10 Food Rules You Can Ignore:

1. Eating at night will pile on the pounds. The total calories you consume over a 24-hour period or over a week is what causes you to gain weight, and when you eat these calories doesn’t matter.

2. It’s best to eat at the same times every day. Eat when you’re hungry, not when the clock says it’s time to eat.

3. Dieting with a buddy always makes weight loss easier. Common goals may pay off but weight loss is a personal journey.

4. Dietary fat keeps you feeling full longer, so you’ll eat less. Fat does take longer to digest, but it will not help you control your appetite. Foods likely to fight off hunger the longest are protein foods, followed by carbohydrates, then fats.

5. When you blow your diet, you might as well wait until the next day to get back on track. Nothing could be farther from the truth – always try to get right back on track with your next meal.

6. Refusing food at a party or when visiting is rude. Turning down food that you know will blow your diet is socially acceptable.

7. Skipping a meal every now and then will help you lose. Skipping a meal means you will be so hungry at the next meal that you are likely to overeat. This can also help lead to a slowdown of your metabolism.

8. Bread is fattening, nuts are fattening, pasta is fattening. Whole-wheat bread/pasta is a great source of nutrients, and it won’t make you gain weight more than any other food with the same number of calories.

9. All calories are equal. This is somewhat true, however; you’ll get more nutrients from a 100-calorie apple than from a 100-calorie portion of white bread. Choose healthier items if you are working on losing weight or controlling your hunger.

10. If you don’t clean your plate, you’re wasting food. If you just don’t feel right leaving the table until you’ve cleaned your plate, underestimate your hunger and put less food on your plate to begin with, or you may overeat.

Don’t believe everything you hear! Much of it is just superstition. Now you can tell your friends the real truth. In the end, nutrition experts say, many of the food and dieting rules we hold dear are meant to be broken – without guilt!

One of the effects of drinking dieter’s tea is frequent bowel movement. This gives people the feeling of body cleansing. These people may get toxins out of their body but it isn’t exactly the only thing that slimming tea actually does to the body. Slimming tea contains herbs which are natural laxatives. These include aloe, senna, rhubarb root, cascara, buckthorn and castor oil. These are products which are derived from plants and are used since the ancient times because of their potency in treating constipation and to inducing bowel movement.

Cascara, castor oil and senna are substances which are recognized as laxatives available over the counter and are also regulated as drugs. Scientific studies show that diarrhea induced by laxatives does not absorb significant amounts of calories taken in the body.

The reason for this is that laxatives do not act on the small intestines where most of the calories are absorbed. Instead, they work on the large intestines. If taken in large amounts for prolonged periods, it can affect fat absorption of the body. This may lead to greasy diarrhea and loss of weight. Abuse of laxatives is common practice among people who suffer from bulimia and anorexia nervosa.

While weight loss can be guaranteed by overdosing on laxatives, it may also cause permanent damage to the gastrointestinal tract and the weakening and softening of the bones, a condition known as osteomalacia. Drinkers of slimming teas may actually patronize the product because they are less expensive and taste better than other laxatives sold in the market. Other people, such as those with eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia nervosa drink dieter’s tea because they work fast and produce watery stool and having loose consistency.

Women may even be more susceptible to the effects of slimming teas. Although they may are not known to interfere directly with the woman’s menstrual cycle and fertility, they should watch out if drinking them causes them to rapidly shed off weight. It is also not safe for pregnant women to be taking in laxatives of any kind. Wise and responsible herbalists also discourage the use of senna and other herbal products with laxative properties for pregnant women and women who are trying to conceive.

One should be wary about these findings because the labeling of slimming teas in the market today can be absolutely misleading. For instance, they commonly refer to the laxative qualities as “natural bowel cleansing properties” and not specifically use the word “laxative”.Some even use the term “low-calorie” on their labeling. These products in fact, contain essentially no calories nor nutrients whatsoever; unless of course, if they are sweetened.

Adverse effects of misusing laxatives in the form of slimming tea generally occur when taken in more than or longer than recommended. These include nausea, stomach cramps, vomiting, diarrhea, fainting, rectal bleeding,electrolyte disorder and dehydration as well as injury and worse, death. It was also reported that excess use of stimulant laxatives cause severe constipation and pain for long periods (as much as for decades) due to the colon losing its function. It eventually led to surgery removing the colon altogether.

