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A Quick Look at Some of Today’s Most Effective Diets

The idiot-proof diet is all about calorie shifting. That is, in this diet, you shift your food intake throughout the day instead of eating just 3 meals a day. The diet is popular because it’s actually very easy to follow and there are hardly any restrictions when it comes to the types of food you can eat.

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The Idiot-Proof Diet

The idiot-proof diet is all about calorie shifting. That is, in this diet, you shift your food intake throughout the day instead of eating just 3 meals a day. The diet is popular because it’s actually very easy to follow and there are hardly any restrictions when it comes to the types of food you can eat.

The ‘calorie shifting’ model takes place because you eat every two and half hours. The theory is that because your body is consuming calories (energy) constantly throughout the day, it’s always in ‘burning calories’ mode instead of the ‘saving calories’ mode.

When you sign up for the diet, you get access to a diet handbook, an 11-day diet-plan and a diet calculator. You get to pick what foods you like to eat so don’t think that you’ll be tarving in this diet!

NutriSystem

The NutriSystem way of dieting is all about proper meal planning. People love this diet because it takes away the burden of trying to figure out what to eat during their dieting phase. You see, a lot of people actually get confused as to what they can eat when they want to lose weight. That’s not really surprising because there’s so much information out there and for every yay sayer, there is a nay sayer so it’s really tough to know what to eat.

However, with NurtiSystem, they do all the meal planning and portion controlling for you. You just need to sign up to any of their diet programs (e.g., Women’s Program, Men’s Program, Vegetarian Program, etc.) and order a multi-day (usually for 28 days) diet program.

After you choose your diet program, a menu is presented to you and you simply choose what you want to eat. The meals are then delivered to your doorstep at various intervals during your diet program.

The South Beach Diet

The South Beach Diet is popular because the name alone conjures bikini-clad bodies! Add to that the fact that it was founded by a cardiologist, Dr. Arthur Agatston, then you have a sort of ‘doctor recommended, doctor approved’ seal on the diet as well.

At first glance, the South Beach Diet looks a lot like the Atkins Diet in the sense that it restricts carbohydrates during the initial phase of the program (there are 3 phases). The first phase (14 days) encourages ‘normal eating’ in the sense that you can pretty much eat whatever you want but you must NOT eat bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, or baked goods. Fruit is also not allowed. No sugar. No alcohol.

The second phase allows you to SLOWLY introduce these items back into your diet but at lesser levels that you consumed them before of course. The third phase is more about general maintenance.

Weight Watchers

Probably one of the longest running diet programs out there is Weight Watchers. It believes in the overall approach where food, exercise, behavior and support are addressed.

Weight Watchers is known for advocating a point system for foods. Using this system, one calculates the calorie intake of the foods he or she eats. The number of points you can have in a day varies depending on your weight. The beauty of the program is that there are no gut-wrenching food restrictions so you never feel deprived of anything. However, the point system teaches you how to balance your meals so that even if you indulge on one food item, you don’t go overboard and consume too much in a day.

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How to manage Bland Diet

What is a bland diet? It is a diet specially set to treat certain gastrointestinal or stomach problems such as heartburns, ulcers and gas.

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An answer to a question, what is a bland diet, is that it is a simple treatment for people suffering from any one or more gastrointestinal disorders such as chronic gastritis, ulcer, esophagitis and dyspepsia.

Bland diet is a dietary regimen for people suffering from stomach disorders. Hence, it is quite understood that ingredients of a bland diet are soft food items, which are easy to digest with a capacity to keep the acidity to low levels. Questions about diet may be asked to your physicians and he/she can suggest the diet or recommend a dietician to do it.

Diet medical questions may include the queries about the food stuffs to eat and food stuffs to avoid during the time while a person experien ces any gastrointestinal disorders. However, before a dietician could decide the bland diet for a person, he/she needs to seek answers to several medical questions related to the person such as any food allergies or irritations associated with any food items and emotions medical questions of people.

