The Detox Diet

The term detox generally means removing any toxins from the body. Depending on the kind of toxins, there can be different or combined approaches to dieting. Toxins can include cosmetics, alcohol, cigarette or psychoactive herb smokes, pesticides, mercury, food additives, oral contraceptives, and household chemicals.



Removing them with urine takes diuretics. When we are talking about detox dieting, we usually want to use diuretic foods rather than drugs. Here are some examples of diuretic foods:



Cucumbers

Water melon

Melon

Celery

Parsley

Dandelion greens

Asparagus

Artichoke

Watercress

Coffee

Tea (green or black)



Herbs include (but are not limited to):



Juniper berries

Linden flowers

Stinging Nettle

Yarrow

Uva Ursi



Abother area to remove the toxins is gastro-intestinaml tract. It is usually done using laxative foods or herbs



Here's a sample list:



Spinach

Banana

Sesame

Prune

Peach

Apple

Apricot

Red beets

Seaweed

Cabbage

Coconut

Bran

Flax seed

Psyllium husk

Rhubarb



It is also important to take care of the friendly bacteria because they help to remove the toxins from our intestines. The major source is live-culture yogurt and fermented foods generally, like sauerkraut, vinegar-free pickles, etc.



The third important area is bile-moving enhancement that help the gallbladder and liver. The most common measure is a tablespoonful of warm olive oil taken first thing in the morning. There's also a tea recipe to manage liver congestion:



Dandelion root 1 part

Artichoke leaves 1 part

Oregon grape root 1 /2 part

Licorice 1 /4 part

Turmeric 1 /4 part

Ginger root, fresh 1 /8 part

Gentian root 1/8 part



Simmer the herbs in a covered pot 20 minutes. Remove from heat and let steep, covered, for 10 minutes. Drink one cup morning and evening and one more if desired. Persist as long as you experience benefits (Source: Herbs for the Liver; Natural Liver Therapy, 1986).

Bob Greene Diet Guide and Emotion

In the "Total Body Makeover" weight loss guide, Bob Greene focuses on your relationship with food.

When people are stressed or depressed, they often use eating to feel better. This eating becomes habitual and leads to weight gain. Bob Greene seeks to curb this kind of eating, and create a lifestyle where eating is mindful and nurturing.

The Healthy Aging

Current research shows that a healthy diet and physically active lifestyle can decrease your risks of Alzheimer's disease, which is one of the most feared of health conditions of the elderly. It is also a well known fact that avoiding weight gain may help because eight gain lead to insulin resistance and diabetes, which can cause brain cells to die earlier resulting in memory loss and dementia.

The Alzheimer's Association suggests these steps to insure your healthy aging:

1. Lose the excessive fat if you have some.

2. Exercise to help keep normal insulin sensitivity.

3. Eat whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and fish.

The Zone, South Beach, Sonoma, Mayo Clinic, and Mediterranean diets all incorporate these elements of healthy lifestyle.

Why Low Calorie Diets Fail So Often

Low calorie diets usually fail because of hunger, cravings, and subconscious cheating.

Hunger, the usual result of low calorie diets, is known to sabotage dieting efforts by hidden tricks like decreasing your physical activity outside your gym - you unconsciously move around less and your mood is sleepier - and it results in significant energy 'economy' on daily basis.

Cravings can be a result of inevitable (on any restriction diet) deprivation. The body feels carbohydrate limitation much sooner than fat or protein limitation reacting by craving for sweets.

Clinical trials showed that 80% of low calorie dieters think they consume less calories than in fact they do.

Solution? Calorie limitation should come naturally, as a result of metabolic changes due to a diet that's right for you. When failing on a low calorie plan, try a low carbohydrate diet or try just eating more AND exercising more.

Body Weight and Breast Size

Regularly, weight loss results in proportional breast size reduction because a part of the breast is usually fat that melts more or less evenly from around the body. Because of that, we should talk separately about weight loss and breast size, which theoretically can be controlled by either breast gland enlargement or the under-gland muscle building. There is of course plastic surgery but it's outside the dieting scope.

Some of OTC breast enlargement formulas include saw palmetto, wild yam, fennel and fenugreek, the herbs for which an anecdotal evidence exists that they can increase breast size. There are very few studies examining the effects and risks of these herbs but in one study, fennel seed increased the weight of breast (mammary) glands.

