Diets Detox and Weight Loss Blog

Lose Weight in 2 Weeks

Anybody can lose weight and if you don’t believe you can do it i am going to prove you your wrong by making sure you lose weight in 2 weeks. This two week plan is perfect for anyone who wants to look great quickly and for any one who gets totally discouraged every time they go on a diet. How much weight are you going to lose? Well thats for you to decide.

There are a lot of people who will go on a “diet” for a couple of week but see no or little results and give up on it thinking it is a waste of time. So lets make sure you do see some good results that encourage you to keep up your diet!

This is going to be a pretty boring diet, but it is going to be easy and have great effect. The key is not actually in the meals, it is in the lifestyle changes you are going to make on top of the healthy diet. But to give you an idea of what you should be eating:

Breakfast - For two weeks you are going to have a bowl of cereal with low fat milk each morning. The cereal must be high fiber -  All-Bran, oat bran, oatmeal, porridge, Raisin Bran, Alpin - there are plenty to choose from.

The reason for this is that high fiber foods will keep you full a lot longer than any other food. The carbs they contain are healthy and contain little fat or sugar. Apart from being healthy it is going to aid your weight loss, help your heart remain healthy and keep you feeling full for a lot longer stopping you snacking so often.

Lunch - Brown Bread sandwich with non processed meat or tuna or alternative. Do not have salad cream, mayonnaise or any other high calorie dressing. Again, brown bread is going to keep you full almost twice as long as white bread and has much less sugar in it. You can have salad, sushi or almost any thing else under 450 calories. Just make sure you don’t have loads of dressings, butter, sugary foods or any junk food at all.

Dinner - Dinner must not be a ready meal. It is as simple as that. Buy fresh ingredients and cook it yourself. Try and make it high in protein and do some vegetables with it. Be sensible. Do not cook too much. Eat slowly.. read the tips below

The Tips that Make the Diet Effective

These are the small changes that make the diet work. If you follow the guidelines above you will be eating very healthily and should lose some weight. But to lose a lot of weight in two weeks:

Drink diet sodas instead of full sugar drinks

Black tea and coffee - no more starbucks

Walk a little each day. If you drive, park further away from where you are going and walk 5 minutes to get there. If you take the bus get off one stop earlier

Eat slowly - it will take your brain a while to realize that your stomach is full and inform you. So eat slowly! If you think you need another helping just wait ten minutes and then decide

Snack on fruits and foods with high water content. Celery for example costs you more calories to eat it than it has in it. Apples, pears, grapes and berries are also fantastic for encouraging weight loss and filling you up.

Buy all your own ingredients for you meals. Do not buy processed meats - you do not know what is in them and they are often high in fats and contain loads of things your body really doesnt want

When you go shopping do not buy loads of sweets and snacks, or you will eat them. Just show strong will power once a week and you will avoid struggling for the rest of the week.

Drink 8 glasses of water a day.  Your body is 65% water, it needs it for every bodily process including thinking and of course, weight loss.

Thats it - keep all the above up for just two weeks. JUST TWO WEEKS. You will have lost many pounds, changed how you live your day to day life and be on a healthy diet you find easy to continue. It really is that simple to lose weight in 2 weeks. Give it a go!

How to keep yourself from eating

How to keep yourself from eating

One of the hardest things to do when trying to lose weight is finding out how to keep yourself from eating. When you are bored or hungry between meals it takes a huge amount of will power to stop yourself from snacking. So lets look at how you can keep yourself from eating when you don’t want to.

Eat meals packed with fiber or protein

I used to eat snacks between breakfast and lunch all the time and put on a lot of weight. After eating breakfast I was hungry again about an hour later. Then I swapped my breakfast of toast or sugar filled cereals to ones filled with fiber. Muslei or an oat cereal keep me full for hours. Why? Because fiber (and protein) take much longer to break down and for your body to fully digest than meals full of simple carbs such as junk food that is full of sugars.

