Health Program | News, Views and Reviews on Health Issues

The Atkins Diet is a high-protein, low-carbohydrate weight loss diet developed by Robert Atkins, M.D., during the 1960s. The Atkins Diet severely restricts the consumption of carbohydrate-rich foods and encourages the consumption of protein and fat.

Stages of Atkins Diet Plan

The Atkins Diet consists of four stages:

Stage 1: Induction

Stage 2: Ongoing weight loss

Stage 3: Pre-maintenance

Stage 4: Maintenance

Induction is the first stage of the plan. It lasts 14 days or more. This rapid weight loss is due to limiting your carbohydrates to 20 grams a day. The only carbohydrates you can have are low-carbohydrate vegetables like lettuce, broccoli and tomatoes. The purpose of induction is to induce a change in your body chemistry that leads to lipolysis (burning fat for energy) and a secondary process known as ketosis.

Ongoing weight loss phase where you add carbohydrate, in the form of nutrient-dense and fibre-rich foods, by increasing to 25 grams daily the first week, 30 grams daily the next week and so on until your weight loss stops.

During the Premaintenance and Maintenance phases, dieters determine the level of carbohydrate consumption that allows them to maintain their weight. To prevent weight regain, dieters are told to maintain this level of carbohydrate consumption, perhaps for the rest of their lives.

Some Cons of Atkins Diet:

• Once you are committed to atkins diet plan, you have to be committed to follow it for life. After you have lost weight, you can’t go back to eating.
• People who suffer from gout, kidney conditions should not go on Atkins. You should check with your doctor before you go into any diet plan.
• Some participants in Atkins Diet report losing clumps of hair. They complained having no energy to exercise. Some reported going into a slump of depression.
• High amounts of dietary protein increase calcium loss, which can contribute to osteoporosis.
• Some research has indicated that this type of diet may endanger the kidneys, result in dehydration, or lead to other health problems.

South Beach Diet has a major advantage over Atkins — it promotes healthy foods — healthy unsaturated fats that have the effect of lowering bad cholesterol, complex, low GI carbs, that help insulin level regulation.

Another major difference between the two diets is that the South Beach Diet recommends moderation (implying lower caloric intake) while Atkins does not even suggest it.

The only advantage that Atkins has over South Beach would be that in Atkins the weight loss is bigger and faster. But this “advantage” can be dangerous for health, as rapid and massive weight loss cannot be healthy when occurring in a very short time and with the cost of depriving the body of valuable vital nutrients — vitamins, minerals etc.

Atkins has been very successful for many people and has resulted in not only significant weight loss – but also health improvement. Many people do find the diet demanding at first and need to make significant behavior modification to get the best out of Atkins.

By: New Diet
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Every time I eat one of these I end up weighing less the next day. Probably because every time I eat one of these I work about twice as hard on the elliptical beforehand.

Date Taken: 2009-06-16 21:09:16
Owner: somegeekintn

diet plan

All of us want to lead a healthy life and all of us know that eating a healthy diet is the best way to get that healthy glow and the longevity we all hope for. But, everyday stress and the hectic lifestyle that we have grown accustomed to, prevents us from thinking about what we are eating and how it affects our body. When we hear talk about maintaining a daily healthy eating plans, all that comes to mind is a rigid diet that is uninteresting and bland to the taste buds – something which puts us off right from the word go. It is therefore quite natural that you search for easy healthy eating tips. Actually, a good diet is neither rigid nor difficult to follow indeed, once you understand it, it is quite easy. In this article we shall cover the essence of an easy healthy eating diet.

First of all, our easy healthy eating diet does not seek to deprive you of all those foods you love. Yes, you may bite into your hamburger or fries or ice cream at your favorite outlet; as a reward for following our easy healthy eating diet plan throughout the month.

Our easy healthy eating diet

Often, a balanced, nutritious diet means adopting a plan or healthy food chart that fits your life style. You may be in the habit of gorging on snacks while at work. No matter. Only take care to see that you snack on healthy foods. For instance, carry an apple or a banana with you or pack a nice sandwich made with whole wheat bread. Snacks such as these ensure that you don’t consume unhealthy trans-fats from that bag of chips you would have otherwise opened to stave off your snack craving.

Our easy healthy eating diet includes imagination

But what if you don’t like fruits or vegetables? Many people prefer meat to vegetables simply because not much attention is paid while preparing vegetables. Usually, healthy veggies recipes are simply boiled and placed on the side of a meat dish – nothing quite appetizing or appealing to the palate. Healthy vegetarian recipes, if prepared with a little imagination can turn out to be a wonderful meal. And veggies are versatile – they can be used in soups, casseroles or simply sautéed with a little garlic or onion to make an interesting dish. As for fruits, there is such a huge variety available that even the diehard meat fans will find something to their liking.

