Sunday, January 8, 2012

Popular Diets - The Diet Food List Model

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Diet food lists have been around for quite some time. Dieting is difficult because most people do not know what is healthy. They need some guidance as to what foods are beneficial for their body and what foods should be limited or outright avoided. That is why so many people steer toward diets that provide a very detailed list of diet foods.

Let's take a quick look at just three of the popular modern diets which take advantage of the food list model.

The South Beach Diet

While there is no one standard list of diet foods for this plan, there are approved foods which are kept on a list which is updated on a regular basis. There are different food lists for each phase of the plan, with the phase one list being the most restrictive. This initial phase is designed to detox the body of sugar and other unhealthy substances and give the follower a jump start toward their weight loss goals.

The diet list that goes with phase two of the plan is more lenient and is filled in largely by the follower themselves. They are able to add back in complex carbohydrates, doing it one at a time to determine how the body reacts to each addition. In this manner, an individualized diet list is created as they determine what gives them energy and what zaps their energy. Energy-inducing foods that make them feel good go on the approved list while the others are taken away.

The Atkins Diet

While there has been tons of criticism and debate over the Atkins Diet, it is another low carb plan that operates off of a diet food list. While there is an Induction stage that is very strict just like the South Beach Diet, the lists of food for the entire Atkins plan are stricter with carbohydrates.

This plan has worked for many people, but for others it has been heavily criticized. This may be because the types of foods offered on the approved food list tend to satisfy those who enjoy eating heavier meals with fatty meats and other sources of high protein foods. Unfortunately, that way of eating is not in line with many people's taste buds.

Fat Loss 4 Idiots

There are quite a few internet based diets, but this is one of the best. The plan makes use of a huge diet food list which is available online for plan participants, but it also provides a very unique menu generator that automatically creates meals and snacks from the approved diet food list. This makes it fast and easy to stick to the approved foods.

The addition of the menu generator takes the Fat Loss 4 Idiots plan to a new level. It makes dieting easier and increases the chances that more people will stick to the approved diet food list for a longer period of time.

The foods approved on this diet are extremely healthy and they are combined in ways that are satisfying and delicious, according to the follower's own taste buds. There are even ways to develop special diet menus with the generator, such as vegetarian meals.

There certainly are other diets out there that make use of the food list model to some extent, and they all have their strengths and weaknesses. Look into them and find something that works for you!

Lars Svenstrom

Diet Food - Aren't All Foods?

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Diet food has become a term used to describe foods specific to a particular diet(s). Pre-packaged foods with the diet plan's name on them have become a popular item. Food manufacturers, not wanting to miss out on a dollar, have joined in the game, also. "Diet" versions of most popular foods can be found on every grocery shelf. There are many forms of "diet" foods; such as "Low-fat", "Fat-free", "Sugar-free", "Low-Carb", "Low-calorie", or even "(Fill in your diet plan) Approved Food." So, what is a diet food really?

In reality, all foods are diet foods. Diet, by definition, is simply a way of eating. A person's diet is what they eat on a regular basis. Anthropologists use diet patterns to study people around the world. A vegetarian diet means consuming no meats. One who eats only seafood would be on a seafood diet (no not the classic; See Food diet.). A person eating only foods commonly found in the Mediterranean area would be on a Mediterranean diet. Someone who only consumed liquids would be on a liquid diet. Foods become a tool when they are used to manipulate the body's responses, such as weight loss.

Most low calorie foods today are processed food substitutes, often synthetic, making the food low-fat or fat-free, sugar-free, wheat- or gluten-free, or free of some other product deemed unhealthy by someone. Some diet foods are exactly like their non-diet counterparts with a simple substitution to lower the calorie and sugar content. A classic example is the use of artificial sweeteners in diet sodas. Another common substitution is the use of sugar and other sweeteners to improve the flavor in fat-free and low-fat foods. This leads to foods packed with empty calories (and often not much less than the original) but with less fat.

