The Top Benefits of a Sugar-Free Diet

Are you considering going sugar-free with your diet? If you are, then you are considering a possibly life-changing step – in a good way that is.

There are many advantages for your health if you go with sugar-free diet and we’ll highlight those for you in a moment.

But is a Sugar-Free Diet a Smart Thing to Do?

The answer is “yes” and “no” depending on how you go about it. The last thing you want to do is deprive yourself of something you love so much because that is not sustainable. But to cut sugar out of your diet by using a sugar substitute to satisfy your addiction would probably do your body and health more harm than good.

Do Not Eat Chemical Sweeteners in Order to Go Sugar-Free!

Diet this, diet that, sugar-free here, sugar-free there. Read the labels because this typically means that it’s got some sort of artificial sweetener in it or it’s going to taste like crap. There is a better way, and best of all you can still enjoy the foods you love without the worry of sugar destroying your life.

First, here are a few top benefits of a sugar-free diet:

You’ll Lose Weight by Reducing Your Sugar Calories

Many of the calories we consume in the modern world come from sugar and simple carbohydrates, and by the mere act of cutting out sugar and going sugar-free, you will be cutting out hundreds of calories from your daily consumption. This will result in weight loss as when you take in fewer calories than you expend, your body will burn fat for fuel. Sooner rather than later you’ll be seeing a slimmer and healthier looking you in the mirror!

No More Sugar Crashes

Most people suffer from sugar crashes several times in a day which makes them feel fatigued and irritable. Some people even have headaches and migraines when they face a sugar crash. By adopting a sugar-free diet you will reduce the amount of sugar crashes you face because you will be consuming foods that provide you with more stable blood sugar levels. This will leave you much more energized and cheerful throughout the day.

To most of us that all sounds reasonable and certainly we can all agree that crashing from a sugar rush multiple times a day is not a good thing. The problem most people have is the part about “consuming foods that provide a more stable blood sugar level”. After all – We eat the stuff we eat because we love it right?

Reduce the Bad Effects of Sugar and you’ll be Healthier

Heavy consumption of sugar is the leading cause of obesity, diabetes, and various other health problems that people face around the world. By undertaking a sugar-free diet, you will ease the strain on your metabolism and your body will thank you for it with better health and more vibrant natural energy.

Good health will make you feel and look better naturally. You will be, and appear happier when you feel confident and beautiful from the inside out. Eliminating the toxic effects of sugar is one of the best places to start.

As you can see, there are just too many benefits to be reaped by going sugar-free to not do so. At the very least don’t you think that you should give it a try and see how it helps you?

If you are a heavy sugar consumer, do not try to cut out all sugars and carbohydrates right away. In other words, don’t try the “cold turkey” approach. Ease into your new lifestyle by gradually cutting down on sugary foods and look to cut out the white carbohydrates such as white rice, white bread, pasta, and so on…

And you’re probably thinking that this is most of the food that we eat and enjoy everyday of our lives; but don’t freak out about that just yet.

At this point many people would tell you “good luck and best wishes on your journey to a healthier you!” and leave you to your own devices. The information above clearly explains the benefits of going sugar-free and you know that you need to make this gigantic lifestyle change. But how, when it all seems so hard?

Going Totally Sugar-Free is Hard to Do!

The truth is that you probably won’t make the changes you need to because you are totally in love with the foods you eat. To stop would be such a great sacrifice and statistics prove that people who do end up feeling deprived, fall right back into the routine of eating the foods they love in due time.

So, what’s the answer to a Sugar-Free Lifestyle then?

Every person has to look at where they are at right now and make a mental note of what items they eat most often that contains the most amount of sugars. Keep your mental notes in your mind and read this article titled “Eliminate Sugar Before Sugar Eliminates You”. You will likely find a way to start a successful sugar-free diet within minutes of reading it.

 

Sugar Substitutes Are No Answer for Sugar Addiction

People are more aware than ever that what you put into your body is something you need to give serious consideration to and more recently there’s been growing concern over the negative effects that sugar can have on your body.

But humans have been consuming sugar for centuries so why is there so much concern now?

Well folks the problem is that there are two types of sugar – those which occur naturally and the far more dangerous refined sugar which you’ll find pretty much everywhere.

Sugar addiction is running rampant and sugar substitutes are not the answer.

One of the main problems with eating anything which contains refined sugar is that you’re effectively eating nothing but empty calories when you consume it. Now that refined sugar has become part of our everyday society and is part of every holiday season from Halloween treats, to Holiday Season candy, cakes and cookies, Valentine’s Day chocolates and in the kid’s Easter goodies.

In reality you can find some form of sugar in most of the stuff we eat and drink every day.

In Fact – People are Addicted to Sugar!

So it’s not just for the holiday sugar, it’s hard to avoid using it in our daily lives. In fact sugar addiction is now one of the biggest problems facing both developed and developing countries all over the world. Sugar usage worldwide has been increasing rapidly over the past hundred years or so and following along at a rapid pace you’ll find obesity, heart disease and diabetes escalating right alongside sugars escalated usage.

Refined Sugar and Sugar Addiction Dangers

We’re sure you’re wondering right now just how dangerous sugar could be? After all how can something which tastes so good be so bad for you? What you’re about to learn might come as a shock for you as to how addictive sugar can be.

Sugar Addiction Needs to Get Under Control

In numerous studies refined sugar has been shown to have what are called opioid qualities, which basically means sugar has the same addictive qualities as heroin for example. In studies conducted on rats where they were given access to as much sugar as they wanted to eat, there were significant withdrawal symptoms including screeching, mood swings and changes in their actual brain chemistry when the sugar was taken away.

As you’re probably aware eating a diet rich in sugary foods can increase your chances of developing diabetes, which is itself a very serious medical condition. Diabetes can lead to a wide variety of associated medical problems like necrosis of body tissue, coma and even death in extreme cases.

