A Quick Look at Some of Today’s Most Effective Diets

The idiot-proof diet is all about calorie shifting. That is, in this diet, you shift your food intake throughout the day instead of eating just 3 meals a day. The diet is popular because it’s actually very easy to follow and there are hardly any restrictions when it comes to the types of food you can eat.

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The Idiot-Proof Diet

The idiot-proof diet is all about calorie shifting. That is, in this diet, you shift your food intake throughout the day instead of eating just 3 meals a day. The diet is popular because it’s actually very easy to follow and there are hardly any restrictions when it comes to the types of food you can eat.

The ‘calorie shifting’ model takes place because you eat every two and half hours. The theory is that because your body is consuming calories (energy) constantly throughout the day, it’s always in ‘burning calories’ mode instead of the ‘saving calories’ mode.

When you sign up for the diet, you get access to a diet handbook, an 11-day diet-plan and a diet calculator. You get to pick what foods you like to eat so don’t think that you’ll be tarving in this diet!

NutriSystem

The NutriSystem way of dieting is all about proper meal planning. People love this diet because it takes away the burden of trying to figure out what to eat during their dieting phase. You see, a lot of people actually get confused as to what they can eat when they want to lose weight. That’s not really surprising because there’s so much information out there and for every yay sayer, there is a nay sayer so it’s really tough to know what to eat.

However, with NurtiSystem, they do all the meal planning and portion controlling for you. You just need to sign up to any of their diet programs (e.g., Women’s Program, Men’s Program, Vegetarian Program, etc.) and order a multi-day (usually for 28 days) diet program.

After you choose your diet program, a menu is presented to you and you simply choose what you want to eat. The meals are then delivered to your doorstep at various intervals during your diet program.

The South Beach Diet

The South Beach Diet is popular because the name alone conjures bikini-clad bodies! Add to that the fact that it was founded by a cardiologist, Dr. Arthur Agatston, then you have a sort of ‘doctor recommended, doctor approved’ seal on the diet as well.

At first glance, the South Beach Diet looks a lot like the Atkins Diet in the sense that it restricts carbohydrates during the initial phase of the program (there are 3 phases). The first phase (14 days) encourages ‘normal eating’ in the sense that you can pretty much eat whatever you want but you must NOT eat bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, or baked goods. Fruit is also not allowed. No sugar. No alcohol.

The second phase allows you to SLOWLY introduce these items back into your diet but at lesser levels that you consumed them before of course. The third phase is more about general maintenance.

Weight Watchers

Probably one of the longest running diet programs out there is Weight Watchers. It believes in the overall approach where food, exercise, behavior and support are addressed.

Weight Watchers is known for advocating a point system for foods. Using this system, one calculates the calorie intake of the foods he or she eats. The number of points you can have in a day varies depending on your weight. The beauty of the program is that there are no gut-wrenching food restrictions so you never feel deprived of anything. However, the point system teaches you how to balance your meals so that even if you indulge on one food item, you don’t go overboard and consume too much in a day.

How to manage Bland Diet

What is a bland diet? It is a diet specially set to treat certain gastrointestinal or stomach problems such as heartburns, ulcers and gas.

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An answer to a question, what is a bland diet, is that it is a simple treatment for people suffering from any one or more gastrointestinal disorders such as chronic gastritis, ulcer, esophagitis and dyspepsia.

Bland diet is a dietary regimen for people suffering from stomach disorders. Hence, it is quite understood that ingredients of a bland diet are soft food items, which are easy to digest with a capacity to keep the acidity to low levels. Questions about diet may be asked to your physicians and he/she can suggest the diet or recommend a dietician to do it.

Diet medical questions may include the queries about the food stuffs to eat and food stuffs to avoid during the time while a person experien ces any gastrointestinal disorders. However, before a dietician could decide the bland diet for a person, he/she needs to seek answers to several medical questions related to the person such as any food allergies or irritations associated with any food items and emotions medical questions of people.

Bland Diet:

The diet prescribed as a bland diet will include food items that are easy to digest and low in fiber and acid contents. Even giving up alcohol and smoking is advised while patient is on bland diet. Also a patient is advised to have 4 to 6 light meals after regular interval to avoid heavy and large meals.

Chewing food properly and eating slowly helps in the digestion of the food. Adequate sleep, avoiding smoking and controlling anxiety are supportive treatments for the standard treatment of the problem.

