Steps To A Low Glycemic Index Diet

Steps To A Low Glycemic Index Diet

Over the last 30 years, research into food and blood glucose response has completely changed our carbohydrate classification system.

It has been learned that it is impossible to predict the impact on blood glucose levels by certain foods, instead people are fed carbohydrate foods and the response measured.

This response is known as the Glycemic Index (GI), it is a measure of how quickly carbohydrate foods are digested and absorbed, and ranks carbohydrate foods according to their impact on blood sugar (glucose) levels: as indicted by elevated blood glucose.

Foods with a high GI are absorbed quickly into the blood stream and cause a rapid rise in blood glucose levels. While foods with a low GI are broken down more slowly over time and keep blood glucose levels more stable (Remember that low is slow!).

Some carbohydrate foods will maintain your energy levels for hours, while some may cause your blood glucose to rise and fall.

Different types of carbohydrate can also affect feelings of fullness in the stomach and this can influence hunger and your ability to control your body weight.

Why is the GI important?

When our blood glucose levels are stable we have plenty of readily available fuel for the brain and muscles. If our blood glucose levels drop too low (hypoglycaemia) we feel tired, dizzy and generally unwell.

If our blood glucose levels rise too quickly a rapid drop usually follows this.

Include low glycemic index foods in meals and snacks to slow the release of glucose into the bloodstream.

A low glycemic index snack a few hours before exercise will help maintain your energy levels for more effective training.

After high intensity exercise (strength training) a high glycemic index snack should be consumed within 30 minutes. This will help to replace energy and start the recovery process.

Low-GI foods take longer to digest and help delay hunger pangs that little bit more and thus promote weight loss. So please choose your carbs carefully as this will lower your insulin levels and burn more fat.

The secret is to swap high GI foods with low GI foods.

Steps to a low GI diet

• Start with a healthy, well balanced and varied diet based on a good nutrition program. The diet should be low in fats, moderate in carbohydrate and protein. The program should be high in fibre and contain a varied amount of foods to provide the required amount of vitamins and minerals.

• Look at the type of carbohydrates that you consume during the day. Look at the carbs that you eat the most, as these will have the most dramatic impact on your diet.

Try to change the carbs you eat the most with at least one low GI one. (Replace potato with sweet potato, use noodles instead of rice) By substituting half of your daily carbohydrate from high GI to low GI will result in an overall reduction in the GI of your diet.

Reducing the GI in your diet reduces your insulin levels and increases the fat burning apparatus in your body.

Try to reduce the high GI's in your diet by substituting them with low GI's. Regular consumption of low GI foods increases the feelings of fullness and satisfaction and so prevents weight gain.

Try taking in six small meals a day of healthy low fat low GI foods to prevent overeating at meal times and control appetite. Remember, that it is also important to look at the calories in food to.

Rice and bread might be low in fat but when your body is burning the carbohydrates in these foods it doesn't burn as much fat. So if you are on a low fat diet, you won’t lose as much weight if your calories are still high.

Have a look at the table below for the different GI food ratings.

Low GI (<50)>)

Grapefruit (26) / Pineapple (66) / Cornflakes (80)

Baked Beans (15) / Raisins (64) / W/M Bread (72)

Lentils (29) / Sweet corn (59) / Brown Rice (80)

Peanuts (13) / Potato Chips (51) / Carrots (92)

Soy Beans (15) / All bran (51) / Baked Potato (98)

Compare these two menus and try to adjust your diet accordingly.

High GI Menu

Breakfast: 40 Grams of cornflakes with milk. Two slices of whole meal toast with margarine and jam.

Snack: Two sweet biscuits with a white coffee.

Lunch: Ham and salad whole meal Roll with an apple.

Snack: Four crackers with cottage cheese and chives

Main Meal: Serving of Roast chicken with a large baked potato and peas. Small piece of cake.

Low GI Menu

Breakfast: 40 Grams of bran with low fat milk. Two slices of low GI toast (Try Burgen) with margarine and jam.

Snack: Two oatmeal biscuits with a coffee (Low fat milk).

Lunch: Ham and salad Roll (Low GI bread). Soft-serve vanilla yoghurt with toasted muesli sprinkled on top.

