There are advantages of eating either low gi diet or high gi diet foods. One advantage of eating high gi diet food is that it soon brings about energy lull and so you get hungry and in need of food. Another advantage is that after eating foods with high gi, you get a lot of readily available energy in the blood. Your body tends to use this energy rather than the stored energy. It is also known that high gi makes it hard for one to lose weight. The merits of eating low gi diets are almost opposite. A low gi food makes one feel less hungry. This is especially important for people who are trying to lose weight. A low gi diet is also suitable for people who have cravings or a tendency of snacking all the time. This kind of gi diet plan helps you control your cravings.

Gi diet
People on gi diets are advised to eat food with low gi. In such kind of diet plan one is encouraged to avoid foods with high gi. One way to avoid the restrictions of having to take foods with low gi only is to mix them. High gi foods mixed with low gi lowers the gi of the whole meal.
Low gi diets come in various styles to suit an individual’s requirements. Gi diet plans can easily be found on the internet and several gi diet books. Each writer or author of a gi diet book has his/her own plan of how the gi diet should be. However, they all seems to agree on some pointers. These are some basic rules for any low gi diet plan;

• Always ensure to reduce your intake of concentrated sugars and starch
• Take grain products that have been produced using traditional methods. This may include whole wheat pasta, stone-ground flour or old-fashioned oatmeals.try reducing intake of refined flour products.
• Whole grains such as brown rice, buck wheat are preferred to potatoes or white rice.
• Increase your intake of legumes such as peas and beans. Make sure to include vegetables and fruits.

There are several gi diet recipes that one can choose from. It all depends on your preferences and likes. The gi diet recipes found on the internet and most of gi diet books are tailored to suit individual needs and requirements. This kind of recipes can be found anywhere nowadays since people have become more conscious of what they eat and live a healthy life. There are tons of low gi diet food list also available on the internet. Ensure to consult a gi diet food specialist or a doctor. Vegetables, most fruits and legumes such as peas and beans are good for you if you are planning on living the gi diet way.

There are two primary reason for this recent raise in concern. One of the reasons for this recent raise in concern is the fact that diet plans affect appearances. The next reason is the fact that diet plans affect overall health.

Thanks to these concerns with health and appearance a quickly increasing number of women are finding themselves gravitating towards the Mediterranean diet plan. The Mediterranean diet plan has at least six points that attract this wave of women towards it. First on our list of reasons women are attracted to the Mediterranean diet is weight loss and management of healthy weight.

In many countries all over the world but particularly in the world super powers such as the United States a great number of women are classified as being overweight or even worse obese. Thanks to this many women are searching for healthy diet plans in order to lower their weight to the desired level, whether it be for health or cosmetic reasons. The Mediterranean diet has been proven to one of the few diet plans in the world that can help women lose weight and get back down to a healthy level. Next on our list is anti-oxidants and age.

The Mediterranean diet contains a high level of foods that have a great number of anti-oxidants in them. This means that this diet includes, dark green leafy vegetables and a few kinds of fish that fit in the diet plan. When it comes to aging anti-oxidants have been proven to slow the process in women. They’ve also been proven to prevent skin and organ deterioration, further slowing the aging process.

Next on our list is Metabolic Syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is an illness that causes a person to come down with type two diabetes and hypertension. Experts believe that these illnesses are entirely linked to one’s diet. The Mediterranean diet can help prevent these illnesses. Next is heart disease. There have been multiple studies in various countries that have all come to the conclusion that the Mediterranean diet recipes can lower the chances of heart disease in women as well as men. Next is Hypertension on it’s own.

In recent years scientific findings have seen a raise in the amount of cases of women with heart disease. Many believe that this is because of a greater number of women have to juggle their career with raising children. This leads to poor food and beverage choices that cause these kinds of health problems. Research studies all throughout the world have come to the conclusion that the Mediterranean diet is an effective way to lower the risk of hypertension in women.