Muscle building exercises for the breasts are no different from chest strength training and should include bench and dumbbell presses, dumbbell and pulley flyes, bench dips, etc.

South Beach Snack Suggestions

As many carbohydrate-controlled diets do, the South Beach diet consists of different phases. Foods can be disallowed on the early phase and allowed on later phases and so are snacks.

Snacks Good for the Phase 1:

• Celery
• Green or red peppers
• Cauliflower and broccoli florets
• Dill pickles
• Sunflower seeds
• Soy nuts

Phases 2 and 3 Snacks:

• Carrot sticks
• Whole-wheat crackers
• Air-popped popcorn
• Green apple
• Whole-wheat tortillas with salsa or a bean-based dip
• Phase 1 snacks

Diet Guide Lifestyle Changes

It is important to realize that any kind of successful diet will create a complete change in lifestyle. Dieting that is only temporary will lead to only temporary weight loss. All "large scale" diet plans seek to modify the way you approach exercise and eating.

These diet plans promote a healthy relationship with food – where healthy foods are eaten consistently for the purposes of nourishment. They also encourage exercise, with the goal of creating positive exercise habits in which you view fitness as a necessary part of your life.

Which diet is best for you?

The diet that's best for you is the diet that is developed for you by a professional. The next best is an individualized plan that takes into account several circumstances that are common for a group of people.



If you have excess weight, which is concentrated around the middle, the chances are good that you'll benefit from some kind of carbohydrate limitation. The mildest diet offering such a plan is probably the South Beach and the toughest is the clinical-strength ketogenic diet.



If you are a young, physically active person with not much weight to lose, a "good" fats, "good" carbs diet can be right for you. A good example is the Mediterranean-type diet, e.g. Sonoma.



If your goal is good health AND if self-discipline is no problem for you, than a low calorie diet can be the case. Research showed that calorie restriction can increase life span and lead to a better overall health

Ketogenic diet food pyramid

The ketogenic diet structure is based on, and strongly supported by vast research. The diet is high in fat and low in protein and carbohydrates. The formula to calculate the amount of allowed carbohydrate, fat, and protein is:



K/A=(0.9 fat +0.46 protein) divided by (1.0 carb +0.1 fat+0.54 protein)



The numbers in front of nutrient names are coefficients that are calculated based on nutrient ability to cause ketosis. From this formula, the pyramid has fats (butter, oils, etc.) in its basis, there are fatty meats and fish above, higher level compose nuts and heavy cream, then leafy green vegetables, and only on top, there is a small place for the least starchy vegetables like cucumbers.

Preventing Alzheimer Disease by Eating Well

Ongoing research shows that a healthy Mediterranean-style diet and active life style can decrease incidence of Alzheimer's disease.

The most important is to eat on daily basis: whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and olive oil, and to have fish several times a week. Fish contains omega-3 fatty acids, a beneficial fat that might lower the risk of Alzheimer's.

Losing several pounds can also help, reports the Alzheimer's Association, as well as walking, biking, gardening or building more physical efforts into your daily routines.

Naturally Thin People

The most 'physical' explanation of why some people eat whatever they want while staying slim is their metabolic peculiarities. Some people just burn more calories than others even as they do nothing but breathe. Other differences include higher skin temperature so they radiate more heat into the environment, or faster digestion so their food yields less calories into the body, or greater readiness to move around all day long like climbing stairs instead of using elevators, walking where other people drive, spending less time in front of TV, etc.

However, if you search for 'naturally thin people' on the Internet, you'll find mostly behavioral and psychological explanations like better intuition regarding eating habits, better body awareness so they feel tiniest bodily needs or flaws and know how to correct them, or just a stronger willpower.

One important difference can be naturally reduced appetite. For one thing, people intentionally or naturally eating less carbohydrates and more good fats, have healthier appetite and consume less calories while being less hungry. Research showed that a higher(fat dieters can 'afford' up to 300 extra Calories a day and still lose weight.

The Theory Behind the Blood Type Diet

The Eat Right For Your Type is a popular diet by Peter D'Adamo, a physician and lecturer. The "Eat Right" book is based upon years 35 years of research by his father, James D'Adamo, a naturopathic physician, and later on his own theory and observations.