Snack: Two bananas.

Main Meal: Serving of Roast chicken with a small baked potato and peas. Two scoops of low fat ice cream with half a cup of canned peaches.

Chicken, beef, fish, eggs, nuts, and avocados contain very little or no carbohydrates. These foods if eaten by themselves will not have much effect on your glucose levels and are very low GI.

Alcoholic beverages especially wine are also low GI so can be included in your diet but remember to count them in your daily caloric intake.

In conclusion low GI foods are ideal for losing weight due to the slow absorption from the stomach.

Low GI foods also help to keep blood sugar levels more stable and this has an effect on reducing sweet cravings.

Mediterranean diet : Lower risk of Alzheimer's disease, cognitive decline

Mediterranean diet: Lower risk of Alzheimer's disease, cognitive decline

Studies published in the August 12, 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reveal a decreased risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and cognitive decline among individuals who report greater adherence to a Mediterranean type diet.

The diet includes high amounts of fruits, vegetables, legumes, cereal, fish, and monounsaturated fats, lower amounts of saturated fats, red meat and poultry, and moderate alcohol consumption.

In one article, Nikolaos Scarmeas, MD, of Columbia University Medical Center and his associates evaluated data from 1,880 elderly men and women who did not have dementia upon recruitment into the Washington Heights-Inwood Columbia Aging Project. The subjects received neurological and neuropsychological testing every 1.5 years for an average 5.4 year follow-up period, during which 282 participants were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

Greater physical activity alone was associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer's disease, with a 25 percent average reduction in risk associated with some activity compared to no activity. Those who were categorized as participating in "much" physical activity experienced a 33 percent average lower risk.

When adherence to a Mediterranean diet was considered, those in the middle third of participants had an average 2 percent reduction in the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, while those in the top third had experienced a 40 percent reduction compared to those in the lowest third.

Having both high levels of physical activity and adherence to the diet were also associated with a protective benefit. “Compared with individuals with low physical activity plus low adherence to a diet, high physical activity plus high diet adherence was associated with a 35 percent to 44 percent relative risk reduction," the authors write. “In summary, our results support the potentially independent and important role of both physical activity and dietary habits in relation to AD risk.”

In a second study published in the journal, greater adherence to a Mediterranean diet was associated with a reduction in cognitive decline.

Catherine Féart, PhD, of the Université Victor Ségalen in Bordeaux, France, and colleagues evaluated data from 1,410 participants aged 65 years and older in the Three-City cohort, a study of vascular risk factors and dementia. Participants were assessed for cognitive performance during 2001-2002 and were re-examined at least once over the following 5 years.

Dietary questionnaires were scored from 0 to 9 for Mediterranean diet adherence.
Although greater adherence to the diet was associated with fewer errors over time on one neuropsychological test, indicating a reduction in cognitive decline, the risk of developing dementia was not associated with diet adherence.

“A variety of approaches to mitigating cerebrovascular disease in midlife exist, including diet, exercise, treatment of hypertension, treatment of diabetes, avoidance of obesity, and avoidance of smoking," writes David S. Knopman, MD, of the Mayo Clinic in an accompanying editorial.

"The findings of Scarmeas et al and Féart et al fit into a larger and potentially optimistic view of prevention of late-life cognitive impairment through application, at least by midlife, of as many healthy behaviors as possible, including diet. Based on these 2 studies, diet may play a supporting role, but following a healthy diet does not occur in isolation.”

The Way You Eat Affect Your Risk for Breast Cancer

The Way You Eat Affect Your Risk for Breast Cancer

How you eat may be just as important as how much you eat, if mice studies are any clue.

Cancer researchers have long studied the role of diet on breast cancer risk, but results to date have been mixed. New findings published in Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, suggest the method by which calories are restricted may be more important for cancer protection than the actual overall degree of calorie restriction.

“Understanding how calorie restriction provides protection against the development of mammary tumors should help us identify pathways that could be targeted for chemoprevention studies,” said Margot P. Cleary, Ph.D., professor at The Hormel Institute, University of Minnesota.

“Further identification of serum factors that are involved in tumor development would possibly provide a way to identify at risk individuals and target interventions to these people.”