Our easy healthy eating diet calls for a little planning

Planning meals and snacks goes a long way towards healthy eating. Make up your grocery list with fresh foods like vegetables, fruits, meat, fish, poultry and dairy products. Limit your processed food intake either help of meal portion plates and keep an eye on the nutritional value on the labels of packaged foods. Cooking may not be your thing, but it’s not such a difficult task to pick up some easy tips for healthy cooking and eating from the thousands of online sources that are available. If you don’t fancy laboring over an elaborate meal, use the microwave to prepare your food in a jiffy. Finally, all that matters is a healthy way to cook and eat – one which suits your schedules and your lifestyle.

Our easy healthy eating diet says ‘Go fresh and nutty’

The basis of a healthy diet should be whole grains, seeds, nuts, fresh vegetables, healthy eating worksheets and fruit. You could easily include these foods in your daily diet, without much effort. You would be healthy eating food if you add a can of garbanzo beans to a soup or snack on an ounce of almonds. Replace meat with legumes like soybeans, peanuts or beans as a source of protein. Whole grains like brown rice or oatmeal and whole-wheat bread are a source of fiber that aids digestion and provides the vitamins to boost your energy and metabolic

The trick to healthy eating is not to deprive yourself of your favorite foods, but to watch the portions you eat. If you love ice cream, treat yourself to it but on a once-a-month affair – make it count. You’ll learn to love every lick and spoonful. Consciously making the right changes in your diet is the first step towards healthy eating.

Click for Healthy breakfast recipes and Portion size guide

By: Ed Stephens
Posted:

kids food tracker- nutrition

Date Taken: 2009-08-08 20:35:13
Owner: nutrition education

healthy eating

At the onset, we’d like to emphasize that food should not be strictly looked at from a budgetary point of view. If you are amongst those who use coupons cut from magazines and local newspapers to subsidize your food costs please don’t – at least not unless the item for which you plan to use the coupon coincides with an item on the new diet menu. healthy eating diets will always ask you to plan your meals. Such planning needs to be done from a nutrition and health point of view, not on the basis of coupons that might be available.

Nutrition and health point of view healthy eating ideas:

Healthy eating idea: 1. Shop on your own or with your spouse

Notice what happens when you take kids or teenagers with you for shopping? They tend to pick up all kinds of unhealthy stuff. It’s best if you create a shopping list based on your nutrition requirement. Leave the kids at home. You might want to pick up one or two items the kids love but limit the quantity. For example, instead of buying a dozen bags of chips buy just three for the week and slowly reduce that to one per week and buy items which is healthy eating for kids. Your shopping list should include foods like Chicken, turkey, fish, peanut butter, salad leaves, whole grain bread, lots of fruits and vegetables, low fat milk and cheese.

Healthy eating idea: 2. Stock your refrigerator with healthy snack food

Whenever we are hungry, the first thing we do is rummage in the fridge. If we can’t find anything there we look for cookies or chips or whatever else we can lay our hands on. So our healthy eating tips # 2 is depending on the requirement make a couple of turkey or chicken or tuna sandwiches and stores them in the fridge. Similarly you can add some saffron or strawberry to milk, healthy salad dressing and store a jar of it in the fridge. Inform your family members about the sandwiches and milk shake.

Healthy eating idea and healthy diet plan: 3. Grill or roast don’t deep fry

De-skin all your meat and remove any visible fat before cooking. Rediscover the joys of barbeque. If you haven’t already done it yet switch over to quality non-stick frying pan. A major advantage of non-stick pans is that food requires less oil for sautéing or seasoning. Also keep an oil spray bottle handy. When you need to make an omelet, just lightly spray the non-stick pan with oil.

Healthy eating idea and food portion sizes: 4. Reduce red meats and increase beans and legumes

You can vary your source of protein by incorporating beans and legumes in your healthy eating plan, i.e. all your protein need not come from meat products. Most beans can be soaked in water overnight so they sprout the next morning. Sprouted beans are even more nutritious.

Healthy eating idea: 5. Eat fish and healthy heart recipes regularly

Americans do not eat fish as much as red meats. Gram for gram, fish is leaner and healthier than any meat. Additionally, fish also contains Omega-3 fats which are good for your heart.

Healthy eating idea and healthy menu planner: 6. Select your fruit for their water content

Fruits such as oranges, melons, Kiwi, bananas, berries, grapes, apples etc. are high in fiber, water and nutrients. Fresh fruits pack more nutrients per calorie than any other food. Also, because of their high water content, you enjoy the feeling of being ‘full’ after eating a relatively small quantity of fruit. This in turn helps you avoid snacking on junk foods.

Healthy eating idea: 7. Switch to portion control plates and scoopers

Notice how family members heap food on to their plates? Rather than eating just one favorite type of food, they should be encouraged to have one or two servings of each. You can achieve this by using quality portion control plates and scoopers. Quality portion control plates have food demarcations on them making it easier to not only limit the amount of food we consume, but also to eat the correct quantities from each food group i.e. Fruits and vegetables, milk, meats, etc.

Introducing Precise Portions, a dietitian-designed portion placemat system and Quick Start Guide that makes it easy to eat well. Our products take the guesswork out of healthier eating; retraining you to eat the right amounts of the right foods, in the right proportion. And, our product line is made of porcelain which is microwave-friendly, perfect for the today’s busy lifestyle. Our gorgeous designs also allow you to entertain guests in style while maintaining focus on your diet.