Greg Kelly wrote in his review of the program in the journal Alternative Medicine Review: "The premise of the book is that if you use your blood type as a guide for eating and living, you will be healthier, you will reach your ideal body weight, and you will slow the aging process. Because blood types historically evolved due to changes in diet, culture, and social conditions, each blood type has particular strengths and limitations. When these are known and followed, it becomes easier to maintain health."

Dr Adamo's own studies confirmed the benefits of eating accordingly to his or her blood type. Now, what is known about the blood-type/nutrition connection to the medical science? Here are several facts showing that this connection do exist though there's no direct evidence. These facts should be known to the part of nutritionists denying any such connection at all.

1. The level of LDL, the "bad" cholesterol, can increase in response to a low fat diet. The degree of this adverse effect depends on one's blood type (Clinical Genetics. 51(5):291-5, 1997).

2. There is a certain intestinal enzyme going under the ugly name "high molecular mass intestinal alkaline phosphatase." During fasting, this enzyme works best for blood groups O and B and the lowest activities were associated with blood group A (Clinica Chimica Acta. 277(1):13-24, 1998).

3. Depending on one's blood type, there can be higher or lower probability of duodenal ulcer (Bangladesh Medical Research Council Bulletin. 12(1):32-6, 1986).

4. Certain types of sugars in the blood are blood-type dependent: the "blood group A trisaccharide" (Clinica Chimica Acta. 114(1):11-9, 1981) and "blood-group-active oligosaccharides" (European Journal of Biochemistry. 100(2):385-92, 1979.

5 The concentrations of so called gut-brain regulatory peptide gastrin during fasting and after meals were different depending on blood type (Acta Hepato-Gastroenterologica. 25(6):482-6, 1978).

Choosing an Evidence-Based Diet Plan

The most important thing to do to start losing weight is to make a commitment. Then, choose a diet that's right for you. If you can afford paid online diets, they'll help you in choosing. If you can not, try one of free but EVIDENCE-BASED diet plans. I would recommend the Banta Diet for the following reasons beyond its free enrollment.

1. Evidence: the diet is based on scientific facts that the proper ratio fats:carb:protein helps burn fat faster while decreasing your appetite.

2. Flexibility: your weekly plan can be different depending on your progress during the previous week so you can safely stay on the program until you reach your goal.

3. No-count: you have to count nothing - calories, carbs, fats, or portions - as long as you stick with recommended foods and meals.

4. Exercise: there all the three types of exercise recommended for successful weight loss - aerobics, strength, and endurance adjustable for your fitness level.

There's support request form so you can ask for professional help. Again, it's free.

Alkaline Diet

The human body is slightly alkaline, so, the alkaline diet proponents claim, the foods we eat also be slightly alkaline. Meanwhile, we eat mostly acidic foods - meats, poultry, sugar, caffeine, starches, and foods that become acidic in process of preparation, conservation, etc. Most of the US population is also lacking the alkaline minerals such as potassium, magnesium, and calcium.

There's no scientific evidence to support his theory but some alternative medicine practitioners claim that they have plenty of case histories describing their patients who felt bad on high fat, low carb diets and improved their health after switching to the mostly vegetarian diet with plenty of raw vegetables such as: dark green leafy vegetables, many kinds of sprouts, fresh herbs, kale and other sea plants. Nuts and oils are considered very beneficial though highly alkaline are only pumpkin seeds.

There's no highly alkaline fruits and only a few only slightly alkaline - all citruses and coconuts.

GlucoFast, a Herbal Formula For Blood Sugar Control

There's an unpublished evidence that 97.6% out of 90 people who used Glucofast reported beneficial results including positive weight loss and increased energy. The reported effects mostly concerned blood sugar levels and insulin sensitivity, which both improved after 6 month of use. GlucoFast's active ingredients are mostly herbs and minerals:

* L-Carnitine helps bringing fat to the cells to be burned as fuel.
* Alpha Lipoic is a strong antioxidant helping your body's tissues to fight oxydative damages.
* Guggul is a herb, which, taken for three months, resulted in 4 times the weight loss compared to placebo.
* Licorice strengthens the adrenal glands helping to maintaind blood-sugar level and reduce cravings for sweets.
* Juniper Berries help in improving digestion, which has an affect on weight loss while eliminating excess water retention.
* Gymnema Sylvestre is herb having anecdotal evidence as weight loss aid. It can work by regulating sugar and reducing cravings.
* Banaba Leaf Extract contains corosolic acid, which is shown to reduce blood-glucose levels.
* Chromium Chelate may assist in decreasing weight or improving the ratio of fatty tissue to lean tissue.
* Cayenne is a hunger suppressant. Studies show that calorie burning in your body increases with cayenne.
* Bitter Melon regulates blood sugar.
* Vanadyl Sulfate is an essential mineral like Chromium helping to turn fat into muscle.

