Diet : The Slim Fast Diet

Some diets advise dieters to eat large quantities of vegetables, others try to
make people eat a single food for a whole day. The Slim Fast Diet has the shake.
It sounds pretty much like what the folks at Herbalife are pushing, although it
may be the other way around. Diets are a dime a dozen these days and it’s hard
to keep track of who came with which idea and when. So let’s discuss instead the
basic features of this diet and the usual pros and cons. This is one of the
diets that people seem either to love or hate, as some claim that it works
wonders, while others speak of it as a rip-off.

The basic idea is to replace two daily meals with Slim Fast shakes, accompanied
by two pieces of fruit and a nutrition bar, and to have a sensible dinner at the
end of the day. A sensible dinner means that you are allowed to eat whatever you
want, as long as you keep the portions average. At least this is the theory. In
practice you will soon find out that dinner is the only time you can get some
actual nutritious food, aside from the vitamins and minerals-laden shakes, which
means that your food options are limited to those that can keep you on your feet
and thinking clearly.

Aside from the shakes, dieters have to drink between 6 and 8 glasses of water
per day in order to help the weight loss process along. Dieters should also
exercise during this diet, but I’m not so sure that a 1,200 calories a day
intake can support a program of exercises. On the other hand, the added
exercises should help you shed weight faster and spend less time on the diet.
Some people complained of having to buy all those shakes and bars, but I’d say
that trading two regular meals for two shakes tends to balance out the costs.
Actually, it seems that the biggest problem dieters face is the fact that every
one is on his own. There is no outside structure, there is no support. Just a
box of shakes and your own common sense. This is a good thing for some because
it helps build self-reliance and teach people to gain control of their own
eating process not just during the diet, but for the rest of their lives.

Nevertheless, many fail without outside support and this may be a big issue with
this diet.

Diet : Diet Comparisons

Probably the most important things people want to know when they think the time
has come (again) to cut some of the daily food intake is which diet is the best.
Although we are all different beings, we all share the same goal: a diet that
can make us thin in no time at all. Some sort of miracle pill or eating plan
that makes fat go away and never ever return. That’s actually the second part of
the big wish: how to make sure that all the weight lost through dieting stays
lost through the years.

The more diets published in magazines and on the Internet, the more people are
confused about what dieting really means and about the right way of bringing
your body back in shape. The growing number of overweight people has turned
weight loss into an industry like never before and the market is growing every
year. It seems that nowadays all one needs is a fashionable idea and a flair for
marketing in order to make a lot of money or garner a lot of popularity by
proposing some sort of weird diet, despite the lack of professional expertise in
this field.

And there is a LOT of diets out there. We’re going to go here only through the
best-known diets, since a review of all the diets floating around the industry
would be beyond the scope of this article.

So let’s start with one of the latest fads of the dieting world: the Atkins
diet. Pretty much everybody’s head of the Atkins diet, largely due to the flood
of articles praising the extraordinary results, not to mention the loads of good
mail from satisfied customers. The biggest thing in favor of this diet is that
it lets you eat high fat dairy products like cheese and butter. However, the
Atkins diet has fallen from its lofty perch over suspicions of increasing the
risk of heart diseases, not to mention the proved fact that bigger number of
followers complain of diarrhea, weakness, muscle cramps and rashes. The debate
over the scientific fundamentals of this diet is still raging.

Next comes the Zone diet; another well-known eating plan. This diet is the
brainchild of Barry Sears and it’s all about eating the right mix of foods in
order to reach the proper hormonal balance. This state of balance, which is
called the “Zone”, lets the body take in calories and use them through the day
without putting anything aside as fat. Unfortunately, this diet does some
serious discrimination among foods without any scientific basis. Starchy
vegetables, whole grains and beans are banned, although these foods are not in
conflict with the principles of the diet. The American Heart Association says
the Zone diet lacks essential nutrients while promoting high-protein foods.
The Jenny Craig diet is next on the list. One of the longest running diets,
Jenny Craig started this business in the early 1980s and it’s still around. The
basic idea of this diet is a trade off: you don’t have to choose recipes, do the
shopping and the cooking, but you have to buy the Jenny Craig prepackaged food.
And that runs to some $100 per week. Plus the membership costs. Plus the
vegetables and fruits which are not included in the prepackaged food. If you can
afford it and if you can stick to it, the diet is pretty good. However, similar
low-calorie foods can be bought at the grocery store and you don’t have to
discuss this with a Jenny Craig expert that insists on your eating the
prepackaged food because he gets a percentage of the sale price.

From sunny Florida comes the South Beach diet. This one has the right idea and
wrong approach combination down pat. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of people have
managed to lose weight with this diet and it actually works. But the question
is: can you really stick to it? The first phase of the diet will eliminate most
foods containing carbohydrates from your daily consumption. Fortunately, this
phase lasts two weeks. Unfortunately, second phase focuses on a half-hearted
return of whole grains and fruits and lasts… as long as necessary. If reaching
the desired weight takes you one year, then that’s exactly how long this phase
is going to last. And if you don’t like the foods allowed by this diet then
you’re out of luck. There are no alternatives.