This is because mediterranean diet cookbook includes a large amount of fruits vegetables and grains and has a low level of saturated fat. Tests have confirmed that a diet like the mediterranean diet meal plan combined with a healthy level of exercise is a good way to reduce risk of hypertension. The final thing on our list is breast cancer. One of the most important ingredients of the Mediterranean diet is olive oil. With the exception of certain fruits and vegetables olive oil is almost universally used in the mediterranean diet plan.

This makes the diet appear to be high in fat, but contrary to popular belief this means the diet is high in healthy fat. This healthy fat comes directly from the olive oil. The fat in olive oil simply doesn’t cause the same negative effects as animal fat would. Research done on this subject has shown that diets high in olive oil significantly reduce the risk of breast cancer. This means that the high level of olive oil used in the mediterranean diet pyramid reduces the risk of breast cancer in women. All in all the Mediterranean diet is a healthier option for most people.

Low Calories

Cabbage soup diet is not rich in calories and promotes weight loss as it doesn’t prompt you to overeat. Cabbage soup diet recipes are designed to act as fillers, as a result of which the dieter does not feel hunger pans or experiences starvation. However, low intake of calories may cause side effects like a feeling of weakness or lightheadedness.

Just Seven Days!

One advantage of the cabbage soup diet is that it enables the dieter to shed weight quickly. It must be added here that this diet is to be followed for just seven days and is not to be adopted as a permanent measure for having a constant weight. Prolonging of this diet plan beyond the recommended period can cause ill health.

The overall plan includes items other than, maintaining a daily intake of 100-1200 calories, as you’ll realize from the recipes that follow:

Ingredients of Cabbage Soup Diet Recipe
1 Cabbage Head
6 Large Green Onions
1-2 Cans Diced Tomatoes
1 Bunch of Celery
1-2 Cubes of Bouillon (if preferred)
1 Package Lipton Onion Soup Mix
2 Green Peppers

Directions:
1) Cut the vegetables into small pieces and cover with water. You could also use V-8 juice.
2) Boil the ingredients for 10 minutes on full flame.
3) Reduce flame to simmer and continue cooking till all the vegetables become tender.
4) Season the cabbage soup to taste with salt, pepper, parsley, garlic powder, or another spice of your choice.

Should you decide to undergo the cabbage soup diet, you need to follow the rules and the most important rule is not to break the rules. There are no deviations permitted. The diet plan proves effective only when you don’t deviate from the prescribed diet and rules, without any exception. So, here’s the 7 day cabbage soup diet for you:

• Day One :You may eat any fruit of your choice, except for bananas. You can drink water. The other drinks that you’re allowed the first day include cranberry juice and teas of your liking but without sugar.
• Day Two: Today you can have all the fresh, raw or cooked vegetables that you like. You should know that leafy green vegetables are the finest and the vegetables to be avoided include: dry beans, peas and corn. No fruits on this day.
• Day Three: This day is rather liberal, allowing you to have all the soup, as well as fruits and vegetables.
• Day Four: This day you can have a maximum of eight bananas and as many glasses of skimmed milk. Of course, you keep eating the cabbage soup. The idea today is to suppress your desire for sweets.
• Day Five: You must have missed eating meats all these days. So, today you can have 10-20 ounces of beef and a maximum of six fresh tomatoes. Those of you who don’t like to eat beef, may substitute that with skinless baked chicken. Make sure to have 6-8 glasses of water to flush out uric acid from your body. And, don’t forget one bowl of cabbage soup!
• Day Six: This day you are allowed to have beef and vegetables. You can have as much of these two as you can, but again don’t miss on that bowl of cabbage soup.
• Day Seven: Today you may have as much of brown rice, vegetables and unsweetened fruit juices as possible, along with the usual one bowl of the cabbage soup.

People also use liquid diets to lose weight and control their appetite. Using liquid diets is not new and many people are successful in losing weight using that type of diets. There are many liquid diets recipes and one of the most popular are liquid protein diets, and shakes which are made of fresh fruits and vegetables.