When you are hungry drink water

Water is an excellent weight loss tool. It will help your body break down fats, get your organs running at 100% efficiency and fill you up. Often you will feel hungry, but your body is only after water. 8 glasses a day are optimum, so drink up!

Get out of the house

Most people tend to feel hungry when they are not really doing anything. If you are busy you wont think about eating so much. So if you start to feel hungry when you are sitting around the house, go out for a walk. It will stop you feeling hungry, distract you, and of course aid your weight loss

Eat Fruit as a snack

When you are hungry eat an apple, a pear, some grapes or even some celery. You are not going to put on weight eating any of the above as they are so full of water. But they will fill you up and are full of vitamins and other necessary substances.

Think ahead when shopping

This is my favourite tip. When you do the weekly shopping (or ask who ever does it) not to buy snacks. If the only snacks they buy are fruit that’s what you will eat regardless of you wanting to or not. If you pack your house with crisps and sweets you will eat them – it will probably be too hard to resist – so just don’t buy them!

Eat 4 Small meals a day

4 Smaller meals a day will mean you are eating the same amount of calories, but spread out longer so you have less time to feel hungry! Also smaller portions are more manageable for your body to break down so you are actually going to put on less weight eating smaller meals.

And that’s how to keep yourself from eating. Hope that helps!

Keep Your Body Healthy - Easy and Effective Tips

Regardless of your weight you will still want to keep your body healthy. You want to cut out anything that is an obvious risk to your health for whatever reason. Sometimes keeping your body healthy can be as hard as losing a lot of weight, but it is just as vital. Here are some great ways to keep your body healthy:

• Get plenty of vitamins - they are needed for your heart, your nervous system, your skin. Actually, for just about everything. They are easy to get from having a variety of fruits.
• Try and do 20 minutes of light exercise a day - it is recommended you get your heart pumping quite hard for at least five minutes a day. 20 minutes of exercise should get you to that state. This can stop blood clots in major arteries, will be great for your heart, your fitness and your muscle development.
• Be mentally positive and healthy - by this i mean try and cut down on things that stress you out. Force yourself to do something you enjoy everyday even if you don’t think you have time. A lot of diseases are not caused by physical illness but rather by mental.
• Cut out on too much salt - you do need a bit of salt to survive, but these days we prone to so much of it has become a huge threat to our health. Most of this unneeded salt is in ready meals we buy. So buy fresh ingredients whenever possible and use a salt substitute!
• Drink plenty of water - 8 glasses a day helps your body run as smooth as possible! It will also help you lose weight if that is your goal
• Eat plenty of fiber - the percentage of Americans do not eat anywhere near enough fiber during a typical day. This can cause big problems for your body as well as hindering weight loss!
• Avoid vitamin/mineral/protein pills and get what you need from actual, fresh foods - there is absolutely no evidence to support supplement pills having any effect on your health. The only way to make sure you are getting the right things in your diet is by actually consuming the right things!

Diet Review - The Truth About Six Pack Abs

This site has been looking at a lot of weight loss diets recently so i thought it was time to do something different. This review looks at a product that is meant to get you a flat, muscular stomach whether you are a woman or a man. It is supposed to finally get rid of that stubborn belly fat and spare tyre, what foods you are eating that are totally wrong and the only exercises that really will help you tone your stomach.

The Truth About Six Pack Abs (TTASPA)

The truth about six pack abs is 106 pages of unique and very useful content. Everything that is promised in the book can be accomplished by anyone who is motivated and will stick with it. But of course, its not easy to be motivated for a long period of time. Do not worry if you have a lot of weight to lose - this is not just about toning, this is about losing weight in a different way to most of the diets reviewed here.

And whilst i agreed with most of the content ( i have read this e-book, and been on the course for only two weeks so far), i did not like how it said that long term diets do not work. I presume this was just a way of promoting TTASPA and so i ignored it and i would urge you to as well.

