Archive for November, 2008

If you feel you are gaining more weight every day, it may be a simple cause; your body is gaining more calories than you can burn and more than actually require.

While counting calories goes a long way to helping you lose weight, they are not the only ways to do so.

You need not go hungry to lose weight, but eating selected foods can help you shed extra pounds. Identify the foods that will most help you lose weight. Here are a few pointers to make your task easier.

1. Proteins

Poultry and fish foods are excellent sources of protein. However, be careful; try to eat in moderate quantities.

2. Vegetables

Vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower and celery have rich fiber content. Try to eat these vegetables whenever you feel extreme hunger. Fiber foods are not only helpful for colon cleansing, but are also a bonus in a weight loss program.

3. Fruits

Most fruits usually have a moderate GI and contain sugar in the form of fructose. They also have a high fiber content which is extremely crucial to lose weight. Avoid ripe bananas and go easy on mangoes, melons, etc. which have a high GI. Eat apples instead.

The latest fad diet, the morning banana diet is a simple diet plan.

By following this particular diet plan, you will be able to experience fairly rapid weight loss.

It is especially designed for people who don’t want to bother with dietary restrictions and have control over their food cravings.

How the morning banana diet works?

Different theories present different opinions on how the morning banana diet works. According to one theory, there are certain enzymes in bananas which can speed up the digestion process and cause quick weight loss.

This is because fiber foods can speed up the digestive system, will not be completely absorbed and can hence save a few calories.

Studies show that bananas contain 2 to 4 grams of fiber, which is an adequate amount to ensure healthy weight loss. Other studies conclude that the banana also contains resistant starch which promotes fullness and aids the fat burning process.

How to start a morning banana diet?

For breakfast, eat one or more bananas and drink a glass of water at normal room temperature. For lunch, eat whatever you want as this diet places no restrictions on your snacks. You can have one snack at around 3 pm, if you really feel hungry.

In lean economic times, we may need to tighten our food budgets, but it is important to do so wisely. Processed foods are definitely cheap.

A dollar buys 1,200 calories of cookies or potato chips, but only 250 calories of carrots; or 875 calories of soda, but only 170 calories of orange juice.

Filling up on cookies and soda, however, is a prescription for weight gain, cardiac disease, and other health problems.

Jennifer Ventrelle, clinical nutritionist and registered dietitian at Rush University Medical Center, maintains it’s possible to grocery shop on a budget while staying healthy and maintaining your waistline. She offers these tips:

Eat foods with fiber: “Fiber Food keeps you feeling full because it takes longer to digest than simple carbohydrates,” Ventrelle says. “Consequently, you eat less.”

Sweet potatoes are high in fiber, and also inexpensive and packed with cancer-fighting antioxidants. White potatoes can be high in fiber if you leave the skin on.

Bean, lentil, tomato, or broth-based soups take up more space in your stomach and help to keep you feeling satisfied. Lettuce and mixed greens do the same. You can buy them in bundles instead of pre-cut to save on cost.

A low kilojoule diet made up of higher protein meals improves the ability to burn fat among overweight and obese people and may be the key to shedding excess kilos, according to new Australian research.

The study published by Wiley-Blackwell found higher protein meals may have a subtle fat-burning effect in overweight or obese people.

And the study showed the glycaemic index (GI) of a meal has no additional effect on fat breakdown.

Study co-author Dr. Marijka Batterman, an Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian, said: ‘We know from past research that overweight or obese people are not as efficient at burning fat.

This new study shows that fat oxidation, or the body’s ability to ‘burn’ fat, improves in obese people when they eat a higher protein diet.’

Study participants were put on two protein-enriched meals and one standard meal, which all contained the same number of kilojoules.

The two protein-enriched meals differed in the type of carbohydrate they contained - either high- or low-GI. The amount of kilojoules subjects burnt was then measured.

The high-protein meals led to the greatest level of fat oxidation. This plan included a cheese and tomato omelette for breakfast, and a beef, chutney and salad sandwich, with a tub of low-fat yoghurt, for lunch.

There is a lot of debate over negative calorie diet and whether they work or not. The idea of any diet where you can eat as much as you want of certain foods is very appealing.

But the truth is that most of us just can’t eat tomatoes, carrots and celery all day and feel full. The fact is that there is no taste in these foods to keep people on these diets.

This article will show you how you can incorporate the negative calories in your diet.

There are many types of negative calorie diets out there, and most of them are based on low fat diets.

If you are looking to burn fat, then you should eat a lot of raw fruits and vegetables. They are the best at burning fat in your body.

There are some successful negative calorie diets out there like the eating raw foods, the cabbage soup, and the grapefruit diet.