Diabetes is not where the buck stops when it comes to problems arising from sugar addiction. The health risks from eating too much sugar can also result in suffering from a whole spectrum of cardiovascular problems including heart disease and congestive heart failure.

More recent studies have shown that there’s evidence of a link between low bone density (osteoporosis) in children and teenagers and the consumption of sugary sodas – with most children drinking far, far too many of these. While some scientists believe that it’s the carbonation that promotes low bone density is not important because regardless, the sugar, high fructose corn syrup and sugar substitutes are the biggest problems we are seeing.

Did you know for example that the average American processes over 100-pounds of refined sugar every single year and that you can roughly add in the same weight in high fructose corn syrup? That’s 100 pounds of refined sugar plus another 100 pounds of pure high fructose corn syrup which is becoming clearer by the day is even worse for you that just pure sugar.

That’s nearly 200 pounds of sweet empty calories a year folks! Does anyone else think that we have a problem here?

Sugar substitutes to the rescue!

Or… Not so fast?

Is Solving Sugar Addiction with Sugar Substitutes a Good Idea?

The problem with avoiding sugar is that it’s been added to almost everything you find on store shelves, so this has motivated people to ask for, get and now use the “Sugar-free” options instead.

Unfortunately even when products are listed as “sugar-free” (meaning free of refined sugar) there’s an even more insidious danger lurking inside that packet or can…

Sugar Substitutes or Artificial Sweeteners!

What has surprised many scientists and nutritionists is that artificial sweeteners are actually far more dangerous than refined sugar in a whole number of ways. Firstly, people use artificial sweeteners to cut down on the number of calories they’re eating and in turn attempting to control their weight.

The problem here is that artificial sweeteners can actually make you fatter because they disrupt your body’s hunger response – when your body doesn’t get calories from these low-cal sweeteners you wind up with food cravings. This then leads you to trying to fill yourself with other foods and normally leads to a “crab frenzy” because your body is also in a low glycemic state.

So even though you’ve been drinking diet soda you’ll wind up suddenly having a craving for cake, pizza, candy, donuts or something else which defeats the purpose of using that sugar substitute in the first place.

Artificial Sugar Substitutes are Slipped into Many Products

What’s really scary is that artificial sweeteners are present in places you’d never expect to find them like in baby food, vitamin pills and drinks, fruit juices, diet meals, low-calorie foods and in all kinds of foods you’d assume are otherwise nutritious and quite healthy for you. To better understand how to avoid these artificial sweeteners you need to know all the names they go by.

Identify and Avoid Artificial Sweeteners

The most common artificial sweeteners are saccharine, aspartame (NutraSweet) and sucralose but neotame (used in many baked goods) and acesulfame are two new ones which are even more toxic than the ones they’re designed to replace.

In an effort to give you some perspective on how much of a problem this is when aspartame was first tested for use as a sugar substitute the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) refused to give it the all clear. There were early indications of several health risks involved in its use and laboratory tests on rats backed this up.

In fact aspartame has been linked to an increased occurrence of cancer, diabetes, obesity, headaches, seizures and a wide variety of degenerative neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, in people who are using this artificial sweetener on a daily basis.

There’s also the risk that aspartame can convert into glycol in your bloodstream when you consume too much of it, glycol being a common ingredient in antifreeze products – if you drink antifreeze it will kill you!

…Except in your case you’re getting that same glycol from drinking that diet soda you might have in your hand right now. In short artificial sweeteners and almost all synthetic sugar substitutes are nothing short of poison.

Why are Artificial Sugar Substitutes Bad for Your Sugar Addiction?

To date there have been well over 10,000 complaints lodged with the FDA in relation to the continued availability of aspartame but they will not discuss this issue with any form of media despite the fact that aspartame/NutraSweet is still in use in over 6,000 products available on the market today. The company behind this sugar substitute (G.D. Searle) have even tried distracting the public from avoiding their product by renaming it to AminoSweet in 2009.

You don’t need to take our word for it – you can Google the wealth of medical research out there on aspartame and the other artificial sweeteners on the market right now. There are hundreds of documents and studies available on the subject. Even Dr. Oz has gone public on the dangers of sugar substitutes, in the hope of keeping his viewers better informed and when talking sugar addiction, sugar is the number one food Dr. Oz wants out of your house.

Some people laugh at the idea of sugar addiction and just reach for a second round of cupcakes not knowing the damage going on inside their body until it festers into something serious. Breaking away from a sugar addiction is not easy but if you have patience and take it a step at a time, before long you’ll be looking back thinking it wasn’t really all that hard either.

To get a better handle on a sugar addiction without using questionable sugar substitutes read Eliminate Sugar Before Sugar Eliminates You also published by MyFitnessNut.com. In that article you’ll learn how you can cut your sugar intake as much as you want, with little to no sugar withdrawals.

 

Here is How to Naturally Eliminate Sugar from Your Life

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 If you want to eliminate sugar from your diet this probably means that you already have a bit of a sugar addiction and these tips might be able to help you avoid sugar withdrawals and naturally ease your way into a sugar-free lifestyle.

When you follow through with your sugar elimination plans, your body will reward you in many ways. This is why all sugary foods are off limits when a person follows a diet plan such as the Paleo Diet but that’s not what you’re going to do here.

What a pity that something that tastes and feels so darn good is so darn bad for you. But it is and if you want to avoid the many health problems associated with sugar over consumption you must eliminate it before it eliminates you.

If you want to speed up the process of removing sugar from your life for your health or weight loss goals, get started with a good whole food supplement that feeds your body nutrients it needs. Feeding your body quality nutrition from 100% whole food can help subdue or eliminate cravings for practically everything.