Previous studies have shown that intermittent calorie restriction provided greater protection from mammary tumor development than did the same overall degree of restriction, which was implemented in a chronic fashion. The researchers compared changes of a growth factor (IGF-1) in relationship to these two calorie restriction methods — chronic and intermittent — and tumor development beginning in 10-week old female mice at risk to develop mammary tumors. Their hope was to explain why intermittent restriction is more effective.

The overall degree of restriction was 25 percent reduction compared to control mice. Mammary tumor incidence was 71 percent in the control mice who ate the amount of food they wanted, 35 percent among those who were chronically restricted and only nine percent in those who intermittently restricted calories.

The researchers were initially surprised by these findings for several reasons. First, the prevailing wisdom is that the degree of protection from calorie restriction is proportional to the degree of mammary tumor prevention. Second, they originally thought that intermittent calorie restriction might enhance tumor growth due to growth factors being secreted in response to re-feeding, Cleary said.

In an accompanying editorial also published in Cancer Prevention Research, Michael Pollak, M.D., stated that some major challenges of pharmacologic approaches to cancer prevention and/or treatment include defining the underlying causes and determining the relevance of these caloric restriction methods.
Pollak is professor of oncology at McGill University and director of the Cancer Prevention Center at the Jewish General Hospital, both in Montreal.

This study “contributes to accumulating evidence that caloric restriction acts by altering hormone levels rather than by directly starving cancers of energy. In particular, lower levels of insulin are associated with reduced food intake, and this may be protective,” said Pollak, who is also an editorial board member for Cancer Prevention Research.

In the editorial Pollak wrote: “there is reason for concern that the ‘obesity epidemic’ may lead to an increased prevalence of a hormonal profile associated with elevated cancer risk and/or an adverse cancer prognosis. Therefore, in addition to its well-known general health benefits, maintaining an ideal body weight is also important in the specific contexts of cancer prevention and improving the prognosis of cancer patients.”

Based on varied findings from clinical trials, Pollak suggested that lifestyle and pharmacologic methods to reduce IGF-1 and insulin deserve ongoing investigations. Cleary agreed, stating that these results may provide interest to more aggressively pursue cancer prevention studies related to calorie restriction.

“Humans frequently regain lost weight discouraging the application of calorie restriction protocols for disease prevention,” she said. “We hope these studies will identify biomarkers and/or pathways that could be used in human studies to determine agents that would mimic calorie restriction.”

Additional Resources:
Subscribe to the Cancer Prevention Research RSS feed: http://cancerpreventionresearch.aacrjournals.org/rss/recent.xml

The Grapefruit Diet Plan Reload

The Grapefruit Diet Plan Reload

Ever tried the grapefruit diet?

Turns out there may be some good research to back up grapefruit's reputation as a fat fighter.

In a recent study at the Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, California, researchers studied the effect of grapefruit on weight loss and found that eating half a grapefruit before a meal can actually help people drop weight.

The researchers studied the effect of grapefruit capsules, grapefruit juice and real grapefruit. All three seemed to help, but the folks eating the real grapefruit got the best results.

The mechanism isn't completely understood, but the results speak for themselves.

As an added benefit, grapefruit contains cancer-fighting compounds like liminoids and lycopene, and red grapefruit has been shown to help lower triglycerides. And half a grapefruit has only 39 calories.

The Scripps Clinic Study

The 2004 study led by Dr. Ken Fujioka at the Nutrition and Metabolic Research Center at Scripps Clinic found in a 12-week pilot study that on average, participants who ate half a grapefruit with each meal lost 3.6 pounds and those who drank a serving of grapefruit juice three times a day lost 3.3 pounds. Additionally, many patients in the study lost more than 10 pounds.

Dr. Fujioka found that grapefruit diet appears to reduce insulin levels and thus, affects blood sugar regulation. Bear in mind that pancreas secretes insulin in response to the amount of carbohydrate ingested (also affected by the glycemic index and glycemic load of a food or meal) and that grapefruit by itself is considered by some to be low glycemic.

Another theory is that the fruit's low glycemic index is able to help the body's metabolism burn fat.

The Grapefruit Diet Menu

Whenever 'grapefruit' is mentioned below, the dieter has the choice of eating 1/2 a grapefruit or drinking 8 ounces of unsweetened grapefruit juice.

