Monday, August 10th, 2009 at
2:50 pm
When we were in schools, we had talks based on diet that was visually displayed as a daily food pyramid. Of course, at that age most of us do not even understand the benefits. We sort for the tasty burgers and fries with soft drinks. As we get older, that is when we understand about health. That is the usual case isn`t it. Even though we have the food pyramid chart as a guide, we would rather look at easy diets that work.
So why talk about daily food pyramid? Most of us are only exposed to one particular type of food pyramid chart. In fact, there are many charts created to suite someone`s diet. For example, if you are diagnosed with diabetes than you might have a problem with recipes and types of foods to buy and eat. You would quickly seek dietitians or doctors to recommend appropriate foods. Next issue will be following the advice. This can be a problem if you have a busy lifestyle. Keeping notes is difficult as well. You will tend be too restricted by this. What we want is to be free to make decisions.
There are many forms of pyramid that are created for certain diets like Mediterranean diet, Asian diet, California diet and many more. This just goes to show that you can actually design your very own daily food pyramid. Now you can place the foods that you should consume less at the very top of the pyramid. The foods that you can consume more can be at the very bottom. So it comes down to a gradient. Food that is less required and food that is much needed from top to down. Not very complicated at all, but it is better to make it a bit more complex.
Firstly, you should make a list of broad food types. Using your list make a sketch of the pyramid and start to make the layout separating the food types. As you go down the pyramid you should notice that you are eating all sorts of food. For example, if you are diabetic than you should have sweet foods at the top. Still you do consume sweets at a very moderate amount. This ensures you still get your energy and also reduces temptation. Your daily food pyramid should be well organized and also detailed. Detail as in also show the amount of serving for each type. Ask your physician or dietitians for guidance on this.
So now you have your daily food pyramid, so what`s next? Quite simply you make it look nice and appealing. Try to place it somewhere you would see it every day. This will constantly remind you and also help to keep you intact with your health goals. Make a food pyramid and be your own food pharaoh.
Monday, May 25th, 2009 at
12:21 pm
Why is it that no matter how much exercise you do, it is never enough. You end being in pain after your workouts and not recovering fast enough. Once you reach your middle age years, you get pain in your joints and worn-out ligaments or tendons. It has become a common problem these days when we do not watch what we eat. So many television programs are out there advertising on getting out more and eating healthy. It looks like people usually watch them but do not really follow or have the intention too. It is hard to blame them or say that they are lazy. Cause when the problems starts, that’s when they will resort to solutions. Is it too late?
Selecting for weight loss or for healthy living is not an easy choice to make. Unfortunately, it has become obvious that many companies would create and promote just about any product that claims it can help you lose weight. Just like how the acai berry concept was popular at once, it has become almost phased out. Even though there are many products and systems out there, it just costs too much. The reality is that you can prepare some of the diets at home if you want to.
Everyone wants to go and get it easily done. There are many good diets that work very well depending on you. At the end it does come down to the person who is doing this. Without any prior commitment and concentration. Simply you are on the path to failure. When you do not plan, you are planning to fail. That is why dieting is important. You might have noticed these days that physicians tend to advice people more on what they eat rather than just focusing on exercise. Even by walking everyday you will get a good workout. But after that your body require you to feed it well with nutrition so that it can repair your muscles and store energy.
Even today as I post this story, many people are resorting to dieting means rather than working out. Which gives way to others to create tons of products which might not be of use. Just like hydroxycut, a weight lose product being used by many was called back because of the harm it can do your livers. Just because people lack the knowledge, others will step in to fill in a lot of gibberish nonsense. In that case it can cause harm to many.
With the proper research anyone will realize if you want to lose weight fast or gain a good body shape, you first have to focus on a diet. Only than will you be able to endure and push your body to the limits to gain better results. Of course, when it comes to bodybuilders they too have a diet to follow. Along side with their diets they do consume various supplements. That is only if they have the cash to fork out. So depending on your goal or target, start off with a good diet and stick with it for awhile or make a change when you want to take it a step higher.
Sunday, May 24th, 2009 at
3:25 pm
When I started to get into losing weight I was a little overweight. Just like anyone else that I wanted to lose weight, so I was looking forward to buying stuffs. Because I wanted fast and quick weight loss. It is common for people to think that way. Majority of us have lifestyles that are hectic and moving fast. I have tried many products and even signed up for fitness classes. Problem was that supplements only helped me achieve a little weight loss. The Gym memberships cost a lot and it will be a waste when you cannot keep up. At the end, I end up wasting lots of cash. This is something that happens to anyone when they do not look for answers and resort to easy ways.
There are methods and ways for anyone lose weight fast. If only I had researched earlier I could have gone a holiday with all that money I spend on products and services. Thats life isn’t it, learning things the hard way. Even though money was spend, it was not too late to start from something. I went into other forms of diet, but that did not yield much result for me. I knew I had to start some where so I when back into researching looking for the answer. Till I found out about detox dieting. There are quite few detox diets available for purchase, but I was not ready spend too much. I look for something that is planned for short time and cheap. I came across a few types of diets called “3 day detox diets”. The term “3 day” makes it sound very skeptical.