Why It’s Important to Eliminate Sugar from Your Diet

Eliminating sugar from you and your family’s diet is a good thing and the sooner you get started the safer you all will be. Sure, sugar does taste good indeed but it contains huge amounts of calories and many of these sweet sugary treats contain a boatload of fats as well.

This sugar and fat combination is not good at all for anyone trying to keep their weight down. Not only that, sugar is wildly addictive and you’ll quickly find out that the more of it you consume, the more you’ll crave. It’s a damaging spiral downwards and the best thing you can do is to decide early on, before serious addiction sets in, to eliminate sugar from you body as much as possible.

What Happens if I Don’t Eliminate Sugar from My Diet?

Research, science and statistics don’t lie and this short sugar bear video pretty much sums up why you will end up eliminating sugar from your diet sooner or later anyway. Sadly, for one bear it was too late, but not so for the other three yet.

Now you might be thinking that a small amount of sugar each day won’t hurt you and you’re probably right. But, when you start adding up the small amounts found in almost everything you consume you’ll quickly realize the need to eliminate some if not most sugar from your life.

What’s important to know is that all this sugar adds up and your body just can’t handle it. It wasn’t meant to handle it. For most people excess sugar shows up as excess stored body fat showing up in their mid section around the organs where it does the most harm. Then that sneaky fat shows up all over the body and for most people, their health begins to decline.

Eliminate Sugar from Your Life before Sugar Eliminates You

Sugar cravings are very real and can be viscous at times. A few times of indulging in that sweet stuff and experiencing a “feel good” sugar high is all it takes for a sugar addiction to get its grip on you. And what a powerful grip it can be.

What happens when you take in sugar is that the “sugar high” makes you feel good at first, then your body crashes leaving you feeling tired and hungry. To get rid of this crashing feeling people reach for more sugar and the cycle continues while doing lots of harm to your body in the meantime. In the end, sugar just makes you feel tired and worn out.

To break this cycle you must eliminate sugar from your diet, or as much of it as you can. This for too many people is easier said than done and unless your doctor tells you different, it doesn’t have to happen all over night. If you start depriving yourself entirely, you’re going to have a more difficult time.

Tips to Decrease – Then Finally Eliminate Sugar Entirely

If you really get a lot of sugar everyday you really need to go slow at first. For instance, my wife and I decided to cut soda out of our diets several years ago. We were big soda drinkers and we knew that artificial sweeteners are worse than the sugar itself so we ‘got it’ that we had to do something.

First off we we’re both filling up large glasses of soda from cheap 2-liter bottles and guzzling like there’s no tomorrow. Needless to say, we were addicted to sugar and sadly, unable to give it up completely at first.

But here’s how we did it…

Instead of buying 2-liter bottles of soda we started buying 12-packs of 12oz. cans. With a goal to just drink 1 can of soda at a meal, we’d sometimes grab an extra can and split it. This led us to the bright idea to split a can to start with and if we need to split another we’d do it.

It worked out well. This went on for many months as we gradually decreased our addiction to sugary drinks of all kinds including most juices, down to nothing worth even measuring.

Cutting back on sugary soft drinks was easy because we went slow enough to not feel deprived. A few years ago we were eating out and decided to order a soft drink and it actually tasted unbelievably disgusting. We honestly couldn’t believe that we used to drink and enjoy that stuff everyday.

The best way for you to eliminate sugar from your life is to do it in small steps. A few days without sugar is great and all but if your addiction is as bad as most people’s you might find yourself worse off than before you went cold turkey.

Small lifestyle changing steps that can last will be so much more valuable to you than a two or three day triumph then going right back to that poisonous sugar with vengeance.

When you’re craving a sweet drink try a quarter slice of fresh lemon in a quart of water sweetened with stevia leaf to taste. Stevia works great to satisfy the “sweet tooth” as a natural and safe alternative to refined sugar and can be used in a wide variety of foods and drinks.

Cookies, cakes, muffins and pretty much all of the processed foods you eat contains sugar and that leads to big problems when you start adding it all up. And the same process of eliminating sugar from your diet applies to these foods as well as the drinks mentioned above…

Don’t deprive yourself entirely and take small steps to making your addiction for sugar to diminish. Gradual sugar reduction gives your body the time it needs to adapt. Get good quality whole food nutrients into your body to reduce cravings and naturally increase your energy level. With these small steps you are creating a lifestyle change with the least amount of effort and the greatest degree of success.

 

There are hundreds upon hundreds of weight loss solutions being advertised today but life is far too short and valuable to waste it on trying them all. When you are going into a weight loss program or decide to invest in some kind of supplement, you need to make sure that what you are buying is actually effective and not some kind of cheap gimmick designed to rip people off.

While it automatically goes without saying that there are dozens upon dozens of effective systems out there, there are a few which have really stood the test of time and have proven themselves as being very effective. Here is a brief overview of three of them to help you get started on your search for a weight loss solution that will be right for you.

The Fat Burning Furnace Weight Loss Solution

Exercising like a madman is not the only way to burn fat and calories; as it turns out, the body already does that for us through the handy process we call metabolism. The Fat Burning Furnace is a program based entirely around the concept of increasing your metabolism by performing series of special exercises and eating foods which have been proven to help achieve that goal.

The Fat Burning Furnace doesn’t promise you any results that are out of this world, but what it does provide you with is a guarantee that if you follow their method, you are going to be losing weight at a natural pace, and you won’t even need to work as hard for it as you would with other weight loss systems.

The Diet Solution

This program takes a very special approach to losing weight, as the first step of it requires you to fill out a questionnaire with various types of information about yourself, all of it pertaining to your physical aptitudes, such as your height, weight, age, gender, desired goal, etc…etc… Once you are done filling out the form, you are going to be given a dieting plan that was specially customized for your needs and abilities. Regardless of what plan you will be given, rest assured that you won’t be starving or asked to overcome impossible challenges; there are three full meals per day as well as two snacks in between them.