The exercises in the manual do not require you to go to the gym and really do work. I was aching a lot the day after i began. I did have to invest in a pair of dumbbells that i ordered of amazon, to make the most of certain exercises.

I have only lost a couple of pounds so far since begining these exercises, but i have gained some muscle. I have to do my belt up an extra notch now and as such, i am very happy with the two pounds of weight loss as muscle weighs more than fat anyway.

The truth about this book is, it will work but it is not a short cut to getting a six pack. It will get you there but not for a few months, and even that would depend on your starting weight.

What you would really gain from this ebook is a fantastic foundation for bewing able to maintain a near perfect body for the rest of your life. There are literally dozens of work out options for you to choose from that would suit both beginner and intermediates. It will give you a decent diet plan telling you what to eat and what to avoid. (eg protien in, fat out).

I will be sticking with this diet, but it does have a couple of problems. As i mentioned earlier, i do not like how it dismisses long term diets, when the whole thing with TTASPA is long term exercise and diet anyway. The other problem it has is the price - almost  $40. Yes, it probably is worth it but i dont have a clue why it couldnt have been a bit less.

Ignoring the price. it actually compares favorably with other fat loss diets such as Fat Loss for Idiots, with the advantage of it getting your stomach toned as well as helping you lose fat.

The Truth About Six Pack Abs is Available Here.

Why cant i lose weight? - Diet Facts and Fiction

Lets start with a fact - everybody can lose weight. Sure, it might be more difficult for some people than for others but we can all lose weight. Today we are going to look at popular dieting myths and see which ones are true, if any.

Fact or Fiction

I’m fat because it runs in the family - its genetic

You are not fat because of genetics. You might be more prone to certain conditions because of genetics, you may store weight in a different way and in different places to other people and you will definitely have a different figure to the next person. But you are not fat because it runs in the family. You are overweight because you eat more calories than you burn. There are plenty of resources on this site to help get you started losing weight - and you can lose weight.

verdict: fiction

Losing weight is hard - its not even worth it

Regardless of it being hard, it is worth it or you wouldn’t be here trying to do something about being overweight. OK, is losing weight hard? Well yes it can be. For a lot of people it is a real struggle but for others it is easy, especially once they get into a routine. The key is to find a diet that you think will suit your life style and Stick With It. Try Fat Loss For Idiots or weight watchers for a good diet program that will help you with every step. It is a lifestyle change and once you realize that and see that its not something you are aiming to do in a set period of time it all becomes much easier and weight falls off without you even noticing.

verdict: fiction

I’m overweight but i am healthy

It is true that you can be overweight and healthy, but you are at a much greater risk of a lot of conditions. Diabetes, Cancer, Congestive Heart Failure and Depression are a few of these conditions. So sure you can be happy and healthy and overweight, but is it worth the risk? Well thats your call

Verdict - Undecided

OK those are three myths i really wanted to address, so lets now take a look at some quick weight loss myths

I wont be able to eat foods i like ever again!

Fiction - You wont be able to eat things like cheese cake in abundance again, or even every day - but as a treat you will be able to occasionally. And once you hit your desired weight you will add a fair few calories to your diet as you will only be trying to maintain your weight

Skipping Breakfast Will Help Me lose Weight

Fiction - that would mean less calories during the day, but it means your metabolism (fat burning process) doesn’t start till you have lunch! Overall, it is best to start the day with a healthy breakfast

OK that’s it. Looking back through it there are not facts here so maybe it should be diet myths not fact or fiction

How to Lose Weight Fast and Safe - Diet and Lifestyle change

Losing weight quickly but safely almost sounds like a contradiction - but it is possible and in fact it’s not that tough! A healthy diet, small changes to your lifestyle and a bit of extra exercise will help your weight fly off! You will have to keep up the diet for some time, and even once you reach your target weight loss you will have to stick with a healthy lifestyle so you don’t put it all back on.