Bland Diet:

The diet prescribed as a bland diet will include food items that are easy to digest and low in fiber and acid contents. Even giving up alcohol and smoking is advised while patient is on bland diet. Also a patient is advised to have 4 to 6 light meals after regular interval to avoid heavy and large meals.

Chewing food properly and eating slowly helps in the digestion of the food. Adequate sleep, avoiding smoking and controlling anxiety are supportive treatments for the standard treatment of the problem.

Allowed Food Items:

• Dairy Products
Milk, cheese, yogurt with low-fats and other dairy products are easily digested and hence, can be included as a part of bland diet. However, there is no restriction on ice-creams and one may consume even ice creams during bland diet, but it should not have any product such as nuts that are not allowed in bland diet.

• Fresh Fruits and Vegetables
Fresh vegetables and fruits are allowed to a bland dieter. However, while carrot, squash, green peas are good to eat in a bland diet, broccoli, onions and green peeper should be avoided as it forms gas. In fruits, oranges, grapefruits, and bananas are allowed.

• Proteins
Protein requirement of the body, while on a bland diet should be met with soy products and meat. Fried chicken and greasy hamburgers are not allowed to be consumed, while grilled and baked chicken is allowed.
Low-fat peanut butter and eggs are also efficient to meet the body’s protein requirement in a bland diet.

• Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are contained in whole grain breads, pasta, oatmeal, corn flakes, white rice and sweet potatoes. All these food items are allowed.

Bland diet is designed for treating certain medical circumstances such as gastrointestinal problems. Hence, to answer what is a bland diet, we can say that this is a diet that aims at improving the digestion with the help of a timed-routine diet and soft to digest food items. Once the problem is controlled patients can return to their normal diet.

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Fighting Fit – Martial Arts and Weight loss

