Browsing all articles tagged with diets
Nov
1

Losing Weight: Overcome Five Psychological Factors Causing Your Belly Bulge

Anyone who has ever lost weight will tell you that the process is not easy. Many say that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions,” and in a similar way, the road to weight loss is paved with chocolate fences and mountains of candy.

That being said, most of us realize that to lose weight, we need to perform some manner of exercise, eat a balanced diet, and somehow manage to sustain this new lifestyle. Almost all of us seasoned dieters start out with the best of intentions, only to be found facedown in a plate of syrupy pancakes a few days later. Why is this? Are there psychological factors that may be hampering our attempts to shed our wobbly rolls?

Here is an overview of the top five psychological factors which may be hindering your diet attempts, as well as some advice as to how you can overcome them:

The Failure Factor

Especially if you feel like you have been on and off the diet wagon several times, you might be stuck in an emotional cycle of failure. You failed on your last diet, you actually gained weight on the diet before, and so you pretty much know that it is only a matter of time before this new diet fails, right? Wrong! This is a new day and a new diet. Your previous failures are in no way related to this current attempt. Ensure that you have written down a list of goals to remind yourself of why losing weight is so important to you. This way, if you find yourself straying from the balanced diet trail, you will have added motivation to continue.

The Comfort Eating Factor

Most of us have at one time or another come home from a bad day of the office, and raided the refrigerator to find some solace. If you are constantly medicating your mind with food, your balanced diet is unlikely to work. Try to find other ways of relieving stress, like exercise, reading, relaxation, or journaling, to take the emotional emphasis away from your food.

The Depression Factor

If you find yourself feeling low, sad, or depressed most of the time, these feelings could be preventing your diet and exercise regime from working optimally. Perhaps you feel too tired to exercise, or maybe you find yourself lacking the energy required to prepare healthy, balanced meals. Depression is a serious illness, and it is very important to seek help and treatment from a health professional.

The Binge Factor

One of the major problems with fad diets, or unsustainable diets, is that they make you feel horrible. After a few days or cabbage soup and celery sticks, you might find yourself binging on every unhealthy food source you can find. The main thing you can do here is to ensure that you have done some research prior to beginning the diet. If the plan involves cutting out a food group or replacing one food group with another, the chances are that this won’t work for you. Choose a well-balanced diet founded on a good nutritional premise, and put the binge factor to bed for good.

The Stress Factor

Stress is at best unhealthy for our bodies, and at worst terrible for our weight! Stress raises our cortisol levels, which essentially means that we end up storing fat much deeper in our bodies than we might suspect. Reducing stress means that we reduce sugar cravings, depression, or binge cycles. Try relaxation, yoga, meditation, or deep breathing exercises to alleviate stressful feelings.

Losing weight is not as simple as just the diet and exercise. Take steps towards eliminating psychological factors, and you will find that your mind and body feel lighter and happier!

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Oct
10

Get Trim Fast – The Right Way

You might be wondering how you’ll ever going to fit into that wedding dress or tryout for the sports team if you don’t get trim fast. The answer to your dilemma is really simple – discipline. There might be countless weight loss programs out there, but if you can’t stick to one program then you’ll never get trim fast. Here are some tips to make you slimmer in no time at all.

How do I know what food I should and shouldn’t eat?

While it is true that you need to eat in smaller amounts to get trim quickly, you also have to remember that watching out on the foods you eat is also of equal importance. Since our diet consists mainly of carbohydrates, you must take into consideration its source – is it a good or bad source? Examples of bad sources of carbohydrates are those foods that are sweetened like candy, pies, donuts, and white bread. It would be a great idea to substitute these foods with complex carbohydrates, like oatmeal. In brief, you should hold back on the sugar if you want to get trim fast.

You should keep in mind that not all calories in foods are the same. The calories that are found in French fries are not necessarily the same with the calories found in lean meat. The difference is that French fries are a bad source for your caloric needs – it makes you even fatter and contributes to countless health problems. The calories in lean meat, however, can be converted into energy by our bodies. That’s how important it is to distinguish the source of calories in foods that we eat – good choices will help you get trim quicker.

Also, drinking adequate amounts of water is a great way to make you slimmer. Sometimes, a simple case of thirstiness might be mistaken for hunger – all you really need is a glass of water. So, if you want to get trim fast, drinking a glass of water helps compensate the amount of food you take in at each meal. In this way, it’ll help in appetite suppression and get you that slimmer built that you always wanted.

