7/03/2009

Three Fast Weight Loss Diet Plans that Work

Two Basic Approaches

Traditionally a fast weight loss diet strategy would be to reduce the amount of calories consumed in a day and this is an effective approach for many. A second strategy is to consume the same amount of calories but increase activity levels. The two approaches will produce weight loss very effectively and quickly. Whatever particular Fast Weight Loss Diet you choose will be dependant on your lifestyle or amount of discipline you have. Both Fast Weight Loss Diet plans will provide challenges that must be met in order to achieve your weight loss goal.
Eat Less

Assessing your eating habits and modifying them is a fast weight loss diet approach that can lead to weight loss. If you simply cut down on the number of high calorie carbohydrates you can decrease calories significantly. Reducing the amount of bread with meals is a good example of eliminating calories from carbs. Eliminating some condiments from meals can decrease calories easily as well. A careful look at portion sizes is also important as you may be consuming more than your body needs. If you look carefully at your meal content you can find ways to simply and easily reduce the amount of daily calories.

Burn More Calories

One effective fast weight loss diet strategy involves burning off more calories by increasing your exercise level. This can be done in many different ways that are both enjoyable and effective. Finding informal or formal ways to burn more calories will lead to fat and weight loss. This can be a walking, hiking or swimming program. Most find this target goal sustainable and achievable. These programs are easy and enjoyable at the same time.


Two-Prong Approach

The most effective fast weight loss diet approach is certainly the combination of counting calories and burning fat. Because it involves both approaches, weight loss will occur on two fronts at the same time. This strategy will burn fat in less time but with a drawback. The key to this approach is not to do too much too quickly and give the body time to adapt to the change. The reduction of calories and the increase of exercise should be approached in increments not to exceed 5% per week. Eating more smaller meals per day increases your metabolism to help burn fat faster. Just be certain to be aware of the total amount of calories you are eating.

Be Reasonable

When you are forming your expectations of a fast weight loss diet make sure your goals are realistic and safe. Losing weight or exercising progressively is the best approach for long term results. Taking it slow can lead to long-term success but going too fast can lead to set-backs. A reasonable amount of fat loss per month is between 5-8 pounds. When you have decided on an exercise program for three days a week make sure you go all three days per week. Take each step in your fat loss plan slow and easy and look at the long-term sustainability of such a plan.

By: Matthew Parker

Make A Healthy Body Your Number One Priority

If you are like every other yo-yo dieter out there, chances are you have started and stopped several diet plans with no success. The first week is easy. You?re full of excitement. You tell yourself ?this time will be different.? The second week is ok, a little harder than the first but you?re still sticking to it. And then what happens? You bend the rules a bit and start falling back into your old habits. Why does this happen? Why do we go through this vicious cycle?

I?ll tell you why. We are focusing on the wrong goal. For whatever reason, we must not perceive our weight loss as being ?important enough? to achieve. So what would be ?important enough? to stick to our new healthy eating habits? Your HEALTH! Nothing in this world is more important than the state of your health. Think about it, your health affects everything else in your life. Once our health is compromised we automatically change our lifestyle habits. Just look at President Clinton. Not until he had the ultimate health scare did he really change his eating and exercise habits. Let?s not wait until our bodies completely have a break down before we decide to take care of ourselves. If you feel lousy, everything you do that day is lousy. Likewise, if you feel great, everything you do that day is great. So this year, let?s not focus on just losing a few pounds, let?s focus on Health, the #1 thing in our lives.

Ask yourself, ?How important is my health to me? How do I want to live the rest of my life? Sick and feeling horrible or healthy and feeling vibrant? Do I want to play golf and tennis in my retirement or do I want to spend it in the hospital?? The answer to these questions will ultimately dictate your weight and your health for the future. Any lifestyle habit that affects your health in a positive way will automatically cause you to lose weight or maintain a good healthy weight.

Follow this checklist towards health and you will see weight come off automatically.

1. Make the time to focus on health.

The number one reason people do not eat healthy or exercise is because they ?don?t have the time?. But why is it that once we get sick, have a heart attack, are diagnosed with heart disease, diabetes or cancer, we all of a sudden have the time? This doesn?t make any sense. We wait until our bodies have become so ill to finally take measures towards taking care of it. This is the equivalent to never getting an oil change or servicing your car and letting it completely break down before doing anything about it. Prioritize your day. What could possibly be more important than your health? Your children, yes, I agree. But guess what? If something happens to you, who will be there for your children? I know that sounds terrible but it?s true. How many times have we heard stories of young children losing parents to heart attacks and strokes? Choose health not only for yourself but for your children as well. Prioritize your day so that making healthy meal choices and exercising are right at the top.

2. Take a long hard look at what you are putting into your body.

For one week, read every ingredient of every food you eat. This could potentially be a scary experience. Some ingredient labels on packaged foods sound more like a college chemistry class than anything we should be eating. As a golden rule, if you can?t pronounce it, chances are you shouldn?t be eating it. The majority of the foods you should be eating shouldn?t even have an ingredients label. They should be vegetables, fruits, raw nuts, chicken, fish, eggs, meat. If you make 90% of your diet, fresh food, I guarantee you will significantly change your weight and your health. No time to make fresh food? (please refer back to #1). Cook more than one portion at a time when you do cook so that there are always healthy leftovers in the fridge. You can always have for lunch leftovers from the night before. Cook several portions of one meal and freeze some. A good example of this is healthy soup or turkey chili. Put a portion of chili in a small Tupperware and freeze. You can grab this when in a hurry for lunch or dinner.

3. How much are you eating?

In the United States, our perception of one portion is extremely distorted. Restaurant portions are about 3 times more than what we should be eating in one sitting. If we become accustomed to seeing this much food on our plate at a restaurant we tend to do the same when we are at home and serve ourselves. According to a study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, women are eating 300 more calories a day and men 168 more calories than 20 years ago. All it takes is 100 extra calories a day to gain 10 pounds a year.

For one week, reduce your portions at lunch and dinner by half. There is no need to ?clean your plate?. Most times what?s on your plate is double what you should be eating anyway. If you feel some hunger in the afternoon, add one small apple with a handful of raw nuts as a snack. Your body will quickly become accustomed to the smaller portions and you will eventually not be able to eat as much in one sitting as you did before. Remember, you have access to an abundance of food every day. You don?t need to eat it all at once.

4. Drink WATER!

Dehydration has directly been linked to several forms of diseases including colon cancer, high blood pressure, and elevated cholesterol levels. Many people also mistake thirst for hunger. So it may not be that you?re hungry all day, you may just be thirsty and dehydrated. In due time, dehydration will cause a gradual gain in weight from overeating as a direct result of confusion of thirst and hunger sensations.

Take a look at what you are drinking each day.

Coffee or Soda (Diet Coke included)? The caffeine in both will dehydrate you even more and will cause you to feel hungrier during the day.

Diet drinks and sodas? The artificial sweetener actually enhances your appetite and increases food intake.

Orange Juice and other Fruit Juices? The sugar and calories can add up to 10 teaspoons of sugar per drink, which can be anywhere from 150-200 calories. Not to mention the fact that sugar eventually makes you crave more sugar.

Every person should be drinking half of their body weight in ounces of water each day. So if you weigh 150 lbs, you should be drinking 75 ounces of water each day. If you drink coffee or any other caffeinated beverage during the day, the ounces of water needed increases.

5. How much do you move each day?

Your body was designed to move! Your heart is a muscle and must be worked just like every other muscle in your body. You don?t have to join a gym to move, you just have to challenge your body and your muscles each and every day. The two best time saving exercise options I always suggest to clients are:

1. Go for a walk. You can go for a walk anywhere and anytime. No time you say? Please refer back to rule #1.

2. Set up your home with some free weights and an exercise ball. You will be amazed at the number of exercises you can do with just your body, some free weights and a stability ball. If you don?t know how, hire a trainer to show you or get a good book. Get into the routine of scheduling your exercise time each and every day. No ifs, ands or buts. Make your exercise time more important than phone calls, laundry, errands or lunch dates.

Make a promise to yourself that this time will be about health, not about short term weight loss. Really evaluate how you are treating your body on an everyday basis. Is that the same way you would treat a highly valuable, expensive piece of equipment? Because that?s what your body is. There is no amount of money in the world that will buy you another one, so you might as well take really good care of the one you got!

Get started on your own fat loss and health goals right away with these Simple and Easy Healthy Meal Plans.

By: David Soto

Doing Aerobics To Tighten Up The Tummy

One of the hardest places to lose weight from on the body is the abdomen. And as much as we may want to wish it away that just will not happen. We all know that working out is something that is very important for us to be doing. You are going to want to get a workout so that you can be healthier, and so that you know what you are doing when it comes to getting a better outlook on life. We need to face the fact that that we do live in a society that frowns on being overweight.

Most of the people who get depressed and unhealthy aren?t doing aerobics, or any other kind of exercise so no matter what your level of health is, aerobics are going to be good for you. It helps to get you together with other like minded people doing the same routine as you. It also gives your body the chemical endorphins that it needs to feel better and make you feel happier.

However, sometimes it is important to target more than one area when it comes to aerobics. You might want to work on something in particular. In this particular case we are talking about the abdomen and what kind of effect it can have on your entire body. It can have many negative effects such as high blood pressure or diabetes and can even lead to heart attacks. Reports show that the age that people are getting heart attacks is ever becoming lower here in the U.S. and it can be directly related to problems.

Often, people have parts of their bodies that they don?t like as much as others, and this can be very stressful. Most of the time, workouts seek to make your whole body stronger, and while this is important, if you have a problem area, you might feel like you want to work out it. There are many people out there today that this is their exact problem. It does not carry over into their entire body whereas it will target specific areas of their bodies and despite many trials it will not go away.

In order to target the abdomen while you are doing aerobics, it is important that you remember what the abdomen is and why it is important. It is not just your tummy area, rather this is a whole range of muscles that help you move and stretch in every part of your daily routine. Whether you are bending or lifting or a variety of many different things they are all directly related. When you are carrying the extra weight around the middle it is a sure sign that you do not have enough of a muscle buildup in that area. This is why targeting your abdomen during aerobics is very important.

When you are looking at targeting, your abdomen think first of repetitions. It is just like in weight training you need to have the repetitions to cause the muscle group to start building The best way to work on your abdomen is to add stretches into whatever you are doing aerobically. If you are walking or running in place, you should be stretching your body and stretching from side to side as you move. You must pay particular attention to be sure that the movement you are making is coming from you abdominal area however. It is all too easy to move your arms and legs and think that you are stretching your abdomen. The reality is that all too often we try to take the easiest and shortest route. This does not always work the best especially for the body.

Another great thing that you can do while you are doing your aerobics is to kneel down and to then use your abdomen muscles to move up and down into different positions. Remember that you have to keep doing repetitions at a high enough rate of speed to keep your heart rate up. The more that you move, the better in shape you are going to get. This is a great way to target your abdomen. Again though make sure that the movements are coming from your tummy area.

Even though there may be other ways to have a very targeted workout for a very specific area of the body to lose weight, it is also important that we do not forget the rest of the body also. This is where targeted Aerobics can make a big difference in overall body exercising. It is important to get those endorphins working to give you a healthier and happier life.

By: Randall Drake

Discover The Facts About ADHD Nutrition

Have you read about this recently, that more and more research is pointing toward nutritional deficiencies as a contributing factor toward ADHD? In particular, ADHD nutrition appears to be linked to a deficiency in essential fatty acids, or EFAs, and amino acids.

Researchers first tied ADHD with lower essential fatty acid levels in 1981. Studies involving EFA blood levels in children with behavioral problems in 1983 confirmed this ADHD nutrition connection.

Researchers in a 1987 study again documented the EFA deficiency tie to ADHD. Then in 1995, a study involving ADHD boys and boys without ADHD showed that the ADHD boys had significantly lower levels of Omega-3 fatty acids.

ADHD nutrition studies by Purdue University researchers in 1996 found that boys with low blood levels of Omega-3 fatty acids have a greater frequency of ADHD.

A study done by the George Washington University School of Medicine found that hyperactive children who ate meals high in protein performed equally well, and sometimes better, in school than non-hyperactive kids.

At Oxford University in England, one ADHD nutrition study evaluated the effects of fatty acid supplementation in children of average intelligence but with significant reading and writing disabilities. The ADHD symptoms in children who received the essential fatty acids improved substantially over those in the control group who received a placebo.

Fatty acids are needed in making brain and nerve tissue in the body. They are necessary for mental function, proper growth, the immune system and brain development. Since the body cannot produce Omega-3 and Omega-6, the two fatty acids families, by itself, it has to get these necessary ADHD nutrition ingredients through diet and supplementation.

Our typical Western diet is high in the Omega-6 fatty acids, found in corn, canola, sunflower, and safflower oil, margarine, vegetable oil and shortening, but majority of Americans are lacking in Omega-3s, commonly found in fatty fish such as mackerel, lake trout, herring, sardines, salmon and albacore tuna, as well as nut oils.

Learning experts now attribute many childhood behavior and learning problems to Omega-3 deficiencies. Since males have a higher requirement for EFAs, this deficiency has a greater impact on them.

In terms of diet, ADHD nutrition isn't too different from what's recommended as healthy eating for everyone, and is often referred to as sensible eating. The first golden rule is NO JUNK FOOD!

Aside from that, avoid the following for two weeks; dairy, yellow foods (corn or squash), fruit juices, Nutrasweet, processed meats, MSG, food coloring, and reduce sugar, chocolate and fried foods by 90 percent.

Keep it simple: Just eat natural foods for a while. Eat like people did before the 1950's. There are plenty of foods you CAN eat; just avoid fast or convenience foods.

After the two week period, start adding some of the prohibited foods back into your diet, beginning with one food at a time. Eat A LOT of that one particular food every day for four days. If you experience a problem with that food, you'll have a reaction within four days. If there's a problem, you'll know. If there's no problem, enjoy the food.

What should you eat to feed the ADHD brain?

For breakfast, it's high protein, low carb. No more breakfast cereals with milk. Go for 60 percent protein and 40 percent carbohydrates. Other meals should be 50 percent protein and 50 percent carbs.

If additional protein is needed, supplements can be taken. You could also make a protein shake using a flavored coffee (the International flavored coffees can be used), a good quality protein power, about 15 to 20 grams, and ice. Process in a blender and drink.

This works for alot of people. Actually, this recipe works about as well as a small dose of Ritalin (100 mg of caffeine is about the same as 5 mg of Ritalin). So for those who only take small doses of Ritalin, this might do the trick.

So here's some food for thought: when choosing your ADHD nutrition regimen, be sure the dietary changes you make are realistic for your family and don?t create additional stress. Finding menus that are pleasing to all will go a long way toward keeping happiness and harmony in the household.

By: Zoey Eber

Being Aware Of The Various Water Distillation Procedures

Water is life. It is an essential part of our day-to-day living. It is not only important of our health, but it is also important for our comfort. Can you imagine yourself living in a day without water to drink or to wash your face with? But besides having enough water to get us through the day, another concern that arises is how safe the water we are using is, especially for drinking.

