Diets Detox and Weight Loss Blog

What is the detox with the fastest results? Detox Reviews

Detoxes can be amazing - you almost feel like a different person after a successful detox. It can change your weight, your mood and even cure certain ailments. But which detox is the best for you and which detox has the fastest results?

There are many detox diets around and almost all of them have a slightly different detoxification effect. Some of them flush out your kidneys and liver, others your lungs and some diet detoxes can give you a huge weight loss boost.

You should never go on a detox program for too long a period of time and should not repeat the detox too often, as usually you will not be getting anywhere near the amount of calories/nutrients your body needs in the long run.

Detoxes

The Master Cleanse Diet

The master cleanse diet cleanses the body with its strict detox program and you should see a fair amount of weight lost as a side effect. Its an excellent, proven diet that consists of certain cleansing foods/drinks such as lemons, limes and plenty of water.

It works, it cleans toxins out from your body (including from inside your fat cells, again helping with weight loss). You should not go on it for very long periods of time - i went on it a while back and did it for a week, i lost 6 pounds and felt healthier at the end.  This is a detox not a diet, but you will lose weight on it as a side effect.

The Master Cleanse Diet can be found here

Score 9/10 - For a Detox this is excellent. You shouldn’t feel too hungry doing it, you will feel great at the end of it (hopefully), and as an extra bonus you will lose a load of weight.

The Water Detox

Can water really detox your body? Yes it can, to a limit. A water detox is simple to do, you drink only water for 2-3 days (no more than 3!). This rinses out your body by peeing all the bad stuff out whilst you are taking no bad stuff in. This will clean out your body in a limited way. You will notice after the first half a day your pee is already pretty clear and the waters cleansing properties are actually pretty limited. Water doesn’t clean out your lungs, body plagues liver or kidney properly in my opinion.  Still, some people have felt amazing changes after being on it for three days and you could be one of them so don’t write this detox off.

My worry about this detox is that your are only on water for three days - and water contains 0 calories/ 0 vitamin, protein fiber etc. This is pretty extreme and on most detoxes you can at least have some kind of fruit and nutrients.  Just be careful going into it and if you are feeling really faint or ill stop it immediately. Really that goes for any detox but even more so for the water detox.

Score 6/10 - Its mentally tough, physically tough, will probably have limited results, but hey - its free!

The Secret Fat Loss Detox Diet

This Detox makes some incredible claims - You will live longer, you will start losing lots of weight, be free of sickness and disease, etc. It seemed unlikely to me that a detox could actually make me live a lot longer but thats not why i tried it (i was recommended it from some one who had completed it).

Apparently we are fat because of parasites and plagues inside our body. These things are slowly multiplying and slowly killing us. This detox will flush them all out.

This detox is natural food/drinks only and it really made me feel good by the end of it. I didn’t feel like i was really pushing my self to stay on it, which was nice. Above that, i lost 11 pounds on this in just over a week. Sure some of it was water retention weight, but not all of it.

This Secret Detox Diet is available here

Score 9/10 - This is my personal detox choice. Felt much better and lost lots of weight quickly.

The Elimination Diet/Detox

The elimination diet is a gradual detox program. It works by you eliminating a certain food type each week, (such as dairy products) or every two weeks and seeing if you feel any healthier. If you don’t feel better you reintroduce that food type and get rid of another type. You keep doing this till you have eliminated all the food types that make you feel worse. Its a great idea and well worth a try.

For our full review of the Elimination Diet Click Here

Score 7/10 - Its a very good detox diet, but it takes a long long time to eliminate all the foods your body reacts adversely too.

Detox 101

I have not tried this detox but have put it here on the recommendation of a friend. It is meant to be the best first detox you can go on. Thats because of detailed instructions, the amount of detox friendly foods you can eat. What this detox is meant to swiftly do is:

• purify our blood,
• purify and protect our liver,
• cleanse the intestines,
• help excrete heavy metals,
• improve the cleansing function of the glands,
• purify our gastrointestinal (GI) tract,
• help to rid the respiratory system of excess mucus,
• protect against free radicals,
• help clear liver and gall bladder obstructions,
• remove residues of radiation in the body.

I can’t vouch for it but if it does all it says it can then it looks like its worth a try next time i am detoxing.

Detox 101 Can be Found Here

Diet A-Z: Grapefruit Diet (the) - What, Why and Review

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.

5 Reasons Why You Are Eating Too Much Food and How to Stop Yourself!

The trouble with dieting is that you often want to eat when you don’t really need to. You get hungry because you are bored, hungry because you are eating the wrong foods, hungry because you are eating at the wrong time of the day, etc. So lets change all that by looking at why you are eating too much food and why you want to eat that much food.

1. You Are Eating The Wrong Foods

If you have your breakfast at eight and are hungry again by ten then there is a good chance you are not eating the right kind of foods in the morning. Same applies to lunch and dinner. So take a look at what you are eating! Would it count as junk food? Is it high in sugar? What you should eat more of are complex carbohydrates - foods that are hard for your body to break down. That means that it will take longer for your body to digest these foods and you will feel full the whole time that digestion process is occuring. Fiber is an excellent source of complex carbs. Most Americans eat way too little fiber and far too much sugary junk food.

If you find yourself feeling hungry all the time try adding a few of the following to your meal plans:

Brown Bread

Shredded Wheat and similar whole grain cereals

Lentils

Beans

Porridge

Pasta (brown preferably)

Potatoes

Spaghetti

Corn

Soy Milk

Onions

Apples, pears, plums, strawberries, prunes

Protein rich foods such as chicken and beef will also keep you full for quite a long time and won’t have too many calories (as long as they are not processed meats).

2. Your eating because your bored

We have all been there. ‘Hm I’m bored, maybe il go make a snack whilst i think about what i can do today..’

Its really not a good idea. Sometimes you don’t even notice yourself doing this. For a lot of people its routine. To stop you have to notice yourself doing this and then apply a lot of restrain. It really inst easy so the best thing to do is occupy yourself when you have free time. Food is not the only thing you can do for fun. Play a game, a musical instrument, watch tv or take up a new hobby. I really think eating due to boredom is up there in the top three weight gain reasons so give it the credit it deserves and avoid it.

3. Your portions are too big , your eating too fast- and whats that, your having seconds?!

It takes 10 - 15 minutes for your stomach to tell your brain that it’s full. That means that if you are one of those people that shovels food down far too quickly, you are going to be eating more than you actually want and certainly more than you need - you just don’t realize it till its too late. The key then, is to slow down your eating. This will help with digestion and means by the time you finish you will actually feel full.

4. You are eating because you are depressed

I’m not a psychologist, (In fact I’m not even sure i can spell the word correctly) but a lot of people eat because they are sad or depressed. Food, unfortunately, does have a comforting effect on most people, but it wont solve anything in the long run. If you think you are eating because you are depressed talk to someone about your problems - leave a comment and i’l try helping - but its best to talk to friends or family about your problems. I know its not as simple as you talk to someone about your problems and your no longer depressed, then hey presto you start losing weight, but it will be very hard to lose weight if you dont get your self happy. So start now with a huge smile, and from now on start each day like that too! Smile and say hello to people you pass on the street or meet on the bus. It will make both you and them feel much better!

5. You are eating at the wrong times of the day

Breakfast lunch and dinner are the three meals of the day - try not to skip any of them. Eat a proper meal for each and make sure you eat them at the right times. Alternatively try eating four smaller meals a day spread evenely throughout - its the best way of keeping your metabolism going as long as a Duracell battery and it will keep you full all day through! If you are hungry in between meals have a piece of fruit - an apple or a banana are both good choices.

The Christmas Dieter Issue #2- Healthy Spicy Mince Pies

This week we are going to be looking at festive foods you can still enjoy on a diet. Today we will look at Mince Pies- we will look at the actual Christmas Lunch/Dinner and how we can keep it just as tasty but make it much healthier next week.

Low Fat Mince Pies Recipe

I’m from England originally and when i was young my mum (thats ‘mom’ to our American guests) used to cook great mince pies and since then i have always loved them at Christmas time.  If you have never cooked them before its time to give them a try! Before we begin you should know mince beef is not used in these pies anymore so don’t let the name fool you. We now use “mince meat” which contains fruit instead of meat and so preserves the mince pies much longer and tastes great.

The recipe we are going to use is from Low Fat Veggie Foods

Spicy Mincemeat

1. Place 1 1/4lb/500g grated aples and 2lb/900g mixed dried fruit in a pan. Add 2 tsp mixed spice and 1pt/600 ml cider.

2. Simmer for about 20 mins or until mixture forms a pulp and most of the liquid has evaporated. Stir in 2 tbsp brandy, whisky or rum, and allow to cool.

3. Pack the mincemeat in sterilised jars and store in the fridge until required.

Healthy Chritsmas Mince Pies - 150 calories per mince pie

Six Filo Pastry sheets (12 x 8in/30 x 20cm) on top of each other. Cut into 6 square-shaped sections to end up with 36 individual squares.

2. Take 6 non-stick patty tins. In each tin, layer 4 individual pastry squares at slight angles to each other, brushing with beaten egg white in between each layer. Place 1/2 tbsp mincemeat (see mincemeat recipe) in the centre of each pastry case.

3. Brush remaining 12 pastry squares with egg white and scrunch them up. Place 2 scrunched-up squares on top of each portion of mincemeat. Bake in a preheated oven at Gas 5/190C/375F for 10 mins until crisp and golden.

And thats it! You can decorate your pastry however you want. Usually some kind of festive picture on top works well, such as a christmas tree cut out of the left over pastry and placed ontop before being put into the over. Sprinkle flour or sugar on afterwards according to taste.

