There are many forms of low carb diet but probably the most famous of all is the Atkins diet, created by Dr. Robert Atkins and popularized in the last quarter of the 20th century. Fad diets come and go, but the Atkins gained enough celebrity and medical support that it developed its own momentum, and took off in a big way.

Low carb diets vary in what they suggest that you eat. The strictest form, such as the induction phase of the Atkins diet, can suggest that you cut out almost all carbohydrate foods. This includes potatoes, rice and other grains, bread, sugar and anything containing it, and many fruits. Even carrots may be considered a medium carb food and eliminated for this phase, although green vegetables are fine and should be eaten in large quantities. Read the rest of this entry »

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Be sure to find out how you can change your life with the Free Fitness program.

Looking to make a change and lose some weight? I have reviewed the top diet on the internet and you can go and read over 200 comments people have made about why this diet has worked well for them, as well as some of the problems.

Tags: atkins diet, energy, ketosis, low carb diet, low carb diets, medium carb food, obesity, Robert Atkins

With so many fantastic diet claims out there, it can be difficult to determine which diets work and which ones are just a waste of time and money. Which diet is right for you?

Weight Watchers is one of the most popular and well-known weight loss programs. Dieters can expect to be able to choose which items they would like to eat, “budgeting” their consumption. Weight, along with a few other factors, determine the adherent’s food allowance. Foods are assigned a point value based on fat, fiber, and calorie content.

Meat lovers may enjoy the Protein Power Diet, one of many low carb, high protein diets on the market. The Protein Power diet has broad allowances for such indulgences as eggs, steak, and cheese. Carbohydrate consumption is limited to 30 grams or less, spread throughout the day. This diet also encourages high water consumption as well as the addition of healthy fats and 25 daily grams of fiber.

Popularized by celebrities, The Zone diet is a high protein, low carb diet that offers the convenience of pre-packaged, prepared meals. The Zone is encourages the consumption of lean proteins and restricts whole grains. In addition to carefully planned meals and snacks, The Zone diet also encourages consumption of proprietary dietary supplements.

Relatively obscure, the Volumetrics diet is designed to complement the dieter’s natural urge to consume large portions. Shunning typical feelings of diet deprivation, the Volumetrics diet provides meal and snack ideas comprised of low calorie foods that can be consumed in large portions. Emphasis is placed on foods that have high water content.

Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, or DASH, is an eating program designed to lower the dieter’s blood pressure by 8 to 14 points. While no food groups are excluded, the DASH diet restricts saturated fat, total fat, cholesterol, and sodium. This diet includes large portions of food that may, for some, inhibit weight loss. The goal of this diet is primarily health-related.

Many dieters find using a weight loss product gives them increased results. Slimirex is an all-natural weight loss product that claims to increase metabolism and energy while reducing appetite. Slimirex users are encouraged to employ exercise and dietary changes to receive maximum results. Despite its being a natural product, some users may be uncomfortable with the high level of caffeine present in the product.

The Atkins diet, one of the most popular of the low carb diets, is high protein and low carb. Due to its popularity, many food products and meal ideas catering to this diet are available. While many dieters have experienced great success with this diet, potential Atkins dieters should know that this diet may be high in unhealthy fat and low in fiber.

Choosing a new diet or weight loss product can be overwhelming and expensive. Key considerations when determining which diet to use include the health benefits and how well the diet reflects your personal goals.

Tags: all-natural weight loss product, atkins diet, dietary supplements, energy, food, food allowance, food groups, food products, hypertension, low carb diet, low carb diets, natural product, weight loss product

In recent years, diets with low carbohydrate allowances have found popularity and legitimacy. Low carb diets have a long history that does not begin, as many might suspect, with Dr. Atkins in the 1990s. The low carb diet actually had its humble inception in the 1860s, with a single doctor and a single patient.

The true creator of the low carb diet phenomenon is actually a man named William Harvey, who recommended the diet to a patient suffering from numerous obesity-related ailments. This patient, William Banting, was the first adherent to what would much later become a low carb dieting craze.

Banting was stunned by not only his weight loss, but the increase in his quality of life as his medical conditions improved and disappeared. Banting’s 50 pound weight loss was touted in a series of pamphlets he produced, encouraging others to take advantage of this revolutionary way of eating.

The original low carb diet required an extreme reduction in foods such as bread, milk, sugar, butter, potatoes, as well as beer, as such food items were believed to create fat due to their starch and saccharine content.

