Posts Tagged ‘Lose Weight’

Best Diets to Lose Weight

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

Dieting is sometimes synonymous with starving yourself for a substantial period during which you neither get your nutrients nor do you lose weight. In order to lose weight, you need to opt for diets which although reduce the calorie intake, the quantity is sufficient to avoid letting you feel hungry. Thus, whenever you are dieting, make sure you include lots of green leafy vegetables, fresh fruits and dietary fibers in order to increase the bulk of your meals without sufficient calorie increase.

Slim fast, a very well known diet plan, is based for those individuals who can not switch entirely to bland food stuff. This diet recommends a person to eat not only fruits and vegetables but also cottage cheese, meat, yogurt and even nuts. The person is supposed to increase the frequency of his meals to six times a day. The foodstuffs ensure that this diet meets all nutritional requirements of the body and is also high in calcium and proteins.

A very simple yet effective diet plan is the cabbage soup diet. This is based on consuming cabbage soup whenever hunger strikes. However, during this diet, one needs to refrain from any of the oily junk food stuffs.

Another diet plan which is used more so like an adjunct to other diet regimes is negative calorie diet. This works on the principle of consuming food, which has calorific values less than the energy spent in digesting them. Thus, there will always be a negative balance for the body thereby resulting in gradual depletion of the stored fat.

Lastly, the Sonoma diet also aims at making the life of those who want to lose weight, a little easier. This diet comprises of vegetables, which have high concentrations of anti oxidants, blueberries, spinach, almond oil and whole grains. For those who find even this combination unpalatable, try adding red wine to the list but make sure you don’t exceed a glass.

Losing weight was never an easy job. However, with such diet plans, at least it is relatively easier.

Eat Healthy to Lose Weight

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

At first sight, the above statement looks quite contrary to the usual belief. But to a great extent this is true. This contradicts the general belief that staying hungry and ‘dieting’ can give results, which no other plan of weight reduction can. As I proceed, I will explain how staying hungry can be quite harmful, not only for your physical self but also for your body organs.

At the outset, let me explain that the body classifies food products into mainly 3 components. They are carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Carbohydrates are mainly to provide instant energy and are stored in relatively less quantities in the liver. Fats on the other hand liberate more energy and hence are used for prolonged activities. These are stored at various sites. Besides being stored under the skin, they are also stored in the muscles and in the region of the organs such as liver. The subcutaneous fat, i.e. the fat under your skin is mobilized as fuel for your muscles.

Proteins are the third main group and are basically the building blocks of your body. These are utilized as fuel only during times when all other possible sources of energy have been exhausted.

Now that this aspect of your body functioning is clear, let us consider an individual who is starving himself or in other words, ‘dieting’ to lose the excess weight. By employing the knowledge of the body’s functions, we can safely assume that when the intake of food is reduced drastically, the body goes into a survival mode, if it may be called so, in order to preserve as much energy as it can. This is an adaptive mechanism, which we have learned during the process of evolution.

Thus, if you were to start dieting, your body would also begin to store up more of glycogen by decreasing your body functions and thus result in more weight gain. Thus, weight loss can only occur when you perform activities such as exercises over a long duration of time consistently.