory to do with the belief that the only cause of becoming overweight is eating too many calories and taking too little exercise?

What has the phlogiston theory to do with the belief that the only cause of becoming overweight is eating too many calories and taking too little exercise? - Well both theories are out of date.

In the 18th century the phlogiston theory of explaining combustion and breathing held sway until the 1780s when Lavoisier discovered oxygen and explained its role in burning and rusting, etc. The calories in/calories out theory for excess weight presently held by most of the orthodox medical world is an oversimplistic explanation for the excess weight. Essentially it says that overweight people eat too many calories and take too little exercise, ie they are greedy and lazy. The glaring omission is the fact that a great deal of excess weight has nothing to do with calories at all! - That is because it is water - and there are no calories in water!

Professor Sir Richard Doll wrote in a personal letter to me in August 2001, "I was interested to hear about your experience of being overweight and losing so much weight when you reduced the amount of salt in your food. That a high salt diet combined with certain drugs (of which steroids are an example) will lead to water retention is - or ought to be - well known and, of course, the contrary follows that reducing the salt will lead to the loss of water."

There are so many prescription drugs and classes of prescription drugs, and doctors are constantly being exhorted to prescribe more and more drugs, especially antidepressants, many of which cause water retention and its attendant health problems, notably stroke, high blood pressure and heart conditions, that I would contend that the ever-increasing numbers of prescription drugs being taken must certainly be the cause of a high proportion of obese people being overweight. An additional danger is that so many prescribed drugs are addictive, especially painkillers. So I hope that the theory that the only cause of becoming overweight is eating too many calories and taking too little exercise will soon, like the phlogiston theory of combustion, be consigned to the dustbin of history, and people can be saved from all the ill-health that so many prescribed drugs cause.

Weight Loss Ward: what I thought about it

I watched the two episodes of Weight Loss Ward on ITV (see here and here), about some of the work of the obesity unit of Sunderland Royal Hospital. The patients featured were extremely obese and their lives were consequently full of difficulties, ill-health - including High Blood Pressure and Diabetes - and emotional and social problems. Various healthcare staff sought to help them.

 

The main help on offer appeared to be Weight Loss Surgery, aka Bariatric Surgery, and we heard a lot from the chief surgeon in this field. He clearly believed he could help these unfortunate people, and wanted to help them, but his help was contingent on their losing a set amount of weight first, or he would not do the surgery. The patients in question were extremely keen to have this surgery and seemed to regard it as the answer to their weight problems, even though it would bring problems of its own afterwards.

 

Certainly the surgery did in the main appear to help the patients and they were happy about it. But me - I don't think I'd ever go for it, were I in their position. I've read too often about things going wrong after surgery like that, and lives cut short, about huge new problems taking the place of those surmounted.

 

Patients and staff told us about traumatic life events that were thought to have started the obesity, like early loss of a loved one, or sexual abuse, etc. The idea seemed to be to talk about these matters, to confront them and 'deal with' them. Well, maybe that helped, I don't know. They also had meetings with dieticians who tried to help and encourage them with that initial weight loss required by the surgeon in order to be accepted for surgery. - Now that's were I felt really important measures were omitted.

 

Some found it tremendously difficult to lose that initial weight, and honestly it was made more difficult than it need have been. Putting an enormously heavy guy on a low calorie diet and expecting him to be able to stick to it despite great hunger, and pushing temptation into his path every day by way of someone taking a trolley round and selling chocolate bars! He was being set up to fail. And although one of the women succeeded in losing weight by limiting her food to Rice Krispies, skimmed milk and Diet Coke, she should surely not have been encouraged to eat such nutrition-depleted garbage instead of real food! - What on earth were the dieticians thinking of?

 

The easiest, fastest, safest way for obese people to lose a lot of weight is to cut down drastically on salt and salty food, eating real food, raw or cooked from fresh without adding salt. - Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think I heard any mention of salt. As well as bringing about weight loss, salt reduction is the most effective way of lowering high blood pressure. It also reduces risk of heart attack and stroke, reduces breathing problems, e.g. with asthma, and lessens the pain of arthritis and many other chronic pains.