In this article, you will find means to prevent panic attacks by means of controlling, avoiding, or reducing the foods that trigger such disorder. On the other hand, you will also be encouraged to consume more foods that minimize panic attacks, keeping in mind a well-balanced diet.

Panic attacks directly affect the nervous system; therefore, eat foods rich in the B vitamins because they have calming effects and can deliver nourishment for a healthy nervous system.

Under the B vitamin group of nutrients, Vitamin B12, Thiamin, and Niacin have direct bearing to keep your nervous system from being susceptible to panic attacks. In more ways than one, these nutrients can make you more prepared in warding off or in handling nervous disorders.

Keeping in mind a balanced diet based on the Food Pyramid Guide while putting more emphasis on the B vitamin complex, the following can serve as an ideal food group on your diet:

1. Consume twenty percent of meat, poultry, seafood (salmon, swordfish, tuna, clams, crab, mussels, and oyster), and products made from soybeans like tofu, eggs, and cheese.
2. Consume thirty to thirty-five percent of baked potato, broccoli, asparagus, peanuts, legumes, watermelon, and oranges.
3. Consume forty to forty-five percent of brown rice, whole grain cereal, pasta, wheat germ, oatmeal, and bread.

While the above food groups which are rich in B vitamins can reduce panic attacks by maintaining a well-balanced nutrition regimen, there are three consumables that may aggravate anxiety disorders.

Alcohol is one of these substances. It raises hyperactivity in the nervous system and raises alertness. Being alert is not bad. However, alertness in the stressful level is like overacting in a stage play. Instead of doing good, it becomes annoying and may make you irritable. If alcohol cannot totally be avoided, the least you can do is to cut down your intake gradually until it reaches level zero. Some people tend to have secondary triggers of anxiety when withdrawal from a substance is abrupt.

Caffeine triggers panic attacks because it is a stimulant. Just like alcohol, withdrawal from caffeine might spur a secondary anxiety in the form of shaky, irritated, and exhausted feelings. For coffee drinkers, try the decaffeinated variety. Gradually reduce the strength and cut the frequency in which you consume coffee and other caffeine-rich drinks like cola, tea, and chocolate.

The third substance to avoid is sugar. Sugar hardly contains any nutrients and is packed with calories. Just how is sugar related to panic attacks? Sugar makes a person hyperactive, thereby bringing emotional disturbances that may ultimately lead to panic attacks. Sugar also causes mood swings. Sugar combined with starches from the foods you eat leads to fermentation and breaks down to alcohol. As mentioned earlier, alcohol raises stress levels that can lead to panic attacks.

All in all, maintaining a healthy eating habit is one of the prerequisites that contribute to a life free from panic attacks. Try your best to maintain a balanced diet even when you’re busy. Health should be your foremost priority.

Think about that statement for a minute: why is that important in your “journey?”

Because if you think that just eating less and exercising you will lose 100 pounds in the next week…I am sorry to say, you are probably in for disappointment! It’s just not reasonable to think that you are going to lose a bunch of weight, and keep it off, in such a short amount of time.

Now, if you were to take the philosophy of “One Pound at a Time,” as what is suggested within these pages, you are going to have a much easier time adjusting to your new diet/nutrition/exercise program, and you will be more likely to succeed AND CONTINUE TO SUCCEED!

Why Do You Wish To Lose Weight?

Because your spouse wants you to?

Because your kids want you to?

Because your doctor tells you to?

Because your friends tell you to?

I suggest you write down your own reasons for wanting to lose weight. Here are some ideas:

- I want to lose weight because I want to gain a healthy respect for my body

- I want to lose weight because I want to live longer for my family

- I want to lose weight because I want to enjoy life more by doing the things that my weight restricts me from doing

- I want to lose weight because I want to feel great about my myself and my appearance

- I want to lose weight because I want to travel and enjoy all that life has to offer me

- I want to lose weight to have the strength and energy I need to enjoy life like having the energy to chase my children

- I want to lose weight so that I can be an active participant in my own life and not just a spectator
Other Reasons Why You May Want To Lose Weight

No doubt a big reason why you want to lose weight is linked to your physical appearance. This scratches far below the surface than just wanting to lose weight to fit into something or simply hating the way your thighs look.

