Hoodia Information

Why so many diets?

Each month every magazine on display in the market has a new diet plan.  Why is there a need for a new diet plan each month.  Most diets do not work.  You lose weight and gain back more than you lost.  It is a yo yo plan.  The best plan may be to eat about 6 small nutritional meals a day timed at about equal times apart.  It is like your metabolism is an engine.  You have to keep it fueled to keep it reved and running.  If you are a large person doing a hard physical job you need more fuel.  If you are smaller or have a less physical job you meed less fuel.  All the extra fuel you take on is stored as fat.  Try smaller meals more often and don’t forget the Hoodia Gordonii Plus.

Snacks can save your day. 

There are so many packaged snacks that have under 100 calories per package.  They are great if you are on the run and need to take a snack along.  I have a couple in my car in case I am later than expected or my appointments take longer than expected. A snack may keep you on track and keep you from getting cranky.

If you have time to plan ahead you can package your own snacks like: fruit, nuts, cheese,chips, crackers. Be sure to read the labels.  Avoin things high in fatm sugar and sodium.  Choose things with fiber.

I found this recipe on Diet.com.  It is a great diet recipe 

Artichoke Chicken - Dietitian’s Choice Recipe
 
Servings: 1   Category: Main Dish
Nutrition Information:
Calories: 212
Protein: 31g
Carbs: 2 g
Fat: 2 g
Saturated Fat: 0 g
Sodium: 308 mgFiber: 6 g
Ingredients
 1/2 cup artichoke hearts (in a jar)
 1/2 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
 1 diced tomtato
 2-3 garlic cloves, minced
 2-3 tablespoons white wine or low-sodium broth
 3 ounces skinless chicken breast, grilled or baked
Instructions
1. Sautee artichoke hearts with mushrooms, tomato, garlic and wine or broth until heated through.
2. Pour hot mixture over the cooked chicken breast. TIP: Great served with instant wild rice!

FROM DIET.COM 

The Molecule P57.

In 1937, a Dutch anthropologist studying the San people noted that they used Hoodia to suppress appetite. But it wasn’t until 1963, when scientists at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa’s national laboratory, began studying Hoodia. Initial results were promising – lab animals lost weight after eating Hoodia Gordonii.                                                                                                                                                                                        After 30 years of research, the South African scientists at CSIR isolated the active ingredient in Hoodia, and obtained a patent on the molecule in 1995. It is a steroidal glycoside, which they named P57. The South African government then licensed the patent to a British firm named Phytopharm.
Then, Phytopharm licensed the patent to American drug giant, Pfizer. The intent was to use the molecule, P57, as a base, to mass-create an artificial drug to meet the demands of millions of people. After three years of investigation, Pfizer pulled out of the deal, saying it would be too expensive to ever bring to market
In December of 2004, Phytopharm licensed to Unilever, who has promised to bring this man-made drug to market.
It remains to be seen if a weight loss drug utilizing P57 will ever be realized.

Play can be Fun Exercise

Earlier this week I met several people at a nearby park.  They met three of four times a week to play with their dogs and exercise.  They were having a blast.  The dogs played.  The people played with the dogs and chased them all over the place.  This was just an evening after work and they wanted some exercise.  These people started this habit last year and are still at it.  Not every one comes every time but there is someone there almost every evening.  I plan to go some myself even though I don’t have a dog.  I felt welcome, had some good exercise and met fun people.

Behavior Adjustment is a difficult thing.  If you repeat a behavior enough times it becomes a habit and a part of your life.  If it is a healthy behavior or not it makes no difference.  One of the habits that are bothersome to some of us is eating without thinking about the consequences.  We snack while watching TV or reading.  We munch our way through visits with friends and family.  We are social creatures.
We form habits of eating when our mood or outlook changes.  When we feel lonely, bored, angry, tired, frustrated or anxious we tend to look to food for comfort.  Any of these feelings can trigger the eating response.  Sometimes a trip to the grocery store or library can take us past the local ice cream shop that seems to be calling our name.  We stop on impulse and purchase our favorite treat. 
There is an endless list of ways we form habits and they are hard to break.  We must make new habits the same we made the old ones, by repetition.  Change the route to the store or library to go around the ice cream shop.  When you watch TV or read chew gum and maybe sit in a different char.  Break the trigger that causes the eating response.  The first time is always the most difficult but is worth the effort.
Challenge yourself to recognize the triggers and form new healthy habits.

Hoodia, the humble little plant.
When the world heard the news about a humble little succulent called Hoodia Gordonii being an appetite suppressant, the stampede was on. People all over the world wanted some.

Overweight adults and children have become a worldwide concern. According to the World Health Organization, more than 1 billion people, worldwide, are overweight. The small plant seemed like a miracle answer to a growing problem.

Real Hoodia Gordonii is an endangered species plant. Consequently, it is RARE AND VERY EXPENSIVE. In fact, the government of South Africa will not allow export of Hoodia without proper documentation. And they only allow certain amounts to leave the country in order to protect the plant in its natural habitat.

Sampling the Kalahari Hoodia diet , continued by Tom Mangold of BBC
Clinical trials

Dixey organised the first animal trials for Hoodia. Rats, a species that will eat literally anything, stopped eating completely.