Breakfast: grapefruit + 2 eggs prepared any way you choose + 2 slices of ham

Lunch: grapefruit + salad with the dressing of your choice + all the meat you want

Dinner: grapefruit + salad with the dressing of your choice OR a red or green veggie prepared with butter/spices + meat or fish + 1 cup of coffee or tea

Bedtime Snack: 1 skimmed yogurt

Spice your Weight Loss!

Spice your Weight Loss!

A number of factors can contribute to the development of obesity. These take effect through a range of different mechanisms but, in all cases, the consequence is the storage of surplus energy as excessive quantities of body fat. Spices such as chilies, garlic and fenugreek can help to check weight gain and reduce obesity.

Fat deposition is a defensive mechanism that enables the storage of energy when food is abundant, thereby increasing the chances of survival during times of food scarcity and famine. In earlier times those individuals who were efficient at storing fat were more likely to survive food shortages. Unfortunately, during times of plenty we retain this innate capacity to store fat and what was once an advantage for the efficient energy accumulators has now become a health risk for them.

Viewed simplistically, obesity is caused by too much energy intake, in the form of food, and not enough energy output, in the form of basic metabolic processes and exercise. However, the reasons that so many of us become overweight or obese are a little more complex than this straightforward equation suggests. Although a sedentary lifestyle and the availability of cheap, high-energy carbohydrate and fat-laden foods are the principal causes of obesity, there are sometimes other aggravating factors. These are diverse and include a genetic predisposition; lifestyle-related factors such as stress and sleep deprivation; psychological problems that manifest themselves as eating disorders; underlying illness; certain medications; a diet dominated by high glycaemic index foods; and habitual dieting with its attendant weight cycling. It has been suggested recently that certain virus infections can increase a tendency to put on weight.

In many cases these factors work by interfering with our appetite control mechanisms, which are partially responsible for the maintenance of normal weight. The failure of appetite (satiety) control is often directly responsible for obesity and can exacerbate and entrench the condition once it has developed. Satiety control mechanisms may also be dampened as a consequence of obesity which has been caused by other factors. A number of mechanisms are involved in this complex regulatory system, and a malfunction of any one of these may result in the consumption of excess food.

The senses of smell and taste are two of the most important of the appetite control mechanisms. When we smell or eat food, receptors in the nose are stimulated by food odor molecules and convey these signals to the satiety centre in the brain. By monitoring the intensity of these signals, the satiety centre is able to gauge when we have had enough to eat. As a result, individuals who have a poor sense of smell or who suffer from a complete loss of the sense of smell tend to eat more than those with a normal sense of smell. Unsurprisingly, strongly flavored and seasoned foods - which often owe this property to spices - stimulate the satiety centre far more effectively than bland foods, and we tend to eat less of the former as a result.

Distention of the stomach by food also induces the release of hormones that act as appetite suppressants and some foods, particularly the spices, have the same effects, even in the absence of stomach distention. A group of hormones, one of which is leptin, are produced by fat tissue and are thought to play an important role in appetite regulation.
Spices have a number of properties that make them effective agents to help prevent and treat obesity. In their role as appetite suppressants, spices are known to work in three principal ways.

1. Appetite suppression:

The strong odors and flavors common to all spices rapidly stimulate the satiety center in the brain, thereby diminishing feelings of hunger. Certain spices, such as chilies, act by simulating the release of appetite suppressing hormones in the intestine. Garlic meanwhile reduces the appetite by increasing the brain's sensitivity to leptin.

2. Increase metabolic rate:

Some spices stimulate the nervous system to release hormones like adrenalin. These hormones speed up the metabolic rate which, in turn, helps "burn off" surplus fat. Capsicums (including chilies and red peppers) and garlic have both been shown to increase the metabolic rate, in some cases by up to 10 percent. Clinical trials have demonstrated that these spices can be effective both in protecting against weight gain and assisting in weight loss. In the capsicum family, more than one phytochemical is known to be responsible for this effect: capsaicin (found in high amounts in chilies) and the less spicy capsiate (found in the milder paprika and red peppers) both increase metabolic rate.