Excess weight can impact on self esteem. No one wants to be obese because it has so many negative connotations in our society.

Because we believe we are not attractive and appealing to others can make us rethink our own self worth and value. This can lead to social and emotional problems and distort the way we perceive ourselves as well as how we interact with others.

This can become a vicious cycle within itself where we eat because of how we feel to medicate the pain yet often end up feeling worse along with gaining even more weight. The cycle continues.
Take your time and think of something that is truly worthy of you and you will stick with it like glue. While doctors, your family, and/or your friends may tell you that you need to lose weight, the one person that is the most important in your decision to follow through is YOU. YOU must want to lose the weight for yourself – FIRST!

Choosing to lose weight and maintaining your weight loss is going to require a life-change. A change that you must be 100% committed to, because without that dedication, you are already set up to fail.

One way to help you in your Journey is to think about your Journey in very small steps.

One of your very first few steps is making the commitment to succeeding, truly believing you can succeed, and picturing yourself having already succeeded. That is a key component.

So, are you committed to the Journey? Are you ready for a New You? Is that a “YES”?

GREAT! You are well on your way to being successful!

One of the first challenges you will face is discovering how you are going to lose weight. There are thousands upon thousands of places both online and offline that claim to have the “magic” formula to weight loss.

Please realize that weight loss does not just happen overnight.

It will take time, commitment, and effort on your part.
The good thing is that you are off to a great start with having made that commitment on the previous page!

On the following pages are some of the tips and techniques to start your Journey. These are some realistic ideas to help you succeed, as well as resources you can use to help you find or create the best plan for you.

Your plan will need to include a mixture of both diet changes and exercise. While you can lose some weight with only doing one or the other, to be successful you need a good combination of both!

The reason is that once you start losing weight with your diet change, you should include exercise to help tone up your new body.

Don’t worry though … it can be done, and it doesn’t have to be painful…and everything you will ever need is right here in this site!

You have seen all the ads … all promising to help you lose weight instantly.

While some may work, many don’t. Sure, you can lose weight quick and many times you will, BUT…what they don’t tell you is that many times that rapid weight loss is water weight. AND IT WILL RETURN!

So, what we have to do is set realistic and achievable goals.

Remember our “One Pound at A Time” philosophy mentioned in the beginning?

That is our immediate goal. Start with ONE POUND! Then another, and another, etc. Pretty soon, you will be reaching your goals and starting to feel and see the changes happening.

Once you have been successful with your smaller, short-term goals, start setting a little bit longer-term goal. “Today is Monday, July 9th. I will lose 5 pounds by July 31st.” That is not only reasonable, but achievable!

Think of this: if you set a goal of 5 pounds each month, that is a total of 60 POUNDS in a year.

Stick to your goals the best you can. If you find that your goals are not becoming a reality, scale them back. Make them achievable, because that is a key ingredient to your successful Journey!

Scales – Get Rid Of Them!

How many times have you stepped on the scale and been depressed? A bunch!

JUST GET RID OF THE SCALES!

The best way to tell if you are losing weight: are your pants falling down more?! Do you feel better?

Seriously, all the scales do is give you a number and can be very deceptive.
Here is an example: suppose you are dieting and exercising and in your exercise routine, you are starting to build more muscle.

You are feeling better so you step on the scale and OH NO!!! You have gained weight! Well, guess what? Muscle weighs more than fat!!

If you didn’t know that, now you do. But what if you didn’t know that? You would assume that all your work is wasted and you may quit.

So, LOSE THE SCALES! They wont help you to achieve your goals.

Find out if weight gain has an emotional effect on you. Some brief questions.

- Are you conscious of your physical appearance when you are out in public?

- Are you comfortable with looking at yourself in the mirror or do you avoid it?

- Are you concerned with what others think of your body?

- Do you feel that the only way you can truly be happy is to change the physical things you don’t like about yourself?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions then it’s possible that your weight has an emotional influence over you. Your appearance shouldn’t keep you unhappy. Your appearance really should be the icing on the cake to the person you are within.

You have the power to do something about it. You can either continue to live with it or do something about it.