The Raspberry Ketones Weight Loss Solution

Losing weight doesn’t necessarily have to be achieved through the medium of a workout system or a dieting plan, although those are generally not going to hurt you (apart from some extreme cases where they can hurt you) and can even be helpful. Raspberry Ketones makes use of a relatively new discovery: that raspberries are full of an enzyme that helps the body break down fat, called ketone.

Raspberry Ketones is one of the first and most recognized ketone-based natural weight loss solutions, with each capsule being filled with the equivalent of ketone obtained from four pounds of fresh raspberries. Simply taking the extract will increase your metabolism and help your body burn fat regardless of whether you are running around the track or lazily sitting in front of the TV.

Needless to say, the results are better if you do the former rather than the latter and it can start with as little as 15 minutes of walking a few days a week. Yes, there are weight loss solutions that won’t turn your life upside down to do them.

Bonus Weight Loss Solution Video – The Only Plan You’ll Ever Need

Look, if you’re like most people wanting to lose weight then you’ve probably tried a few, maybe even a dozen or more diets and you are still looking for “the one” that will work for you once and for all. If this is true for you, or if you’ve never done a weight loss plan and you’re wanting to choose one that will work the first time. Stop looking now and watch the weight loss solutions video to the right and it’ll help you put everything together without you even having to think about it.

Looking around for a trendy new diet tip turns up a number of good ones. With those a number of bad fad diets that you’d probably rather stay away from popped up as well.

Here you’ll find four diet tips that turned up in our search along with some tips on how to identify what bad fad diets are as opposed to some good solid tips that you can actually use to lose weight with.

Good Diet Tip #1 – Healthy Bacteria for Healthy Digestion

Most people have negative connotations when they think of bacteria because of the harm they have been known to cause us. News channels feed off of the horror stories that deadly bacteria can cause. Not all bacteria are bad and some are even necessary.

There are good healthy bacteria strains that are important to help you digest and extract nutrients from your food. They help liberate the nutrients in your food in order to feed your body’s cells and crucial for excellent health.

While one bacteria strain may be taxing on your system another can be important to help make it work right. Your digestive system is reliant upon good bacteria to digest your food. The better your digestion the more nutrients from the food are made available to your body. In turn you’ll find that your elimination of waste is also better and your hunger is more satisfied due to the nutritional value you are receiving. This can help you to lose weight.

How to Get Healthy Bacteria Working for You

Taking digestive supplements is one of the simplest ways to get a good variety of digestive bacteria or enzymes into your digestive system. Another is through foods like raw fruits, vegetables and yogurt.

Supplements can offer a large variety of enzymes that help to digest a large variety of food types. Where one might break down dairy products well, another would break down proteins well. You want to look for guaranteed live viable cultures from a trustworthy company.

When you start taking digestive supplements there’s a good chance that you’ll start going to the bathroom like a healthy person should and may just find that pounds are dropping off your body by this alone. This is one of those diet tips that might sound a bit faddish but this is not the case. However, no digestive system can operate efficiently without receiving the necessary amount of fiber so add that in and this is one diet tip that should treat you right.

Fiber will help you feel fuller while it works to clean your digestive system. After a few weeks of ingesting enough fiber to work with your healthy bacteria, you should see the scale numbers start to slide on a downward trend. If you were to pick any one single diet tip, this one should be it but keep in mind that a combination of things will give you a better success rate.

Good Diet Tip #2 – The Nordic Diet

The Nordic Diet is a new diet researchers have come up with by studying the nutritional habits of the healthy people from Denmark, Sweden and Iceland and what they consume to stay fit and healthy.

Similar to the Mediterranean diet which has long been know to be healthy, the Nordic Diet is comprised of fish, healthy oils, berries, root vegetables and whole grains. Red meat and sugar are rarely consumed if ever. Studies have shown that for people who follow the Nordic Diet or the Mediterranean Diet, they have a noticeable reduction in both cholesterol and inflammation.

Some of the foods incorporated into the Nordic Diet may not be as plentiful in all areas as in the foods of the Mediterranean Diet. So, with either diet plan you really can’t go wrong and it’s not a problem if you have to interchange some of the food items from either diet. Finding the right combination that will work best for you is all that really matters because both of these diets are loaded with good healthy eats. A little mix and matching can have a good outcome.

Good Diet Tip #3 – The Gluten Free Diet

Gluten free eating has been getting a lot of attention lately and many people report big benefits when they take the step to kick gluten out of their lives. Guten is a protein found in wheat grain and it causes many problems from inflammation, food allergies and weight gain.

High gluten foods are also high in sugar which helps to fuel the weight gain. This is the primary reason people go gluten-free but what they find when on their gluten-free diet is that besides the weight loss benefits, many people begin feeling better over all and bothersome allergies begin to vanish.

Many people live with allergies that occur when they eat food with wheat in it and have no idea that the gluten in giving them problems. This is becoming common knowledge and manufacturers have started producing more and more foods that are gluten-free.

Look for foods without wheat and substitute foods with corn meal, oat flour and rice flour for gluten-free alternatives. By choosing these alternative food choices, you won’t be giving up the nutrients you need plus many people find that the weight melts off their body without a whole lot of other effort when they remove gluten from their lives.

Good Tip #4:  The Vegetarian Diet

Going all out vegetarian can be a challenge especially for those that like and eat meat regularly. Giving up meat and poultry entirely may not be something you would want to do but knowing that becoming a vegetarian can help you lose weight makes you want to do it anyway.

How about a compromise? If you’re not ready to go full blown meatless, how about starting to make some smaller improvements by going meatless just a day or two a week at first?