Allowed Food Items:

• Dairy Products
Milk, cheese, yogurt with low-fats and other dairy products are easily digested and hence, can be included as a part of bland diet. However, there is no restriction on ice-creams and one may consume even ice creams during bland diet, but it should not have any product such as nuts that are not allowed in bland diet.

• Fresh Fruits and Vegetables
Fresh vegetables and fruits are allowed to a bland dieter. However, while carrot, squash, green peas are good to eat in a bland diet, broccoli, onions and green peeper should be avoided as it forms gas. In fruits, oranges, grapefruits, and bananas are allowed.

• Proteins
Protein requirement of the body, while on a bland diet should be met with soy products and meat. Fried chicken and greasy hamburgers are not allowed to be consumed, while grilled and baked chicken is allowed.
Low-fat peanut butter and eggs are also efficient to meet the body’s protein requirement in a bland diet.

• Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are contained in whole grain breads, pasta, oatmeal, corn flakes, white rice and sweet potatoes. All these food items are allowed.

Bland diet is designed for treating certain medical circumstances such as gastrointestinal problems. Hence, to answer what is a bland diet, we can say that this is a diet that aims at improving the digestion with the help of a timed-routine diet and soft to digest food items. Once the problem is controlled patients can return to their normal diet.

Winning Your Weight Loss War For A Lifetime

Are you fighting the uphill battle of weight loss? Stuck with not knowing who or what to listen to anymore? One person tells you one thing, the next tells you do the exact opposite.

Who should you believe?

There are so many weight loss diets and plans out there that it’s growing increasingly harder to decide what actually works and what isn’t even worth wasting your time on.

You’ve gotta know that all of these “miracle” weight loss diets and plans are not what they claim to be, simply because if they all did exactly what they promised to, there wouldn’t be a single obese or overweight person left on earth!

The reason so many useless weight loss diets and plans are still around is because most of the useless ones promise INSTANT weight loss.

Now, tell me who is going to pass up at least trying something like that?

Us humans can be mighty lazy at times and wanting everything to be instantaneous is one of our chief bad habits.

We want our meals prepared instantly at restaurants, we demand web pages to load instantly or we’ll just close them, and we also desperately want instant weight loss.

You suspect in the back of your mind of course, that this is impossible, but still you can’t help being sucked in by those oh so tempting promises of instant gratification.

“Maybe this one will be different.” You tell yourself “It has to be.”

But the honest, and yes painful, truth is that weight loss is NEVER instantaneous. You can’t just pop some magic pill, go to sleep, and wake up 50 pounds slimmer.

YOUR BODY DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY!

Once your body has stored a certain amount of fat, it’s going to want to hold on to it (for dear life it sometimes seems).

What you need to do is force your body to be more willing to burn up that fat, by revving up your metabolism.

You also need to make sure you’re doing all the right things to accomplish this revving up. There are too many ways to rev your metabolism for me to go into them all here, but I’ll give you a short list of some TRULY KEY things you can do to rev your metabolism until it’s roaring along like the ocean surf.

1. Do NOT Skip Meals.

Never, never, never skip a meal if you truly want to rev up your metabolism. If your body thinks you are starving it will actually slow your metabolism down (causing you to burn fat much slower) in an attempt to “keep you alive.”

Maybe you don’t always have time for meals. Okay, I understand that. Just grab something easy, but nutritious and filling in place of a meal (nuts, fresh fruits & veggies can be quick fixes when you’re on the go).

2. Live A Spicier Life

Eating spicy foods can dramatically speed up your metabolism. Try making a jalapeno salsa that you can use on sandwiches or salads. Chopped jalapenos also make a great addition to almost any meat, egg or vegetable dish.

3. Enjoy The Air And Your Favorite Game

Breathing deeply while exercising is also very important for giving your metabolism that extra little “push” it needs. You should do some form of exercise every day, for at least 20 minutes that will cause you to breathe deeply, get your heart racing, and make you break a sweat.

This doesn’t have to be painful, do something you already love. Play your favorite “game” or sport. Go biking, skating, swimming, etc. The possibilities are really endless.

Exercise doesn’t need to be boring, what it needs to be is something you truly love doing and will be sure to find the time for at least 5 days out of every week. Something you’ll actually LOOK FORWARD TO.

Do yourself a favor, get your metabolism raring so that you can stop worrying about your weight and start enjoying life.