A good technique to help you identify the proper amount of water you should drink is to divide your weight (pounds) by 2. For example, your weight is 200 pounds; by dividing this by 2 you’ll get an answer of 100. 100 is the number of ounces of water you should drink – about 12 glasses. Just remember to drink enough amounts of water to help you get trim in a hurry.

How much time should I allocate for exercising?

It is often advised that a person should at least spend 30 minutes of exercise every day. But, if you want to get trim fast, you should double the amount of time you spend to exercise. Some studies show that overweight people who spend as much as an hour each day for five days a week to exercise were able to attain (and maintain) a slimmer built by 10% of their body weights. But those people who spend less than the usual amount of time exercising found themselves having a rough time continuing to any measures of weight loss.

This tells you that a simple use of the stairs instead of the elevator or walking to a convenience store doesn’t entirely get you as trim as you want. Unless you really exert effort on activities that would make you sweat a lot, there would be greater chance to lose that extra weight. You really don’t need to go to the gym – jogging or brisk walking in your neighborhood would be sufficient to some people to get trim more quickly.

Should there be other things I need to know?

Sufficient amounts of sleep should be part of your weight loss regimen. Since lack of sleep could get you cranky and exhausted the entire day, there would be more tendencies for you to eat more. You need to establish a lifestyle that would accommodate enough sleeping hours; so that you’ll be energetic the next day. Before you know it, you’ll have that slimmer figure you always dreamt of.

Find out more about this subject at http://www.stripthatfat.com/

Sep
24

Hoodia Diet

Currently one of the most publicized forms of natural weight loss products in America, the hoodia diet has been hailed by some as a miracle weight loss program. With features on major news networks such as CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, and BBC it has become one of the most talked about new diet programs. Even Oprah has shown support on her “O” Magazine. For the most part it has received positive reviews and is now in higher demand than ever before.

What is Hoodia?

Hoodia gordonii, also known as hoodia, xhooba, khoba, Ghaap, South African desert cactus, is a rare botanical that grows exclusively in the semi-deserts of South Africa. A cactus like plant, it grows in clumps of upright stems is considered a succulent and not a cactus. It can take approximately 5 years before the plant produces its pale-purple flowers and is ready for harvest. While there are over 20 types of hoodia, only the hoodia gordonii variety is believed to have appetite-suppressing properties.

How Does It Work?

Used by the San Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert for numerous years to ward of hunger and thirst during hunting trips, hoodia has only recently been recognized in the United States and Europe as an effective dietary supplement.

Scientists have found several compounds in the plant that helps with appetite suppression. It contains a steroidal glycoside molecule known as P57 that is 10,000 times as active as glucose, resulting in the nerve cells in the mid-brain trigging the feeling of fullness. Simply put, the compounds in the plant trick your body into believing it is full.

Hoodia in the Marketplace

A mainstay of all hoodia diet programs, Hoodia supplements can be purchased in various forms including pills and liquid extracts. These supplements may be noted as having pure hoodia or the hoodia may be only part of the complete makeup of the supplement. These supplements can be purchased from representatives of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) certified manufacturers. Check your local drug store or check out hoodia products available on the Internet.

Keeping it Real

Due to the rarity of the plant and its limited growing area, fakes and counterfeits as well as diluted hoodia products are running rampant in the marketplace. Real hoodia is very rare, controlled and expensive. The South African government has strictly regulated exportation of hoodia to the rest of the world. Hoodia is a CITES – an international agreement between countries to protect and regulate international trade of animals and plants – making it impossible for all the products advertising themselves as a hoodia supplement to be, in fact, real. Studies have shown that as many as 50% of hoodia products contain little or no hoodia at all.

Is Hoodia For You?

If you want a low to no risk dietary supplement the hoodia diet could be for you. But due to strict guidelines and growing restrictions, hoodia is not as available as it seems and can be quite expensive. And be sure to keep in mind that what you see may not be always be what you get – just because it says hoodia that does not mean that it is hoodia. Shop for reputation as well as product to help guarantee you are getting what you paid for.

Sep
9

Basics of the Perricone Diet

The focus of the Perricone diet i.e. the diet plan set by renowned dermatologist Dr. Nicholas Perricone is on looking younger and increasing longevity rather than on bringing about weight loss. These are a host of benefits that such diet plan provides. Here are the commonly observed gains reaped by resorting to the diet plan-

 

  • Decreasing of inflammation in all organ systems of the body.
  • Improving body metabolism.
  • Improving the heart condition and making it resistant to diseases.
  • Improving bone density.
  • Bringing about a rejuvenation of the immune system.
  • Decreasing the risk of cancer.
  • Helping in repairing the skin.
  • Helping to bring weight loss.

