Finally Thin: Kim Benson’s Weight Loss Journey

Background

At her heaviest Kim Benson weighed 350 pounds and tried almost every diet available until she was finally able to find something that worked for her. In her book, Finally Thin, she chronicles her personal weight loss transformation as she lost 212 pounds and dramatically reduced her cholesterol levels.
This book is offered as a companion program that can be used with the diet of your choice. It features the ten steps that Benson equates with her success, explaining exactly how she finally achieved her goal to lose weight.

Kim Benson’s Diet Basics

Finally Thin does not advocate a single dietary approach but instead encourages dieters to discover what works best for them. Says Benson, “It’s written by someone who always yo-yoed and never thought maintenance — happy, enjoyable maintenance — at a healthy weight was possible. It’s a book of hope … and a book of every trick, tip, mantra and recipe I used to get where I am today.”
The book includes a “Diet Quiz” where readers answer practical questions to help them determine what their needs are. Also provided is a section where Benson summarizes thirty of the most popular diets on the market today.
Benson then outlines her ten steps to success:

1. Choose the diet that’s right for you
2. Set your goals
3. Plan
4. Make over your environment
5. Gather your support
6. Exercise your right to move
7. Learn to eat light home and away
8. Learn to handle temptation
9. Keep yourself motivated all the way
10. Make it for life

Some of the factors highlighted as being important for losing weight and keeping it off include writing a food journal, eating for health rather than just weight loss, and planning ahead. An entire chapter is devoted to the subject of goal setting. Also included are over seventy low-calorie recipes as well as a list of guilt-free grocery items.

Recommended Foods

Fruit, vegetables, Kim’s light bread, whole wheat pasta, nonfat milk, fat-free yogurt, egg beaters, fat-free cheese, chicken breast, turkey, pork tenderloin, kidney beans, cannelini beans, salsa, soy sauce, fat-free mayonnaise, fat-free salad dressing, walnuts, cocoa powder, sugar-free pudding, Splenda, fat-free cooking spray.

Sample Finally Thin Meal Plan

Breakfast Breakfast burrito Fresh fruit

Lunch Chop chop salad with shrimp

Afternoon Snack Summer salsa with Kim’s light bagel chips

Dinner Spinach stuffed chicken breasts

Dessert Fat-free pound cake

Exercise Recommendations

Kim Benson recommends a combination of aerobic exercise and strength training as part of a healthy weight loss lifestyle. She says, while it is possible to lose weight without exercising, there are many other benefits you can gain by keeping fit.
If you don’t enjoy exercise you should start with a small amount each day, but it is important to make physical activity a part of your daily routine.

Costs and Expenses

Finally Thin!: How I Lost More Than 200 Pounds and Kept Them Off–and How You Can, Too retails at $14.
Click Here to purchase the book at a discounted price.

Pros

• Can be used as a companion to any other weight loss program.
• Dieters have the freedom to choose a diet plan that appeals to them.
• Kim Benson has successfully lost weight and maintained her weight loss.
• Many readers will find the stories of successful dieters inspirational.
• Finally Thin includes over seventy recipes.
• Encourages exercise.

Cons

• Does not include a meal plan.
• Not written with male readers in mind.
• Emphasizes low-fat dieting, which may not work for everyone.
• Encourages the consumption of artificial sweeteners.
• A majority of the recipes contain wheat and dairy products so are not suitable for those with an intolerance to these foods.

Conclusions

Finally Thin is a combination of a weight loss memoir with a ten-step program by Kim Benson and it can be used in conjunction with any diet plan. This book can be a valuable introduction to the basic principles of weight loss for those who are new to dieting and will appeal to those who prefer the flexibility to choose a plan that most appeals to them.

15 Best Diet Tips ever

15 Best Diet Tips Ever

Experts share their top tips for weight loss success.

By Kathleen M. Zelman, MPH, RD, LD
WebMD Weight Loss Clinic-Feature

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

Everyone knows the keys to losing weight: Eat less and exercise more. Sounds simple enough, but in the context of real life and its demands, it can be anything but simple. So how do successful losers do it? To find out, WebMD asked experts across the country for their best diet tips.
Here's what they said:

Avoid These 12 Diet Mistakes

Best Diet Tip No. 1: Drink plenty of water or other calorie-free beverages.

People sometimes confuse thirst with hunger. So you can end up eating extra calories when an ice-cold glass of water is really what you need.
"If you don't like plain water, try adding citrus or a splash of juice, or brew infused teas like mango or peach, which have lots of flavor but no calories," says Cynthia Sass, RD, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.

Best Diet Tip No. 2: Think about what you can add to your diet, not what you should take away.

Start by focusing on getting the recommended 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables each day.
"It sounds like a lot, but it is well worth it, because at the same time you are meeting your fiber goals and feeling more satisfied from the volume of food," says chef Laura Pansiero, RD.
You're also less likely to overeat because fruits and vegetables displace fat in the diet. And that's not to mention the health benefits of fruits and vegetables. More than 200 studies have documented the disease-preventing qualities of phytochemicals found in produce, says Pansiero.
Her suggestion for getting more: Work vegetables into meals instead of just serving them as sides on a plate.
"I love to take seasonal vegetables and make stir-fries, frittatas, risotto, pilafs, soups, or layer on sandwiches," Pansiero says. "It is so easy to buy a variety of vegetables and incorporate them into dishes."