Adding in vegetarian meals only for a few days a week is doable and it will help you with weight loss and your health in general. You can get there by gradually adding in more vegetables, fruits, nuts and grains and less meat each time until you reach your goal.

As you progress, work toward limiting red meat intake to only one time per week. Eliminating red meat from your diet can have many positive benefits in terms of weight loss and the health of your entire body. While some people go totally vegan and eliminate all animal products completely, other people adjust to eating poultry and fish while partially or even completely eliminating red meat.

If you go vegan all the way, it’s important to get enough protein into your diet and this can be done with plant sourced food and whole food supplements. A protein shake or drink made up of rice protein, pea protein or chia protein is a great fit for someone wanting to avoid all types of animal products.

Besides the weight loss benefits that come with a vegetarian diet, the health benefits are numerous. When you start eating more vegetables and fruits, the more of the important antioxidants and other beneficial nutrients you get.

Most people notice an improvement in their health rather quickly when they embark upon a vegetarian diet. The same goes for the Healthy Bacteria Diet, Nordic Diet, Mediterranean Diet and the Gluten-Free Diet listed above.

It seems like every time you look up there’s a new diet program being touted as the next best thing since sliced bread. Just flip on the TV or hop on the internet and you’ll quickly find a new and promising diet designed to work just for you.

While there are lots of good healthy diet plans and tips offered, there are also some that can be downright harmful and unhealthy for you. But how can you tell the difference between good dieting advice and a crazy fad diet?

To spot diet fads, asking the questions below can help you determine if it’s a fad or genuinely good advice. It would be helpful to skim over the article Freaky Diet Fads That Attract Desperate Dieters to see some recent examples of fads and keep the questions below in mind when you’re looking at any diet plan.

Is it a Good Diet Tip or a Fad Diet – Which is it?

• Does the diet promise weight loss results without any effort?
• Does it promise to help you lose more than 2-3 pounds a week?
• Does it ask you to eat inedible items?
• Is eliminating or eating one single food required?
• Is caloric intake restricted to fewer than 1200 calories a day?
• Is a surgical or medical procedure recommended?
• Is it backed by science, research and studies?
• Does the diet want you eliminate all fats from your food?
• Does it look and sound like it’s too good to be true?

Ask yourself the above questions when looking at a diet that’s appealing to you. Losing weight by taking a risk with your health is not worth it by any means. The questions above can help you determine if it’s a diet fad that you’re looking at or sensible diet tips that have value and hold promise.

When you want a healthy diet plan to follow and are unsure how to put the pieces together yourself, let MyFitnessNut.com give you a hand. The best diet tip yet is to follow a complete weight loss program like this one to the right which has been put together by reputable nutritionists that really know what they are doing.

Watch out because when people are desperate to drop fat and weight off fast there’s no telling what they might resort to but these diet fads below should be labeled “Don’t try this at home” diets.

Absurdly Silly Diet Fads People Really Do

From starvation diets, tongue patch diets, boredom diets to cotton balls are all on the list of freaky diet fads desperate people use to try to find an effective weight loss solution.

Some people will try anything when they are desperate to lose weight and I mean anything. Looking at some the diet fads circulating around the internet it’s almost laughable to think people really do this stuff to themselves.

Sadly, desperate times call for desperate measures which leads some people into making poorly thought out decisions. Some people will try just about anything as apparent by the following diet fads; diets that claim to help you lose weight without putting much effort into them.

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Diet Fads Rarely Deliver on Their Promises

With few exceptions most of these diet fads simply can’t deliver on what they promise to do and others can be downright harmful to your long term health. Below you’ll find some diet fads that are floating around the internet and at the top of the freaky diet fad list is…

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The Cotton Ball Diet – Freaky Diet Fad #1

Can you seriously believe this? What’s being said is that some already bony thin models thought of the bright idea to eat cotton balls dipped in a juice, such as orange juice. They do this instead of eating regular food and it’s supposed to help them feel full and avoid high calories in order keep thin.

What is supposed to happen here is that the cotton balls dipped in fruit juice will make you feel full while adding very few calories. The problem is one, this provides inadequate nutritional value and two, the cotton ball is supposed to slowly dissolve away but it doesn’t always work that way and can cause severe complications.

No, your cat’s hairball formula isn’t a good fix for cotton balls plugging your internal piping so check that one off crazy thought list. Visualize a skin and bones super-model thinking this might be a terrific way to lose those last two ounces then forget about it.

What goes through a persons mind here? This doesn’t seem right to do this to yourself because it should be obvious this is not a healthy eating habit. For some people nothing much matters in the name of skin, bones the idea that’s what it takes to look beautiful.

People need real food, real nutrition and yes real calories in order to enjoy good health and true beauty. It should be no surprise to learn that most if not all people who go to this extreme level of dieting are suffering from an eating disorder and may need some psychological help.

The Cotton Ball Diet is one of the most extreme diet fads we’ve uncovered here. From clogging up your intestines with foreign objects to not getting the nutritional intake to meet your basic needs, you’re putting your body and health in danger.

Never agree to a diet that asks you to eat objects that are inedible.

The Boredom Diet – Freaky Diet Fad #2

This one sounds exciting right? Who wouldn’t like to stick to a boring diet for the long term anyway? Seriously, the question should be “who would want to?” You know it’s not going to work just by the sound of it.

The bright idea behind the boredom diet is to make eating totally boring, lacking in both excitement and variety. It’s debatable whether it really works or not but the trick is that if you can make your food super boring then you won’t be as likely to overeat.

It makes sense that a nice variety of mouth watering foods would make you want to eat more than the same old boring thing meal after meal.

Because eating the same things all the time sucks for most people it is supposed to help you learn your hunger pang cues because when you don’t enjoy eating, you begin to do it only when your body needs to eat. You supposedly start eating only when you have to – not because it’s time to eat and you’re really looking forward to eating a great meal.