Almost 60 years later, in the 1920s, the Mayo Clinic and John Hopkins University began using a similar diet to William Harvey’s low carb diet to treat seizure disorders in children. The diet the children adhered to induced a condition called ketosis, which is the altered metabolic state that gives a low carb diet its weight loss success.

Finally, in the late 1960s, the low carb diet found widespread acclaim when it was introduced to the public by Dr. Irwin Maxwell Stillman in his book, The Doctor’s Quick Weight Loss Diet. Stillman’s book was a huge success, which paved the way for later incarnations of protein-rich low carbohydrate diets.

Of course, most of us have never heard of Dr. Irwin Maxwell Stillman or William Harvey. To the modern world, Dr. Robert Adkins is the creator of the low carb diet. While he did not create the idea, he can certainly be credited with raising the diet’s profile and popularity.

Adkins released his first book, Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution in 1972, after reading articles on low carb dieting in the late 60s and experiencing the success of the low carb diet philosophy himself. It was met with dismal success and other doctors produced works encouraging similar diets in the 80s and 90s.

At the time of its release, Atkins’ diet program was shunned by medical professionals and nutritionists as being unhealthy. Fortunately, controversy dissipated as more and more people discovered the incredible health and weight loss benefits a low carb diet could yield.

As the low carb movement began gathering more adherents, Adkins released Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution in the early 1990s and again in 1999. The popularity of low carb dieting continued to increase and many variations of the diet were introduced, including well-known diets like The Zone and South Beach.

Tags: atkins diet, Atkins Diet Revolution, food items, Irwin Maxwell Stillman, John Hopkins University, ketosis, low carb diet, low carb diets, low carbohydrate diets, Mayo Clinic, obesity, Robert Adkins, seizure disorders, south beach, William Banting, William Harvey

“Diet” may be the dirtiest word in the entire English language. Diet means suffering. It means denial. It means rumbling hunger sensations and sticking out as the weird person not eating what everyone else is passing around.

Each new diet starts out with promise. This time it will be different. I’ll stick to it this time. And we do stick to it. For a day. Maybe a week. If we make it a month or two, we are pretty impressed with ourselves. But then we have a bad day. Stress or exhaustion or boredom drives us to cheat, just a little.

Of course, that little cheat turns into full-blown despair and an eating frenzy that goes on for weeks. How many times have you repeated that cycle? How many times have you tried and failed, despite the very best intentions and a large financial investment in dietary aids or special foods?

The cycle of eating too little and then too much and then too little again takes its toll on our bodies. Doctors agree that yo-yo dieting and gaining and losing weight, again and again, is unhealthy. Continual skips from dieting to overeating and back to dieting again kills the metabolism and just increases our feelings of frustration and failure.

Why is it that, even though we can’t seem to stick to a diet, dieting never ends?

The problem lies in our very psychology. In our minds, a diet is temporary thing. We diet in anticipation of the day we reach our goal and don’t have to diet anymore.

Of course, if we make it that far, we soon find that not dieting anymore leads us right back to where we started. It doesn’t get more depressing than that.

As long as we continue to see dieting as something we start and finish, we will always be overweight. We fail at having the slim, attractive bodies we crave because we treat dieting like a book or a business meeting. A diet can never work if it has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

The key to lasting weight loss lies in incorporating the habits that lead to weight loss into our lifestyles without planning an end. If you want to be thin, you will always have to be mindful of your eating. The mindfulness does not end the day you see the long-desired numbers on the scale.

One very novel approach to this problem is to rotate new diets on a weekly basis. Each week, enjoy a new and different diet. This combats boredom and allows you to eat what you crave. One week enjoy steaks and cheese on a low carb diet. When you crave sweets, try a week of fruits.

By looking forward to the end of a particular diet each week, you allow yourself to by-pass the urge to stop entirely. Each week brings something new and each diet does end, while your weight loss does not.

Tags: low carb diet

Carbohydrate is the root cause behind your obesity, or so the supporters of low-carbohydrate diets would have you believe. Low-carb diets have always been more popular than the other dieting methods. After all, who hasn’t heard of the classic ones such as the Atkins Diet and South Beach Diet which continue to be popular even today?