Blood Type Diet

The Blood Type Diet guide operates under the assumption that your blood type dictates what kind of food is best for you. The diet argues that by eating foods that are good for your blood type, you can lose weight and improve health and digestion. There is a diet for each blood type, and each diet contains a detailed list of foods that are best for your blood type. The diet is very clear cut and restrictive, and some critics argue that it eliminates necessary food groups and nutrients.

The Bill Phillips Diet Guide

A personal trainer and a former champion bodybuilder, Bill Phillips, is one of the most successful fitness authors. He created the "Eating For Life" and "Body For Life" diet and exercise guides.

Bill teaches his clients to eat smaller meals more often. Instead of the "three squares" a day, Bill advises eating six smaller meals, and calls the in-between meals "mid meals," not snacks.

The Bob Greene diet guide

Bob Greene is famous as the personal trainer for TV talk show star Oprah Winfrey. He is also the author of the "Total Body Makeover" weight loss and fitness program. Bob Greene's program focuses on creating a healthy way of living and eating. The fitness plan is individualized and illustrated with 3D animated exercise demos. The diet's main goal is eliminating emotional eating.

Phentermine Taken Along With Fat Burners: More Side Effects

Phentermine is related the amphetamines, which may be associated with dependence so when you stop using the drug, it may result in withdrawal symptoms including depression, skin damage, insomnia, irritability, hyperactivity, personality changes, and psychosis.

Most effective fat burners, even those without the banned ephedrine, have similar side effects so these two combined may have severe consequences. The best way to figure out what's safe in your particular case, is consult with the doctor who prescribed you the diet pills.

Weight Watchers: Around Since 1963

Weight Watchers changed over years but its goal remains: it always offers weight loss guidance and support, emphasizes a low calorie balanced diet of regular foods, and encourages exercising.

Weight Watchers is now available online where you are offered the "POINTS" Plan:

- All foods are given a POINTS value based on a unique formula.

- You set your own personal daily POINTS allowance

- You can eat any food, just stay within your daily POINTS allowance.

The Macrobiotic Diet

The macrobiotic diet emphasizes whole grains, vegetables, and beans. It is low in fat, meat, dairy, and sugar and high in fiber and phytonutrients, which may help to prevent some kinds of cancer and cardio-vascular disease.



The macrobiotic diet can be lacking in important nutrients, specifically in protein, B-vitamins, iron, magnesium, and calcium. Clinical observation of children on macrobiotic diet revealed that they can have slower growth rate and even have mild kind of learning retardation.

The Theory Behind the Blood Type Diet

The Eat Right For Your Type is a popular diet by Peter D'Adamo, a physician and lecturer. The "Eat Right" book is based upon years 35 years of research by his father, James D'Adamo, a naturopathic physician, and later on his own theory and observations.

Greg Kelly wrote in his review of the program in the journal Alternative Medicine Review: "The premise of the book is that if you use your blood type as a guide for eating and living, you will be healthier, you will reach your ideal body weight, and you will slow the aging process. Because blood types historically evolved due to changes in diet, culture, and social conditions, each blood type has particular strengths and limitations. When these are known and followed, it becomes easier to maintain health."

Dr Adamo's own studies confirmed the benefits of eating accordingly to his or her blood type. Now, what is known about the blood-type/nutrition connection to the medical science? Here are several facts showing that this connection do exist though there's no direct evidence. These facts should be known to the part of nutritionists denying any such connection at all.

1. The level of LDL, the "bad" cholesterol, can increase in response to a low fat diet. The degree of this adverse effect depends on one's blood type (Clinical Genetics. 51(5):291-5, 1997).

