With so many different kinds of weight loss diets on the menu these
days, it's no wonder that people get confused and end up doing none of
them. What people need is a simple way to lose that excess weight that
cuts through all the hassle of counting calories or points, balancing
the nutritional value or meting out portion control for every meal.
While more complex diets will suit some people, they are largely
overlooked by the majority of would-be dieters, so what is the easy
solution?
Actually, there are several good and simple diet solutions that take
almost no calculating or time sapping yet they do the job they are
designed to do, which is to help dieters to lose weight! You know them
as the diet food delivery programs that are on sale by companies such as
Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, Medifast, eDiets and the like. They all do
something that is really helpful to dieters, especially those that lead
busy lives and don't have very much spare time to devote to other kinds
of more conventional diet. That something is to provide all the food a
dieter will need to eat for a specified period of time and delivery it
to their home.
You can read about these diet programs and how they differ slightly from
one another in the many review type websites that can be found online.
There are many very good reviews
of Nutrisystem, Medifast, Jenny Craig, Bistro MD, eDiets, Diet-2-Go
and other smaller but similar setups that can really make a difference
to your weight loss plans. To find out which of these might best suit
your needs, simply read about them and make a short list of the best of
them that fit in with your own personal preferences. Then research them
in more detail to find out all the advantages and disadvantages of each
until you come up with a clear winner that you feel will be best for you.
Once you have decided upon your chosen diet plan, it's simply a case of
placing your order and waiting for the shipment to arrive. When it does,
make sure you store all the food packages correctly according to the
instructions and then you can get started.
Getting started simply means taking each meal you need in the right
order and eating it. That, to be perfectly blunt, is about all you need
to do! Of course you can do more to help yourself and maximise your diet
by getting more active and doing some light exercise each day. You can
do this by getting out into the fresh air and walking more, making sure
you pick up your pace and make it a brisk walk to ramp up your
metabolism.
You can also boost the effectiveness of your diet by drinking lots of
water throughout the day, little by little. Try and aim for two pints
each day and avoid soda or diet soda as these things do not help you at
all, if anything hindering your weight loss plans to the point where
they can even derail a diet completely. So stick to plain water and
you'll be amazed at how much weight starts to drop off with your diet!
Categories:
diet
Permalink
Every day another bunch of people start a diet and every day a similar
number quit theirs for one reason or another. Either they were
successful and lost all the weight they wanted to lose and decided they
didn't need the diet any more, or they gave up because they weren't
losing weight fast enough or they simply got bored with it. Whatever the
reason, it just goes to prove that no one diet can be right for
everybody and out of every group of people, it takes different kinds of
diets to satisfy their needs.
There are regular diets that involve all the usual work that makes up
what people tend to think of as a proper weight loss diet. That is going
to a nutritionist and getting a personalized diet sheet, then going to
the store and buying all the ingredients. Then taking those ingredients
home and preparing and cooking the meals as per the diet sheet. This
happens every day for as long as the diet lasts. Or there is the more
convenient option of getting a diet food delivery company to do all the
hard work and having all the diet meals delivered to your home.
Depending on what your lifestyle is like and what your needs are, this
kind of diet can really fit in with what you are doing and be perfect
for your needs. Not everyone will be right for these convenience
diets, just like these diets will not be right for every person. But
if your needs are such that you don't have much spare time and don't
want to use what you do have to mess around with a conventional diet
system, then this kind of dieting can be the right thing for you.
Whatever is easiest, is usually best and whatever is best usually
produces the best results in the end!
Categories:
diet
Permalink
Welcome back to this healthy diet and lifestyle blog with a post that
will shock plenty of people who don't know that white bread is bad for
you! Well sure it is, when you think about it and what it is made from.
White bread, especially the innocent looking sliced loaf that you buy at
the store, is packed full of zero nutrition and empty calories that will
make you gain weight and store it on your belly. It'll also set you up
for a whole host of health problems if you eat too much of it. The
worrying fact is that most people in the West eat too much white bread
and they are damaging their health without even realizing it.
I'm sure you want to know why white bread is bad for you so here's the
scoop! White bread is made from refined white flour, just like our
friend white pasta that we visited in the last post. Refined white flour
as you will have gleaned from that post contains no useful nutrient,
having had them all removed in the refining process, which includes
bleaching the flour with chlorine based bleaching agents. Gluten is
added to help the loaf rise and achieve a more uniform shape, which fits
in with our increasing need to have perfect looking food from
supermarkets. You know, like tomatoes that are all big and red and
uniform in shape. Just like they grow naturally... NOT!
Well, that gluten is the cause for allergies in a huge number of people.
Many know about it but far more don't, then wonder why this or that
allergy shows up all the time.
But the worst part of eating too much white bread is that it
destabilizes your blood sugar levels, which can lead to type II diabetes
and loads it up with bad LDL cholesterol which narrows arteries,
increases blood pressure and can lead to strokes and heart disease. It
slows down your metabolism too, meaning you set yourself up for weight
gain. Just look at all the slim healthy people around you and chances
are they don't eat much (or any) white bread. Then look at all the
seriously overweight people munching on sandwiches made from white
bread...
As an extra health minus point, white bread is extremely unkind to your
digestive system and especially your colon because it contains
absolutely zero dietary fiber and clogs up your intestines, leading to
all sorts of knock-on health problems such as IBS, Crohne's disease,
constipation etc.
Naturally, the industry that makes $billions from the sale of white
bread is not going to come out and admit how unhealthy their product is.
Why would they? It would cost them money to do that. Far better to keep
it swept under the carpet and just let a few annoying bloggers write
about it because few people will actually take a blind bit of notice.
