Starting on diet

It's no secret that the key to a healthy life is an adequately balanced diet. Keeping an unhealthy, unbalanced diet leads to several disorders, the most frequent of which is obesity.

As you may know if you already tried one or more diets, the first couple of weeks are the hardest; starting a new diet on the wrong foot may not only be useless, but it may also lead you to eat even worse than before.

Here are some tips that will help you start a new diet and successfully keep following it.

Don't even try a new diet without asking a professional: Although some diets are often advertised as very effective and very fast ways to lose weight, keep in mind that every body is different from each other, and consequently so are their needs. Always ask your physician or nutrition professional about which diet suits you best, for he will always look for your wellness above all. After checking certain things like your lifestyle, your ideal desired weight and the overall health status of your body, he will be able to carefully plan a step by step diet for you, based on your body's actual needs. If you think a diet plan you saw somewhere may be useful, show it to a professional and ask him to make any changes necessary to make it fit you. For instance, if you see “Angelina Jolie's new amazing diet" on a magazine and you think it may be useful for you, get a professional to evaluate it first. Chances are that the perfect diet for some people is harmful for others. Besides, a diet that is too hard will end up frustrating you, and a diet that is too easy will be quite ineffective.

Complement your diet with physical activity: Unless you have a very physically active lifestyle, obesity is not the effect of consuming an excessive amount of lipids, but of accumulating them. The key is to burn that fat as well as reducing its consumption: both must be done together. The best way to get rid of that excess of undesired fat is to complement a healthy diet with everyday exercising. A daily walk, playing a sport or doing aerobics may be suitable companions for your diet. But, again, ask your physician or professional personal trainer, he will tell you the right amount of physical effort your body can sustain, and set a plan to make it fun and useful for you.

Avoid temptations:

When you have just started on a diet, it may be hard to follow it. That is because your body is used to eat disorderly, and it takes some time to get rid of that habit. It is a good thing to keep all that “forbidden" food out of your fridge, at least until your body gets used to your new eating habits and you are fully confident in being able to have access to that food and yet not take it. Let's be realistic; it is way harder to get on a diet if you have that piece of chocolate cake in your kitchen!

Get busy:

Try to find a hobby or activity that keeps your mind away from food, especially at the beginning of a diet. Reading is a good activity to accomplish this, because it's fun, useful and a great way to get the time flying until dinner time.

These are just simple tips, but I hope they prove to be beneficial for you. Good luck on your new, healthy life!

How to burn fat? lose weight and be healthy

For about 50 years now, Americans have been eating low fat (some no fat) diets and the funny thing is we have gotten progressively fatter and less healthy. Who ever said low fat diets were healthy, and more importantly, why does eating less fat mean you’ll be less fat?

In attempt to keep this easy to understand, as most of what you read and hear is complicated, confusing, and contradictory, I’m going to be direct, to the point, and explain things in a way that most people can understand.

Where to start??? Well, I’ve done some research on this and have found very little science to back up the claims that eating less fat will keep you trim. I have also found many examples that totally dismiss this idea. For example, the French eat significantly more fat than we do here in the US while there obesity AND disease and illness rates are quite a bit lower.

Another example is the Alaskan Eskimos. They consume as much as 70% of their calories from fat (whale blubber and fish) and they have one of the lowest rates of heart disease in the world – until they come to the US and eat like us!

Before I cover other examples I’d like to talk about some the reasons why the “low fat diet" is not only making us fatter, but also killing people faster than you can imagine!

Does that shock you? If so, do I have news for you!

Ok… here are just a few reasons:

Eating less fat means you have to eat more protein or carbs and most people end up eating more carbs (and the wrong type!)

Dietary fat is very slow burning in the body so when you replace the fat with faster burning carbs you tend to feel less energetic, risk burning muscle tissue, and wreak havoc on your metabolism and hormones because your energy levels (blood sugar) are like a roller coaster.

Dietary fats supply some of the best, and most stable sources of energy. So if you want to feel good all day long, you need to make sure you are getting enough fats, and the right types. I’ll touch on which types to avoid and which to include in your diet later in this article.

The human body needs fat just to function properly, let alone optimal health

Certain amounts of fat are necessary for proper hormone production. If hormone production is off so will your metabolism be. Hormones regulate many things in the body including your ability to build and maintain muscle tissue, which is responsible for a large portion of your energy expenditure. In simple terms, muscle burns calories 24 hours a day and if you eat a low fat or no fat diet you will have a hard time building and maintaining muscle.

Here are some facts:

Obesity increased from 14% of the American population in 1960 to over 22% by 1980

The Harvard Nurse’s Health Study which ran well over 10 years found that not only did low fat diets not decrease the risk of heart disease but also that saturated fat wasn’t so bad after all, and that too little was just as harmful

To read more of the facts about dietary fat and health check out these great resources:

http://www.gunnarlindgren.com/nutritionx.pdf

http://health.discovery.com/diseasesandcond/encyclopedia/1898.html

http://www.drlam.com/A3R_brief_in_doc_format/2002-No3-FatandCholesterol.cfm

So to sum things up…

If you want to lose weight and be healthy – DON’T eat a low-fat diet! You would have to be absolutely insane to after learning the truth about dietary fats. If you have doubts or questions please do some research and you will be amazed at what you will find out. In the meantime, go eat some healthy fats!

Why Fruit is important for your life?

One thing that everyone has to do in order to survive is eat food and drink water. Along with air, food and water are the two other key elements that we need in order to allow our bodies to function. There is plenty of choices when it comes to food. However, it is well recommended that you eat a very nutritional balanced mean so that you can let your body work to full capacity. One essential area you should always keep track of is fruits.

Fruits are some of the best items we can eat because they contain so many good vitamins and minerals that our bodies thrive on. In all reality, fruits are pretty delicious, yet many people avoid them for one reason or another. The following will go over the nutritional facts of different popular fruit that we all have tried at least once unless your allergic to fruit or something like that.

The first fruit that will be discussed is the almighty apple. The famous quote goes, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." This is a scientifically proven fact but it is definitely a good idea to eat an apple a day just for the good natural nutritional ingredients that are associated with an apple. An apple contains about forty nine calories and consists of about eighty four percent water. It also has 2.3 grams of fiber, 0.4 grams of protein, 11.8 grams of sugar, 2 grams of vitamin A, 15 milligrams of vitamin C, 0.02 milligrams of vitamin B1, 0.01 milligrams of vitamin B2, 0.05 milligrams of vitamin B6, and 0.05 milligrams of vitamin E. All these thing are essential in order for our bodies to work properly. Apples may not seem like a super essential staple of someone´s diet but if eaten on a consistent basis, they can really make your body feel good.

Another popular fruit we all chew on from time to time is a banana. Bananas are really good to eat for several reasons. They are good for your skin and for your internal body as well. A banana contains about eighty eight calories and consists of about seventy six percent water. In addition, bananas also contain 2.7 grams of fiber, 1.2 grams of protein, 20.4 grams of sugar, and also has a small amount of other essential vitamins such as vitamins A, B, C, and E.

Those two fruits are the most popular fruits that people eat on a more regular basis then other fruits. However, all fruit is good for you in one way or another. One fruit can be better for you in one area of your health, while the other fruit is good for you in another area. All fruit is made up with a high level of water and almost all of them contain essential vitamins and minerals that our bodies need. Eat as much fruit as possible as well as the other vital things on the periodic food chart in order to be healthy and feel super good.