Capsaicin, the compound that gives red pepper its heat, could inhibit the growth of fat cells, says a new laboratory study.

"The results of this study clearly showed that capsaicin could inhibit the population growth and the induction of apoptosis [programmed cell death] in 3T3-L1 preadipocytes [cells that can be stimulated to form fat cells]," wrote Gow-Chin Yen and Chin-Lin Hsu in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

The researchers, from the National Chung Hsing University in Taiwan, note that previous studies have suggested that obesity may be reduced by preventing immature fat cells (adipocytes) from developing into mature cells, and other studies have shown that capsaicin can decrease the amount of fat tissue and decrease fat levels in the blood.

3. Reduce fat absorption:

Ginger, fenugreek and garlic all have the ability to reduce the absorption of fat from the intestines.

The diverse ways in which spices act provide the ideal combination of tools to help with the natural treatment of obesity.

In conjunction with a sensible weight loss program, they are useful natural treatments for obesity and overweight.

The Low Glycemic Index Diet

The Low Glycemic Index Diet

The Low Glycemic Index Diet has become quite popular because it provides numerous advantages. While the diet was first developed as a way for individuals who with diabetes to better manage their condition it quickly evolved into a weight to lose weight and even as a lifestyle change to effectively maintain weight loss.

One of the main reasons why people switch to a low GI diet is that they want to lose weight and this diet has proven to be effective in helping people to lose weight.

There are also many other advantages; however. For example, research indicates that diets that are based on low GI foods can also help to reduce the risk of developing many health conditions such as diabetes and cancer as well as heart disease.

Some research suggests that you can even cut the risk of developing these diseases in half by following the Low Glycemic Index Diet.

Another major benefit is the ability to lower blood pressure as well as lower cholesterol levels.
Additionally, individuals who have followed the diet have been found to have their body's ability to fight disease boosted. This is accomplished by strengthening the immune system, providing numerous other overall health benefits.

-Low GI diets help people lose and control weight
-Low GI diets increase the body's sensitivity to insulin
-Low GI carbs improve diabetes control
-Low GI carbs reduce the risk of heart disease
-Low GI carbs reduce blood cholesterol levels
-Low GI carbs can help you manage the symptoms of PCOS
-Low GI carbs reduce hunger and keep you fuller for longer
-Low GI carbs prolong physical endurance

The Low Glycemic Index Diet is able to bring about these benefits because it is based on consuming foods that are relatively low on the glycemic index and restriction consumption or avoiding foods that are high on the index.

The glycemic index itself ranks foods according to how fast the body is able to digest them. Those foods which are digest more slowly by the body and therefore do not raise the body's blood sugar levels as high rank low on the scale and are acceptable.

Other foods are digested slightly more quickly and dieters are therefore advised to proceed with caution regarding those foods; however, they are not restricted.

These foods rank from 56 to 69 on the glycemic index.

The final category consists of foods that are digested very quickly by the body, rapidly raising the body's blood sugar levels. These foods score between 70 and 110 on the glycemic index. For the most part, these foods consist of highly processed and refined foods such as sugary foods.

Most vegetables, as long as they are not starchy vegetables, are quite allowable on the Low Glycemic Index Diet. Fruits are also encouraged, unlike may other diets which warn against the consumption of too much fruit because they are considered to be high in natural sugars.

While the advantages of this diet are quite obvious it should be understood that this is not a diet which can be followed for a short period of time and then abandoned with the expectation of keeping the weight off. One of the important considerations of this diet is that it is more of a lifestyle change rather than a short term diet.

Moderate exercise is required in order to assure weight loss and continued weight loss maintenance.

Failure to maintain a healthy and active lifestyle can result in failure to lose weight or gaining weight back.
If you're ready to take advantage of a healthier lifestyle, reduce your chance of developing serious health conditions and lose weigh the Low Glycemic Index Diet may be just right for you.

More information in www.glycemicindex.com (University of Sydney)

How to Build Muscle and Burn Fat at the same time!

How to Build Muscle and Burn Fat at the same time!

Want to gain muscle, lose fat and get ripped? But don't know how to do it? Well, by the time you've read this article, you'll know how to get the most out of your training in a fraction of the time.