The fact that you are here says a lot about you and proves that you are willing to take action. I congratulate you for that and know you will find answers here. Just remember this book aims to re-educate you and unlearn all of the bad habits you may have picked up over the years. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen. You are about to experience some life changing truths so just stay with it and absorb as much as you can.

Health Issues

A big motivation for wanting to lose the weight could also be for health reasons. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that we are living in an obese nation. We are suffering in epic proportions from diseases our ancestors 100 years ago had never even heard of.

You know the effects that carrying excess weight can have on the body even in your joints and your lower back but we often forget what impact this is having to our internal organs.

Did you know that excess abdominal fat is the most dangerous type of fat to have? This is because this is most active of them all.

The fat is packed around your intestines, your liver and heart and interferes with the way those organs work. This fat secretes chemicals and hormones that inhibit proper function of those vital organs. It is also an indicator of Type II diabetes and heart disease.

For women if your waist is more than 35 inches at the belly button and for men if is more than 40 inches than you lie within the high risk category of heart disease, diabetes, blood pressure and stroke and must lose weight.

Excess fat in the body causes the arteries in your heart to become clogged which raises your blood pressure to force the blood to your organs. Having just an extra 30 excess pounds forces your heart to work twice as hard to do the same job it did when you were just 30 pounds lighter.

Excess blood pressure damages the blood vessels in your kidneys and can cause them to fail. High blood pressure is also linked with blindness caused from burst and bleeding blood vessels in the backs of the eyes.

High blood pressure can also cause weakened blood vessels to burst and bleed on the brain causing a stroke. Blood clots can also become lodged within narrowed arteries also causing a stroke.

Diabetes causes the blood to thicken which raises the risk of blood clots forming resulting in strokes and heart attacks from your already thickened arterial walls.

So, as you can see being overweight can cause a cascade effect on our health, it affects everything. Each organ relies upon the other to work effectively to keep us well. Throw any one of those off balance and it affects everything.

The simplest solution is to just lose the weight. We seem to think that having a little less cake or cutting back on saturated fats is a death sentence but not nearly as deadly as the one that plays havoc with our bodies when we choose to eat that foods that put us there.

In a medical trial to test the long term effects of excess weight on individuals, a study of around 600 people was conducted over a 14 year period. The results revealed that participants who were ‘overweight’ had a 34% greater chance of heart failure than someone at their ideal weight. Participants who were obese had a massive 104% increase in risk of heart failure over someone at their ideal weight.

Incredible what a little extra weight can do over a period of time.

The Difference Between Being Overweight And Obese

So what is the difference between being overweight and being obese?

It is the BMI (Body Mass Index) that differentiates between the two whereby it is the weight above what is generally considered to be a healthy ideal weight for a specific height.

For example:-

For adults whose BMI is between the range of 25 and 30 are considered to be overweight

For adults whose BMI is greater than 30 are considered to obese.

You can determine your BMI be going here:

http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/

Sobering isn’t it? The fact that carrying even a little excess weight can have detrimental effects on our health is mind blowing and you don’t even have to be morbidly obese for that to happen.

Most medical professionals consider someone who is 5% to 15% above their ideal weight to be considered as overweight whereas people who are 20% to 30% above their ideal weight are considered to be obese, anything above 30% and you fall into the range of being morbidly obese.

So what weight should you be? Find out your ideal weight for your height by going here:

http://www.halls.md/ideal-weight/body.htm

There is no motivation quite like knowing the health risks associated with excess weight. By now you will know which category you lie within and now you can lose the weight for more than just looking nice in a pair of jeans but to extend your life expectancy and increase your quality and enjoyment of life.

We are creatures of habit. We have amassed lots of habits that have been developed over the years that sometimes become subconscious.

We are not aware of the things we do until we purposely take notice of them. For instance, observing the thought that leads to the action of us reaching for the cookie. What was the thought? Were we feeling upset?, distressed?, depressed?, angry?

If you find you want to reach for the jar of cookies, catch yourself in that moment. Examine your thinking. How are you feeling? What state of mind are you in? What is your mood? Disrupt your pattern by forming a new one.