Healthy eating is not a fad; it’s a common sense requirement. Go for it.

Click for Weight management program and Healthy eating food

By: Ed Stephens
Posted:

healthy eating

Too often we want to lose weight NOW. We’re in a hurry and want the weight off, we’re inpatient or we realise that we have ran out of time before we need to ‘fit into that dress’.

What do we do? If you are like most people, you start looking around for a crash diet of some sort and then ‘suffer’ for a week or so until we realise that instead of losing body fat, we are starving our bodies of all the goodness it needs to function properly. We get headaches, irritable with our families and work colleagues and then feel good for one event as we ‘managed it’ (lose a few pounds that it). Only to realise that we starved ourselves so much that you run and eat everything in sight and the vicious circle continues.
Does that sound familiar?

So what can we do to stop it? Actually it’s not as hard as you may at first think. There are differences between a Diet and a Healthy Eating Plan. If you learn the difference between a Diet and a Healthy Eating Plan and then eliminate the fad diets that are out there, then you won’t need to ‘crash diet’ ever again.

A Healthy Eating plan allows you to lose any excess weight you have whilst enjoying your day-to-day eating; far better that than hating that you have to count calories or worse still live on 2 or 3 shakes a day. Here we are going to look at what a diet is and what a healthy eating plan is, this should help you to understand the difference between the two, and better still steer you away from having to crash diet ever again.

Diet

This is the word used not only when you’re slimming (weight loss diet, slimming diet) but doctors or nutritionists could ask you, ‘what is your diet like’? It does not always mean that you’re on a weight loss program. However, the weight loss industry have hijacked the word Diet and it is now used in a multi-million dollar industry aimed at our personal thoughts and anxieties about our weight.

These diets that are sold to us with emotive words and pictures from the ‘diet industry’ are based on restricting our food & drink intakes to lose weight. They can be anything, depending on what the latest fad is, from drinking shakes, eating only soup or restricting our carbohydrates; all are fixated on what we eat rather than what we do with our bodies as well. Therefore a ‘diet’ is not a long term solution for good health.  When we return to our old eating habits after a period of restriction we usually gain all the weight (and most times more weight) that we have lost, back again to that vicious circle or dieting…

A Healthy Eating Plan

A healthy eating plan is an all-inclusive program improving your health by refining the quality of the foods you eat. The emphasis in on the improvement of your foods rather than the restraint or exclusion of foods. It educates you on the impact that foods have on your body allowing you to make choices through knowledge for your daily meals. If any foods are restricted or indeed removed from a healthy eating plan then that’s because they have no (or adverse) nutritional value and therefore your body does not need them.  The aim is to eat well with a nutritional program.

Crash/Fad Diet v’s a Healthy Eating Plan. How do you tell the difference?

Actually there are a few ways that will help you differentiate between the two. It is always worth doing your homework before you start any change in your eating regime.

Results

You may want quick results, but surely you want long term results? Does the program you’re looking at, aim for losing your excess weight slowly over a period of time? A healthy eating plan will aim for long term results; this is much healthier, sustainable and manageable.

If you lose weight too quickly, studies have shown that it not only does your health damage, it also does our self-esteem damage as we feel like failures. And more than 90% of fad dieters put the weight (and more) back on.

Complete attitude to weight loss

A healthy eating program uses a rounded approach to weight loss. This ensures that you implement healthy lifestyle changes for success. This means that your eating program should include things like exercise or meditation to help with your weight- loss, whereas a crash diet usually focuses uniquely on what you eat and drink.

Focus on the journey rather that the arrival

If you’re on a healthy eating plan you should enjoy the journey. Enjoy feeling great and having more energy that your body is used to. A by product should be the weight loss. Whilst you’re being educated about your food and healthy food choices and actually enjoying what you’re eating, then the arrival at your goal weight will not seem as important anymore.
A diet is usually restrictive and dictates what and when to eat and therefore you can’t wait for it to be over!

Nutritional balance

If you’re on a healthy eating program you will notice that you are encouraged to eat fruits and vegetables. You will always be encouraged to eat a balanced diet.
A crash or fad diet however may restrict you to eating one type of food (such as Cabbage Soup or shakes) or it may even be a diet that eliminates one or more types of food from your life.

No Quick Fixes!

To have all the health benefits of long term weight loss, a healthy eating program recognizes that (sorry to say) there are no quick fixes for obesity and obesity-related illnesses. Therefore with that in mind, there are no gimmicks to these plans. Of course you have to do the work for the long-term. A fad or crash diet relies deeply on gimmicks to persuade you that you can shed all the pounds you want fast.

I encourage you to look carefully before you part with yet more money on a fad diet.

For guidance on Healthy Eating versus Traditional Dieting, I strongly recommend you read the excellent review on the Am I Obese website; you can click to it in my Bio section below.

By: Sarah B Wallace
Posted:

healthy eating