Whats Really Behind the Milk Diet?

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The purpose of this article is not to scrutinize, vilify, or verify the so-called Milk Diet. There are a number of resources available both online and offline which can help you and your physician decide which of the several diet plans or personalized weight loss programs is right for you.

No matter what plan you choose, that plan should lead you to healthy weight loss and to the attainment of your weight loss goals. And if the resources that help you in your decision are sponsored by weight loss professionals, they won't just point you to one of fad diets.

Professionals know that fad diets just don't work. You may see initial results, but the risk to your health is high, and the chances of keeping the weight off are low.

I went to one of the major search engines and in the search box I typed the words, milk diet and skim milk diet. Try it, and you'll laugh at how some sharp entrepreneurs are trying capitalize on one of the latest crazes.

One of my favorites is an ad along the side of the page which redirects you to an Ebay area where you could purchase, no lie, milk paraphernalia to help you keep up the Milk Diet team spirit. All the vintage milk bottle tops and signs were marked down to special prices.

Oh, and remember the classic Grapefruit Diet? What a shot in the arm that craze gave to the citrus industry! Of course, I have a distant cousin named Grady who at family gatherings still reminds everyone of how his wife spent more on a 10-speed juicer (now kept as a relic in the attic) than on him that year for their anniversary and Christmas combined! Now that's serious juicing!

The point I won't to make is simple. You want to lose weight and keep it off, right? You will NEVER achieve that by pulling out your credit card to pay homage to the next diet guru or program with a celebrity's name attached to it. These fad diets promise to give you what you want through the latest secret revealed or truth now discovered.

And it shouldn't suprise you to learn that only the guru or the people sponsoring the plan can bring to you the latest secret revealed in this special offer for only three installments of just $29.95 (plus $14.95 shipping and handling).

By the way, since when does it cost $14.95 to ship a welcome letter, some funny looking plastic things, and a book? Maybe the extra cost is the handling?

In any event, you don't need any new secret revealed nor an undiscovered truth now discovered. What you need is to go back to Diet Basics. There's nothing wrong with a diet plan that proclaims the values of either milk or grapefruit. Both grapefruit and milk provide wonderful essential nutrients which help you have good nutrition and balanced meals.

And that is my point! Losing the weight you need to lose and keeping it off is about modifying your eating habits to have overall good nutrition. It's not about focusing on one nutrient or food group. In fact, true weight loss professionals would consider as suspect any diet program which radically reduces or increases just one component of a balanced diet. That's not a good way to lose weight.

To illustrate what I'm trying to say, take a look at the relationship between weight loss and milk. Milk contains nine essential nutrients, making it one of the most nutrient-rich drinks you can enjoy. Just one eight-ounce glass of milk puts you well on your way to meeting the Daily Value for calcium and other key nutrients. Calcium, as most know, helps maintain strong bones and teeth. It also plays a role in nerve function.

You probably also know by now, thanks to the recent Milk Diet fad, that milk can play a significant role in helping you reach your weight loss goals. In fact, here's part of what the American Dietetic Association has to say about milk and weight loss:

a calcium-rich eating plan, especially one that includes at least three servings of milk a day, seems to provide the nutritional support you need for healthy effective weight loss. In fact, research suggests that milk may help promote the loss of body fat while maintaining more muscle, which is important when dieting. Dropping dairy foods as a calorie-cutting tactic is not only bad for bones, it could make it even harder to lose weight.

Now the money-focused marketers and entrepreneurs have brought milk to the forefront to promote weight loss leading to sales. And I would bet that there are those who probably went to the grocer and bought milk after reading an article or hearing on television about the miracles of milk and its effect on weight loss.

But instead of drinking the suggested 24oz each day (only three 8-ounce glasses), several of the more zealous increased their intake of milk by another glass or two to speed up the process. After all, everyone knows that if a little of something is good, then a lot must be great, right? WRONG! As good for you as milk can be, it can also be detrimental to your health if you drink too much according to recent studies.

Milk has always been milk. It can benefit our overall health. More specific, milk, along with other essential elements, can help promote weight loss. Too much milk can be harmful.

But at the end of the day, healthy weight loss is, and will always be first and foremost, about Diet Basics--eating right, exercising, and having a lifestyle which promotes good health and nutrition. That's what will lead you to weight loss success.

We Amercians will continue to extol the virtues and hidden mysteries of the grapefruit (at least until we come up with a pill that's just as good). But have you been to the attic lately? Any juicers up there lying around unused and relegated to a place beside the lava lamp?

And tomorrow, or perhaps the day after, the milk diet will fade away. We'll be left with our vintage bottle tops, maybe a sign or two, and a lingering disatisfaction over our inability to unlock the mystery of how the handling is calculated in shipping and handling costs.

Well, take heart! Through all the fad diets and gurus and secrets revealed which should have been kept hidden, one principle remains to guide you. If you really want to live healthy,lose weightand keep it off, there's no substitution for exercise, good nutrition and balanced diet.

It's about the basics. . . I guarantee it!

Mark Fuqua
http://www.weight-loss-professional.com
With 3 earned degrees and more than 16 years of experience as spiritual leader, pastor, director of marketing and investment banker, Mark Fuqua brings to the discussion table a breadth and depth of of unique experience coupled with academic acumin. Yet he subscribes to the philosophy that you can approach life from either a positive or negative pathway. How you choose that determines your experiences in life whether you are trying to lose weight, build a career, raise a family, or prepare for retirement. He is Consultant and Chief Editor of Diet Basics, a website dedicated to healthy weight loss success.