Rather than indulging your craving, count back slowly from 100. With each number you find yourself wanting the cookies less and less. This is because you are disrupting your usual pattern of behavior and consciously replacing it with a new one. You’ll find that after 100 that cookie won’t be as tempting as it was.

Emotional eating can also extend to happiness too. Childhood habits can see us overindulge for doing something good which can spill into adulthood where we treat ourselves with food for rewards. This is fine as long as it’s periodically.

There are ways to treat yourself other than eating. Why not get your nails or you hair done? Why not treat yourself to a nice hot bath and a facial? Why not have a healthy lunch with the boys or the girls? There are other rewarding ways to treat yourself that are not based around tempting treats. It’s just a matter of thinking a little outside the square and replacing old habits with new and healthier ones.

Boredom Eating

If you find yourself reaching for that tempting delicious high fat food because you have nothing else to do, why not call a friend for a chat? Why not take up a sport and meet up with your friends instead? Guaranteed you’ll have so much fun you won’t even be thinking about junk food.

Mistaken Hunger

It should be a healthy appetite that drives us to eat. When our energy needs replenishing because we’ve depleted our energy stores our appetite signals for us to eat. It is a simple biological reflex. We get hungry, we eat. Sometimes our hunger is more psychological than physical and thinking our body is hungry, we feed it.

If you have eaten your last meal within the past 2 hours more often than not it will be thirst which your body can sometimes interpret as hunger. If you know you have just had your last meal within a short timeframe ago, why not try drinking a glass of water then waiting 30 minutes for the brain to register it. If you are still hungry after this time period then have a light snack.

Sometimes we eat out of boredom. If you find yourself sitting around and instinctively reaching for the fridge or the pantry, catch yourself.

It’s all about replacing bad habits with good ones because that is what will make your weight loss a permanent success. It goes far deeper than losing weight for the sake of it but rather arming you with the tools to make sure you really succeed this time.

Why we need a permanent solution is because we are reprogramming ourselves and our attitude towards our food. Look at this way, it took years to form these habits and it will take a little time to break them and create newer healthier habits in its place.

Nothing is more apparent then when we eliminate all of our favorite foods at once. Our body goes into shock, tries to override our good intentions and sabotages our efforts. Another diet bites the dust simply because we weren’t aware of how we conditioned our bodies over the years.

Our bodies are marvelous pieces of machinery and will stop at nothing to preserve us at all costs. That means that if we drastically reduce our food intake our body will shut down our metabolism to force us to eat. When we do, we binge and gain back all the lost pounds we fought so hard to lose. Don’t hate your body for that, it is just doing what comes naturally.

So how do we get around this? Work in alignment with your body. Introduce changes gradually. Don’t shock your body or it will thwart your best intentions to lose weight.

Medications

There are some medications of which the side effects can be weight gain.

Medications such as some antidepressant drugs can cause you to sleep more and expend less calories making you more susceptible to weight gain. There is also a tendency to snack on more carbohydrate rich foods which also contributes to weight gain.

There are things that you can do to lessen the degree of weight gain experienced by taking these types of medications.

Try to reduce the amount of calories you consume by identifying them in your current diet.

Don’t do anything drastic just eat smaller portions and reduce the amount of carbohydrates you may be consuming, the body needs a balanced diet so don’t be tempted to eliminate carbohydrates completely from your daily eating plan.
Make sure that you get plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, lean protein and whole grains.

Incorporate more exercise into your life to counteract the effect your medication might be having on your weight.

If all else fails, consult your doctor for any alternative medication equivalents without the side effects.

If you are on a diet you are losing weight for the here and now. If on the other hand you want to lose weight on a more permanent basis this is what I would refer to as a “lifestyle change”.

Think long term and permanent change which is what you want to get out of this program as opposed to just wanting to lose weight for the moment.

Because dieting is for the short term once we depart from it we gain back the weight as we fall back into our old eating habits. This leads to “Yo-Yo Dieting” as we go from one diet to the next in the hope that this is the solution to our weight problems we have been searching for.

Just like a Yo-Yo goes up and down so does our weight with each diet we embark on.

Each diet has the same symptoms. We start out and experience quick results, hit a plateau, binge then gain back all the weight plus more.

Why do we gain all of the weight back plus extra? Our bodies have what we call a set point. Think of it as your body’s natural thermostat. It regulates your weight.