Today however, you have more than one choice for low carb diets. There is the Zone diet, and then there is the Suzanne Summers Diet, each trying to beat down the other in terms of effectiveness. There are also several other minor low carb diet plans available.

If you are worried about cooking low-carb meals, drop your worries. Almost all low carb diet plans now come with in-built menus, recipes and other dietary tips designed to help the common man prepare delicious low carb meals with little effort or headache. Now the million dollar question: is the low-carb diet a right choice for you? Well, that is what you would learn about in this article. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: atkins diet, low carb diet, low carb diets, Low-carbohydrate diet, obesity, south beach, South Beach Diet, Suzanne Summers Diet, USD

New diet programs seem to crop up almost every month, so much so that at times I find it difficult to remember all of them. A new kid on the block is the Ketogenic Diet. You may or may not have heard of it because it hasn’t been able to reach the popularity levels of Atkins Diet or South Beach diet. Nonetheless, weight loss has little to do with the popularity of a particular diet program.

In my experience I have found that people have lost weight with little known diet programs, and the opposite has also happened – that of people getting disappointed with the most popular diet program! The big question is: is the Ketogenic Diet just another fad or does it really work? That is what I would be exploring in detail in this article!

To understand the Ketogenic Diet, you need to know about ketones first, since this diet is based on how ketones function in our body. In short, ketones are the enemies of fats, and the more ketones your body has, the quicker you would be able to shed the extra pounds!

Now, as a matter of fact, our body has a soft corner for fat. It would rather burn your valuable muscles for the purpose of producing energy than that ugly fat. The Ketogenic Diet burns your fat deposits and produces the readymade energy your body can use. This is a win-win situation for you: neither you would need your body’s help to burn fat as it is done artificially by the Ketogenic Diet, nor would you lose your lean muscles!

Now the important part: which foods are you allowed to eat under this diet? Since carbs turn into fat and make you overweight, you should reduce their intake and increase the consumption of fatty foods. This means that you should be eating more of dairy products such as butter, milk, cheese, etc., and less of cookies, cakes, biscuits, chocolates, white breads, rice, pasta, fruits, etc.

The bad part of this diet program is that just like other fad diets, this one too is not without its share of side effects. Some side effects you may suffer from as a result of using this high-fat-and-low-carb diet are abnormal behavioral changes, stomach problems such as bloating and constipation, kidney troubles, as well as high cholesterol levels!
On top of that, there is no scientific or clinical evidence of the effectiveness of this diet with regards to weight loss. So far, only epileptic patients, that too mainly children, have benefited from the use of this diet. If you decide to opt for this diet, you shouldn’t do so without consulting a doctor or nutritionist!

Tags: atkins diet, bloating, constipation, dairy products, energy, low carb diet, nutritionist, readymade energy, south beach, South Beach Diet

If you thought you could lose weight with the help of a low-carb diet, you couldn’t be further from the truth! Low-carb diets usually reduce your carb intake to an abnormally low level, which is unhealthy for you! If you are serious about weight loss, you really need to get the word ‘diet’ out of your head and focus on eating the right foods at right times instead!

Note that I mention “right times”! If you eat healthy foods at wrong times, you will gain more fat than lose! Some people think that it is okay to consume several cups of low-fat ice cream simply because it is low on fat, but that is simply not true!

In this article I will tell you about special weight loss foods which would help you lose weight quickly and easily! If you have ever dreamed of losing weight by eating, this article is for you! But note that if you don’t eat your foods at right times, you won’t be able to achieve weight loss!

Look at this example: it is no secret that natural fruits and vegetables help one lose weight. Does that mean that you should be eating them throughout the day, even right before bedtime? If you eat before bedtime, your body won’t be able to burn off the calories gained from food since you would be sleeping! Consequently, you would gain a lot of extra pounds!

As you can see, even consuming too much of healthy foods is bad for you; you need to eat moderately and more importantly, eat only at right times; that means, NO eating after 7PM or 8PM!

I would suggest that you eat nothing more than egg whites and salad for dinner, or a chicken breast. These foods are ‘weight loss superfoods’, which means that your body would need a lot of energy in order to burn them. Obviously, there is no question of you gaining fat while sleeping!

Okay, assuming that you would be eating at right times as advised by me, here are the only foods I recommend to you: tomatoes, spinach, skinless turkey/chicken, lean red meat, broccoli, egg whites, whey protein, and of course tuna and salmon! All these foods share the same quality: they are all low on carbohydrates, and most of them are high on protein, which is good for you! The more protein you consume, the more lean muscles you would build, and consequently, the more fat you would burn off!