Now how do you cut fat and build muscle simultaneously?
Cutting your body fat requires you to reduce calories, especially starchy carbs along with fat, below maintenance levels.
Building muscle on the other hand you will need to consume an abundance of protein, complex carbs and body friendly fats above maintenance levels.
To add to the conflict, fat burning is best done by aerobics while muscle building requires resistance training.

Understand that it takes both a good workout, and a precise diet plan to achieve this goal of getting a ripped body real fast.
And you have to do it in a specific way.
Here's the scoop.

What has really worked is this 21-day routine. You will be 2 opposite people for 3 weeks. At the beginning of every week for 3 days you will train and eat for fat burning (lean & mean). Then for the next 3 days you will train and eat for muscle building.

The diets:

Lean & Mean – 1st (3 days of week)

- 5 to 6 evenly portioned meals
- Abundance of protein from eggs, skinless chicken & fish
- Abundance of fibrous carbohydrates from raw or steamed vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, spinach, carrots, lettuce
- No starchy carbohydrates - avoid pasta, potatoes, bread, cereal, rice, sweet potatoes, etc.
- No simple carbohydrates - avoid fruit, pop, pastry, candy, etc.
- Drink mainly water/1 gallon per day

Full & Happy— 2nd (3 days of week)

- 5 to 6 evenly portioned meals.
- Abundance of protein from eggs, skinless chicken, fish, lean red meat.
- Abundance of complex carbohydrates equally balanced between your fibrous carbohydrates (vegetables) and your starchy carbohydrates (cereal, rice, pasta, etc.)
- You may add simple carbohydrates in the form of fresh fruit if you split your carb intake into 3 equal portions (fruit, vegetables, starches).
- Drink mainly water/1 gallon per day.

What will this diet do? In very simple terms in the 1st 3 days you will be carbohydrate depleting through diet and aerobics. This combo kicks your fat burning into high gear! The 2nd 3 days you will be carb loading your muscles through diet and resistance training. Your muscles are primed for super compensation of carbohydrates and other nutrients promoting muscle growth.

Day #7 is an off day for rest and a favorite unauthorized food!

The routines:

Lean & Mean – 1st (3 days of week)

Aerobics: In the morning on an empty stomach perform some high intensity aerobics followed by some low intensity aerobics, e.g. 2 to 3 minutes warm-up-sprints or skipping. 10 to 15 minutes high intensity aerobics, 100 yard dash, walk back to start then repeat—all out effort or 3 timed rounds of skipping, 1 minute rest followed immediately by a 20 to 30 minute jog/walk. Drink plenty of water.
Eat an hour after the end of aerobic session.

Full Happy – 2nd ( 3 days of week)

Resistance training: Divide your workouts into 3 days. In each day perform 1 heavy basic compound exercise followed immediately by a moderate weight compound exercise followed immediately by a relatively light isolation exercise. Do not rest between the 3 different exercises. Only rest at the end of the 3 and that only enough to catch your breath then repeat. Do this as often as you can in 30 minutes.
Immediately after the workout consume a carb and high protein drink. Then 20 minutes after that consume your 1st meal.

For decades body builders have divided their efforts into bulking up for muscle and then dieting down to lose excess fat. This has produced some outstanding bodies but it has done so at the expense of health. They focused on one element of bodybuilding at a time for months.

A healthier approach is a shorter cycle of 3 weeks. In each of the 3 weeks you have a micro cycle of fat loss followed by a micro cycle of muscle building.
Typically look for 5 to 6 lbs. of fat loss and 2 to 3 lbs. of muscle gain.
Look in the mirror to judge your progress and adjust your diet and exercise intensity accordingly.

So there you go. You now have the top key secrets to getting a ripped body fast.
And as a bonus, you'll actually become healthier, and feel even more energized at the same time. So go for it!

Blowtorch your Fat: The Lemonade Diet

Blowtorch your Fat: The Lemonade Diet

This is also called the master cleanser lemonade fast, lemonade detox diet and lemonade cleansing diet.

It is very popular now. Beyonce lost 20 pounds in 10 days for Dream Girls with it and Robin Quivers (Howard Stern's assistant) heard about it from magician, David Blaine. She lost 73 pounds with the master cleanse.