There are many benefits for the people who use liquid cleansing diets; one of them is rapid weight loss. Full liquid diets could also have negative side effects for the people who used them. Some of them, who used those diets, had no bad side effects at all but others felt terrible.

When somebody is extremely overweight he could lose the unhealthy weight and he could have some health problems. Clear liquid diets should only be used for the short period of time.

Sometimes people who use liquid diets may have health problems because they are to low in essential nutrients and vitamins (vitamin A, B12 and iron). When you are on clear liquid diet you should hire nutritionist or consult your doctor and they will help you to monitor your diet.

If you stay too long on a liquid diet you will slow down your metabolism because the body will go in starvation mode. Body will slow the metabolism because it is trying to maintain energy supplies. When that person starts to eat normal food he will gain weight rapidly.

People who stay too long on a liquid diet could get muscle cramps, have problems with their kidneys, become anemic and experience dizziness.

Liquid diets are easy way to lose weight and they are good for most people. People who could not tolerate eating too many carbohydrates should use high protein shakes. Nowadays protein shakes are better, they have good taste and they have fibers and mineral supplements.

Some of high protein liquid diets are used in medical fields. Some of those programs are Optifast, HMR, Medifast and many others.

But, most of the time these short 3 day diet Courses are fraud and may even result in gaining more weight in future. Here is why and how you can keep away from them.

Short 3 day diet courses are separated into two major groups: extremely low calorie diet and 3 day detox diet. Both of this Diets causes a massive weight loss as both of the plans provide very low calories. Lets examine both of these diet plans and see what each of them does and what is to be aware of.

In first group of detox diets you are mostly asked to eat 3 meals per day which contains high amount of protein (some times containing tuna) and low amount of carbs. These diet plans asks you to eat for 3 straight days and stop eating for few days (for four to five days) and eat for another 3 more days and you can follow this cycle indefinitely. These diet courses also claim that they can help you in maintain a high metabolism but these are mere low-calories diets in disguise.

Since the calorie deprivation in these diets is so high the most of the people who use these diet plans eat extra in those four or five rest days and they put extra weight again, weight that they lost with the help of these diet plans and disturb their metabolism completely. This is why I never recommend using this type of diets.

The 2nd major group of short 3 days diet courses, 3 days detox diet is completely different matter. Even though these are low calories diets, they are usually made from fruits . These diets helps cleansing your body of toxins and built up undesired undigested waste and there for provide extra benefits than just weight loss. Don’t get me wrong, these diets plans do provide weight loss, a lot of it. Actually it’s even feasible to reduce up to 10 pounds weight in just 3 days with the help of good 3 day detox diet plan.

What I want to tell you is it is highly non-recommended to follow detox diets for a continuous long time. A week is enough with a rest of 2-3 months in between.

Short 3 days diet plans are good to start thinking about losing your weight but you also need to make sure that from now on you follow a good healthy lifestyle during the whole year and I assure that you will look fit, trim and feel healthy.

A VLCD diet is planned in such a way that the dieter consumes not more than 800 calories per day as opposed to the daily human need of 2200 calories per day. Because of its rigorous nature this diet should never be undertaken for more than 3 to 6 months.

Being on this diet for long durations can have drastic health implications. Pregnant women and youngsters below the age of twenty including children should particularly stay away from this diet. It aims at shedding 5 to 6 pound per day. The final goal is to lose alomost 50 pounds in the very short duration of 12 weeks.

This diet is specially designed by physicians for people whose Body Mass Index exceeds 30. It is designed keeping in mind the dieters pre existing health conditions if any, the amount of weight to be lost and the impact of this sudden weight loss on the dieters body.

The normal procedure in this diet is to avoid normal dietary products and replace them with nutritional supplements which give the body its daily requirement of vitamins and minerals. Regular and dilligent physical activity is also a part of this regimen. Apart from this most doctors will recommend psychological interventions such as Cognitive behavioral therapy and self image improvement.