Most people think that starving is the only surefire way to quick weight loss. That is not true at all. Eat the foods I suggested in this article and more importantly, don’t eat at improper times! If you do these two things then it won’t take you long to acquire a lean and sexy body!

Tags: energy, food, low carb diet

A new diet study conducted by the New England Journal of Medicine has had some interesting results. I am always a little shocked by the poor results of these studies but lets dig into it.

The study was done in Israel with a group of 332 moderately obese people, that is people that knew that they had to lose some weight. The group dieted for two years and most of them, 84% were still on the diet at the end.

There were three diets, a low fat diet, (standard diet) a Mediterranean Diet (like the book), and a low carb diet (Atkins). The people stayed on the diet that was chosen for them for the entire two years.

The shocking part? That the did not lose very much weight at all over the two years. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: American Heart Association, atkins diet, diet study, energy intake, england journal of medicine, Israel, low carb diet, low fat diet, Mediterranean, mediterranean diet, New England Journal, olive oil, The New England Journal of Medicine

The presence of so many myths in the weight loss industry surprises me to no end! One example of such a myth is that total elimination of carbs leads to successful weight loss. What surprises me even more is that these myths are taught apparently by ‘weight loss experts’ themselves. In this article I will tell you about three important facts of weight loss that you may not be aware of.

Weight maintenance is more important than weight loss – You know what, since you are now struggling with weight loss, it seems to be the most difficult thing for you, right? What you may not be aware of is the fact that maintaining the weight you’ve ‘lost’ is even more difficult than losing weight. I can give you scores of examples where people have lost weight successfully but gained it later because they fell into old habits! To make sure that you are at your ideal weight at all the times, it is important that you look beyond the scales. You need to know your BMI as well as your fat-to-muscle ratio. The less fat and more muscles you have, the better for you.

Once you are able to lose weight as well as maintain that slim figure, it will enhance your looks. You will not only become more attractive, but also healthier. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: energy, low carb diet

Low carb dieting has become fashionable in recent years especially with the publication of the Atkins diet. Losing weight is a goal for so many people and everybody is looking for the quick and easy way to lose weight. Some people do not need to lose weight at all but still get stressed over a couple of pounds. Others need to lose for medical reasons and may have one hundred pounds or more that they want to shed.

There are many different diets out there including low carbohydrate diets and the truth is that most of them will achieve weight loss if they are followed correctly. This does not mean always doing what the diet says every moment of every day. What is more important is how you deal with the inevitable occasion when you eat too much or feast on foods that are not on the plan. If you can write this off and return to the plan without giving yourself a hard time, you are likely to succeed. Everybody has those days – the important thing is to let them go and accept them as just another step on the road to permanent weight loss.

It is also important to find a diet that you can easily follow. Low carb diets suit many people because the rules are quite simple. As the name suggests, the diet consists of avoiding or limiting foods that are high in carbohydrates. These include bread, pasta, potatoes, rice and other grains. Sugar is also a carbohydrate. Once you understand what these foods are, it is a simple matter to choose dishes that avoid them.

Most criticism of low carbohydrate dieting is based on the fact that the dieters will get most of their daily calories from meat, dairy and other high fat products. This can lead to high cholesterol and other problems related to a high intake of saturated fats. Medical advice is advised before starting this type of diet. Sometimes weight loss is good in the early stages but people cannot handle the restrictions in the longer term and start to deviate from the diet.

One of the problems that many people have with low carb dieting is the elimination of bread and pasta. No more toast, spaghetti or pizza! Many of the foods that are quickest to prepare are based around carbohydrates – burgers in their buns, fries, sandwiches, pasta and sauce. Beer and other alcoholic drinks are high in carbs too. It is true that alcohol is generally restricted on any diet, because it is high in calories and very low in nutritional value, but low carb diets put particular emphasis on this.

Still there are many foods that can be enjoyed on a low carb diet. If you are fond of meat you will relish the opportunity to consume beef, chicken and other animal products. The popularity of these diets is clear from the length of time that they stay on the bestseller lists. It is just a matter of what suits you. Low carb dieting works for many people.

Tags: animal products, atkins diet, GBP, high fat products, low carb diet, low carb diets, low carbohydrate diets