2. There is a certain intestinal enzyme going under the ugly name "high molecular mass intestinal alkaline phosphatase." During fasting, this enzyme works best for blood groups O and B and the lowest activities were associated with blood group A (Clinica Chimica Acta. 277(1):13-24, 1998).

3. Depending on one's blood type, there can be higher or lower probability of duodenal ulcer (Bangladesh Medical Research Council Bulletin. 12(1):32-6, 1986).

4. Certain types of sugars in the blood are blood-type dependent: the "blood group A trisaccharide" (Clinica Chimica Acta. 114(1):11-9, 1981) and "blood-group-active oligosaccharides" (European Journal of Biochemistry. 100(2):385-92, 1979.

5 The concentrations of so called gut-brain regulatory peptide gastrin during fasting and after meals were different depending on blood type (Acta Hepato-Gastroenterologica. 25(6):482-6, 1978).

The South Beach Diet and Blood Pressure

If you need to improve your health conditions and never dieted before, you can expact good results following a diet that is low in sugar, white bread, pasta, rice, and potato. A successful diet of this kind is the South Beach diet. There's anecdotal evidence that people on South Beach diet can lower their blood sugar and blood pressure and improve their cholesterol levels as they lose inches and pounds. However, these conditions were shown to improve on practically any diet resulting in weight loss and fat loss. Also, these effects seem to be more noticeable in people who never before tried limit carbohydrate intake or eliminate refined carbohydrates from their diet.

Blood Type O Foods

Complete foods lists for different blood types on the "Eat Right For Your Type" diet is a copyrighted material. However, to get an idea what's good for the blood type zero, here's a sample list of benefitial foods.



* Lean parts of meets - Beef, Lamb, Veal, etc.



* Many kinds of fish, e.g., Bass, Cod, Herring, Mackerel, Salmon, Sardine, Rainbow Trout



* Fruit - Black Cherry, Figs, Pineapple, Plums



* Vegetables - Artichoke , Beet Greens and many other leafy greens, Broccoli, Garlic, Horseradish, Okra, Onions, Peppers, Sweet Potato, Pumpkin



* Breads - Essene, Ezekiel



* Legumes - Adzuki, Black Eyed, Pinto



* Seeds/nuts - Flax, Pumpkin, Walnuts



* Oils - Linseed, Olive

How does the Blood Type Diet work?

The blood type diet is best described in Peter D'Adamo's book "Eat Right 4 Your Type". There are actually, four diets: for four blood types.



The general idea is that if you use your blood type as a guide for eating, you will be healthier, reach your ideal body weight, and slow the aging process. Why?



Each of the four blood types developed in response to different food types. Type O, the oldest blood type, evolved when people were gatherers of plants and grains. The next oldest, Type A, appeared as an evolutionary response to the beginning of farming. The Type B among nomads, which food was almost entirely meat. The most recent Type AB combines many of the characteristics of A and B.



Now, what is known to the medical science? There are research results showing that "bad" cholesterol reactions to diet or fasting, intestinal enzymes activities, risk of duodenal ulcer, carbohydrate profiles of blood in response to carbohydrate intake, and characteristics of some gut-brain hormones - all these traits depended on blood type. There has been no direct evidence of the Blood Type Diet correctness but the above facts directly proved the existence of connections between blood type and nutrition/digestion.



Sources:



- Clinical Genetics. 51(5):291-5, 1997

- Clinica Chimica Acta. 277(1):13-24, 1998

- Bangladesh Medical Research Council Bulletin. 12(1):32-6, 1986

- European Journal of Biochemistry. 100(2):385-92, 1979

- Acta Hepato-Gastroenterologica. 25(6):482-6, 1978

Trimspa with Hoodia - Good or Bad?

Trimpsa used to contain Ephedra, which is now banned and replaced by the appetite-suppressing herb Hoodia and green tea extract, which has a caffiene content equivalent of 3 cups of strong black coffee. No wonder that the list of side effect include insomnia, anxiety, heart palpitations, and triggering of migraines.

The matter is, there's no targeted pill that works *just* for weight loss. To activate the process of burning fat, they HAVE to activate the "excitatory" part of your nervous system as a whole and as it's being done, too many processes get involved, many of them unwanted: jumpiness, restlessness, temperature increase, fast heart beat and breathing, etc.

Herbologists recommend to use Hoodia alone. It can be bought in regular stores, not only online, and it is less expensive than Trimpsa.