OK lets look at how to lose weight fast and safe

The first thing to understand is that fast weight loss is about 2-3 pounds a week, unless you are heavily overweight in which case it might be a pound or two more. That is the fastest you should lose weight for two reasons:

1. Any more than that and you are going to be losing muscle as well as fat. Considering organs such as your heart are muscle, it’s very important you do not lose a lot of muscle.

2. Lose weight quicker than 2-3 pounds a week and your body will go in to “starvation mode” - this is when your body adapts to rapid weight loss and actually changes how it burns calories / fat so it can run on much less food and it becomes very, very difficult to lose any weight at all.

A healthy diet

There are many kinds of diets. Find one that suits you and your lifestyle. Calorie counting diets, such as weight watchers are very popular as they allow you to eat all kinds of foods, which means you get all the vitamins, protein fiber etc that your body requires. If you aim to eat around 300 calories a less than you need a day, then knowing there are 3500 calories in a pound of fat, you will lose one pound of fat in around eleven days. On top of lifestyle changes and exercise you can adjust how much you lose a day by calorie counting to be losing around 2 pounds a week. If you are looking for another kind of diet try browsing the diet review found at the top menu of this page.

Lifestyle changes

These are the little things that you need change permanently. Don’t think of these things as part of your diet as they are things you should be doing regardless of being on a diet or not. Drink diet soda drinks or water instead of sugary soft drinks. Park further away from work, shops or home than you usually would and walk the extra distance. Drink black or green tea/coffee. Cook your own meals from fresh ingredients, not processed foods full of fats, sugars and artificial flavorings. For more lifestyle changes and tips click here.

Exercise

Exercise is a key part of being able to lose weight fast and safe. But exercise is NOT just about weight loss. It is about keeping your body healthy, keeping your heart and muscles strong and freeing up your arteries of fats and plague. Of course it will help with your weight loss too! Try playing a sport such as tennis or squash twice a week. Choose a sport you enjoy and try to find somebody your level to play with to make it more fun, competitive and compelling.  If not, go for a run three times a week or a walk each day. Anything that gets your heart pumping for 20 minutes or more. You will lose a lot of calories from the actual exercise, but long after you have finished exercising your bodies metabolism will still be high and you will be burning more calories than normal.

Try lifting some weights and putting on a bit of muscle - muscle takes a lot more calories to run than fat does, so the more muscle you have the more fat you will naturally burn throughout the day without lifting a finger.

Does green tea really help weight loss?

Green tea is an excellent choice of drink for dieters. Why? Because supposedly it helps raise your metabolism, has excellent antioxidants properties, can make you feel full and can stop your body absorbing so much fat from foods. But how much of that is true and how good for weight loss can green tea actually be?

Green tea originates from China (as does all tea drinking) about 4000 years ago. It has long been associated with health and long life. More recently it has been linked to helping fight cancer and helping people lose weight. Many other countries now farm green tea, and Japan claim to have a particularly effective fat fighting green tea. Oprah recently had a Japanese tea promoted on her television program with claims that each cup would make the drinker lose 80 calories.

The most obvious way i see green tea effectively helping with weight loss is by people replacing their normal cups of coffee/tea/mochas etc with it. Starbucks coffee for example, will usually have at least 200 calories in it, compared with almost 0 in green tea. So if you had one cup of Starbucks coffee (or the equivalent) a day usually, and replaced it with green tea you will lose a pound of fat in a couple of week. Not bad! But nothing to do with green tea really. However, if the claims that green tea will make you lose 80 calories extra per cup, then the weight loss is really starting to add up.

The 80 calories that green tea burns come courtesy of two different “lines of attack”. The main reason being the caffeine like substance it contains speeds up your metabolism and helps your body burn fat faster. The second reason is because green tea prevents glucose from entering your fat cells. So if you drink green tea regularly throughout the day, you are going to absorb less weight throughout the day too. There could even be a third reason - it helps suppress your appetite, especially if drunk regularly during the day. That will mean you are going to eat less food than usual (hopefully less snacks).