The body usually takes some time to get used to this new diet. Most dieters complain of fatigue, a feeling of weakness, persistent constipation, nausea and diarrhea in the initial stages of the diet. In severe cases the rapid weight loss may also result in the fomation of gallstones.

A condition which should be monitored closely.
However if you are just looking at losing a few pounds you can go for the low calorie diet. This diet restricts the intake of certain high calorie foods. It aims at bringing down the daily calorie consumption to between 1500 and 1800. If coupled with daily exercise it can give visible results in a few weeks with practically no side effects.

Diets which have been squarely criticized are the high protein diet plans popularly used by majority of Americans such as the Atkins and the Stillman diets, the Zone and Protein Power diets and also the Sugar Buster diet.
Almost all of these diets completely restrict the intake of carbohydrates and sugar while substantially increasing the intake of protein and fat.

They believe that the introduction of excess protein in the body with no sugar to digest it compels the body to use its fat reserves.
But in the process nutritional fruits and vegetables are also restricted which are very important sources of vitamins .

The dramatic weight loss caused by these diets is because of the body’s usage of glycogen in the absence of carbs and sugar. But glycogen is a major source of water retention in the body. As a result low carb diets inevitably cause the repletion of bodily fluids.

A condition called ketosis which is marked by a loss of appetite and nausea which is caused due to the presence of substances called ketones in the blood stream; is directly related to the high intake of protein.
Meats and chicken which form a crucial part of low carb diets are not only high in protein but also saturated fat.

Excess intake of saturated fat is a major cause of health concerns such as heart conditions and strokes. The high intake of protein also causes kidney problems with the excess secretion of creatinine. It is also responsible for diabetes, liver and bone problems.
According to research conducted by the American Heart Association, the ideal amount of fat consumption is as follows
From Fat- less than 35% of the total daily calorie intake
Saturated Fat- About 7% of the total daily calorie intake
Trans Fat- below 1% of the total daily calorie intake

When on a low carb diet the intake of fat is a lot more than mentioned above because of the inclusion of foods containing high amounts of saturated fat. Also without the consumption of carbohydrates these fats are not digested completely.
Since most low carb diets do not allow the consumption of vegetables and fruits rich in fiber the body doesn’t get its daily requirement of essential mineral such as calcium found in fruits, potassium found in many vegetables and magnesium.

However since the intake of salt stays constant there is an increase in the amount of sodium in the body. This may lead to an increase in blood pressure.

The right way for C is to follow a healthy well balanced diet without overeating or consuming too much of one type of nutrient. Limit the intake of sugar in the form deserts and colas, fat from fried foods and starch from potatoes etc. Couple this with daily exercise and very soon you will find yourself a few pounds lighter without any side effects.

High levels on insulin contribute to weight gain in the following ways

High level of insulin causes an increase in hunger and appetite thus abetting consumption of larger quantities of food.
A higher than normal level of insulin in the body is also indicative of low utilization of sugar in the body which means that the residual sugar is being stored in the body in the form of fats
Also high levels of insulin prevent the break down of fats in the body.

The results of this research which was conducted By Dr. Fujioka and his team at the Nutrition and Medical Research Centre at Scripps Clinic in San Diego came as a moment of triumph for the patrons of the famed grapefruit diet.

The research to everybody’s astonishment did conclude that the consumption of grapefruit and grapefruit juice does aid in lowering insulin levels in the body. The study was conducted on 100 people with weight related issues.

Some of them were asked to include grape fruit and grapefruit juice with their normal daily diet. Where as, others had to do no such thing at the end of 12 weeks people who consumed grape fruit or grapefruit juice along with their regular meals had managed to reduce an average of 3.5 lb.

However people who did not include grapefruit or its juice in their weight loss diet just managed to lose 0.5 lb. There was also a marked reduction in the amount of insulin in grapefruit consumers.