Many diet food companies use common tricks and sleight of hand to entice buyers to pick their product. Cutting portion size to reduce caloric content per serving is a common practice. An even sneakier approach used by some is the changing of the serving size on the package. This one gets a lot of people. A fat-free food package might list the serving size at 2 pieces equaling 20 calories while the regular version of the food lists 10 crackers as a serving for 100 calories. In this scenario, each unit only has ten calories but the lower serving size decreases the calorie content per serving so that it can be called a diet food. It is essential to read nutritional labels, don't just trust the big "Fat-Free" or "Low Calorie" on the front of the package. Low fat and fat free foods are lower in fat but may contain more calories because of the added sugar. A big deception for many is the "No Sugar Added" claim. This claim leads many to believe that this is a low sugar food. However, sugar itself can claim "No Sugar Added" because extra sugar was not added in the processing, but it is surely high in sugar.

Natural, whole foods make the best diet food. They can be incorporated into a diet easily and have plenty of essential vitamins and minerals. Diet food includes; fresh, tasty vegetables and fruits, lean cuts of meat and eggs, whole grain flour and oats, and other fibrous foods. The grocery store is full of diet foods that can be bought inexpensively. A food becomes a diet food once it is used in your diet plan. If a ten broccoli heads are called for in a diet, then broccoli becomes a diet food. The best diet foods are natural whole foods that the body must process and use as it was intended.

The '7 Day Kick Start Diet' is a free diet plan that will help you kick start your weight loss. If you just got to lose a few pounds or if you have dozens of pounds to lose doesn't matter. This is a great way to initiate your weight loss in the most effective and healthy way.

Jennifer Olsen

Diet Tips For Women - Healthy Ways to Lose Weight

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The following diet tips for women should enable you to find healthy ways to lose weight.

1) Eat breakfast: So many women rush out of the house each morning, having consumed nothing more than a coffee, not realizing their body needs some fuel to start the day. An hour later, they might be starving and grabbing a doughnut or something equally inappropriate (like a bar of chocolate) that's just loaded in fat and sugar. Get up 10 minutes earlier if you have to but make sure you kick-start your metabolism with a bowl of cereal and fruit, or maybe some peanut butter on toast. You'll feel much better for it.

2) Cut the coffee: Coffee is great - in moderation. It's even been linked with stimulating the brain. But drink too much of it and you'll become dehydrated - not to mention be loading up on calories if you take your java with sugar and/or cream. Tea falls into the same category, though some herbal teas are great. Instead of coffee and tea, drink more natural juice (no sugar added) and water. And a glass of skimmed milk is great for a daily calcium shot to keep your bones and teeth in great shape - particularly important as women age and face the increased risk of osteoporosis.

3) Eat less meat: You don't have to cut out meat altogether, but reducing your cholesterol-loaded red meat intake is a good idea. Eat more fish - which is loaded with heart-friendly Omega 3 - and switch to easier-to-digest chicken. If you have fiber-rich pasta with your meals you'll find you need far smaller portions of meat.

4) Speaking of fiber: Load your plate with fiber-rich vegetables, which are fat-free and also full of nutritious minerals and vitamins. Eat salad whenever you can.

5) Get fruity: Eat more fruit - even include an apple or some grapes with breakfast. Fruit is great for boosting your Vitamin C levels. Remember, the body needs new Vitamin C every day because it's the one vitamin the body can't store. Vitamin C keeps your skin looking fresh and promotes swift healing of cuts and bruises.

6) Don't forget iron: Women of childbearing age need more iron to replenish the loss during their monthly cycle. While meat is a good source, it has the negative of containing fat and cholesterol. Instead, consume wholegrains, green leafy vegetables, nuts, seeds, lentils, chickpeas, beans (including canned baked beans) - and eat them with a vitamin C drink, which helps iron absorption.

7) Move it: Try and take some daily exercise to burn calories. Going to a gym or swimming pool is great, but if you can't afford it or are too busy, walk whenever you can - even if it is just around the mall in winter. In summer there's no excuse - get out and move!

8) Avoid diet pills and "miracle" weight loss supplements: I could make a fortune promoting this junk, but the truth is the only thing that should be going into your mouth is good, nutritious food.

9) Be patient It doesn't matter if you want to lose 10 pounds or 100: excess weight builds slowly over time and it's not going to disappear overnight. If you are grossly overweight or obese, you might indeed see some initial rapid weight loss, but it will taper off. The best diet plans have you losing a steady 1-2 pounds a week.