These 3 day detox diets seriously come cheap if you choose to prepare them yourself. So I went on to look for a specific diet that I can understand and prepare. So I went on looking and looking and came down to a diet that uses lemon, honey syrup and water. Sounds like one of those easy diets that work. So I went on learning about it. I got carried away with the fact that you can in a 3 day diet lose 10 pounds. So I decided to go along with these. I bought about 9 bottles of distilled water about 1.5litres each. Than I went on to buy about 12 lemons with honey syrup. The honey syrup had to be those type meant for health wellness. I mixed them all up and had to drink each bottle of the mixture replacing a single meal for the 3 day detox diets.
During the 3 day detox diets period, I was very lethargic and felt hungry. It did not feel good at all. I decided not to follow it 100% and took salads for lunch. After my third day, I got up in the morning and checked my weight. I was happy to see that I actually lost about 6 ½ pounds. I know that I did not actually lose a lot of fats. Some might say its water weight lost or even the body releasing waste matter. No matter what others might say, I did lose weight and I do mentally feel something good has happen. That does not mean I would do this 3 day detox diets again. It has been a stepping stone and also I spend less. I rather see some results than hear people going on and on about products.
Those 3 day detox diets are not suitable for everyone. It requires you to be mentally focused. I know how it feels, I have tried but the outcome can be very motivating. So if you want to do this diet make sure you do it when you are on your holidays and also make sure you are ready start doing some workouts and picking up healthier diets after the 3 days. If not you might just end up putting the weight back on.
Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at
7:28 am
I was having dinner with a couple of friends when one of them started talking about losing weight. It was not really a good time to talk about it as we were eating foods that were too good to miss. She brought up a topic about how you can count calories and lose weight. What caught my attention was she mentioning about “zero calorie foods”. I can understand that people want the easy diets that work, but that does not mean you should believe in a concept about having food that are zero in calories. All of the food that we eat contains calories. We need calories to function well physically and mentally.
Zero calorie foods diet is also known as negative calorie diet. We come across another type of diet which was created from a previous one but altered a little. Why it happens? Firstly to let you get excited about it. Secondly, so that you will spend money for such information. So my friend when on about how she lost weight and had success with that diet. Others were listening and started to ask about the type of zero calorie foods. All of the food mentioned by her contained calories. Immediately someone said that she was actually starving herself using that diet plan.
Fact is zero calorie foods do not really have no calories. This diet has the same concept as negative calorie diet. Meaning your food intake does contains all the nutrition you need but contains less calories. Which sums up to the concept that you take in calories only enough to provide the energy to digest the food. So your body ends up not storing calories for energy for future use.
These diets are good diets that work. The issue with such concepts is that people tend to get a little lazy with themselves. Since my friend had success with the zero calorie foods diet, she kept talking about it. But honestly, when I looked her I know she had lost weight. She did look fine but she did not look lively at all. Past weeks she never hang out with us and always said she was tired and needed to rest for the next day. Now I knew better that she does not understand the concept fully. Even though you are on a diet. You must always remember that getting a good workout is important in keeping your metabolism at a good rate.
Cutting down on calories is fine, but it has to be followed for short term if you do not workout. If you do not exercise your metabolism rate will slow down. Causing your body to use less energy and store more. This can cause you to become weaker and lethargic. I decided to advise her on what she was doing. She felt that if she followed my way she would bulk up in size, as in gain muscles. I guess she just wanted to slim down and look thin. It is the way she want to look and feel. So zero calorie foods diet is a sure thing for her.
For diets to work properly, you need to be active and make sure you planned out everything. Do not waste time trying to become very thin. Try to look slender and have a properly shaped body. Be positive and try to push towards a better lifestyle.
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 at
5:46 am
Most probably you have already started to work on your diet. You have chosen one of the easy diets that work for you. During this time you would want to stay committed and focused. Now you also wonder about budgets and how much more you might need to spend. You might run into some problems with your peers when they are eating normally while you diet and avoid what they eat. At home you might feel tempted while your family is eating tasty food which you used to love. You might be feeling hungry now and then, when you have started to cut down on food.
These issues I mentioned above are common problems that people face. These are only some of the things that causes them to lose track of dieting. I believe that once you started to diet, it is better to continue it till you complete your diet plan. Many popular diets that work require one thing and only one thing from its users. That is to follow it and achieve success. As we are humans, we tend to get tempted and aroused to lose focus. So do not worry too much there are ways to keep yourself on track.
Here are some things you can do to keep yourself on track. Has you have chosen one of the good diets that work, firstly you have to know about your lifestyle. Look at whether you need to meet people and have a lunch or dinner or you are doing your daily activities from home. From these you can readjust the meals you wish to replace with your chosen diet. Secondly, if you have eaten something you should not have because you were with friends and do not want to offend them. It is alright, just go for a long walk to burn off the calories. A single long walk would only do little, so go for long walks every once in a while.
Temptation is one of the most common problem faced by dieters. It also has a weird solution to it. For many they actually eat minty sweets like mentos or fisherman. Some even brush their teeth or use minty mouthwash. The feeling you get will cause the temptation to subside. It does not sound like something that is viable. It works for the majority. Feeling hungry, it is also another issue. For this problem the best anyone can do is actually eat something. I do not think you want to starve and face problems like gastric pain. It is alright to eat, but it depends on what and how much you eat as well. So during these time eat fruits. Fruits are the better option. Have an apple, orange or pear with you. Cause you can eat them on the go, plus they are good for you.
I know that we all face problems when it comes to losing weight. It is also up to you to solve it. So do not give excuses but stay active and take action.