If the thought of eating only your favorite food sounds good, you might want to think that thought over again. Eating one type of food only for extended periods of time is not at all good for you because your body needs a wide variety of nutrients that for the most part can only be obtained by consuming a wide variety of foods.

When your boredom diet eating patterns kick in and get really boring you are naturally going to crave other nutrients. The only way to get what you’re missing is to put an end to your boredom diet and start eating some variety each day. Your body will steer you in that direction, cravings will take over and you will be compelled to eat other types of food so that your body can satisfy its nutritional deficiencies.

The boredom diet is a diet destined to fail from the start. I mean who in the world would want to eat the same exact thing all of the time anyway?

Feast 5 Starve 2 – Freaky Diet Fad #3

Yet another diet fad destined to fail before we can even get out of the gate. Imagine a diet where you can eat whatever you want to eat for five full days. Sounds like and easy-to-do diet until you hear what you have to do the next two days. Starve.

Two days each week you must keep your calorie count below 600 so you’re not totally starving for two full days but close enough that your body starts shedding weight. The irritation, fatigue and anxiety you go through can be extreme and generally speaking, you’re not going to feel so great going through these two days. If you make it, you will positively not want to do it again and you’ll probably feast and gain all the weight back quickly.

It’s hard to say what this will do to your body’s health over the long run but normally when you yo-yo like this, each cycle makes it harder and harder to lose weight and keep it off. Besides, how long could you last starving yourself so severely for two days every week?

Mind Blowing Tongue Patch Diet – Freaky Diet Fad #4

Just when I thought that I’d had enough of these freaky fad diets, this little oddity reveals itself – the tongue patch diet. Can you believe it?

This latest fad in dieting is done by a cosmetic surgeon. Crazy as it is, a surgeon actually sews a rough patch to your tongue designed to create discomfort. Read that again… designed to create discomfort. This patch is designed to cause pain when eating solid food.

To avoid the pain you get by chewing solid food you are supposed to choose liquids instead of solids which can help you lose weight. Nuttier than the cotton ball diet, the tongue patch has reported issues such as uncontrollable drooling, speech difficulties and pain.

People will pay thousands of dollars for a tongue patch that has a strong risk of infection, causes discomfort, could come lose and choke you, will fuse to your tongue if not removed and surgical reapplied in thirty days if you chose to keep it.

The tongue patch diet is all around a bad idea. Eating should be pleasurable if you are going to stick to any diet plan. Besides, you are not going to be happy and survive very well drinking a pure liquid diet every single day.

Replace These Bad Idea Diet Fads with Good Idea Diet Tips

There you have a few modern day fad diets that you probably want to stay away from. For valid weight loss tips that can really help you, see Good Diet Tips That Rule over Fad Diets and learn how to spot bad diet fads and what dieting tips will help you make healthier dieting choices.

 

Introduction to Effective Weight Loss

This article will give you some tips on how to burn fat and effective weight loss techniques to not only help you shed the pounds but keep them off. We hope that you enjoy reading the various sections and that you’ll find these weight loss tips helpful and informative.

In the first chapter you’ll find out why it is important to lose excess weight and to maintain your ideal weight. Being overweight can lead to various health problems; you’ll soon discover what some of these health risks are.

The different ways you can lose weight will also be revealed to you as well as how to keep from regaining the weight you have successfully shed. The importance of sticking to a realistic diet and exercise program that you can do will also be covered below.

Many diets fail and you’ll read some of the reasons behind that as well as the side effects of quitting or failing a diet attempt. You’ll learn how to choose a diet that will not fail you and some tips to help you stay committed to your diet program once you begin it.

So move forward and read on about how to burn fat for effective weight loss and start your journey towards a slimmer, fitter and healthier you…

Developing Your Raw Food Diet Plan

Before getting started on your new eating adventure you’ll want to have your raw food diet plan in place and ready to be followed. If you don’t normally eat a lot of raw foods already, gradually switching raw for cooked foods over a few weeks or more may be necessary for your plan to work out.

And that’s exactly what I’m going to try to help you do here…

Small changes can add up to big changes and changing everything all at once can be tough to do. So, begin by understanding your current food habits by asking your self “What raw foods do I already consume” and make a list. This is the first step in creating your raw food diet plan.

Once you have the list for your raw food diet plan the next step is to analyze what raw foods already in your life and the quality of them. Can they stay or do you need to replace them too?

Here’s an Exercise for Developing Your Raw Food Diet Plan:

Let’s say that you wrote down that you already ate salad. That’s good right? Not so fast – depending on where your salad comes from and how it’s made, it could be downright bad for you. From food borne illness bugs like e-coli and salmonella to pesticides and preservatives lettuce and complete salads alike can be good or bad for you.

So, how do you know what’s good or bad? The fact is that if you did not personally grow, harvest and prepare your own salads you can truly never know for sure. Another fact is that few people are going to do that so you have to a find a balance of a little bit of education and trust.

Commercially prepared and package lettuce and salads are not going to cut the muster. Neither are fast food restaurant salads. So, back to your list for your raw food diet plan; you’ll need to cross off all salads that are not made by you or someone you highly trust to serve clean healthy food.

Do this with all raw foods already on your list. It will reveal what habits you already have to assist you in making the switch to your raw food diet. The key is to continue with what you already like while you start to turn non-raw food versions into more preferable raw versions.

Changing Over From Cooked to Raw Food

Let’s say that you love and eat salsa regularly but you always buy it in a jar. To fit into your raw food diet plan you can easily make drop-dead delicious salsa fresh at home with very little fuss.

You can still have it – just scratch the salsa in a jar from your list and add in your easy to make and fresh raw food salsa. After a few times of making it you’ll never want to go back to that disgusting jar stuff ever again. Fresh made salsa is awesome.