10) Be realistic The digitally enhanced images you see in magazines and the fabulous, perfectly proportioned bodies in the movies are pure fantasy. Do not aspire to be stick thin - it is not healthy! Instead, be the healthiest you can be and the weight will take care of itself.

Andy G Cooper

Beauty Tips for Active Women

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All women would like to appear beautiful and healthy at the same time. However, for active women finding the spare time to keep up their appearance and health can be a challenge. Especially for those who wish to balance their career and family life at the same time. Those 24 hours they have each day never seem enough to juggle between work and home. However, things do not have to stay that way. Staying fit and beautiful simultaneously is absolutely doable for active women everywhere.

To help you get started try the follow tips:

- A good haircut is worth its price a hundred times over. An easy, low maintenance haircut can make life so much easier for active women. Ladies, say 'no' to the permanent ponytail! An occasional ponytail done right is acceptable, but the permanent ponytail is a fashion disaster. Getting a good cut that you can manage with ease and still look fashionable is important.

- Not wearing makeup today? Put on a little lipstick or lip-gloss. Lip color gives your face a finished look even on the most makeup free days.

- If you are an active woman you probably don't have the time to shop for all the latest fashions trends. Busy women should stick to classic clothing choices. You can still look trendy, but a lot more pulled together. The woman on the go should also invest in a good pair of active wear shoes with the proper support.

- Short exercises, 5 to 10 minutes a day, can help a lot. If your office is not on the 100th floor take the stairs instead of the elevators. When you're at work spend about 5 minutes for a light stretching exercise. You don't have to be ashamed if others are watching you stretch. A lot of people unconsciously do stretching exercises when they're stuck on something difficult on the job.

Take a look around your office if you don't believe me.

- Make your lunch instead of eating out. Eating at restaurants is certainly easier than making your own food, but you need to think years ahead. Most restaurants do not care about balanced diet buy you should. By preparing your own lunch you can make healthier meal and save money at the same time.

- Facial massage. There are many online resources that demonstrate you how to give oneself a nice facial massage. Massaging your face is really good to prevent wrinkles and it is easy to do. Therefore, when you're stuck in a traffic jam, instead of spending time cursing, you can use it to massage your face. Facial massage also has additional advantage; it is a method for de-stressing.

- Stay hydrated. If your body lacks even 10% of water you will find it harder to concentrate, your skin will feel dry and you will feel sleepy. Drinking water is probably the easiest and the best beauty tip for active women. It is so easy to gulp down water but the effect is wondrous. Make it a habit to drink at least eight portions of water every day. Do not overdo it because you will gain no extra advantage from it.

Beauty is definitely a combination of looking good and feeling great. If you follow these beauty tips, which include makeup tips and exercise tips you should feel and look better while maintaining your active woman lifestyle.

Joel Gray

Diet Tips for Busy Women

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Do you want to lose weight but just flat out don't have the time? You might work a full time job which keeps you on your toes from dawn to dusk... or maybe you are a stay at home Mom working 24/7. So how can you possibly lose weight with so much to do and endless distractions?

Diet tips for busy women can be the difference between staying on a diet program, or failing and feeling miserable about it.

Diet tips for busy women:

o Prepare meals ahead of time and have them ready to pop in the oven or microwave, OR have diet meals delivered directly to your door.

o Make double or triple batches of food. I never make a meatloaf, soup, taco filling, etc. without doubling the recipe and putting the other half in the freezer.

o Buy lots of fruit and when you arrive home from shopping, go ahead and wash it and divvy it up in containers for quick, healthy snacks.

o Begin your day with a big breakfast so you aren't tempted to sneak a doughnut or sugary snack mid morning..

o Include a source of lean protein at every meal to keep your energy up. Chicken breast, low-fat cottage cheese, extra lean meats, and egg whites are all excellent sources.

o Add fiber to your diet to help you feel full longer so you don't want to eat as much. Added benefit - fiber is often low in calories. 3-5 servings of fruits or veggies are a perfect source.

o Include stress-combating foods that will aid your immune system; garlic, celery, almonds and sunflower seeds, and Vitamins A, C, E, the B complex, calcium, magnesium, zinc and selenium are indispensable in the diet of busy women.

o Drink lots of water; ideally about two liters of water daily.

