Almost everyone has tried some sort of diet in their lifetime. Whether you tried to only eat grapefruits for a week,

Eating The Fruit of Health

or tried to cut carbohydrates out of your life completely and permanently, the odds are that you’ve tried to achieve weight loss by restricting what you eat. And the odds are that you probably got very frustrated, very hungry, and eventually gave up on the diet only to regain what little weight you may have lost. The problem with many diets is that they focus too much on eating less and not enough on eating smart.

If you are interested in learning more about the actual science of weight loss and how to burn fat and keep it off, you need to become familiar with something known as the Glycemic index. Food health experts use the Glycemic index as a system of ranking the benefits of the carbohydrates contained in a certain food by the positive or negative effect that it will have on a person’s blood glucose, or blood sugar. The scale is created by comparing a food’s ranking to pure glucose, which has an index of 100.

The reason that the Glycemic index is important to those that are interested in eating smarter to achieve greater weight loss is that when a person consumes many foods with high Glycemic rankings, a rapid increase of insulin is caused in the body. These spikes in insulin levels will prevent the body from using fat as an energy source. Instead of weight loss, people who consume a lot of foods that rank high up on the Glycemic index will find that the insulin helps to deposit energy directly into the fat cells, which usually causes weight gain.

If you are serious about achieving significant and sustained weight loss, it is important to be aware of foods that rank high on the Glycemic index. Adopting a low Glycemic approach will allow your body to burn fat throughout the day, and make the most out of your hard workouts in the gym. This does not mean that you can never eat a food with a high Glycemic index rating; in fact, combining high Glycemic foods that you enjoy with a quality protein will automatically counteract the insulin spike in your blood.

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To lose weight and keep it off is the dream of many dieters.  Most people when they start a diet successfully manage to lose weight, keeping the weight the lost though can be more of a problem.  This can be very frustrating to gain weight after all the hard work of losing.

There are many different methods of losing weight.  Some people swear by one diet, others prefer to use diet patches or diet pills.  Whichever method you use try and aim for a weight loss of 2-3 pounds per week.  This is a rate of weight loss that is sustainable in the long term without damaging your body.

Overall you should be looking to exercise more, eat healthier and drink more water.  Although the going may be hard at first it is important to think positively and stay motivated and soon you will be at your target weight.
Researchers at the National Weight Control Registry found that the people who were most likely to maintain their weight loss were those who maintained their behavioural and lifestyle changes that helped them to lose weight.  They identified two factors in the people who kept the weight off; the first of these was consistency in their day to day dietary habits.

The second factor that enabled people to maintain their weight loss was the ability to recognise when they were slipping back in to their former bad habits.  A small weight gain is easier to put right than a large one.  They also found that people who lost weight and maintained it for two years reduced their risk of gaining it back by 50%

If your goal is to lose weight and keep it off stop procrastinating, stop wasting time and do it now.

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Children in America have been educated about proper, healthy eating with the aid of the Food Pyramid (formerly known as the four food groups). The Food Pyramid is a visual chart that is supposed to demonstrate the amounts of different types of food that you should eat every day in order to maintain a healthy diet. The pyramid endorses an eating style that is not altogether supported by what dietitians and nutritionists know to be true about the way people eat and maintain healthy weights. In fact, some think that following the USDA’s eating advice is actually contributing to the obesity epidemic in America as well as diabetes.

Let’s start by examining the foundation of the Food Pyramid, the food group commonly referred to as grains and breads. The Pyramid advises that the average healthy person should be eating six to eleven servings of grains, breads and other starches, like pasta, every day. Furthermore, the Pyramid advises that only about half of these grains and breads need to be made from whole grains. However, as your personal trainer will tell you, modern food science has shown that only whole grains offer the body essential nutrients that it needs, and in this time of highly processed foods, eating carbohydrates six to ten times a day could be disastrous in terms of weight loss.

Moving one section up the Food Pyramid you will find the food group known as fruits and vegetables, which is the group that forms the foundation of any healthy diet, not grains and breads. Many food and diet specialists will tell you that fruits and vegetables can and should be eaten at every meal and be part of every snack, even when you’re striving for weight loss. In fact, most people can eat as many as they want without gaining weight. Also, the Food Pyramid does not point out the fact that starchy vegetables, like potatoes should actually be included in the bread and grains group.

The Food Pyramid is misleading in similar ways with regards to fats, proteins and dairy. Although the Pyramid may have been helpful in past years as a tool for helping very young children categorize different types of food, it is completely outdated and incorrect in most cases.

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Fruits and vegetables are a great way to replenish your bodies need for vitamins and minerals. A great diet of at least a few servings per day will surely bring your body back in line with feeling and looking your best.

A Rich Colourful Diet

To start, vegetables and fruits in any diet are a great idea, especially if you plan on using them for snacks and in-between meals. Most vegetables carry what is called “Negative Calories”, meaning it takes more calories to chew and swallow the food than what is contained in the morsel you’ve eaten. Celery is a prime example of a negative calorie food.

Listed below are the five colour choices for fruits and vegetables:

REDS: Red vegetables and fruits such as cranberries, tomatoes, watermelon and beets contain lycopenes, have been considered a great prevention from some types of cancers.

GREENS: Green fruits and vegetables, such as spinach, broccoli and kiwi contain lutein and indoles which are great antioxidants.

PURPLE: Purple Fruits and vegetables like eggplant, purple cabbage and berries contain phenolics which are known to be estrogenic and increase endoprhins.

ORANGE: Orange fruits and vegetables such as oranges, carrots, mango or squash contain great amounts of flavanoids are great antioxidants as well as containing a good quantity of nutrients and vitamins.

BROWN: Brown fruits and vegetables like pears, onions, mushrooms and potatoes contain alllyl sulfides help reduce the risk of most cancers and aid in great blood circulation. More vegetables in this category are: Garlic, Leeks, Chives, Welsh Onions and Shallots

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