There are many testimonials of people losing weight and getting other benefits so it is a great way to lose weight.

But there are complaints about it, too.

Many people have practiced fasting including Moses, Jesus, Aristotle, Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln and many medical doctors. Because of this, it has been constantly improved on. But because the lemonade diet was created by one person, Stanley Burroughs, it has attracted many people who are afraid to improve on it or change anything about it.

So they follow it as a cult or a religion.

It is like fasting since they are not eating food and consuming water, which is the main ingredient in the lemonade. So they get many of the benefits of fasting like losing weight.

The lemonade diet recipe contains these ingredients: water, freshly squeezed lemon juice, maple syrup or honey and cayenne pepper. It is better to take the cayenne pepper in a shot glass with water so you can enjoy the lemonade fully.

People experienced with fasting know that you do not have to worry about the colon (large intestine). Fasting gives it a vacation and it becomes healthier than ever. With the lemomade fast people lose weight and get health benefits from not eating.

Already some who are followers of this lemonade diet have made minor improvements like replacing maple syrup with agave (a natural sweetener from a cactus) and taking the cayenne in a capsule or a shot glass instead of it being in their lemonade.

Dr Herbert Shelton (ND, DC) supervised fasts on 40,000 people. On the first 6,000 he had all of them take enemas. But then he learned that in most cases you do not need to worry about the colon and the rest were done without enemas or with anything to address the cleaning of the colon.

Rudolph Ballentine M.D. says not to do juice fasts for more than 3 days without supervision but many people do the above fast 21 days and sometimes 40 days without supervision. One guy gave a testimonial about how he fasted with only water and had a tough time from lots of cleansing symptoms. Then he tried the lemonade diet and had no problems so he says that it is much better than the water fast

Natural Weight Loss Dieting Program

Natural Weight Loss Dieting Program

Have you ever wondered why you are fat and have considered going on a weight loss dieting program?

If you did, then you must know why certain food makes you fat.

Most if not all of us are somewhat carbohydrate addicts. We have pastas, pizzas, white rice, spaghettis, bread, refined flour food and confectionaries in almost if not all our meals.

Just look at the queues at the fast food joints on a regular day and you will know what I mean. Bread and sweet sugary drinks are the menu of the day, naturally.

Some of us are reluctant to embark on a weight loss dieting program to lose that excess baggage (body fat) because we think it is an exercise in sheer willpower and futility.

"You are asking me not to eat bread/rice/pizzas/hamburgers, chocolates and ice-creams my entire life? You must be nuts!" Sounds familiar?

For those who incessantly snack on biscuits and chocolates between meals to stave off hunger while working at the office, here is why.

You unwittingly and naturally reach for such snacks because of the food you chose to eat earlier at an earlier meal. If you start the day with three or four slices of white bread spread with fruit jam or margarine and then wash it down with coffee and sugar, you can be sure you will be craving for snacks by mid-morning even though your breakfast was a filling one.

When your food made up primarily of carbohydrate, especially refined carbohydrate like white bread and pizzas, with little protein or fat, not to mention high in sugar, your blood glucose surges crazily following that meal.

To counter the effect of extreme glucose surge in your blood stream, your pancreas will pump more insulin than usual to bring your blood glucose level down.

What happens then is that your blood glucose surges will then dip lower than your pre-meal level.

When this happens, you start to get hungry and crave for more sweet stuff and more carbohydrate. This is why you reach for sweet snacks and drinks instinctively. Thus the vicious cycle continues again and again and you are eating more and more calories. So choosing the food in your meal is important so that you will not get hungry fast and then consume more calories to satisfy that hunger upsetting your natural weight loss dieting program.When more carbohydrate is consumed than can be stored by your liver and muscles as glycogen, they are naturally converted to fat.

So what should you do? Well, you can start to limit your carbohydrate consumption (note that I said limit and not stop) and on top of that, choose slow digesting carbohydrates especially carbohydrate with fibers like fibrous vegetables, fruits, legumes, brown rice and brown bread, your insulin spike will not be so eccentric and therefore you will not get hungry or having your sweet tooth so often.

Now think about it, if you do not reach for your snacks and sugary drinks that often, it means that you are consuming fewer calories.