And yet another veteran dieting program around is Weight Watchers. This is
actually one of the best diets around because it puts all the management tools
in the hands of the user. If you are really committed to losing weight, you have
all the information you need to do it. And a lot of people who are going through
the same thing are going to be there to help you. If having company during
difficult times helps your willpower, then you are probably going to lose all
that extra weight. If, on the other hand, you don’t like the idea of being
constantly under peer pressure, then this diet is not for you.

As you can see from this short review, there are a lot of diets out there,
dozens more than we’ve been able to cover here. The best thing to do when
choosing a diet is to do as much research about it as possible. See what people
who tried it have to say. Then see what doctors and dietitians have to say about
it. Between those singing praises and those trying to prove the diet wrong you
can probably get the truth yourself. Still, pay special attention to what the
doctors have to say. If they tell you a certain diet will put your body to risk
then think twice before trying it.

Diet : Low Fat Dessert

Low Fat Dessert
by Bassy

"No meal is over unless there is a dessert involved. If you are here in America,
you know that most of the desserts out there are bad for you. They are loaded
with salt, sugar and or fat. We have become a nation of junk food addicts. I do
have a theory on this. I think that when a group of people experience wealth,
their diets change. I know that this is simple and even a moron can come up with
something like this, but hear me out. When a group of people have enough money
that they have a choice of what they will eat, they will choose to go along with
the more fatty foods. I think this is because we tend to store fat to keep us
warm for the winter. In our minds if there is a bunch of food to choose from,
then we will go towards the fatty foods. Like most animals, we prepare for the
winter time. We know that it will be cold so we want a layer of fat to keep us
warm. Another aspect of it is, we are greedy. All people are greedy. We want the
best of everything. We want a nice new car, new house and all the rich food that
we can eat. In the past, a wealthy person ate different foods than someone who
is poor.

What to do? You want that little bit of joy at the end of the meal, but you
don't want to become a lard ass. Well, you can have your cake and eat it too. We
will discuss some of the more healthy desserts that you can eat. First I want to
say, don't get fooled by this low fat stuff. It isn't worth the time. You will
eat twice as much of it to fill your cravings. It is because it is missing
something, the fat. The one thing that you are craving the most. In the end you
aren't really doing yourself any favors. You are falling in the trap that all
fat people fall into. They think since it is low fat, they can eat twice as much
of it. That maybe true, but only if you don't want to loose weight.
Fresh fruit is always a good dessert. You can prepare it easily and it tastes
great. Nothing tastes better than fresh fruit that is in season. Make sure that
it is perfectly ripe and ready to eat. If it is ripe, it will be sweet and
juicy. If you eat fruit that isn't ripe it will be hard and not have all the
flavor that it can yield. You don't have to stick with the ho hum fruit salad.
You can choose a ton of different ways to eat fresh fruit. You can bake apples
for example wrapped in tin foil with a little bit of brown sugar. This is
wonderful.

One of my favorite things is bananas sliced in orange juice. The sweet tangy
flavor of the orange juice is really different compared to the banana. I could
eat a truck load of this stuff. It is also a great pick me up if you are feeling
sluggish. We have all seen those wand mixers advertised on television. Some
people call these boat motors. It is a hand held mixer/blender that you can use
for a lot of things. I love these things. If you have one of these, it is easy
to make a great low fat dessert."

Here is a simple dessert using your boat motor. Take skim milk. You need to make
sure that it is ice cold for this. Take your milk and put it in a drinking
glass. Use your boat motor to whip air into it. You will notice after awhile it
kind of looks like whipped cream. Add some bananas and strawberries and a little
pinch of sugar to make it sweet. This is very low fat and it tastes great. You
get that desire for fat taken care of that you have been craving so much. The
whipped milk really almost feels like whipped cream. You won't believe how much
it feels like the real thing.

You can also use this to add some zing to all kinds of things. You can use it to
make your low fat milkshakes. You can add your protein mix to this for a great
meal with very little fat. You will be surprised at how many things you can do
with this whipped topping. People will think that you have fallen off of your
rocker when they think you are eating a big serving of whipped cream. Before you
know it, all your buddies at the gym will want you to make them something to eat
with your boat motor. That is when you will have to tell them to get their own.
You can also eat gelatin. Make sure that you get the unflavored kind. It will
come in either envelopes or in sheets. There will be directions on the package
to tell you how to make it. You can add fruit juice or you can add fresh fruit
to your gelatin. If you have a boat motor, you can use it and add some of that
whipped topping you make from the skim milk. You will love this. You can also
eat some low fat cakes. Just because it is cake, doesn't mean that it is bad for
you. Just make sure that there isn't a whole lot of eggs or dairy involved. Also
sometimes people sneak in mayo in their cake batters. Make sure you know what is
on the cake. Also jam or jelly is great instead of frosting.

I'm sure that you can come up with your own ideas as well. Just think of what
you already like to eat and put a spin on it. Please, stay away from the low fat
stuff. All that will do is make you crave more of that than you should be
eating. In the long run, you aren't saving any calories.