These are significant health benefits indeed and these account for the popularity of the diet plan the world over. People following it have been acclaiming the Perricone diet plan and have been recommending it to others too.

 

The Perricone diet plan basics

 

The Perricone diet is set based on Dr. Nicholas Perricone’s Inflammation Theory of Aging that points out that the food that is eaten by us leads to inflammations being caused and it is this inflammation that leads to aging. Just as in case of other fad diets there is a ‘villain’ in case of Perricone diet too. The ‘villain’ or ‘culprit’ that is to be dealt with/combated by the Perricone diet is inflammation.

 

Inflammations or the swellings are the causative factors of wrinkles, acne and other skin problems. These are the causes of a number of other medical problems too. The root cause of the inflammations or swellings lies in taking in the wrong foods. It is the bad or wrong choices of foods that are directly responsible for the wrinkles, degenerative diseases etc. as also of the hastening of the aging process.

 

According to Dr. Nicholas Perricone, by adhering to the diet schedule as set by him- following his diet and regimen of supplements and lotions the process of aging can actually be reversed. The Perricone diet assures to make anyone look younger within a time period of even just three days.

 

It must be remembered that the Perricone diet is a costly diet and requires strict adherence. The diet classifies inflammatory foods as the ones that include high carbohydrate and high glycerin items. Bread, pasta and sugar or sugar containing foods are some common inflammatory foods. As per the diet plan such foods ought to be totally excluded from the diet for a continuous period of 28 days and in their place anti inflammatory food items like salmon, avocado, berries etc. are to be taken in. This will ensure better health and will benefit the skin too. So, a healthier and more attractive body and skin is what is achieved by having recourse to the Perricone diet.

 

Some Perricone diet suggestions seem sensible and rest on accepted scientific bases while others may seem not explanatory enough. However, though the diet is unproven to a large extent yet its benefits being apparent qualifies it as a worthy diet plan to follow.  

 

Sep
8

Revealed – Why Diets Fail

If you’re anything like me, you’ve no doubt tried pretty much every diet out there but with little or no success. What is it with diets that simply don’t work? Many individuals believe the myth that eating less will help with weight loss. What really happens is when we eat a lot less than we need we could actually gain weight instead of losing it. We are designed to read restricted food intake with starvation. By regularly cutting down what we eat we trigger our body’s starvation preservation mode.

Studies show that thin people tend to eat foods that are made up from more complex carbohydrates (such as veggies, wholegrains etc) and most people who are overweight consume diets that are high in fat. Being able to interpret what these studies tell us about which factors contribute to weight loss is crucial when creating a weight loss program. One of the best ways to lose weight fast is to adopt a low carb diet where you restrict the total amount of carbohydrates you consume in a day, but are not too concerned about the other foods. You still need to make sure you don’t overeat, by keeping your portion sizes down, and ensuring you get a good combination of healthy nutritious foods which should also be low in saturated fats.

The weight gain is largely a factor of lifestyle and eating habits and our weight increase didn’t happen over night but rather over a period of months or even years. As it took so long for the weight to creep up, you should allow some time to get back to your normal weight. People who don’t understand the balance between a healthy diet, drinking adequate water, exercising and getting proper amounts of sleep are easy prey to the marketing companies pushing the current fad diet, lose weight pill or quick weight loss tips. You don’t need to look far to find the latest fad diet or weight loss program. As we live in a world where we want everything now, it is easier to believe that there is a magic pill, drink, or program that can take the excess weight off quickly, than to accept that we have power to re-structure our lives and have a much better life where being overweight is behind us in the past.

Most diets simply don’t work because they do not teach you to build a balance within your body. Most diets fail because they are designed towards making someone or some company money rather than producing a weight loss plan or system that will genuinely encourage an individual to lose weight.

We hear everywhere that those who are obese are prone to illnesses and other life shortening health issues owing to obesity. Eating high levels of saturated fat is one of the major reasons for excess body fat.

People have been taught for far too long that they need to drastically reduce their food intake or watch every last calorie in the hope that they will burn off excess fat. The truth of the matter is that our bodies know how to manage weight assuming that we give our bodies what they need to stay healthy – such as proper amounts of sleep, drink enough water, eat healthy and nutritious foods, and daily physical activity.

Getting rid of those extra pounds is not simply about counting calories, you should also not overeat. Moderate portions of wholesome foods are crucial to losing weight. Equally important to losing weight is to keep physically active. Our bodies were made to move!