Don't expect government health officials to shout about it from the
rooftops either. They don't want this particular boat being rocked any
more than the tobacco industry wants anyone to believe that smoking is
bad for you. Which of course it patently cannot be, if you look around
at all the smokers there are still...
But that's a topic for whole bunch of posts later on down the line!
If you want to eat bread and still be healthy, switch to wholemeal and
toast your good health. Wholemeal bread contains all the goodness of the
whole wheat including the bran, which is high in dietary fiber and good
for your digestive system and kind to your colon. It tastes good too!
Categories:
diet
Permalink
The title of this post is pretty self explanatory in the sense that it
is a completely self contained statement of fact that has been born out
by countless scientific studies into the health effects of various food
items that have found their way into our modern diets in the West.
So why should you exclude white pasta from your diet to stay healthy?
The main reason to avoid white pasta in your diet is because it is made
from refined white flour, which in itself contains absolutely no
goodness whatsoever. It's like eating cardboard, but tastes marginally
better. But white its lack of nutrients wouldn't normally make it a bad
thing to eat, white pasta when used as the main staple bulking
ingredient of a meal, which is generally is, then the reasons for
cutting it out become evident.
First, like white bread, it contains a lot of high GI (glycemic index)
carbohydrates. These are the type of carbs that release sugars quickly
into the bloodstream, causing a rush of sugar and a reactive rush of
insulin release to counter it. Bad for diabetics and bad for weight gain
in the rest of us. What this does is make us feel full quickly, but then
makes us feel hungry again soon after, which is a leading cause of
weight gain.
It also raises levels of bad LDL cholesterol and because it is not
digested efficiently, it slows the metabolism and results in more fat
storage, with the emphasis on belly fat. Nice.
So there are plenty of reasons to exclude white pasta from your diet.
You can replace it with brown pasta, which is made from wholegrain flour
which is much better for you and a subject for a post all of its own
later. In fact the next post will cover that other staple that is all
refined white flour too... white bread. See you next time!
Categories:
diet
Permalink
The old ad slogan from many years ago that stated tea was the best drink
of the day was actually right on the nail when it comes to the many
health benefits that come with drinking tea. I'm not talking about green
tea here, but the favoured drink of the British (and plenty of other
nations besides, although they may not want to admit it), which is black
tea commonly taken with a little milk and even sugar! So what did our
grandmothers know that a whole generation seemed to forget, or at least
not notice?
Well, for starters, tea has always been associated with relaxing and of
all things this is probably the only aspect of tea that is not quite
accurate. That's because tea contains caffeine and lots of it. In actual
fact, ounce for ounce, or gram for gram depending upon where you live,
tea contains a lot more caffeine than coffee. The only reason that cup
of Java sends you into orbit and the tea doesn't is because tea is
brewed a lot weaker than coffee.
Black tea contains less nutrients and antioxidants than its green
cousin, but most of those present in green tea are also there in black
tea. In fact drinking three cups of black tea a day will bring all the
health benefits you'll get from one or two cups of green, depending upon
how you brew it and how big your cups are!
Why do we put milk in black tea?
The bitter taste you get from drinking black tea, well... black, comes
from substances called tannins. Tannins are not so good for you in large
amounts, but by adding milk to your cup, the enzymes in the milk break
down the tannins rendering them harmless. It also mellows the taste of
the brew which makes it much more palatable.
So why do we add sugar to tea?
If you want to be healthy, don't add sugar. It's purely a sweet tooth
thing and not necessary for improving the flavour of tea. In fact tea
tastes better without sugar, once your taste buds have adjusted to it.
It's true!
Is drinking too much tea harmful?
It can be harmful in large amounts; just as drinking too much coffee is
bad for you. Too much caffeine causes high blood pressure with increased
risk of strokes and coronary problems. It also makes you want to urinate
more often, which dehydrates the body. It can also disrupt sleep, so
it's always a good idea to avoid anything containing caffeine for a few
hours before going to bed.
The general rule of thumb is if you enjoy a cup of tea, then drink it!
If you like 4 or 5 cups a day, that's also ok but don't go too crazy and
you'll be fine!
Categories:
health
Permalink
I won't insult anyone's intelligence by going on about how much we need
water to live. Most of us are aware that when it comes to knowing how to
stay healthy, drinking plenty of water comes very high on the agenda.
But there is a serious question that we must ask ourselves each time we
go to take a drink of that life giving liquid. Is is really as safe to
drink as we think it is?
So how clean and healthy do you believe your drinking water is that
comes out of your tap?
Well, for most countries in the Western world it is surprisingly clean.
While it is recommended to drink plenty of plain water as part of a healthy
diet, it is not without a few additions that you might not like to
hear about. If you do, read on!
Most drinking water passed through a filtration system that takes out
most of the nasties, but depending upon where you live, there can be
more or less of the things you don't want in that water. I'm not going
to get country specific as they all differ to a greater or lesser
extent, but some things are common, such as the addition of chlorine to
kill harmful bacteria that gets through the filtration system. Mostly
chlorine is present but in low enough measures as not to present any
problems, but in some places that level is quite high, especially in
warmer climates where certain bacteria can multiply faster.
Then the chlorine itself can become a health problem and when mixed with
fluorine and certain other contaminates such as particulates of heavy
metals has been linked with the big C (cancer). There is also a growing
fear that the heavy use of those good old pesticides by over zealous
farmers is causing the residues to leach through the soil into the water
table. They and chemical fertilizer residues already pollute many
rivers, often those that act as many a city's source of drinking water.
So next time you take a glass of water from the tap and raise it to your
lips, bear in mind that while it is most often safe to drink, it's not
always as safe as you might like it to be...
Categories:
health
Permalink