 

So opportunities were sadly missed. As well as the salt thing, it seemed that not even one of the staff recognised the desirability of improving these patients' vitamin D status. I reckon that the frailty and those falls the fat woman had had which had frightened her relatives and confined her to her bedroom, were in large part caused by low vitamin D levels.

A Steroid (Hydrocortisone) Victim wrote to me a few weeks ago

A Steroid (Hydrocortisone) Victim wrote to me a few weeks ago. This is what she wrote (omitting her name and location):

" In August of 2010 I had a brain tumor removed. I am doing well from a neurological standpoint, however the tumor was sitting on my pituitary gland so I developed hypothyroidism and Central Diabetes Insipidis (also known as "water diabetes"). And of course I was put on a steroid- Hydrocortisone- which is what brought me to your website.

I started the hydrocortisone August 26, 2010 and took it until May 5, 2011, so a little over 8 months. And in that time period I gained a total of 153 lbs. I have always been overweight, and then it was like adding the equivalent of an adult to my weight...in a very short time. All of my Dr.s (I had a total of 3- endocrinologist, neurologist, primary physician) all told me the weight would come off once I was off the steroid, and none suggested reducing sodium/salt intake. But the weight did not come off at all. Finally in July, my endocrinologist did suggest reducing my salt intake and also seeing a medical weight loss clinic. From July 22nd to August 25th I lost 10 lbs. But then the Dr. at the clinic cut my calories back and put me on a low calorie diet (1400 to 1600 calories a day) because "I clearly had an increased appetite" (this is the opinion of most drs that I see, due to my size. They usually form this opinion without having asked me what I eat. I do not eat any more than my healthy, 160 lb mother.) I gained the 10 lbs I had lost back, and was becoming so very frustrated with myself, my weight, and with Doctors.

I was so happy when I found your website today. It all made so much sense and it was so nice to read your story and know that someone has gone through what I am going through. Taking an hour to read your website has given me so much more hope than talking to any doctor over the last few months. I am going to try the sodium reduction again, now that I know it can work and I have the confidence that my problem is indeed not my caloric or fat intake, but my salt intake. I am only 21 years old and feel like I am missing out on so much, I use to be so active and outgoing before my surgery, but now I have no ability to do things people my age do or I am embarrassed by my size, but you have given me new hope at a chance to get my old self back.

Thank you for sharing your story and putting so much work into researching and finding the answer."

Fancy a Free, Safe Face Lift?

Fancy a Free, Safe Face Lift? - If your face seems to be sagging, with heavy, hanging folds of flesh, don't curse gravity and start to think about surgery to stretch and lift the skin and cut off excess. After all, lots of things can go wrong with surgery and it causes pain and costs a lot of money.

I invite you to consider this instead. - The heaviness of the hanging folds of skin on your face is principally because of excess fluid retention. This excess fluid is in the blood vessels - the veins or the tiny capillaries that are largely invisible except for some reddening of the skin. The excess fluid is excess water held there by some sodium retention/salt sensitivity.

If you seriously cut down on salt and salty food this will reduce the amount of excess water held in your blood vessels. (It just gets excreted in the urine.) So there will be less weight pulling your skin down. - An easy, completely safe face lift! - You will look younger and fitter, and you will feel so much better! - And as well as the 'face lift', you will have lost some of the excess fluid elsewhere on your body too, and so you will have lost some excess/surplus weight. - What's not to like!? - Lose excess weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it!

The Warping of Wisdom: Evidence or Opinion?

There seems to be a view these days that one person's opinion is as good as another's, regardless of whether the opinion is an informed opinion or an uninformed opinion. This may well not do too much harm in itself, but the boundaries have become smudged and too many people now confuse opinion with facts that are well supported by evidence. My especial concern is in the matter of whether more exercise reduces obesity in people in general and in overweight children in particular.

We are in the happy position of being able to check out research on this matter. Researchers from the University of Glasgow found no evidence that exercise either prevented obesity in children or promoted weight loss in children who were already overweight. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2006/oct/06/health.food where we read that the research was lead by John Reilly, a professor in paediatric energy metabolism at Glasgow University. His "team set out to establish whether greater physical activity would prevent children from becoming overweight. They recruited 545 children in their last year at 36 nursery schools. Half the schools instituted three extra half-hour sessions of physical play and activity every week, and parents were given information packs encouraging them to give their children more activity and less television. The other half had no extra activity or information. All the children were regularly weighed and measured and their body mass index (BMI - the relationship between weight and height used to check for obesity) was calculated, and there was no difference between the groups. "Despite rigorous implementation, we found no significant effect of the intervention on physical activity, sedentary behaviour or body mass index," wrote the researchers. The BMJ article about the research is here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1647320/

Dr John Briffa is a UK medical doctor with a particular interest in nutrition and he also has an interest in weight loss for people who are overweight/obese. Here is one of his blog articles, entitled Does exercise promote weight loss? No. He examines the evidence and gives references to relevant scholarly studies. His conclusion is, "There are plenty of good reasons for taking regular exercise. Weight loss isn’t one of them."

There is evidence that obesity is 'set before age of five'. Professor Terry Wilkin, of the Peninsula Medical School, Plymouth, the lead researcher in this research, said, "When they reach the age of five the die seems to be cast, at least until the age of puberty. What is causing it is very difficult to know." He said there must be a factor now that was not there 25 years ago which is making today's children obese. And, given the young age, this is likely to be in a child's home rather than school environment and linked to upbringing rather than schooling. Rather than lack of physical exercise, he believes diet could be to blame. "

As obesity in childhood is an increasing problem, it is most important that advice about remedial measures be supported by evidence, rather than hallowed by tradition, authority and unsupported assumptions. The evidence is clear. The belief that exercising more 'must' bring about weight loss - while fervently and sincerely held by many people - is wrong. It is disturbing therefore to have Bupa, a health insurance company, suggest that exercise helps overweight children lose weight. And of course there is a preponderance of doctors and other health professionals who continue to claim that exercise helps reduce obesity despite the fact that this is incorrect. When authoritative people give flawed information and advice, they bear a heavy responsibility for the harm that results.

So have you given up something for Lent?

Did you give up smoking? - That is excellent.

Did you give up sugar in your tea and coffee? - That's great. - Give up cakes and biscuits as well...(o:

Did you give up eating salt and salty food? - No? - It would improve your health in many ways and you would have more energy to do your work, pursue your interests, help other people... I hope you will consider cutting out, or at any rate, cutting down on, salt and salty food. That mainly means giving up processed food, ready meals and takeaways.

Did you give up dieting? - Unlikely, I guess. - And yet, dieting really isn't good for you. - If you've actually started to diet as a Lenten task, I hope you will consider swapping that resolve, and consider giving up sugar and salt instead. - Doing that swap would achieve the weight loss you wish for, without damaging your health as dieting does.

Discover fast, safe, effective tips for weight loss without using drugs, counting calories or going hungry

The fastest way to lose excess weight is to cut down on salt/sodium. This reduces water weight/fluid retention.

Other tips include 1) increasing calcium intake, which reduces fluid retention AND fat retention and 2) lowering carbs and increasing intake of healthy saturated fats.

3) Avoid prescribed pharmaceutical drugs as far as you can because they are a major, and increasing, cause of fluid retention/salt sensitivity. See weight gain from amitriptyline and other antidepressants and also weight gain from prescribed steroids, HRT and other prescription drugs.

4) Cut down on bread and processed food. Cook fresh foods instead.

5) Avoid artifical sweeteners, including aspartame, saccharine, sucralose, diet drinks and low calorie drinks.

Did you know there is a European Childhood Obesity Group (ECOG)?

Did you know there is a European Childhood Obesity Group (ECOG)? - They appear to have had a 'congress' last month: - I wonder how many 'child obesity experts' attended, and how much that 'congress' cost? And whether it has contributed an iota of anything worthwhile toward preventing or reducing child obesity. - I doubt it.

Let's just pick on one guy: Richard Storey. I don't know him or any of the other people who attended the congress. I've just arbitrarily picked on him. - I see that he is Chief Strategy Officer, M&C Saatchi, London, and that his brief is Communicating the messages of obesity prevention to the public. - What d'you think? Think he's doing a good job? Are the messages getting through? - Is child obesity being reduced? Are obese children learning how to combat their very great problems of constantly being insulted and sneered at and bullied and being given the wrong information and advice, and the wrong sort of food? - Or are the messages about obesity prevention that Mr Storey is giving out the same damaging, ineffective pre-digested gobbets of misinformation that obese adults and children have been force-fed for decades now?

If he's plugging the low-fat, calorie-counting garbage that the self-serving Food Industry pushes, then the incidence and severity of obesity will continue to soar. If he's saying that exercise promotes weight loss then he's helping no-one to lose excess weight. If he himself is slim and fit and thinks that 'eating less and exercising more' reduces obesity then he's plain WRONG, and if he thinks that dieting is helpful and that weight loss drugs and weight loss surgery have a part to play in reducing child obesity then I would profoundly disagree with him.

But Mr Storey may not be treading the doom-laden path I have envisaged. He may be giving the correct advice after all. In which case I'm surprised that it's not been headlined in the press and trumpeted in the broadcast media. Too much salt and salty food is the principal, the most important, the overwhelming, cause of child obesity. Children need to have a low intake of salt/sodium in order to prevent damaging fluid retention/weight gain and also to avoid developing a taste for salty food. Too much sugar can also cause unhealthy weight gain, but salt is a major culprit that most people do not know about. An obese child who is fed food containing no added salt will lose weight rapidly, easily and safely. - No dieting, no hunger, no drugs, no exhausting strenuous exercise: it's a no-brainer.

I invite Richard Storey to read my child obesity page, my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection, and the other information on my website, and to read some of the stuff on my blog/s. I wish him success in his mission.

Misleading Weight Loss Advice from Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University

See esciencenews.com article, where you will read: ""In the midst of America's obesity epidemic, physicians frequently advise their patients to reduce the number of calories they are consuming on a daily basis. This research shows that simply dieting will not likely cause substantial weight loss. Instead, diet and exercise must be combined to achieve this goal," explained Judy Cameron Ph.D., a senior scientist at OHSU's Oregon National Primate Research Center, and a professor of behavioral neuroscience and obstetrics & gynecology in the OHSU School of Medicine, as well as a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh."

Actually, neither dieting nor exercise is necessary to lose excess weight, nor is it necessary to eat low fat food, because obesity in human beings is caused by salt sensitivity, not by eating high fat food or too many calories or by taking insufficient exercise.

Experts must stop giving the wrong advice. Their misinformation is damaging the lives, health and happiness of millions of innocent people, most poignantly, children.

Obesity is NOT caused by eating too many calories/too much fat and/or taking too little exercise. – No matter how many doctors and other ‘experts’ claim that it is, and that it can be reduced by eating fewer calories and taking more exercise, they are wrong and it is still NOT true.

Obesity is caused by fluid retention in people who are sensitive to salt. – It is as simple, and as profoundly complex, as that.

Now – what really causes the fluid retention/salt sensitivity/obesity? – Here are the main causes:

1. Prescription drugs such as tricyclic antidepressants like amitriptyline.

Weight gain is also widely reported by people taking SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors). As with the tricyclic antidepressants, the weight gain is because of sodium retention and fluid/water retention, and can be avoided/reduced by avoiding eating salt and salty food.

2. Other prescription drugs such as steroids including prednisolone, prednisone, cortisone, hydrocortisone, HRT and other medications containing oestrogen – like some birth control medication (contraceptives) – some anti-psychotic drugs, including Zyprexa (aka olanzapine) and other psychotropic drugs, and some anti-epileptic/anticonvulsant drugs, notably valproate (trade name Epilim).

If you have been inappropriately prescribed or over-dosed with corticosteroids or HRT or the any of the many other drugs that cause weight gain, then you may well have developed drug-induced Cushing’s Syndrome, a very serious illness, frequently far more serious than the health problem for which the drugs were prescribed. It is, to the best of my knowledge, an entirely preventable illness if doctors conform to the protocols for prescribing these drugs and if they monitor patients’ progress on the drugs, and if they warn patients about salt. It is VITALLY important that it be realised that weight gain resulting from these drugs is from sodium and water retention, so patients taking these drugs should be warned not to eat salt, or foods containing salt, while taking the medication. They should also be informed that any weight gained in this way can easily and swiftly be reduced by eating less salt/sodium, and they should be warned not to try to lose weight by eating less food or restricting calories because this will not help them to lose weight and is harmful.

If you gain weight suddenly and unexpectedly when you start to take prescribed medication, it is highly likely that the weight gain is caused by the drug. You may like to consider whether you really need to take that drug, or whether the dose could be lowered. At any rate if you continue with the drug, try to reduce your salt intake in order to reduce the weight gain. Doctors seldom, if ever, warn about the drugs that cause salt sensitivity and the need very strictly to avoid salt and salty food while on the drugs, and many do not observe the drug protocols and very few properly monitor the patient’s progress on the drugs. Obviously if doctors did do all these things, there would be no steroid victims, no patients with drug-induced obesity, etc. whereas there are many millions of them worldwide, victims of medical negligence and ignorance.

3. If, as a baby or small child, you ate salt and salty food, you were highly likely to have developed sensitivity to salt and you therefore became fat or overweight.

4. Pregnancy can cause fluid retention/salt sensitivity because of hormonal changes during pregnancy. It is important to avoid salt and salty food during pregnancy.

These are the main causes of obesity. Dieting/calorie counting makes obesity worse and should be avoided.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, boost your lung function and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it!

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Sodium in foods

Fat retention and fat excretion: the importance of getting enough calcium.

I can be contacted from my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Stephen Nolan completed 6 miles for Sport Relief.

Very well done, Stephen! - At a weight of 22 stone that was some achievement!

You could speedily lose a lot of your excess weight, which is mainly fluid retention, by seriously cutting down on salt and salty food. I realise you really like salt because I've heard you say so on your Radio 5 show, but the fast, safe weight loss and the other many health benefits of cutting down on salt/sodium would be well worth it to you. - You would feel sooo much better!

I've rung your show and emailed several times over many months to tell you about this safe, sure, fast way to lose excess weight, but I have no way of knowing whether you ever receive my messages.

See Sodium in foods

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Lose weight

BBC TV Programme: Who Made Me Fat?

I watched part of this a couple of evenings ago and the remainder on the iPlayer this evening. You could watch it on the iPlayer too - BBC TV Programme: Who Made Me Fat?

I can't say I favour the tabloidy style of either the programme or of the presenter, nor was I thrilled that yet again an opportunity was lost to tell the truth about what really causes obesity. There were transient references to salt here and there during the programme, but not the slightest effort to explain why salt gets mentioned at all in the anti-obesity advice/insults/lies that are currently being used against overweight/obese human beings in a doomed strategy to reduce obesity. And yet SALT is the ingredient that needs to be reduced/restricted/avoided in order to reduce obesity. (Just a reminder that they are human beings, by the way. The way fat people are usually shown on television is without heads. - Have you noticed? - Fat bodies walking along the street or fat bodies sitting on chairs? Heads chopped off to avoid identification or to avoid complaints or what? - To avoid thinking of fat people as fellow human beings with feelings and sensitivities like other people? The show's presenter came pretty close to presenting them as mere objects of derision, I'd say.)

Obesity is not caused by over-eating or by laziness or by a combination of the two.
Taking extra exercise does not reduce obesity.
Trying to 'shame' fat people into losing weight cannot succeed because they are being given the wrong information/advice about what causes obesity and how best to reduce it.

Since obesity seems to be regarded as inexorably on the increase despite the evermore strident and ubiquitous advice and the ever-increasing money poured into giving that advice, isn't it time that even the bird-brained among us realised that the advice being given is self-evidently wrong?

Excess weight is caused by sensitivity to salt and NOT by overeating. - Sensitivity to salt leads to fluid retention and this sometimes leads on to fat retention. - Fluid retention (i.e. excess weight) is easily reduced by cutting down on intake of salt and salty food. Eating plenty of fruit and unsalted vegetables makes the fluid loss even speedier. These measures also reduce fat retention. In addition fat retention can be reduced by increasing intake of calcium, magnesium and potassium.

Exercise has many potential benefits but those benefits do not include weight loss. Exercise does not reduce excess weight, no matter how many health ministers and medics tell you that it does!

And WHEN is someone in Government going to inform people that the most extreme cases of obesity - morbid obesity - are the result of taking prescription drugs incautiously prescribed, often in high dose, by doctors inadequately informed about their side-effects? - If we could have a Government initiative to curb the massive over-prescribing by doctors that would reduce obesity very effectively indeed!