Plan your switch to a raw food diet carefully and start changing your foods out gradually over time. Start with replacing just one meal a day or declare one day a week as a nothing but a raw food day. This will help make implementing your raw food diet plan a successful one.

Shopping For Your New Raw Food Diet Plan

As you begin switching out the foods you eat from cooked to raw, you will want to pay close attention to your shopping habits. But just because you’re changing over to raw, it doesn’t mean you have to find all new places to buy your food. You just have to start changing one or more of the items you buy.

Many stores today carry lots of organic fruit and vegetable choices now and as popularity has been growing, the prices are coming down to reasonable levels. Organic used to be very pricy when you could find it but today many farmers are helping to fill the gap by making organic produce more widely available.

One of the best ways to buy, and frequently at a lower price, is at a local farmer’s market. Here you’ll be able to find some of the freshest locally grown food and support local farmers as well as local small local business owners. Some areas have weekend only farmer’s markets and others are open every day of the week.

Another great way to eat super fresh and save a little money at the same time is by visiting a “pick your own farm”. These are great places to take kids along to teach them the value of harvesting your own food. The farmer gives you a basket; you pick the food from their field and pay a small price in comparison to a grocery store for the basket you just filled up.

Pick your own farms are a great money saver, they’re educational, good for a little exercise and can be lots of fun for the whole family. And so can your own personal backyard or sun porch garden to replace a portion of your grocery store list.

Don’t forget about shopping online either. You can find deals and a wide variety of raw whole food items by shopping on the internet – just be sure you do your research and do business with a reputable companies and brands.

Kitchen Technology for Your Raw Food Diet Plan

If you want to go on a raw food diet but can’t see yourself eating certain items cold and completely raw you can do add a little bit of heating to your plan. No cooking allowed but a quick blanch can change things up for you in a good way.

Take broccoli for instance. If you despise having to eat it cold, boil some water, drop the broccoli in, give it a stir and say out loud “this is going to be great” and quickly remove from the water. Season it with a dribble of olive oil, black pepper with a tinge of sea salt or lemon juice for a surprisingly good taste and texture.

That’s a raw food recipe that can work with a number of vegetables to spruce up the flavor and texture while taking the “boring” out of it.

Other than those typical kitchen items a juicer is a nice addition to your raw food diet plan. You’ll want a good quality juicer that extracts the most amount of juice possible out of the produce you put into it and it must be easy to clean. If it’s a pain to clean then you’ll likely use it less often.

When using a juicer with fruit you’ll want to pay attention to calories as the juice contains a concentration of sugars. An apple may only be 90 calories but when you juice four of them for some fresh apple juice they can add up quickly.

Don’t through all those valuable fiber leftovers from the juicer away either. And that brings us to the next piece of raw food diet kitchen technology – namely, the food dehydrator.

What you do is take the leftovers from the juicer; in this case it’s apple, mix in a little ground cinnamon with a tiny bit of stevia for a sweetener mixed in. Next, flatten it out, dehydrate it and break up into smaller pieces that are not only delicious but really good for you too.

Dehydrators are great for all kinds of uses. You can turn a seasonal trip of farmer’s market great buys into a years worth of dehydrated apple slices. From apple wafers or slices to homemade fruit roll-ups, a food dehydrator is a valuable piece of kitchen technology for the raw food enthusiast.

To wrap up our kitchen technology here, a blender or food processor for making smoothies, meal replacement shakes, salsas, slaws and other raw food recipes gives you a large variety of choices when preparing your meals.

Make Your Raw Food Diet Plan a Reality

Going on a raw food diet is a lifestyle change that everyone chooses for different reasons. And in these days of an over processed food supply, raw whole food is something your body can identify with in a historical and intimate way.

Whatever your reason for going raw; better health, more energy, weight loss, mental clarity and focus, you can do it by creating small steps in your raw food diet plan. Just take it slow at first and do small manageable steps that you can deal with one step at a time.

Focus on one raw food item or meal at a time and before you know it, your raw food diet plan will be complete. So go back to “The Pathway to a Raw Food Diet” to read it again if you need to, then start writing down your own plan and take your first step to a healthier life.

 

Tips to Build Muscle Mass Faster and Larger

You’ve probably already learned that eating more protein helps your body to build muscle mass more effectively and efficiently. So if you’re looking to build muscle mass, eating more protein becomes a great asset in your workouts. Note that the protein you consume does not have to be animal protein because there are many other types of foods that work even better in some people than protein from animals.

Vegetarians Can Sometimes Build Muscle Mass Faster

Many vegetarians for instance manage to build muscle mass without ever putting animal protein in their body. The protein best suited for vegetarians needs to come from plant or dairy sources like beans, peas, nuts, rice and protein supplements that contain whey, rice protein, pea protein and if you choose soy protein.

The advantage to using plant and dairy sources to build muscle mass is that the fat content is less than in animals. Additionally, the fats found in plants are generally the “good fats” that your body needs and are less likely to pack on body fat, contribute to high blood pressure and cholesterol like animal fat can.

 Combine Meat and Protein Supplements to Build Muscle Mass

If you’re the kind of person who enjoys eating meat and eggs but do not like to consume large amounts every day then using protein supplements to build muscle mass is a great addition to your diet. If you’re trying to lose fat while building up muscle mass you can mix your protein supplements with water. If you want to gain weight then use milk for some added fat and calories or even opt for a complete protein meal replacement shake.

Keep in mind that it takes more energy (calories) for your digestive system to break down meat protein. Because of this, eating meat will sustain your body for a longer period of time than drinking a protein shake that digests much easier and faster. Using a good quality protein supplement can speed up your metabolism and you can be building muscle mass at a faster rate than the muscle builder who eats primarily animal protein.