When the first human clinical trial was conducted, a morbidly obese group of people were placed in a “phase 1 unit”, a place as close to prison as it gets.

All the volunteers could do all day was read papers, watch television, and eat.

Half were given Hoodia, half placebo. Fifteen days later, the Hoodia group had reduced their calorie intake by 1000 a day.

It was a stunning success.

The cactus test

In order to see for ourselves, we drove into the desert, four hours north of Capetown in search of the cactus.

Once there, we found an unattractive plant which sprouts about 10 tentacles, and is the size of a long cucumber.

Each tentacle is covered in spikes which need to be carefully peeled.

 The San will finally throw off thousands of years of oppression, poverty, social isolation and discrimination
 
Roger Chennells, lawyer
 

Inside is a slightly unpleasant-tasting, fleshy plant.

At about 1800hrs I ate about half a banana size - and later so did my cameraman.

Soon after, we began the four hour drive back to Capetown.

The plant is said to have a feel-good almost aphrodisiac quality, and I have to say, we felt good.

But more significantly, we did not even think about food. Our brains really were telling us we were full. It was a magnificent deception.

Dinner time came and went. We reached our hotel at about midnight and went to bed without food. And the next day, neither of us wanted nor ate breakfast.

I ate lunch but without appetite and very little pleasure. Partial then full appetite returned slowly after 24 hours.

The future

Mr Chennells is ecstatic:

“The San will finally throw off thousands of years of oppression, poverty, social isolation and discrimination.

“We will create trust funds with their Hoodia royalties and the children will join South Africa’s middle classes in our lifetime.

“I envisage Hoodia cafes in London and New York, salads will be served and the Hoodia cut like cucumber on to the salad.

“It will need flavouring to counter its unpleasant taste, but if it has no side effects and no cumulative side-effects.”

Unfortunately for the overweight, Hoodia will not be around for several years, the clinical trials still have several years to run.

Do not travel to the Kalahari to steal the plant as it is hard to find and illegal to export.

A molecule in the cactus makes you feel full

When I travelled to the Kalahari, I met families of the San bushmen.

It is a sad, impoverished and displaced tribe, still unaware they are sitting on top of a goldmine.

But if the Hoodia works, the 100,000 San strung along the edge of the Kalahari will become overnight millionaires on royalties negotiated by their South African lawyer Roger Chennells.

And they will need all the help they can to secure the money.

Currently, many bushmen smoke large quantities of marijuana, suffer from alcoholism, and have neither possessions nor any sense of the value of money.

The truth is no-one has fully grasped what the magic molecule means for their counterparts in the developed world.

Blood sugar

According to the British Heart Foundation 17% of men and 21% of women are obese, while 46% of men and 32% of women are overweight.

So the drug’s marketing potential speaks for itself.

Phytopharm’s Dr Richard Dixey explained how P.57 actually works:

“There is a part of your brain, the hypothalamus. Within that mid-brain there are nerve cells that sense glucose sugar.

“When you eat, blood sugar goes up because of the food, these cells start firing and now you are full.

“What the Hoodia seems to contain is a molecule that is about 10,000 times as active as glucose.

“It goes to the mid-brain and actually makes those nerve cells fire as if you were full. But you have not eaten. Nor do you want to.”

This article was on Yahoo Health news AFP

US child obesity may be stabilizing after huge rise: study                                                                                             
The obesity rate among American children and teenagers may have stabilized after a dramatic rise in the 1980s and 1990s that has been described as an epidemic, according to a US study on Wednesday.

The study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), based on a national health survey, found no significant change in the obesity rate between 1999 and 2006.

Led by Cynthia Ogden of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), researchers reviewed the survey of more than 8,000 children and teens aged between two and 19 conducted between 2003-2004 and 2005-2006.

The study found that 31.9 percent of the children were overweight, while 16 percent were obese and 11 percent extremely obese. The rates were nearly unchanged compared to 1999.

The obesity rate had tripled between 1980-1999, creating an epidemic blamed on a poor diet heavy on fat and sugar with little consumption of fruits and fresh vegetables and lack of exercize.

Obese children are at a higher risk of developing heart diseases, high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes. They are also more likely of becoming obese adults.

The study also shows racial and ethnic disparities, with 23 percent of children of Mexican origin considered obese, compared to 17 percent of blacks and 16 percent of whites.

Among girls, 24 percent of blacks were obese compared to 19 percent of those of Mexican origin and 14 percent of whites.

In an accompanying editorial, doctors Cara Ebbeling and David Ludwig of Children’s Hospital Boston warned that it was too soon to tell if child obesity has really leveled off.

“Perhaps recent public health campaigns aimed at raising awareness of childhood obesity and improving the quality of school food have begun to pay off,” they wrote.

“However, it is too early to know whether these data reflect a true plateau or a statistical aberration in an inexorable epidemic, and pre-existing racial/ethnic disparities show no sign of abating.

“On one point there is no uncertainty: without substantial declines in prevalence, the public health toll of childhood obesity will continue to mount, because it can take many years for an obese child to develop life-threatening complications.”