Here is the correct information:

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

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

UK Teenage Boys Fitted With Gastric Bands

BBC News reports that two 14-year-old boys have had gastric bands fitted at Sheffield Children's Hospital. This appals me. In the report it says:

"Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, said such operations were an example of society's failure to understand the problem of obesity in the UK. "It is a horrendous indictment on society that we should ever allow these children to get this fat," Mr Fry said."

There is a ghastly irony to Tam Fry's statement. Child obesity is the result of misinformation about the causes of obesity and the best ways to remedy it, and that calamitous misinformation tends to be given by organisations like the National Obesity Forum itself - see its NOF's Healthy Eating Tips and Cancer Research UK's Ten Top Weight Loss Tips. Of course the information on these pages may be changed in the future, but as I write this on Feb 15th 2010, the word 'SALT' does not even appear on either of these pages!! - And yet it is Salt Sensitivity/swollen veins/sodium retention/fluid retention/ that is overwhelmingly the cause of obesity, and reduction of salt intake that is the quickest, safest and most effective way to reduce/prevent obesity. Almost all child obesity is caused by high salt intake.

I see that Cancer Research UK claims that its weight loss tips are based on scientific evidence! - I take leave to doubt that. Perhaps they could favour us by giving the references for any scientific evidence showing that those tips work better that simply cutting down on salt and salty food? - Or that as many as half of them even work at all!

And Cancer Research UK's statement that "Simply put, obesity is the result of taking in more calories through your diet than you are burning through physical activity." is simply WRONG. It is not true.

High salt intake is the primary cause of child obesity. It is VITAL to protect babies and small children from salty food.

See Children and Obesity

Sodium in foods

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Fat retention and fat excretion: the importance of getting enough calcium.

Huge rise in NHS hospital admissions for obesity problems and in admissions for weight loss surgery

See Telegraph article

These rises are due, of course, to the continued failure of the NHS and the medical profession et al to give the correct information and advice about the causes of obesity and the best ways to reduce it. Dieting, calorie reduction and low-fat eating do not reduce or prevent obesity and they are often very harmful.

It is easy and completely safe for any obese person to lose a considerable amount of excess weight by reducing the fluid retention that is a feature of all obesity. To reduce excess weight therefore, cut down on salt/sodium and salty foods. This reduces the sodium and water retention by excretion of excess salt and water in the urine. Before anyone, especially young people, embarks on bariatric surgery with all the risks and expense involved in surgery, they should be advised to cut down on sodium intake as a completely risk-free means of weight loss.

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Sodium in foods

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

You don't need Phentermine to lose weight

You don't need Phentermine (aka Adipex-P, Ionamin, Obenix, Oby-Cap, Teramine, Zantryl) or any other pharmaceutical junk in order to lose excess weight. You just need to stop dieting and counting calories and instead concentrate on eating less salt and salty food. This is the safest, fastest, most effective way to lose weight.

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

The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Vulnerable groups

Sodium in foods

See also FAT RETENTION

advice for pregnant mothers

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

Associated health conditions

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

I can be contacted from my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Don't take it with a pinch of salt!

Don't take it with a pinch of salt!

If you give up adding salt to your food you will achieve a host of benefits for your health.

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

The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Vulnerable groups

Sodium in foods

See also FAT RETENTION

advice for pregnant mothers

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

Associated health conditions

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

I can be contacted from my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

The best thing for high blood pressure is to cut down on salt and salty food.

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

The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Vulnerable groups

Sodium in foods

Warning for Sleep Apnea Sufferers

ajc.com carries a report about sleep apnea raising the risk of death, especially for men.

If you suffer from sleep apnea, whether you are male or female, you may like to know that cutting down on salt and salty food reduces sleep apnea and also reduces the excess weight that causes it. This is a simple, cost-free, drug-free, completely safe way to improve your health in many ways and improve your sleep and quality of life: - maybe actually save your life!

Quick, safe weight loss without drugs or hunger: most importantly you have to give up dieting and counting calories. Dieting is harmful and unnecessary.