Along with diet tips, exercise is essential no matter how busy a woman you are.

o Try doing 2 minute mini sessions throughout the day including squats, lunges, running in place..

o Take the stairs when possible

o Park your car a longer distance so you can walk a little further than necessary.

If you really don't have time to cook but are serious about losing weight, have diet meals delivered to you at Diet-Delivered.com.

Dee is passionate about family, health and living a life of excellence..

Are you too busy to cook? Want to lose weight?

Get Healthy Meals delivered right to your door.

Dee Bauer

Easy Diets - Not a Fake

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Their are hundreds, maybe a few thousand easy diets available. You can find more than 260,000 entries in Google's search engine if you type in the keyword phrase "easy diets". They are often crap if you are looking for easy diets.

Many individuals are trying to diet while improving the quality of their diets for better health. A great diet is one that will be a blueprint for you, to last a lifetime. If your wish is to find an easy diet that works for you, then you will have to do some homework to find something that is the right fit for you. Or you go to information sites with reviews included! The Sites are given.

There are several online resources that offer information about dieting and maintaining a healthy body. Using the right combination of nutrients and the right proteins, carbohydrates and fats will go a long way in losing excess weight, maybe easy diets sites or something.

To lose weight and keep the weight off, you will be required to make some changes in the way you have been eating. You must reduce your caloric intake and burn the calories that you take in. You must work off these calories by causing your body's metabolism to jump up a few notches.

Some easy diets, with the proper combination of foods, will boost your body's metabolism, yet you still must work off some of the calories and help jump start the metabolism by exercise.

Pay attention to the "Big 3". Chose lower fat foods, eat more vegetables and start reading the labels of the foods you buy at the market. Learn what the labels say. These labels have all of the nutritional information you need to know in order to make buying decisions that are based on what is right for you to eat. This could help to make easy diets.The easiest diets you really need to follow are the ones that work for you and give you the proper nutrients your body needs. With that said, you will need to learn what foods work in harmony to help you lose weight.

There are many easy diet recipes online that you can try. Look them over and try a few. There are also many different diet programs that promise to be easy. Some of these easy diets might help you lose weight, yet they will not be giving your body what it needs to sustain itself at a healthy level.

By taking some time to understand how the body burns fat and maintains at a healthy level, you will be in a position to look at easy diets and discern if this is going to be a healthy diet for you to follow.

Dietary studies have shown that the easiest diets to follow are those that have a combination of several different food groups that do not drastically eliminate the foods you love. It is the reduction of the empty calories and the fatty foods that help to eliminate body fat.

The easiest diets that do not work very well are the "spot diets". It is the fad diets, usually used for a week or two that help you lose weight quickly. These types of diets do not usually pay attention to what nutrients are being depleted in the body. Some of these quick and easy diets can be dangerous to your health, so easy diets could be dangerous but easy diets maybe good for your mind to start weight loss.

Mirko Van Anken

Fruit Smoothie Recipes: Healthy Smoothies for Diabetics

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You may think that smoothies are sweet concoctions that diabetics should avoid at all cost, and you would be wrong. Even if you have diabetes, you can still enjoy all the benefits of a healthy smoothie. You'll find many diabetic-friendly smoothie recipes that are low in carbohydrates and fats yet high in vitamins, minerals and proteins. Be sure to use whole fruits to get the maximum benefits out of healthy smoothies for diabetics.

We have a number of smoothie recipes below that call for fruits. These recipes are diabetic-friendly for the following reasons:

They do not include refined sugar
These recipes use fresh or frozen whole fruits. Fruits are high in dietary fiber and they contain complex carbohydrates.
Some smoothie recipes contain flax seed or wheat germ. These super foods help keep blood sugar at normal levels.
These smoothies are low-calorie and low in carbohydrates. Diabetics and non-diabetics alike can enjoy these healthy smoothies.

To enjoy the following recipes, combine all ingredients in a blender. Blend until smooth. Serve and enjoy!

Strawberry & Banana Breakfast Smoothie: