Diets Detox and Weight Loss Blog

A lot of people find it very easy to lose a lot of weight in the first couple of weeks of a new diet – they might lose around 8 pounds and they will start thinking that they have found the greatest diet of all time. In fact I have a friend who is just going through this right now and all he is doing is calorie counting. He told me that he has only been eating around 1200 calories a day and has lost 7-8 pounds of fat in under two weeks. I told him that is impossible (hes not a big guy) and explained to him:

There are 3600 calories in a pound of fat – you are losing 1000 calories a day on your diet – at most you can have lose 1000 * 14  = 14 000 calories (around 4 pounds of fat!).

That is just 4 pounds of fat – so what accounts for the other 4 pounds my friend has lost? Well he claims his body is just “different” to most people. Well that is most likely NOT the case. In fact the truth is he has not lost 8 pounds of fat, and has probably not even lost 4 pounds. Most of the weight he has lost is called “water weight”.

Most of our bodyweight (around 60%) is water. Our body can hold a lot more water than in needs too, and it often does. It can make you look bloated and heavier than you actually are. Water weight is caused by our bodies holding more water than it needs too. This is not a bad thing because it means you might have a few pounds of weight that you can lose very easily and safely! You have nothing to lose by trying – except weight!

To lose water weight you have to – and this is pretty counter intuitive – drink more water! You need to rinse your body out basically – so try drinking 8 -10 glasses of water during the course of a day and you should be able to get all that water weight that is stuck in you, washed out.

One reason you might be holding on to water weight is your diet – people whose diet is high in salt tend to have a much higher amount of water retention. Your body does not like too much salt, and to counter its effect it needs a lot of water, that it will hold onto for as long as it can. So too wash out that salt, those 8-10 glasses of water should do the trick!

A healthy diet and plenty of water will help with your weight loss journey in general, so try and make little life style adjustments here and there and you are sure to benefit in more ways than you imagine.

- filed under What is Water Weight and How to Lose It

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!

Background

The grapefruit diet originates from 1930′s Hollywood where the stars of the day would (much like the stars of today) try any crazy sounding fad diet to lose a lot weight, quickly. The idea was to eat a couple of slices of grapefruit before each of the three main meals of the day. Your meals were meant to be Atkins type foods – high in protein low on fiber. You were also not allowed to eat any snacks in between your meals. Follow this and In ten days you would lose ten pounds! At least that was the claim. However recent studies could not prove that grapefruit really did help with weight loss and almost ruined this diet… but even more recent studies have shown that it really does make weight fly off. So does it really help? Will you really lose weight on the grapefruit diet?  Well i tried it for 10 days and have the results…

How do i go on the Grapefruit Diet? – A Days Diet Plan

Well your going to need quite a lot of grapefruits – half a grapefruit before each meal. I did not have access to enough grapefruits for my weeks plan so replaced them with a full, medium glass, of pure grapefruit juice which i was informed would work almost as well.

Breakfast

Half a grapefruit – Followed by:

Bacon and egg

or

Omelette

Lunch

Half a grapefruit – Followed by:

Chicken salad

or

Stir Fry

Dinner

Half a grapefruit – Followed by:

Salmon and veg

or

Steak, egg and salad

Additional Rules

Drink eight glasses of water each day (or there about depending on your body size.

Eat your meals slowly but eat until you are full.

No white vegetables, bread, pasta, potatoes etc.

Go on the diet for 10 or 12 days, then two day off, then 10 or 12 days again.

Results

I went on the grapefruit diet for 10 days and did not repeat and I lost ….. 5 and a half pounds! I was really pleased with this as i have about 30 pounds to lose. I did not choose to repeat because i really did not enjoy going on the atkins diet after three weeks and this is so similar… well it put me off staying on it. I think its the fiber i miss so much.

Atkins Comparison and Conclusion

Comparing it with the Atkins diet, if i recall, i lost six pounds in two weeks/14 days. So the grapefruit diet beats it, slightly. My exercise regime is pretty similar as to when i was on the Atkins diet (almost non existent :s ) as was my starting weight. So im going to go for a big conclusion here and say that grapefruit really does help with weight loss! Perhaps it was down to me being quite full when i started my meal thanks to drinking a full glass of juice and i just didn’t eat as much because of it. Or perhaps its because grapefruit gets your metabolism pumping away, or helps your stomach acids or is just a very magic fruit… Either way its worth trying, especially if you were already considering going on Atkins.

Is there anything better than water with lemon for weight loss ? Water has almost no calories – it increases weight loss and helps keep you feeling full. Lemons (lemon juice) have many benefits of their own -  they are full of vitamin C, flush out a lot of toxins from your body and of course, help you with your weight loss!

There are diets (that we will look out soon) that are based around drinking lemon juice or lemon water, such as the apytly named lemon juice diet.

Lemon peel (pectin) helps protect your body from absorbing fat, so has weight loss advantages of its own. A little lemon peel in a warm glass of lemon juice really will help (but dont go eating all of the lemon/ lemon peel, just the edge or it wont be good for you!).

To be honest the best thing about any of these lemon diets is that they actually get people to drink the recommended eight glasses of water a day. This increases your metabolism, helps your organs work and keeps you full in between meals. The lemon just makes it even more effective!

So is there anything better than water with lemon for weight loss ? Well, yes and no. It makes water even better for you, will burn fat in its own way and keep you healthy. Its a bit like a detox too. But just remember that it is only part of a diet. A healthy low fat ,high fibre diet on top of any lemon water diet will really help your weight just fly off!

Water is perhaps your single greatest friend in the battle of the bulge. Not only can water make you lose weight, it can also help your body run smoother and healthier. And on top of that, its free! – well almost free!

Your body is between 55 and 70% water (women towards the lower end men towards the higher). If you do not drink enough water you will become dehydrated and eventually die. Water can be consumed in its natural state or in other drinks such as soft drinks or tea or coffee.

How can we use water to lose weight?

There are lots of advantages to drinking plenty of water. First of all your kidneys and liver function much better with plenty of water. Your kidneys are complicated organs but their main function is to sift through your blood for waste material that you will eventually pee out. For them to do this effectively they need water – and lots of it. If your kidneys do not get enough water they recruit your liver to start helping them doing their job which is no good for us. The liver should be turning fat into energy and if it has to help the kidneys do their job it is is going to slow down. Increasing the speed the liver turns fat into energy is usually referred to as increasing your bodies metabolism.

It has many other advantages, such as making your skin look great and helping various other organs run efficiently. Infact all of your organs require water! But another weight losing function of water is as an appetite suppressant. Drink a glass of water when you start feeling hungry and it will get rid of that feeling for about an hour.

Try and swap all your soft drinks and milky teas and coffee for either a diet equivalent or for, yes you guessed it, a glass of water!

How much water should i drink a day?

It is recommended that you drink around eight glasses of water to get the body running at its peak. This may sound a lot, but throughout a whole day it is not hard.

Don’t overdo drinking water. Like everything else it is unhealthy to have too much of it. Can water make you lose weight? – yes! but try to stick to the recommended eight glasses (at least six at most twelve) a day.