Posts Tagged ‘diet’

Dieting For Children

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

It is difficult to see so many children literally overburdening their bodies at such young ages by being overweight. These kids cannot run, jump or play with other children because their bodies simply will not allow them to do so. Dieting is a necessity for these kids despite our best efforts to insulate them from the self-esteem issues that often accompany obesity.

If you have a child that is well outside the normal weight range for his or her age, you are the one who must take the necessary steps to make certain that they shed those excess pounds in order to live a life that is as close to normal as possible. The first thing you have to do however is consult your child’s physician about the best possible course of action to look after the health of your child.

Put quite bluntly however, if you do not make the effort to help your child to lose those pounds you are placing the health of your child at risk. We do not let our kids play in the street, we do not let them run about with knives, why on Earth would we allow them to commit suicide by candy? If you have a child that is overweight, the following advice should assist you and them with their dieting.

First of all, do not make food a penalty or a prize. Food is part of the difficulty with your children and you should not use it against them. Instead, introduce them to healthy alternatives. Do not keep junk food in the house and do not let them purchase lunch at school. Pack their lunches for school so that you know what they are eating. If you do not give them junk food to take away and they cannot have it when at home, they will be better off.

Incorporate healthy snacks into your family’s eating plan rather than junk food. Fresh fruit, chopped vegetables, nuts, and frozen yogurt are good healthy snacks for your kids. When in doubt, consult the food pyramid but watch calories in the process. You want your children to eat a well balanced diet and stop eating junk food and sweets.

Cut out the juices and pop. This may be a huge ordeal in your family but the greatest gift you can give your child is a deep and abiding liking of water. Water works to make their stomachs feel full and keeps them hydrated for the additional activities you should be introducing into their routines.

Have them take dance lessons, take up a sport, or simply get out and run around the yard. The worst thing you can do is to allow your children to become comatose television, computer, or video game zombies. Get them out of the house and get them active. This helps in two ways. First of all, they are not eating if they are outside playing and having a good time. Second, they are burning calories as they play which is a big bonus in the dieting process of your children.

As your child begins to lose weight, you should start to notice a very profound change in not only the way he or she carries his or herself but also in his or her relations with others. Your child will experience a restored self-confidence as the pounds come off and the teasing at school stops.

If you are at a total loss as to how to help your child take the weight off there are camps that are designed expressly to deal with weight problems and building self-esteem in children aged 7-19. A camp may be just the answer you are looking for. Another thing to think about is to lead by example. If you do not eat junk food, if you are active, and if you do not engage in emotional over-eating your child will not be learning those behaviours from you or having them strengthened by you.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with our blog why can’t I lose weight. If you have an interest in losing weight, please go over to our website now at Why Can’t I Lose Weight?

Are You Hobbling Your Weight Loss Program?

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

If you want to lose weight, you must have a plan, a route map to success. This is called a program or programme. There are thousands of programs, but many of them are just plain batty. If they sound foolish, they probably are. Have you heard of the ‘cabbage water diet’? It sounds daft and it is. You cannot only drink cabbage water all your life!

Although there is a lot of nonsense talked about losing weight, there are some truths that play a part to play in almost any program you choose to follow. One of these truths is that it is better to eat many small meals during the day (about 5-6), than to go all day without eating and then gorging yourself at dinner in the evening. This is popularly called ‘grazing’.

Have you ever asked yourself why this might be so? Well, the fact is, that the average human body can only process about 250 calories per hour. If you eat more than that, you are almost certainly overloading your digestive system. This is why it is important, because if your body cannot use all the calories that you give it, it will stockpile them.

Your body can only use up what it requires to execute the job that it is busy with, that is, what you are putting it through. If you are watching TV, most of those 250 will be stored. If you are exercising, most will be burned up. It stores the remainder as body fat. Your body has learned through evolution that hard times will come, so it prepares for them. It is like us putting excess money in a savings account or people hoarding food if a bad winter is predicted.

However, these days in the West, we seldom face those lean times any longer. So, that fat is never used up and we just keep adding to it until we decide, by choice, to limit our intake of calories or increase our amount of exercise.

Given this information, what can we do with it? Well, if you were to want to lose weight, you should be consuming no more than 1,500 calories a day (or whatever your program tells you), so 1,500 divided by 250 is six. if you ate 250 calories every other hour, that would give you twelve hours.

Therefore, eating light but often would be a beneficial strategy or program to follow, because firstly, you are only providing your body with what it needs, when it requires it and secondly, you are able to better maintain a steady blood sugar level, which means that you level out the spikes and troughs you experience in a normal day’s cycle.

Two hundred and fifty calories does not seem a lot, but it is amazing what it will stretch too, if you take the trouble to investigate. It is true that you will have to rigorously restrict some foodstuffs, like bread, pasta, rice and potatoes, but whoever honestly thought that you could lose weight by eating that stuff anyway?

If you do not have time to cook a number of times every day, look in your superstore. There are loads of ‘250 calorie’ microwave meals. You don’t want to eat that? I don’t blame you. so get a decent cookbook, which shows calorie content. You are at work all day? OK, eat some fruit, but select wisely. It can be done, it only takes a little will and planning.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with lose weight programs. If you have an interest in losing weight, too, please go over to our website now at Why Can’t I Lose Weight?

A Weight Loss Plan For Teens

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

No one needs to read a study or a report to know that there are a lot of overweight or obese people in the USA and the UK. You can blame this on the food being sold or a lack of understanding, but the real bottom line is that you are the one who is putting that stuff into your mouth.

Most people do not think about it, but everyone has a choice whether to eat decent food or not. If you are seriously overweight, then you chose to allow yourself to get yourself into that state. No one else, you!

Nevertheless, there is always a way out and it is never too late. There are thousands of weight loss programs, so you should be able to find one that suits you. I made that sound easy and it should be, but people still have trouble choosing one.

My advice is to read the weight loss advert aloud to yourself or a friend. Does it sound laughable? Then it probably is. Dump it. The bottom line is that you can only lose weight by expending more energy than you consume. Having said that there are a couple of ways of achieving that.

The two basic methods are either counting calories or counting carbohydrates, that is Weight Watchers or Atkins. Start by going to their web sites and reading about their philosophies. Choose the one that suits you and stick to it.

One note that I would like to stress here for teens is that at your time of life your body is going through a revolutionary change. You are metamorphosing from a child to an adult and your body is filling up with hormones, you only had a little of before.

Let the change finish, before you start worrying too much. You were a bug, now you are a chrysalis and soon you will be a butterfly. Just wait and your body time to sort itself out.

There really is not much you can do to stop what your body has to do. Spots mean that you have poisons in you and your body wants to get rid of them. Help it by not putting any more junk into it. Keep your skin clean and make sure that everything that touches your skin is clean too. Hands, hair, pillow cases, et cetera.

Exercise! Now is the time to embed an exercise routine into your way of life. Exercise raises your rate of metabolism which helps you burn calories more quickly. If you can burn calories quickly, then you can allow yourself more treats.

The other point about exercise is that if you do not establish a discipline for exercise when you are young, then you will find it harder when you have your next bodily change in your forties or fifties.

The bottom line is not to worry too much about what you look like now, you are a chrysalis. Help your body out by eating healthily and take up a sport you enjoy and stick with it.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with lose weight fast and safe. If you have an interest in losing weight, too, please go over to our website now at Why Can’t I Lose Weight?

How To Keep To Your Resolution To Lose Weight.

Monday, February 1st, 2010

Without a shadow of a doubt, the most frequent New Year’s resolution in the West is to lose weight. However, it is also the first New Year’s resolution most apt to be broken! Losing weight is not difficult in theory, but practice is oh, so different. This is because it involves lifestyle changes.

Our bodies change as we get older and typically our level of activity decreases too. Maybe, we get an office job with a promotion, whereas we used to work ‘in the field’. But people in general, do not regulate their diet to match their change in circumstances. We sit behind our desks or in retirement and think we can still eat and drink like we did twenty years ago. Big mistake!

Luckily, there are dozens of diets available to help us attain our weight loss goals. There are the traditional calorie counting diets, as advocated by Weight Watchers; there are the ‘new era’ diets like Atkins, which have us counting carbohydrates and there are no end of fad diets which are frankly not worth wasting time talking about.

The choice of which diet you would like to follow is all yours, of course, but it is well worth exploring the main types of diet to see which one will agree with you. Then you must determine whether you will require the help and encouragement of a weekly visit to a club or not, or whether you can get that companionship from an online club of slimmers, where you talk to fellow slimmers in the club forum online.

It is also worth fixing in your mind, why you want to diet. Is it to look better? Or to feel more at ease in yourself? Or is it for health reasons? Or all three? Have a think about your reasons and let them motivate you. Whenever, you feel like packing it all in, remember your motivation. Get a book and journal your progress, but first write your motivation in bold capitals on the front page or cover. Keep it in front of you and read it out loud to yourself every day.

Consult some of the slimming sites online and work out a few key statistics like the typical weight people are for your height, sex and body type and your BMI or body mass index. Write these figures on the first page of your book too and use them as the eventual goals.

You could create a graph and plot your weekly weight to see how you are doing. Set realistic goals and targets. You can get loads of free information from the Weight Watchers and Atkins websites or / and go to see your doctor for advice and leaflets.

Aim to lose something like 10-20 pounds in the first month and eight to ten per month after that. Go slowly and aim to go slowly, because then you will hit your targets and you won’t feel like giving up. When you get within five to ten pounds of your target weight, assuming that you have lost a lot of weight, rein back a little and allow yourself a little more leeway. Drop your target to one pound a week, so that you will get a feel for ‘eating normally’.

The dreaded exercise; you have to face it, you will have to do more exercise, but two times thirty minute walks a day is ordinarily enough. You could swim once a week too or get an exercise machine, if you are tied to the house by family.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with how to lose weight online. If you have an interest in losing weight too, please go over to our website now at Why Can’t I Lose Weight?

Using Dieting And Exercise To Lose Weight

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

When it comes to living a long and healthy life, there are two necessary ingredients: diet and fitness. While some believe that they are inseparable, nothing could be further from the truth. It is quite possible to have a perfectly healthy diet with deplorable fitness habits. It is equally possible to be physically fit with less than perfect eating habits.

There’s a clever little line in the Jimmy Buffet lyrics “Fruitcakes” when his ‘lady’ is lamenting: “I treat my body like a temple, You treat yours like a tent”

I can’t help thinking of this line whenever I think about all the people around the world who are on these garbage in, garbage out diet regimens hoping to accomplish the weight loss triumph of those who are promoting the items.

To be totally honest, it is possible to lose pounds by dieting alone. It is hard but possible. It is also possible to be physically fit and still have a few extra pounds. To a large degree, we are what we eat. If we consume a high fat low fibre diet our bodies are going to lack the fuel required to burn the fat. At the same time if we are not providing our bodies with the tools it needs to build muscle it does not matter how many weights we lift.

When it comes to diet and fitness, the best results are achieved when they are combined together rather. Use your fitness routine to burn excess calories and use your diet in order to provide your body with the nutrients and fuel it requires to build muscle.

A pound of muscle occupies less space on the body than a pound of fat. Pound for pound, I would much rather mine be composed of muscle than fat. Dieting alone does not build muscle and that is something you would do well to remember.

You should also understand that as you are building muscle you may be losing inches while not showing a great deal of progress on the scale. It is very important that you bear this in mind throughout the weight loss process. Do not measure your progress by the scales alone or you will observe deceptive results.

The problem is that far too many people do just this, grow frustrated and give up when they are in point of fact making progress. Do not allow yourself to be a victim of the scales. Look in the mirror, try on your tight pants, and measure your waistline. Measure your success by how you feel after climbing a flight of stairs not by the scales.

By building exercise into your diet routine you are also enabling your body to burn off any extra calories you may have consumed during the day. This means that if you want to have a small ‘cheat’ during your day, you can make up for it by burning a few more calories than normal in the evening. This is not something that should happen often but an infrequent incidence is not going to make or break your diet.

You should also consider dieting and exercise as a hand and glove type of relationship. They fit together. Diet and fitness when combined can create incredible weight loss results for those who take them both seriously.

The thing to remember is that neither works well alone and neither will work unless you are willing to do the work. You must make this a priority in your life in order to achieve the best possible results.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with why can’t I lose weight. If you have an interest in losing weight, please go over to our website now at Why Can’t I Lose Weight?

The Best Methods To Shed Weight

Monday, January 25th, 2010

If you decide that you want to follow a traditional style diet, as a rule of thumb, you ought to find a weight loss plan that is rich in fresh fruit and vegetables; low-fat dairy products; white meat and fish; whole grain cereals and plenty of drinking water and by that I mean at least eight to ten 250mm glasses a day.

Being heavy can cause a lot of other issues, in addition it being a problem in its own right. Obesity makes rapid movement, stretching and reaching tricky. Surplus perspiration can be an embarrassment and it can result in chaffing. The range of fashionable clothing obtainable can be constrained too. Besides these issues, studies have shown that being overweight invariably leads to health problems such as hypertension, heart troubles, sleep apnea and diabetes.

The only resolution to this bundle of problems is to shed those spare pounds around your waist by embarking on a healthy weight loss diet plan and following it faithfully. I will give you a few general pointers below to help you slim down and reduce the risk of spending your latter years traipsing in and out of hospital.

Almost all of the traditional weight loss diet plans proposed by dietitians and nutritionists start with the simple exhortation to reduce your food consumption to the amount you require to carry out your every day routine. The problem is that it sounds simple, but it is one of the hardest things to do. It takes a lot of determination on your part. However, you could start by eating and drinking three-quarters of what you normally eat. Once you can handle that, reduce the percentage again.

Try to make every calorie count. By that, I mean, if you are going to eat 200 calories, make certain that they are contained in food that will do you good and keep you feeling full. A bar of chocolate will give you a blood-sugar rush for 20-30 minutes, but a doorstep of a cheese and salad sandwich made from whole grain bread washed down with a glass or two of water will give you plenty of fibre and vitamins and fill you up for a couple of hours.

It is always a good idea to keep a journal of what you consume and when. This way you can compare days and weeks and see what works best. It also helps if you are reducing your consumption in stages. Mark what you eat with the number of calories in that portion. If you do not know accurately, guess it. Writing something down is better than nothing.

The next part is the part I don’t like - exercise. Regular exercise. The good news is that it does not have to be too much. Two thirty minute walks a day is pretty useful. Once in the morning and once in the evening. Or walk in your lunch time and after your evening meal. If you like, regular visits to the fitness center are even better, but they are also easier to skip or give up altogether.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with lose weight programs. If you have an interest in losing weight too, please go over to our website now at Why Can’t I Lose Weight?

Can You Fast For Fitness?

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

A lot of people do not understand their bodies. That much is clear because they believe that fasting will help them become fitter. They feel certain that their bodies will burn off their surplus fat and that they will lose weight as a result. They also appear to imagine that they will automatically end up with more muscle, just in the right places too. Some take up fasting for fitness because they believe that it will rid them of the toxins in their bodies.

Another belief that these fasters have is that they are will be able to flush out all of the toxins in their bodies by drinking plenty of water at the same time as not eating food. Even if this is true, it would be a long procedure that would mean that you would have to fast for at least five to seven days though in order to conclude the detox process, although it is still not clear scientifically whether fasting is the right approach for those that desire fitness.

There are many other routes to fitness that do work well though. For example, you can cut back the amount of food that you consume. Cutting back is not fasting, it is dieting and it is not only far more effectual, it is also far less difficult. This, combined with drinking plenty of water and increasing your amount of physical exercise will help you to become fitter.

If you drink a lot of soda like cola or lemonade, which are full of sugar, like a lot of kids do, or lots of cups of sugared tea or coffee, like a lot of adults do, then just replacing those drinks with water or weak tea will help you lose weight quite rapidly even if you do not make any other changes to your diet or your level of exercise.

It is also possible to damage your body if you take on on a demanding exercise regime only relying on body fat to keep you going. Your body almost certainly will not be able to supply enough energy to fuel such a change, because your metabolism will be too low.

Someone going about it in this way, can become very weak and dizzy. It is not a good idea to run the risk of injury because you have not given your body all the energy it requires to complete the tasks you are requiring it to perform.

It is better to consult a doctor before you make any alterations to either your diet or your fitness routine. Confer with your doctor about your thoughts on fasting and fitness. They will be able to inform you whether they feel it is something you can try or whether it is just too risky.

Fasting is all right if you have do it for religious purposes, but do not attempt much physical exertion. Ask a Muslim how he or she feels during Ramadan! Fasting for long periods can lead to high blood pressure and even liver damage. So, be very wary before attempting to starve yourself fit, there are much better ways.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with losing weight quickly. If you have an interest in losing weight, too, please go over to our website now at Why Can’t I Lose Weight?

Ways To Burn Belly Fat

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

Trying to burn off your belly fat is probably the most widespread reason for dieting. Next is trying to lose excess weight from one’s arms and legs, if you want to lose weight and get a slimmer body. Diet alone does not work well enough to get a flat abdomen, and many people are searching non stop for new methods to try to complement their diet.

Occasionally the battle you have to fight takes years, while in more providential situations, you’ll be able to burn belly off fat in a few months. The time period required for such an attainment varies according to a string of personal factors: first of all it depends on how big the fat deposit is around your waist.

Then, your age, your condition and certain other personal factors influence the rate of weight loss significantly. You can burn belly fat at a more rapid rate if you stick to a training regimen consisting of a series of well-determined exercises that include not only body crunches but also full body work.

Twists for example, have a good repute for the toning of the abdominal muscles and the development of a slimmer waistline. While you can keep your calorie intake under control by carefully monitoring your diet, you can only burn your current deposits of fat with physical exercise.

Nutritional supplements can help you burn your belly fat off without having to suffer the consequences of a crash diet. Some of the most valued remedies for accelerating the metabolism include green tea extract, Garcinia Cambodia, pineapple extract, seaweed and other herbs with a stimulating impact on the digestive tract.

Be very cautious with appetite suppressants because they do not burn belly fat like the rest of the supplements do, but rather they engender a sensation of satiation which tells your body that there is no requirement for it to long for food. However, if such a situation gets out of control, the user of these weight loss supplements could develop anemia because of poor nourishment.

Do not try to burn your belly fat within a rigid, predetermined time frame. Setting seven or ten-day goals could put a lot of strain on the body, and besides a flatter stomach you may end up with grave health problems. Every body has its own way of adapting to diets. For example, one’s level of activity changes with programs meant to speed up the metabolism.

If things are not done slowly but surely, the body will respond in a hostile way to the new stimuli, creating all sorts of discomforts such as diarrhea, exhaustion, anxiety, poor concentration and the so forth. So, choose those ways to burn belly fat off that best suit your condition, age and physical structure.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with why can’t I lose weight. If you have an interest in losing weight, please go over to our website now at Why Can’t I Lose Weight?

Free Atkins Diet Plan.

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

What is the Atkins diet and what will you need to give up in order to achieve the results you’ve seen other people realize? You hate your size twelve, and you desperately want to come down to the size six that you were once, although you’ll settle for a size eight, if you have to. It doesn’t really matter as long you’re nowhere near your present size twelve!

What you’ll need to begin with, is some working knowledge of what the Atkins diet is all about and what it might entail. However, before you get bogged down in detail, you could always just try out an Atkins diet free plan which might help you to get a handle on the situation.

There is not definite place I can say for you to get an Atkins diet free plan of course, but I’ve found that the Internet is the best place for you to find out just about anything and everything you want to know. Commence by turning on your computer, it’s really amazing how many snotty looks I receive when I state this most obvious fact! In fact, you probably did the same just now!

Anyway, if you just cruise the Internet for an Atkins diet free plan, you’ll be amazed at the amount of other free plans that you’ll find as well. And if you’re not dead set on testing the Atkins diet way, then you could just test any one of the other free plans. As it suggests, it won’t cost you a penny more than the time spent on the Internet.

So, what can you possibly hope to gain from an Atkins diet free plan? To start with, you can pinpoint which types of foods you can eat and which type of foods you’ll have to drop. If you’re thinking of going with the Atkins diet then in the induction phase alone, there are some things that you’ll need to give up in order to maintain your diet.

On that list of food, that you can eat and stay on your Atkins diet free plan, you’ll find that you can eat cream, cheese and butter as long as you remain within your moderate carbohydrate allowance per day, but avoid the fruits, the breads, the pastas and the pizzas. Basically everything that tastes lovely, you may think.

But, the statement is not completely true, as you’ll see as you inspect the Atkins diet plan recipes which may or probably won’t come with your Atkins diet free plan. There are plenty of great tasting recipes you can eat and, although you may not not it yet, they’ll include many of your favourite foods, just not anything high in carbohydrates.

As far as drinks go, the same principles remain true as in the other parts of the Atkins diet free plan. That means, you must avoid sugared drinks or sodas like Pepsi, Ovaltine and sugared tea or coffee. Furthermore, you have to be careful with coffee, because it can be more addictive while on the Atkins diet for some people.

Likewise, caution is required with alcohol. Some types, like lager, cider or sherry contain too many carbs, while others, like Guinness or whisky are OK in moderation. However, you should always check with your Atkins diet free plan before deciding what to drink.

Do you need to lose those excess pounds quickly? Well, take a free look at Atkins Diet Free Plan, by visiting our resource called The Atkins Diet Plan

The Atkins Grapefruit Diet

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

The Atkins Grapefruit diet is a diet plan, not endorsed by the estate of Dr. Atkins, that plays on the popularity of the grapefruit diet and the Atkins diet name. A closer look into this diet shows that it may not be everything it claims to be.

Firstly, it’s pretty hard to find information on the Atkins grapefruit diet plan. Clever people know that when someone is carrying out a deception, or a con, they will usually gloss over facts. This is exactly what the Atkins grapefruit diet seems to do: it tries to persuade people to associate it with two supposedly effective diets.

So, is the Atkins Grapefruit Diet part of the Atkins Diet or supported by the firm of the late Dr. Atkins? The answer is a resounding ‘no’, not only is there no mention of the Atkins Grapefruit Diet on the Atkins website, but there is no fruit of any kind mentioned in the list of allowed foods in the Atkins diet Induction phase.

The induction stage includes the following foodstuffs:

Fish of any kinds; any fowl such as turkey and chicken; any shellfish; any meat such as beef or pork; eggs cooked in any style, including fried; cheese; vegetables; herbs and spices; fats and oils; low carbohydrate beverages, including diet soft drinks.

Did you notice anything? No fruit is mentioned on that list. Later phases of the Atkins diet, however, do include small amounts of fruits such as cantaloupe, strawberries and even lemon juice, and the pre-maintenance and maintenance phases even specifically permit limited amounts of grapefruit. But when compared to the quantity of Grapefruit recommended on the Atkins Grapefruit Diet, once more there is a disagreement.

The Atkins Grapefruit Diet recommends a cup of grapefruit juice or a cup of grapefruit sections, with 8 and 18 carbs respectively. Even the most generous phases of the Atkins diet advocates restricting grapefruit intake to less than 8 carbs per day. That’s a exact contradiction of one diet with the other.

Most intelligent people would take a look at the Atkins website itself the moment they heard of the Atkins Grapefruit Diet. If they saw no mention of that diet on the website, then a red light would flash and an alarm would sound.

Generally speaking, you should remember this: any diet that relies very heavily on one foodstuff, such as grapefruit on a grapefruit diet, is not healthy for any but very short periods. The Atkins Grapefruit Diet is not associated with the Atkins diet, and may disrupt with the results of the Atkins diet in its early phases.

Do you want to lose those excess pounds real fast? Well, take a free look at Atkins Grapefruit Diet, by visiting our resource called The Atkins Diet Plan