If your goal is to improve your fitness or lose weight but you need to do something more exciting than jogging on a treadmill to keep you motivated, perhaps you should consider doing a martial art like boxing, kickboxing, karate, or judo.In this article we list the top 10 reasons to consider doing a martial art for fitness and weight loss to help you decide if doing one is right for you.1. Doing martial arts for weight lossIt’s no coincidence that gyms, personal trainers and producers of exercise videos and DVD’s are now heavily incorporating training techniques and exercises from a wide variety of martial arts in their workouts.Boxercise, Tae Bo, Cardio-Kickboxing, Kung Fu Aerobics, and personal trainers using punching bags, focus mitts and kicking pads in their sessions are just a couple of examples of how martial arts training is being used in cardio workouts for fitness and weight loss.Because martial art training is typically high intensity and usually lasts for at least an hour in most cases, it burns a maximum number of kilojoules or calories per workout and is therefore great for anyone who wants to lose weight and lose it fast.2. Doing martial arts for fitnessMost martial arts incorporate exercises and drills that improve cardiovascular fitness and endurance, help build muscle strength and improve muscle flexibility so they are perfect for anyone wanting to improve their overall fitness.Cardiovascular fitness improvements require us to regularly elevate our heart rate for extended periods and most martial arts training can help us do that.Improving the strength, size and shape of our muscles requires us to regularly subject them to some form of resistance training. Martial arts training helps provide this training by requiring us to perform exercises like push-ups and squats using our own body weight for resistance.Improved flexibility is a natural byproduct of martial arts training because most, if not all styles of martial art incorporate stretching exercises in their workouts.As a result of providing all of these fitness benefits, martial artists like boxers and kickboxers are widely regarded as being among the fittest athletes in the world and practitioners of karate, judo, etc are considered among the strongest pound-for-pound and most flexible athletes in the world.3. Doing martial arts and self-defenseOne of the most obvious benefits of doing a martial art is that it provides us with the fitness, strength, skill and techniques necessary to protect ourselves from being attacked by others who are out to harm us if the need should ever arise.Like an insurance policy, we hope you’re never in a position to have to use your martial arts training to defend yourself, but it’s great to know this ability is there just in case.Because they are primarily concerned with elevating our heart rates to burn energy and improve our fitness, many of the workouts listed above like Tae Bo, Boxercise, etc don’t really provide this benefit to the same extent as doing martial arts training with a dedicated teacher in a martial arts school that only provides one service – to teach you a specific martial art.Many people mistakenly believe that because they punch a focus mitt 50 times during a session with their personal trainer that they know how to punch properly and can therefore defend themselves if they need to. This is a big mistake and we hope these people never find themselves in a situation where this belief is tested.Unless they’ve had many years of martial arts training themselves, most personal trainers and gym instructors will not be able to offer advice about your punching and kicking technique, they are only really qualified to hold the focus mitts or kick-pad for you while you punch or kick them.Remember, while probably great at what they do, these trainers are more like aerobics instructors than specifically qualified martial arts instructors.4. Doing martial arts and self-confidenceIn addition to providing us with the ability to defend ourselves, one of the greatest personal benefits that martial art training provides is a high degree of self-confidence.This self-confidence partly results from the knowledge that we are much better equipped to defend ourselves given that we have done some martial arts training, but it also comes from a sense of achievement once we begin to master the techniques taught to us and the new confidence that results from feeling fitter and stronger and looking fitter and stronger.Given that one of the first things to suffer, and one of the hardest things to reestablish afterwards, when we become overweight is our self-confidence this benefit is of particular value to those of us who have a weight problem.5. Doing martial arts to improve body balance and coordinationAs well as helping us to become fitter and stronger, martial art training typically involves the mastery of a range of techniques that requires us to be well-balanced and have superior body coordination.In learning to master these techniques we naturally improve our balance and our coordination which helps us with other aspects of our daily life.6. Doing martial arts for varietyMartial art training provides great variety in two ways.Firstly, martial arts training sessions themselves have great variety built into them by including warm-ups and cool-downs, stretching exercises, strength building exercises, cardio exercises and exercises designed to improve and teach us a wide variety of techniques.This variety is great for our mind as well as our body.Secondly, there are such a wide variety of martial arts to study that we should be able to easily find one that suits our particular goals and interests.Whether we prefer to do a martial art that primarily revolves around striking or grappling techniques or a perfect mix of both, or we want to study a highly technical or very simple style, the choice is great.7. Doing martial arts teaches discipline and provides motivationEverybody knows that studying a martial art requires and teaches discipline.Because it is also goal orientated, training in one of the many martial arts also provides a great deal of motivation.Lack of discipline and motivation are the most often quoted reasons for weight loss failures and for this reason, doing a martial art for weight loss and fitness may help many of us who lack the required discipline and motivation to achieve our weight loss goals to overcome these common barriers to success.8. Doing martial arts for spiritualityOne definition of spirituality is “Activities which renew, lift up, comfort, heal and inspire both ourselves and those with whom we interact.”Martial art training has been practiced by millions of people over many centuries because among other things, it has a great ability to spiritually uplift us.As well as forging a better connection between our mind and body, it also has the ability to forge a better connection between us and our world and us and others.9. Doing martial arts training is relatively inexpensiveCompared to joining some gyms and hiring some personal trainers, training at a martial arts school or dojo is relatively inexpensive.Many martial arts schools charge a very modest monthly fee for training and the beauty of this is you can train when and as often as it suits you.In addition to low ongoing training costs, buying a uniform and any equipment you may need to train in most cases will be relatively inexpensive as well.10. Doing martial arts has a social aspectMany people who start doing martial arts training for weight loss, improved fitness or self-defense end up enjoying it most for its social aspects.As well as training and learning with others with similar goals, many martial arts trainees form an informal support network to help encourage and motivate each other. Through this association, many of these martial artists end up becoming very good friends.Many martial arts instructors too have very friendly dispositions and foster a fun and friendly environment in which to train which endears them to their students who typically also become close friends.

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