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

The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Vulnerable groups

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

I can be contacted from my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

I'm puzzled about the New Scientist

Note added on August 17th:

I can now access the New Scientist website again. My comment has not been reinstated. I can now read the Terms and Conditions and I am still unaware of any way that I could be considered to have breached them. I put my real name to my comment and, where the form asked for website URL, I gave it. I gave it because the form asked for it. I studiously avoided putting any links in the comment itself. Anyone could click near my name to reach my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk which is a non-commercial website that warns of the harmful side-effects of prescribed steroids and other prescribed drugs and explains about the benefits of eating less salt, principally the benefit of losing excess weight easily and safely. I created the website because as a steroid victim myself I wanted to save others from the great and unnecessary suffering caused by the reckless over-prescribing of these and other drugs. The website does not sell or advertise anything and it has no sponsors.

August 14th: It's weird.

I receive emails from the New Scientist each week as I am on their mailing list, and I read many of their interesting articles. Occasionally I submit a comment on an article.

This week there was an article about weight control. The article is called "The fat that makes you thin," and I submitted a comment about how to reduce obesity easily, swiftly and safely. The comment appeared beneath the article and I did actually get a visitor to my website as a result so I know it was seen by at least one other person. - But I can't get to that exact webpage now and my comment appears to have been removed from the page though I can still find the comment in some archived pages on the internet. I can't access the New Scientist's terms and conditions for contributing comments so I can't check to see if I could possibly have contravened them. What I wrote has no connection with any adverts or sponsors and is simply facts/advice to help their readers. - I'm puzzled as to why my comment has been removed.

I do not seem to be able to access the New Scientist website at all. I'm disappointed about this and I'm genuinely baffled as to why I have apparently been banned. The New Scientist more than any other publication should, one feels, be open to new thinking about obesity.

This is what I wrote:

"Obesity is easily, swiftly and safely reduced by cutting down on salt and salty food, because this reduces fluid retention, the real cause of obesity. Reducing sodium intake also reduces fat retention, which most commonly caused by fluid retention aka salt retention. Increasing potassium intake assists because potassium displaces some excess sodium (and its attendant water) from the body.

Increasing calcium intake also reduces fat retention because it increases the amount of fat excreted in the faeces. The role of calcium in weight loss was explained on a BBC2 programme, The Truth About Food, a few years ago.

All of these safe, simple ways of reducing excess weight are nothing whatsoever to do with calorie intake or calorie reduction.

It is easy to put to the test what I have suggested. If you are overweight I urge you to try my suggestions. You will definitely lose weight and will also feel a lot better."

Weight Loss. - What's the quickest, safest method?

Weight Loss. - What's the quickest, safest method?

Just cut down on SALT and salty food. - Honestly! - Don't knock it! - Try it!

Obesity is caused by salt sensitivity/fluid retention/oedema and can be easily and safely reduced by cutting down on salt/sodium and salty food.

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

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Sodium in foods

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

Do you think that bribing overweight people to lose weight is likely to work? - I don't.

The NHS thinks
that paying overweight people to lose weight and keep it off for 6 months will cost less than dealing with the health problems caused by being overweight. I doubt that payment for weight loss will produce any lasting reduction in obesity because in order to lose excess weight people need to be told the truth about how to do it. The present advice that the NHS gives is to cut down on sugar, fat and calories and increase exercise. Following this advice does not reduce weight. - Dieting tends to increase weight, actually.

Obesity is not caused by over-eating. - You know that you see lots of slim people eating like there's no tomorrow and they don't put weight on, so clearly eating too much is not the cause of the 'obesity epidemic'.

Obesity is caused by a combination of salt sensitivity and salt intake. - Only people who are sensitive to salt become fat/overweight/obese. This happens because for them, salt is very harmful: it holds excess water in their bodies. This is often called fluid retention or oedema. The veins swell and the skin gets thinner as it stretches to accommodate the swollen veins.

Reducing calories does not help with these problems. It is irrelevant to them. - Reducing salt is what helps. - By eating less salt and salty food you can easily and swiftly lose some of the excess water and thus lose weight - a lot of weight, since water is heavy. - Remember the mnemonic:

'A pint of pure water
Weighs a pound and a quarter.'

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

How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.