There are indeed so many things that bother us. How we can suspend aging and look younger than our age, global warming, global crisis, getting a nice home ? these are just some of those. It is a good thing that having safe water to use has been taken into account, though. Different water purification systems are being employed to produce high quality and pure water. Moreover, the most common forms of purified water are distilled and deionized water.

So what are the water purification systems that we have at present?

One is carbon filtering. Carbon is a powerful absorbent, and its ability to absorb is enhanced by adding a slightly positive electrical charge. The product is then called activated carbon, which is being used in many standard home water filters. Granular activated carbon or GAC and powdered block carbon are often used by activated carbon filters. They help reduce or remove contaminants found in tap water such as pesticides and herbicides, volatile organic chemicals (VOCs), chlorine, and radon.

Another method used is reverse osmosis, which is also known as hyperfiltration or ultrafiltration. This technique works by applying mechanical pressure to force pure water through a semi-permeable membrane while the contaminants are trapped in the tiny pores of the membrane. This technique filters water contaminants such as bacteria, chlorine and other treatment related products, dyes, heavy metals, and salts and sugars.

Deionization is also one technique used to purify water. Through this process, ions (charged atoms or group of atoms) are removed from raw water. These include cations from sodium, calcium, iron, copper and anions such as chloride and bromide. It is done by using specially-manufactured ion exchange resins, which bind to and filter out the mineral salts from water.

Distillation, on the other hand, is the process of boiling water and then condensing the steam into a clean container. This leaves most solid contaminants behind. The production of drinking distilled water is especially important to dry seaside areas where there is no sufficient supply of freshwater.

Also included in the list is UV water purification. It uses ultraviolet or UV light, which comes from a high intensity lamp, to treat water and make microorganisms harmless; UV light damages the structure of the organisms present in the water, making them sterile. Then there is water conditioning that reduces the effects of hard water. Water that has high concentrations of hardness salts, which are deposited in water systems subject to heating, can be treated with sodium carbonate or soda ash that precipitates out the excess salts.

Moreover, purified water is not only for individual consumption. It is also used in many other ways. Demineralized water, for instance, is used in laboratory testing and in the production of high purity chemical solutions.

There is indeed a great demand for pure water. Thanks to the water purification methods that have been developed, we have access to water that is free of contaminants. We give so much importance to cleanliness, and it involves the water that we consume, either for drinking, washing, and many other activities where clean water is required. Of course, clean does only mean unused water that comes out from our faucets. It also means free from contaminants that cannot be seen by our naked eyes.

By: Jo Alelsto

Bad Breath Is Often Caused By Dental Problems

Bacterial plaque, bad breath and dental problems are all directly linked.

The anaerobic bacteria that live in the mouth cause bad breath or halitosis, dental decay, periodontal disease and gingivitis. Anaerobic means living in the absence of air. These types of bacteria are mostly the ones that cause disease.

Some dental issue definitions are:

Bad breath - the odor produced by bacteria living off food particles, each other and dying tissue. Bad breath can also be caused by other more serious health issues. An example of this is diabetes that can cause acidosis which in turn causes bad breath.

Dental decay - caused by the acidic excrement from the bacteria. The tooth is literally being dissolved by chronically being bathed in this acid.

Gingivitis - the inflammation of the gums caused by your own body trying to fight off the invasion of the bacteria.

Periodontal disease - (perio = around, and dontal = tooth) the loss of bone and tissue attachment around the tooth. It is caused by a microbial invasion around the tooth by anaerobic bacteria.

Between the teeth, along the gum line and on the surface of the tongue is where the film of plaque grows best. The odors and acids accumulate in these areas. The plaque is produced by the bacteria. Bad breath is caused by not being able to keep the population of bacteria under control. In most cases poor oral hygiene is the culprit. Cleaning teeth twice daily is the minimum requirement for reducing the population of bacteria. However, meticulous cleaning is difficult. Tooth brushing does not access in between teeth and often causes ridges and grooves along the gum line. Oral irrigating does not cut through the sticky greasy barrier the plaque produces.