When you drop weight after starting your new diet especially on diets that restrict caloric intake, your body goes into shock. Say your starting weight prior to commencing the diet was around 170 pounds.

You lose 5 pounds. Then you lose another 3 pounds. Suddenly your weight loss comes to grinding halt. You cut even more calories in the hopes of keeping the weight loss going but again, you lose zero pounds. By now because you have restricted your calories that your body goes into self preservation, survival mode. This is where evolution as its finest kicks in. Your body overrides you by making you sluggish and lethargic. You have the metabolism of a tortoise. You barely have enough energy to lift your own arm let alone your entire body to continue exercising.

Your body has taken over and thwarted your attempts to lose weight. You can’t work out to lose the pounds you simply don’t have the energy for and to top it off you have an increased appetite.

Your body is stimulating your appetite to make you gain back all of the weight you spent a lot of effort to lose. So not only do you eat, but you eat lots. Your body’s thermostat makes sure that your weight goes back to your original 170 pounds, in fact it doesn’t just stop there.

It makes you add a few extra pounds on top of that to store away for a rainy day. Because you put your body through trauma it thought it was starving so it literally made you store extra fat for times of famine to safeguard you against losing any more weight again.

So there you have it, you just hurt your chances of losing weight by provoking your body into defense mode and making you gain extra weight.

It’s well documented that this happens which is how the phrase got to be coined as “Yo-Yo” dieting. Your weight goes down then it comes back up again and then some.

There is a way around Yo-Yo dieting and the secret lies in not shocking your body into retaliation but rather working in alignment with it. I’ll explain more on that a little later in this book.

Fad Diets

If any of the diets you have ever tried in the past fell into any of these categories, there’s a good chance it was a fad diet.

1. Promises you will lose lots of weight in one week with little effort

2. Fails to mention disclaimers or recommend doctors consultation prior to dieting

3. Suggests you eliminate entire food groups from your eating plan such as carbohydrates or dairy or vegetables

4. Restricts you to a set eating plan without considering what your preferences are, in other words lack of flexibility setting you up to fail

5. Fails to reinforce good and health habits and lifestyle changes

6.Reduces your eating to less calories than you can healthily function on

7. Goes against sound medical information

8. Is dependent upon certain supplements, diets or products to be effective

9. Makes over the top, unrealistic claims

10. Lack of scientific proof that it works and why it does

Sound familiar? Most diets you see fall into these categories. They rely on doing something drastic just to differentiate themselves from other diets whether that be eliminating entire food groups, eating certain foods on certain days, eating only one color of food or eating only one kind of food for days at a time.

Fad diets all have the same thing in common. The solution to weight loss they offer is only ever temporary a band aid quick fix to a problem that has been years in the making. Once the diet ceases the lost weight quickly returns. When this happens it is more often than not, fluid not fat that was lost in the first place which is why it is gained back so quickly.

None of these diets are sustainable. You simply cannot survive on them. The thing that makes you weight is the difficulty of adhering to such a strict diet in the first place. You go off your food because of the lack of variety and that is what makes you lose weight, or do you?

Fad diets are extreme ways to drop pounds quickly but the results are not permanent, you more often lose fluid and muscle than fat so not only are you not losing the fat you wanted to but you are damaging your health in the process. Any diet that eliminates entire food groups is not good for you.

We have a variety of foods to eat for a reason, because we need them for our nutrients and it is only those foods that can provide them, to eliminate them means that we can become vitamin deficient. To cut out one or more food groups is setting yourself up for disaster and harmful to your overall health.

The Four Basic Food Groups:

- Grains, whole grains, cereals, breads, pasta
- Vegetables and Fruits
- Dairy , milk, cheese, yoghurt
- Meat, protein, poultry, fish, eggs

Breads, cereals and grains gives you sustained energy throughout the day as well as giving you bulk to help properly clean out your bowels protecting you against bowel cancer. In fact by just adding
35 grams of fiber per day can reduce rectal cancer by 67%.
Eating grains also protects against the risk of diabetes and insulin resistance and cardiovascular disease and lowers cholesterol levels.

In a study of 70,000 women over a 12 year period it was found that women who consumed grains as part of their daily diet weighed less than the women who consumed less grains.