Certain Japanese green teas are better than most others for weight loss and health purposes. Look for tea that contains “Epigallocatechin Gallate” as this is one of the agents that helps fight cancer.

So they are the main benefits of green tea for weight loss. It is also packed full of antioxidants to help clean out your body and make your skin look good. Not too mention it could help keep your heart healthy and fight cancer. Its not a miracle drink, it will not be solely responsible for you losing a ton of weight, but as part of a healthy diet and lifestyle it really will help you reach your goal!

What foods make you feel full? - Foods that fill or suppress appetite

If you are on a diet then you will already know that one of the hardest things to deal with is trying to ignore the hunger pangs. In fact most people will give in to these cravings at some point or another and jeopardize their whole diet. So how can you avoid feeling hungry? Simple - Eat the right foods!

On top of the list below, here are some other useful tips to fight off hunger

Tips

- Eat your meals at the right time - Try to eat four smaller meals a day spread out evenly. This will keep your metabolism going for most of the day and mean that there is less time between meals so less time to feel hungry.

- Drink plenty of water. 8 glasses a day are recommended as they will help your body function, help you lose weight and help you feel full.

- Snack on fruit or low calorie food when you are hungry. Celery for example, will fill you due to its water content, but has just about zero calories!

- Distract yourself when you are hungry. Keep yourself busy and you wont even notice you are bored! Play a game, go out or even clean the house - anything to distract yourself a bit.

OK, now on to the list of foods that will help keep you full

Foods that make you feel full

- For breakfast eat high fiber foods. Brown bread or an oat or wheat cereal. These kind of high fiber foods are full of complex carbohydrates and are hard for your body to break down - it can take 5-6 hours for you to fully digest them and in all that time you should feel full! Fiber is the number one way to keep yourself feeling full!

- Nuts are a good snack as they are packed with fiber (although they can be high in calories so don’t overdo them!).

- Avoid junk food and food high in sugar. These foods are packed with simple carbs and your body digest them quickly and you will demand more food.

- Fresh fruit and veg - great snacks, low calories and should fill you up. Apples are especially good for filling you up with few calories - they are also said to help weight loss. On top of that try Lettuce, spinach celery, berries, tomatoes.

- Foods full of protein (lean meat). Protein also keeps you feeling full for longer because it takes a long time to break down, much like fiber. It is also important for lots of other body functions so make sure you eat plenty

So what foods and what can you do to feel full? Stay away from junk food, try cooking your own meals with fresh ingredients, include plenty of fiber and protein in to your diet, snack on fruit and eat four smaller meals a day. Exercise, drink eight glasses of water and try to keep your self busy. Do all of that and you really wont have any time to feel hungry anyway! Oh and stay away from diet pills and appetite suppressing pills, they are likely to do more harm than good.

Foods that can help lower your cholesterol - High Cholesterol Advice

High cholesterol is one of the main threats to your hearts health. Cholesterol is a fatty substance that can build up along the walls of your arteries and might eventually clog them up completely resulting in a heart attack or stroke. In the modern world we are subjected to foods that are high in cholesterol and because of this heart disease is one has become one of the biggest killers in existence. On top of that we are putting immense pressure on our health services by eating unhealthily.

Whether you are suffering from high cholesterol or have never heard about cholesterol before, it is time you really took notice of what you are eating.

Dairy products and red meats are the biggest cholesterol clogging foods, so try to limit and lower the amounts of these you have!

You are also far more likely to have high cholesterol if you are over weight, so try and lose weight primarily, using the foods below in your diet if possible.