There are many examples of negative calorie diet and you don’t have to eat celery and carrot sticks all day. There are many fruits out there that are part of the negative calorie diet.

“Eat lots of fruits and vegetables” is the most vital advice to following a healthy diet.

If you include plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables in your regular diet routine, you will find it easier to maintain normal body weight and prevent various health complications in your life.

Implementing lots of fruit and fresh veggies in your regular eating is quite easy and can also be great fun.

Here are a few helpful ways to include fruits and vegetables in your routine diet:

1. Blackberries are ideal to use in your weight loss program. They include lots of fiber and powerful antioxidants. You can add these amazing berries to custard pies or serve them plain with a little organic vanilla yogurt.
2. For healthy snacks, buy individual portions of dried apricots, carrot basins and grapes. Tomatoes and cucumber are also a great addition for salads and sandwiches.
3. Broccoli and cauliflower have high fiber content, which is essential for healthy weight loss. Create a variation of macaroni cheese for your kids by simply adding a few stalks of broccoli.

Most people change their dietary plan substantially when planning to lose weight. In reality, however, you need not start a new diet to shed extra pounds.

Small changes to your regular eating routine can go a long way to helping you lose weight.

Small changes in your regular eating habits can save a large number of calories and ensure you lose weight slowly and steadily. Here are a few changes that you can make to your routine diet to lose weight.

Include lots of fiber

It is extremely important to add lots of fiber [fiber diet] to your routine diet. It is really healthy and lots of fruits and vegetables help keep your weight regular.

Avoid fried foods

If you are really serious about losing weight, avoid fried foods, particularly those that are deep-fried. Your body doesn’t gain any helpful nutrients by consuming deep fries, so try to avoid them as much as possible.

Don’t eat between meals

Eating between meals accumulates a huge number of calories over the course of the day, so try to eat enough healthy food to satisfy you during your scheduled meals, so that you don’t feel hunger in between.

Now that the magical glow of Halloween is over, and in its wake you realize that you have decimated the entire tub of Halloween candy that failed to attract enough trick-or-treaters.

You also realize that now that the winter months are approaching, bringing with them cold, rain, snow, wind, Thanksgiving turkey, Christmas feast and New Years debauchery.

So what does this all mean for you? Well for millions of Americans, it definitely means packing on some extra weight. Winter is the most common season for people to gain weight.

It becomes colder outside, discouraging outside exercise; people become stressed during the holiday season, with more things to do than usual, leaving less time to exercise.

Coupled with the celebrated notion of overeating during the holidays and a poor diet (deep fried turkey is not really that nutritious), numbers on the scale creep up over the last few months of the year.

A seemingly quick fix to this problem is to turn to the help of diet pills, weight loss supplements that have a notorious reputation.

There are two commonly held opinions about diet pills. Either that they work and are a fine addition to any exercise and healthy eating plan or that diet pills are extremely dangerous for your health and should be avoided.

If you want to lose weight in happy, healthy way that won’t reduce your sanity to dust, you need to adopt an eating plan and lifestyle that will keep your metabolism exuberantly humming along.

Many people who try to lose weight only set them selves up for failure (and ill health) by restricting their calories excessively, only eating one or two meals a day (along with skipping breakfast), eating lots of overly processed “diet” foods, and eating too many carbs and too few nutrients.

All of these factors will only make your weight loss efforts unnecessarily harder than they need to be.

So, how can you maximize the effectiveness of your diet and exercise? Turn your body into a fat burning machine.

The first step you need to take to push your body into fat burning mode is to eat only (or mostly) whole foods.

Forget TV dinners, prepackaged crackers, cookies, store bought bread, jarred sauces. These foods generally just set your entire body out of tune whether it be from their unnecessary additives or their overly refined nature. Plus, these foods are expensive, so cutting them out might just save you some money.

Are you struggling to achieve weight loss? Many people usually struggle to reach their desired body weight.

This is due to the reason that many of you may probably lack proper knowledge about how to lose weight in a healthy way.

When you lack proper knowledge about how to lose weight effectively, you’ll definitely accomplish disappointing results.

To avoid all those disappointing results and frustration in your life, try to learn more about weight loss facts and effective ways to lose weight permanently.

Realize the effect of weight on your personal life!

Did you ever think how weight affects your life, other than your appearance? Apart from your physical appearance, your body weight can affect you in many ways such as your self-esteem, overall quality of your life, depression and also various health risks. Even, your physical abilities are also influenced by your weight.

Don’t starve, as it will slow down your body metabolism!

Many of you think that you can merely cut back your calories by simply starving throughout the day. This is really a very bad idea to lose excess weight of your body.