So if your caloric consumption is less than your caloric expenditure, you are right on a natural weight loss dieting program without even realizing it.

Better still, you are not going on a hunger and starvation diet because you will not get hungry that easily.

Just imagine now that you are losing weight naturally, what if you incorporate an exercise routine into your natural weight loss dieting program to burn off some more calories?

Your natural weight loss result will be amazing wouldn’t it?

Now that you know why you are fat, let’s get started on this natural weight loss dieting program.

Weight Loss: How to optimize your metabolism

Weight Loss: How to optimize your metabolism

These will also help to optimize your metabolic rate (metabolism) and the faster it works the better your body will use the food for energy rather than storing it as fat. They are provided below in order of importance.

1. Eat More It is important that you eat more meals and it is best to eat a small meal every 2-4 hours. They should be large enough so that you are not feeling hungry afterwards (rather than eating until you fill full up). Unfortunately eating 1 or 2 meals a day slows a person's metabolism rate down and therefore you should try for at least 4-6 meals each day. The ratio of carbs, proteins and fats that you should eat are as follows - 50% - Proteins, 25% Carbs and 25% Fats.

2. Drink More Water Many people just do not drink enough water and this means their bodies are dehydrated. There are two problems that a body has trouble doing when dehydrated the first being to release water and the body can not tone the muscles (building). So if your body is not building this means that it is losing muscle which results in your metabolism slowing and you end up looking flabby.

3. Have a balanced Workout Regime. Such a regime should consist of cardio and resistance (weight) exercises. Cardio exercises are good for burning fat and is easy to do. Whilst resistance exercises are a little as you do not often know what to do and suppose weights are not your thing then why not try Yoga or Pilates instead. Both Yoga and Pilates are good resistance exercises and can help maintain lean muscle and increase your metabolism.

4. Supplements in your Diet the smart way. This is the best solution to making sure that you get the right nutrients that your food can not provide you with. A daily multi-vitamin should be ample for most people and if you do not like taking it in pill form then try and liquid version instead. It also helps to cleanse and detox your body without you knowing it.

5. Sleep. This is a very important part of any healthy lifestyle regime and we sleep so that our bodies and minds can refresh themselves and this allows us to function at our optimum levels. Also sleep allows our muscles to rebuild themselves and this helps to increase a person's metabolism.

Abs Diet For Women

Abs Diet For Women

If you want to build muscles, particularly abdominal muscles or what we commonly refer to as a "six pack", your diet (which we'll call an abs diet) needs to be rich in protein.

However, you may wonder exactly how much protein should be in your food in order for you to reap the maximum benefits.

You may also wonder if you should cut down on or leave out the other food groups. You also need to know that in terms of content, the abs diet for women is very much different from the abs diet for men.

And depending on a woman's body size, the quantity of food in each abs diet service can vary.

Foods that are high in protein are the main requirements in an abs diet for women. If you want to have an attractive six pack, eating high protein foods is a must.

While you won't be eating as much protein foods as men who are on an abs diet, the foods on your abs diet menu are going to be similar overall.

For instance, your abs diet will consist of several lean meats like chicken and turkey. Your abs diet will also include plenty of fish, eggs, milk, and protein drinks and bars. Be careful eating the latter, though, because many protein drinks and bars have high sugar content. Make sure that you read the label first.

Aside from the protein-rich foods, your abs diet will also include fresh vegetables.

And if you really want to have attractive flat abs, you will have to refrain from eating fatty foods, junk foods and high sugar foods. Needless to say, you will need to avoid eating fast foods and greasy take out foods.

Just because you are on a high protein abs diet does not mean that you have to avoid carbohydrates altogether. You also need to eat carb foods.

For best results, eat foods that are high in fiber and are of the wholemeal varieties.

Avoid consuming white bread and food products made from bleached flour.

When you are on an abs diet, eat moderately. Avoid eating large amounts of foods. Instead of eating two or three big meals a day, eat small amounts several times a day. Not only doing this will help your metabolism, it will also prevent you from having a bloated and tired feeling after every meal.

So that's it -- a basic abs diet for women that you can follow whenever you are ready to start building your abs. Incorporate this abs diet in your daily routine, exercise regularly and you are on your way to having great abs!