Best Diet Tip No. 3: Consider whether you're really hungry.

Whenever you feel like eating, look for physical signs of hunger, suggests Michelle May, MD, author of Am I Hungry?
"Hunger is your body's way of telling you that you need fuel, so when a craving doesn't come from hunger, eating will never satisfy it," she says.
When you're done eating, you should feel better -- not stuffed, bloated, or tired.
"Your stomach is only the size of your fist, so it takes just a handful of food to fill it comfortably," says May.
Keeping your portions reasonable will help you get more in touch with your feelings of hunger and fullness.

Best Diet Tip No. 4: Be choosy about nighttime snacks.

Mindless eating occurs most frequently after dinner, when you finally sit down and relax.
"Sitting down with a bag of chips or cookies in front of the television is an example of eating amnesia, where you mindlessly eat without being hungry, but out of habit," says American Dietetic Association spokesperson Malena Perdomo, RD.
Either close down the kitchen after a certain hour, or allow yourself a low-calorie snack, like a 100-calorie pack of cookies or a half-cup scoop of low-fat ice cream. Once you find that you're usually satisfied with the low-cal snack, try a cup of zero-calorie tea, suggests Perdomo.

Stress versus Anxiety

I'm an all-occasion overeater, really.  I will celebrate or console myself with food anytime, anywhere.  Give me a gift of food and I will eat it because it's there.
But I'm beginning to really understand that eating is a way to blunt the sharp edges of uncomfortable feelings.  I know.  Doesn't everyone know that?
Well, yes.  I know it with my head, but now I know it with the rest of me, too.
I know because when the anxiety of the past two years came at me like a sharp sword, I fended it off with a nearby snack.
Anxiety is the worst for me.  I don't know what to do with it.  Feeling it is so uncomfortable for me that I eat instead. (Intersting to note:  I don't want to eat when I'm angry.  I'm rarely angry, though.)
I noticed that this week, especially, and realized that it's not stress that drives me to overeat as much as plain old anxiety does.  For me, stress and anxiety is not the same.  Stress can mean I'm super busy and have a lot of demands on me.
But anxiety  means I am worried, worried, anxious and worried some more about something that I can't exactly control.  If I could control it, I would, but so much of life is out of my control.
For example, this week my 13-year old started 8th grade in a new school here in a new state.  I felt so worried for him.  Would he find his way?  Would the kids be nice to him?  Would he like the school?  Would the teachers like him as much as I like him?
And even though I had two weeks of clean eating under my extra-extra-large belt and even a five pound weight loss, I began to prowl in the pantry, searching for something to eat, something that would soothe my troubled soul.
Dumb, right?  Right. But that didn't stop me.
Then, as I was thinking about these things, I began to worry about the next thing and the next thing and the next thing as they popped up on the hazy horizon of my life.
And I wanted some cookies, a whole lot of cookies.
Fortunately, I didn't have time to bake! But I did have pretzels and other non-whole grain stuff.
Tomorrow, I am going to buy produce and make a big salad.  I'm going to eat my morning oatmeal to steady my blood sugar for the start of the day.  I'm going to embrace the worry and find out if it will kill me.  (I'm guessing it won't.)

Boost Fiber to Slim Down

By Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D., May/June 2009

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Fill up on high-fiber foods to help prevent weight gain.

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READER'S COMMENT:

"Why is everything low fat and sugar free poison? When I look to buy something sugar-free I want sugar free I don't need artificial sweeteners and other chemicals making everything taste awful. Why is it that company's think that we...

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Healthy High-Fiber Recipes:
Green Bean Casserole
Blue Cheese-Walnut Green Beans
Squash, Chickpea & Red Lentil Stew
Middle Eastern Chickpea Platter
Orange Slices with Warm Raspberries
Raspberry Bars
Strawberry, Melon & Avocado Salad
Healthy High-Fiber Recipes and Menus

More Weight Loss Tips
Eat More, Lose Weight Video
7 Steps to Permanent Weight Loss
8 Tips for Winning the Food Fight
3 Antidotes to Overeating

The average American adult gains one to two pounds each year, according to various reports. But new research in The Journal of Nutrition suggests a way to prevent this weight gain or even encourage weight loss—without dieting. The secret: eat more fiber. Researchers at Brigham Young University in Utah followed the eating habits of 252 middle-aged women for nearly two years and found that those who increased their fiber intake generally lost weight. Women who decreased the fiber in their diets gained.
The scientists boiled the findings into a single weight-loss formula: boosting fiber by 8 grams for every 1,000 calories consumed resulted in losing about 4½ pounds over the course of the study. And this held true whether a woman was eating 3 or 25 grams of fiber a day at the start of the study. While it helps you feel full, “fiber has no calories,” says Larry Tucker, Ph.D., lead researcher and professor in the Department of Exercise Sciences at Brigham Young. So if you fill up on high-fiber foods you crowd out less-healthy foods, explains Tucker.
Try it for yourself. If you’re consuming 2,000 calories per day, aim to increase your fiber by 16 grams. Here are four foods that will help you get your fill.
Raspberries: 1 cup = 8 grams
Chickpeas: 3⁄4 cup = 8 grams
Strawberries: 1 cup = 3 grams
Green Beans: 1 cup = 4 grams