This was a ‘we told you so’ moment for most people who have been ardent followers of the grapefruit diet since its conception two decades ago. But little has changed on the critics’ front who still maintains that the weight loss caused due to the grapefruit diet can be attributed to the extremely limited calorie intake involved in this diet.

Fat, carbohydrates and sugar are restricted leaving only grapefruit, high protein foods such as eggs and poultry and generous amounts of black coffee and water. This causes the daily calorie intake to drop down to 800. According to most dieticians this is what causes the weight loss. Most dieticians chose to dismiss the findings of the research saying that the weight loss observed in grapefruit consumers was due to them being conscious about their food intake since they were part of this study.

Most experts and nutritionist believe that this research can at best be classified as preliminary and more research needs to be conducted in the matter before any recommendations are made.

However, most experts also believe that no harm can come from including grapefruit in your daily meals if you enjoy it. So long as you keep your meals balanced, inclusion of a variety of fruits including grapefruit can only be beneficial

The detox diets aids the body’s natural detoxification system which includes our skin, liver and lungs to function more efficiently. This diet can be used alone but works better when used with other holistic approaches such as yoga, hrdrotherapy and natural nutritional supplements.

The effect of toxins in our body manifests itself into physical symptoms such as nausea, fatigue, insomnia and mild bodily pain.

However, given the rigorous nature of most detox diet plans it’s always safe to consult your physician before starting one.

People afflicted by terminal ailments like cancer, heart diseases, and kidney ailments should not go for a detox diet. Even if you have symptoms like fatigue and pain which closely resemble the effects of toxins in the body it is still safe to first consult a physician to determine the cause of these problems. Sometimes a more severe health issue maybe at the root of these seemingly trivial problems.

People going through health issues and who are under medication to treat them must realize that a detox diet is certainly not a substitute for medication. Their health issues will not disappear due to the detox diet, so discontinuing medication is simply not an option.

Most Detox diet patrons believe that a healthy individual should go through a detox diet at least twice a year to flush out the toxins that accumulate in the body.

At the heart of a detox diet lies the principle of consumption of healthy organic foods like fruits , vegetables, fish, rice, oil and green tea. The restricted food items include dairy products, coffee and caffeine filled beverages, wheat products, eggs, preservatives, chocolates, gluten , yeast and other foods with high fat content.

The emphasis is on eating healthy raw food as far as possible with at least 8 glasses of water to wash out the toxins through the skin and kidneys.

It is imperative to not follow this diet for extended periods of time though. Many people have complained of side effects such as fatigue and nausea while going through a detox diets. Most physicians believe that this is due to the extremely limited number of calories consumed during a detox diet.

Noticeable weight loss is an obvious result of the detox diet. However if you intend to keep the weight off you should maintain some of the habits that you followed while going through the detox plans. Reverting to your old dietary habits will pile the pounds back on.

You need to be strong willed and have a lot of self control to follow a detox diet. But in the end when you see the amazing results it will all seem worth the trouble.

Key to losing weight is consuming less calories. If you eat less calories than you burn, you lose weight fast. Prescription weight loss pills will help you in doing same and lose twice the weight than if you attempt to lose weight without weight loss pills. Let us discuss about most recommended weight loss pills by doctors:

1. Xenical – the only fat blocker prescription weight loss diet pill

Xenical Orlistat 120mg is basically a fat inhibitor. Fat absorption inhibitors work by preventing your body from breaking down and absorbing fat eaten with your meals. This unabsorbed fat is eliminated in bowel movements. Xenical works in large intestine to work in similar way and helps in blocking about 30% of dietary fats.

2. Reductil – Appetite Suppressant

Reductil containing Sibutramine as the active ingredient targets certain neurotransmitters in the brain. Reductil is an appetite suppressant which promotes weight loss by making the body believe that it is full despite of eating less. They decrease appetite by increasing two brain chemicals that affect mood and appetite.

Keep in mind that these prescription weight loss diet pills are not a cure-all and only way to lose extra pounds. You should combine these medications with proper diet and moderate physical activity in order to lose and maintain weight successfully over the long term.