Alternately, bad breath is caused by infections from dental decay, gingivitis, or periodontal disease. Once again, poor oral hygiene is the biggest reason for these infections. Unknown to most people, is the fact that improper flossing may take an infection from one part of the mouth and spread it to a healthy part. The infections also produce dead tissue, which add to the food feeding frenzy of the bacteria. The gasses from the dead tissue are what you smell.

There are other factors that contribute to the bacteria and odor besides food and infection. Smoking, mouth breathing, alcohol based mouth washes and certain medications increase dry mouth. Reduced saliva in the dry mouth does not allow your mouth to remove the bacteria that cause the odor.

In addition, the bad breath odor may be from sources other than the oral cavity. Some medical conditions cause bad breath. Infections in the lungs, nasal cavity or sinuses can cause odor that is associated with bad breath. Bad breath in diabetics is a rather common occurrence. And finally, less likely, but still possible, bad breath can be associated with certain conditions related to malfunctioning kidneys and some cancers.

Because bad breath is so repugnant to both the individual who has it as well as those in which they come in contact with, it is important to maintain a thorough oral hygiene regimen that includes cleaning the teeth at least twice, if not three times every day.

By: P Piero DDS

Are You Suffering From Acne

It is simply one of the toughest trials of adolescence ? having skin covered in unsightly marks. It has driven countless sufferers into the throes of despair, misery and even depression.

It gets worse, because there are three notable things about acne vulgaris, as the inflammation is commonly known, which make it the bane of countless people the world over:

1. It affects all ages ? from adolescence to the latter part of our lives.

2. It strikes all body parts ? face, neck, back, arms etc

3. No one really knows its cause. We know that it affects the sebaceous glands which hold the hair follicles but we are not sure why exactly the unsightly papules are formed.

What is more, untreated acne can turn into cysts and cause scarring. Complications abound and treatments vary from cosmetics to laser treatments costing thousands of dollars.

Are these treatments really needed? There are a few natural steps which the canny sufferer can follow to alleviate the symptoms and even potentially lead an acne free life.

Interested? Read on, all will be revealed.

Vitamins A and E

A leading study in the Clinical Experimental Dermatol has shown that patients with severe acne tend to have lower levels of vitamins A and E in their blood streams. For vitamin A make sure that you eat plenty of fish, liver, carrots, eggs and dark green & yellow vegetables. For vitamin E try eating spinach, sprouts and nuts. You may also want to consider taking supplements to ensure that your chances of fighting off the acne are maximised. It is also thought that Zinc, which is renowned for its immune and anti inflammatory properties, is effective in the fight against acne. Zinc is also thought to help regulate oil glands and the sebum that plays an important part in the formation of this skin condition. Zinc can be found in beef, lamb, pork, crabmeat, turkey, chicken, lobster, clams and salmon. For vegetarians pumpkin seeds offer one of the most concentrated non-meat food sources of zinc but it can also be found in peanuts, beans, wholegrain cereals, brown rice and potatoes.

Sugary foods

Recent studies seem to favour a hypothesis that food and drink high with refined sugar has a part to play in the formation of acne. Foods such as chocolate, sweets and soft drinks produce blood glucose, which in turn causes high levels of insulin which has proven to cause (amongst other things) increased levels of acne. Cutting down on refined sugars will also decrease the chances of diabetes, tooth decay and weight gain, so all round is good advice to follow.

Milk

A number of recent studies published by the American Academy of Dermatology have shown a link between acne and cow?s milk and its derivatives such as yogurts and cheese. It isn?t clear whether this is due to artificial growth hormones fed to the cows or just natural intolerance to non-human milk. If you are suffering acne try cutting down on your milk consumption ? science suggests that you will see an improvement in your acne.

Living with acne is no walk in the park, and the emotional as well as physical effects of the condition are well recognised. Heed the advice within this article, however, and your chances of ridding yourself of this ailment will be maximised.

By: Karen Martin