Build Muscle Mass with Proper Nutrients and Doing Weight Training Correctly

What’s important to remember is that to build muscle mass and maintain a healthy body, getting proper nutrition is extremely important but so is doing weight training correctly. For example, many people believe that the harder and more often they work out the faster they’ll build muscle mass. This thinking can lead to failure because over-training can tear down your muscles and your muscles require rest in order to build back up.

Did you catch that important tip? Your muscles heal, build and grow during rest after your workouts. If you don’t let your muscles rest the muscle tissues can’t repair and build back up resulting in the failure of your muscle building plans. For this reason, when you do your weight training you’ll want to alternate days like one day on and one day off.

If you want to workout everyday your best bet is to alternate working different muscle groups such as work on your arms one day, your legs the next day and your chest, back and shoulder muscles all on different days. This does the same thing because as you are building up your muscle mass each muscle group gets the rest they need to be able to repair and grow.

The Best Way to Build Muscle Mass Effectively

1. Be consistent but don’t overdo your workouts.
2. Alternate workout days or alternate working different muscle groups.
3. Your muscles need rest time to repair and build.
4. Eat high protein foods, use protein supplements or do both.

Probably the most important thing is to avoid disappointment from trying to do too much too quickly. You now know that rest is important to build muscle mass but if you overdo it, it could lead to injury. If you injure yourself you’ll not be able to weight train for weeks, possibly months and while resting for that long the muscle mass you’ve built up so far will become lost.

If you’re just starting on your journey to building muscle mass you may not have equipment yet then the article Build Muscle Mass without Weights might be helpful and new or not Building Muscles for Men and Women may be an interesting read.

 

Eating Raw Foods is a Great Choice

Eating raw food is a great choice because they are very easy to digest as they have naturally occurring enzymes that aids your body’s digestion and its ability to increase nutrient uptake.

Raw foods in their natural state make them very digestible. What’s more, it takes your body very little energy to do so.

Raw foods are loaded full of nutrients in comparison to cooked foods. Junk foods are the worst and should be at the bottom of your food chain; meaning eat them sparingly if at all. Most junk foods are just that – junk food, and are primarily empty calories with little to no nutritional value.

When You Want a Snack – Reach For Raw Food!

When you start eating more raw foods you have a choice of eating them whole or juicing them. Juicing allows you to ingest more concentrated nutrient levels but in turn you lose the fiber that’s so important. Even if you juice though, you can still snack on some raw food to give yourself some bulk.

Raw Foods Promote Natural Energy

When you increase your intake of say something like carrots and celery you will immediately notice a huge increase in your energy level. You can eat practically any vegetable or fruit and increase your energy level.

Ideas on Getting More Raw Food in Your Diet:

Vegetables – We touched on that above a bit but basically everything from Artichokes to Zucchinis works. There are lots of recipes to combine both vegetables and fruits to keep your life full of variety if you choose the raw food diet.

Fruits – if you’re juicing them be wary of the concentrated sugars found in most fruits and think moderation. Just realize that if you’re juicing eight apples to make a small glass of apple juice you’re getting most of the calorie content of eight apples and a practically empty stomach.

Raw, organic fresh fruits are an excellent source of nutrition and a wonderful source of energy but be sensible and follow the guideline in the “A Healthy Nutrition Plan Starts with the Food Pyramid”.

Salads – mix it up, red leaf, green leaf, butternut, iceberg and romaine, mix it up and eat lots of fresh leafy organic vegetables. An ideal dressing is cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil with a few herbs and spices, maybe some lemon juice, balsamic or red wine vinegar. Olive oil and balsamic vinegar all by itself makes a great salad dressing.

Juices – If you looking to put raw food into your diet you can forget about cans, cartons and bottled fruit juices. As a matter of fact, you don’t even want to make fresh raw juice at home in advance. The best value comes from the freshest fruits and vegetables being juiced and consumed as soon as possible. This is the very best way to get all of the minerals, vitamins and enzymes that your body needs. When it is not possible to make your own, turn only to fresh, cold processed organic juices from trustworthy companies that preserve the nutritional integrity of the whole raw food.

Raw Nuts and Seeds – raw organic nuts and seeds when we eat them in moderation provide lots of benefits. They contain proteins, necessary fats and calories for energy. Be sure to eat raw, not roasted nuts but be careful not to overeat and use them sparingly. Seeds like flax and sesame can be mixed into your salads for some added crunchy flavor and great nutritional value if you chew them well.

Lastly, talking about important raw foods would not be complete without mentioning Aloe Vera. Aloe Vera has been dubbed the name “miracle plant” and for good reason… Aloe Vera provides so many benefits there have been entire books written on the subject.

Because of the power of this plant, companies have gone to great lengths to preserve the nutritional integrity of the plant in a juice form and have bottled it for our convenience and use. The best bottled Aloe Vera juices will have 100% organic cold processed “inner leaf fillets” at the top of their ingredient list.

Including Aloe Vera into your diet is a smart decision indeed but most people are not going to grow, harvest and juice Aloe Vera plants for their consumption even knowing it’s as beneficial as it is.

The problem is that they’re not typically available at your local market.

From healing burns and cuts on the outside to aiding digestion, providing high nutrient absorption and the healing of your body from the inside out there’s probably not another vegetable you’d want more in your diet if you only knew all of the many benefits it holds.

Staying in harmony with the purpose of this section, local raw foods are best and the soonest you are able to consume them once they’ve been harvested the more nutritional value they hold for you.

Eat fresh and enjoy the many benefits available to you when you choose to add in or exclusively eat raw foods in your diet.

The last and final section is the “Conclusion to the Healthy Nutrition Guide” where we’ll summarize a bit and hopefully get your vote to allow us to continue to help and serve you in the world of health and fitness.