The following foods can help lower or keep your cholesterol under control:

OATS - oats, oatmeal, oat bran

Oats contain soluble fiber - this will lower your bad cholesterol! It also reduces the absorption of cholesterol into your body. In my opinion there is nothing more effective for lowering/managing your cholesterol than a bowl of oat meal for your breakfast. (if you use milk in your cereal remember to  change to skimmed milk)

NUTS - walnuts/almonds

Walnuts in particular can really help lower your blood cholesterol. They are high in calories but good for cholesterol, so don’t overdo them. Either have a handful as a snack during the day or use in your salads instead of dairy products such as cheese.

Foods high in Omega 3 Acids (FISH!)

Omega 3 can reduce cholesterol, blood preassure, clogs and more. Try and eat a tasty oily fish once or twice a week.

Also eat more:

Potatoes

Fruit

Vegetables

Remember to concentrate on losing weight first, then manage your cholesterol. Get it checked regularly, cut out dairy foods, high fat foods, too much sugar etc. Exercise will also really help. Coming from someone who used to have high cholesterol and a parents who had really high cholesterol i can tell you it is manageable and you can and need to do something about it if it is too high.

The Christmas Dieter Issue #3 - How to Cook a Healthy Christmas Dinner

Christmas Dinner (or Lunch) does not have to be an exercise in gluttony. Instead of piling on pounds lets look at how you can cook your Christmas meal healthily, whilst still keeping all those extra trimmings that make it so special (and delicious!).

A healthier Christmas Dinner

Preparation for Christmas

Just because you are trying to lose weight does not mean you cannot enjoy one of the tastiest meals of the year! You are going to eat more than on a normal day so the first thing you can do is prepare for it. For the whole of December leading up to x-mas day, try eating a 50 or a 100 calories a day less than usual. If you can do that you can afford to eat 1200 - 2400 extra calories before you put back on the extra weight you lost.

Trading in a chocolate advent calendar for a more traditional picture one will help, as will trading soft drinks for their diet equivalent or water. There are plenty of other ways to lose 50-100 calories extra a day and you can find a lot of them here

Cooking a Healthy Christmas Dinner

Vegetables are a big part of any Christmas meal - below are some great ideas for your vegetables and some healthy, interesting ways to cook them:

Vegetable Ideas

Red Cabbage/Green Cabbage - do not boil as that takes away the cabbages nutrients. Instead steam or roast the cabbage. Add onion, cooking apples, low fat butter alternative and cider, to spice it up a little.

Brussels sprouts - Boil and then steam. Try with roasted chestnuts, lemon juice and pepper. Chestnuts can be quite heavy in calories so don’t be overly generous.

Asparagus - Boil, steam and then roast for best taste. Add a little low fat butter on once out of the oven

Green Beans

Broccoli - Grill with plenty of herbs and seasonings and a little low fat cheese grated on mid grilling.

Carrots - Boil or grill.

Potatoes /Parsnips /Swedes - look for a low fat oil or an oil substitute so that you can still brown them and get them crispy without making them really unhealthy. Alternatively boil and then herb them. Not as nice maybe, but they are healthier and will have less calories.

Vegetables are packed with antioxidants, folic acid iron, fiber and vitamins. They are also great for your heart.

Trimmings

Stuffing - If you are already having chestnuts with your sprouts you will not want them again in your stuffing. Try a lighter lemon stuffing instead - lemon zest, lemon juice, parsley, olive oil (a dribble), pepper, a salt alternative, bread

Sausages wrapped in bacon - if you really want these, use lean sausages and bacon. Limit yourself!

Turkey

I wont interfere with how you cook your turkey, you cant go too wrong with it. Lightly oil, season heavily and cook well.

Extra Tips and Advice

As always eat your meal slowly. It takes a while for your brain to realize that you have eaten enough food and you are in fact, full. When you are full don’t eat anymore! There is not need to stuff your self as well as the bird.

Look for a low fat cranberry sauce. Be sensible with sauces and gravy!

Next issue we will look at desserts!

Best of luck!