Dairy, cheese and yoghurt helps strengthen bones and protect against future osteoporosis.

Studies have confirmed that a diet rich in calcium, magnesium and potassium which are nutrients found in dairy foods actually lowers blood pressure while reducing the risk of hypertension. It is also an important component for proper muscle and nerve function.

Fruits and Vegetables contain antioxidants which fight against free radicals that age the body. Like grains they also provide bulk for the bowel and therefore reduce the risk of contracting bowel and rectal cancer. Eating oranges and tomatoes also increases the ability to absorb iron from meat. Fruits and vegetables also contain carotenoids which reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke. Fruits and vegetables have been linked with memory improvement and slow mental decline with age.

Meats gives a natural source of Vitamin B12 that cannot be sourced from non meat products. The body can metabolise and absorb Vitamin B12 fives more from meat compared to its pill form. It is a rich source of iron which is needed to carry precious oxygen the organs and muscles and for proper neural function.

You can consume enough from your diet naturally that you shouldn’t have the need for vitamin supplements.

Dark green leafy vegetables are a great source for iron but compared with meat, weight for weight 100 grams of liver contains around 6,000 micrograms of iron compared to 325 micrograms in 100 grams of spinach. So as you can see protein is a great pure source of iron and many other vitamins and you can stay healthy by consuming around 75 grams 3 times per week.

The Recommended Daily Servings For A Balanced Diet

Grains: the recommended daily dietary amount is around 6 ounces per day

The reason why we don’t combine your fruit and vegetable intake is because you need to eat a specific amount from each.

Vegetables: 2 ½ cups per day

Fruits: 2 cups per day

Dairy: 3 cups per day

Meat and Beans: 5 ½ ounces per day

These fats tend to be the saturated fat and of the Trans fat variety. There is a link between saturated fats and cardiovascular heart disease, it is this type of fat that raises your cholesterol levels. It usually exists in diets that are high in animal fats which is why the Atkins and low carb diet models aren’t usually the best kind.

Although Atkins himself has found no increase in cholesterol levels with his way of eating, we still do not know what the long term effects this kind of eating will produce. Diets high in saturated (animal) fats have been linked to certain cancers.

If your diet is high in cholesterol, fats deposit themselves on your arterial walls restricting blood flow to your heart and to your body. Your heart then has a tougher job of pumping blood to the rest of your body which increases your blood pressure.

Your heart may also increase in size to force the blood through your arteries causing angina a condition known as enlargement of the heart. Through blood pressure increase comes kidney damage and damage to the smaller capillaries in your eyes causing eventual reduction in eyesight and possible blindness if blood pressure is not controlled.

Trans fatty acids are amongst the worst kind of fat to have in high quantities in your diet. Fats or oils that have partial hydrogenation are more than likely to be Trans fatty. This type of fat lowers the amount of healthy cholesterol (HDL – high density lipoproteins) which throws the system out of balance by increasing the amount of bad cholesterol present.
Good Fats

In their basic building block form they are simply known as monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. They play several important roles in hormone production and help to aid in proper cell function.

These types of fats contain Omega-3 fatty acids, fish is a source rich in this fat. Omega-3 has been known to reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and stroke. If you want to preserve your health for the long term then you should make fish and fish oils a regular part of your diet.

If embarking on a diet low in fat the positives are that less fat consumed, less fat stored on your body. You are still able to eat many of the foods you enjoy without the restrictions of the Atkins or low carb diets. You get to have a balance in your diet. Simply restricting foods high in bad fats from your eating plan means you get to eat a wide variety of foods just avoiding the high fat versions.

Just remember, do not eliminate all fats from your diet, not all fats are bad for you. We need a certain amount of good fats in our daily diet for our bodies to function at their peak.

Be mindful this is still a diet nonetheless and you still have to exercise restraint over yourself when selecting foods. This diet is not as restrictive as those calorie counting ones yet you still may be tempted to cheat. If you are to go on this type of diet the control has to come from you rather than from a strict eating plan that does the meal plan for you.

What it comes down to as with anything in life, we have to be self governing and exercise commitment to our goals. Nobody can make you lose the weight or lose the weight for you. You have to want to lose the weight and stick to it until you do.