Diet A-Z: Elimination Diet (the) - What, Why and Review

The elimination diet is an interesting concept. It involves finding out which foods are no good from your body and getting rid of them entirely. For instance, some people may be lactose intolerrent without even knowing it - these people go on the elimination diet and get rid of all dairy products for two weeks and start feeling great. Then they decide that they are not going to have dairy products again. On top of things your body may not react well to, you can eliminate foods that are making you put on more weight than others.

OK i can not give you a fair review of this diet because: a) I have not done this diet properly b) I dont see it as an actual diet

When i say i have not done the diet properly what i mean is i have eliminated a few problem foods over my life time by realising accidently that they are no good for me, such as anything with caffeine in it - i can not sleep at all if i have any caffeine in the afternoon onwards, so i avoid it as much as possible now.

And when i say i dont see it as an actual diet, well i dont. It is more of an experiment. You are meant to get rid of particular food types from your diet for around two weeks at a time. If there is no difference to your weight loss or how you feel you put it back in to your diet and you get rid of another food type. This is actually something well worth doing as you are very likely to find foods your body doesnt like or react well to that you never even knew about, but the problem is eliminating every type of food for two week periods takes a heck of a long time!

As such i cant give this a fair review so wont even try. It is a “diet” i am going to try to do over a long period of time whilst on other actual healthy eating diets, and will alter this review when the time comes.

water with lemon for weight loss

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!

Can water make you lose weight?

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.

Diet A-Z: Detox Diet (the secret detox) - What, Why and Review

Detoxing your body means removing lots of nasty things inside your body, such as toxins, by consuming particular foods and drinks. Differnt detoxes have differnt foods and drink you must take, and often very different results. Not everyone finds detoxing makes a huge differnce for them but for others it can make them feel like a new person.

The Secret Detox Diet (found here), makes some rather large claims, not only about what it can do but also about how bad your body is right now. With slogans such as live for longer and lose lots of fat without dieting, i thought it would be interesting to put this detox diet to the test.

How do you do the Secret Detox Diet?

Firstly you go to the page listed above and buy the doctors ebook. Its around $35 at time of writing - quite steep perhaps, but easily worth it if it lives up to its claims. But does it?

Lets quickly look at some more of its claims, as they are very interesting.

We are all fat apparently, not because we eat too much or the wrong foods, but because there are lots of parasites inside us that make us fat! Luckily a good detox likes this will wash them all out. Not the most convincing of claims to be honest, but coupled with the pictures on the site it suddenly becomes a lot more really and viable. But the truth is we all have parasites in us anyway, just they are not usually harmful as far as i know. The other statement that was of interest to me was that our bodies are lines with plague that is presumably slowly stopping blood flow and such, and slowly killing us. The detox also sees to that. Great!

Now sadly i cannot go into how to do the diet in great detail here as the information must be purchased, but i will tell you it is a natural detox - plants, herbs and that kind of thing. You only need to go on it for a matter of days but it will means a few days of huner (not starvation), or it did for me.

Results

Well a week after going on the detox i did feel better and i was down a few pounds (5 pounds). Did i lose parasites and plague along the way? Well to be honest i have no idea but i like to think i did. I will recommend this detox, but i cannot vouch for its claims even after completing it. Infact it was the weight loss and the extra energy i gained that really impressed me. Shame they didnt just concentrate on that on the main page of info. Once you are off the detox you are recommended to go back on to a healthy diet so whether the continuous weight loss was due to detoxing or going back to my healthy dieting i cant say. I do think its worth ago though, especially if you have never detoxed before!

The diet can be found HERE

The Christmas Dieter Issue #1- Tips to keep the weight down during the Christmas period

Christmas is coming. A time of year most people love, yet the dieter hates and fears. It can be the dieters number one enemy. It is very hard on Christmas day and the surrounding weeks not to pile on pounds. If you live in an area with a colder November - January climate you will want to eat more just so your body burns food and stays warm. So are you doomed to the post X-Mas Diet or can you prevent putting on so many pounds this year?

During this feature - The Christmas Dieter - we will be looking at low fat alternatives, healthy but fun Christmas meals and snacks, and whatever other healthy festive tips we can think of.

Today we are just going to look at a few tips to minimise weight gain around Christmas.

Tips and ideas

• Let people know you are on or still on a diet. This way they wont buy you chocolates and other tempting treats. Heck, you might get something you want off them instead!

• Make your own festive foods this year! Instead of buying cookies, chocolates or mince pies make your own from low fat ingredients and alternatives. You can make them look very festive and impress everyone you offer them to, too! Buy nuts without salt and dried fruit instead of chocolate covered fruit. Prepare early so you are not rushing around last minute buying loads of snack junk food

• If weight gain is inevitable on Christmas day, fine - why not break your diet for one special day. But at the same time dont pig out just for the sake of it. Also prepare for this weight gain by losing a bit extra from now till then. Lose 3 extra pounds before christmas, then when you put it on you will still be heading for your targets

• Go for lots of walks. There is usually something good to have a look at during this seasonal holiday. Go make the most of it.

• If you work, find something to do with your time off. Dont just sit down or you will eat just for the sake of it. Distract yourself by sending loads of X-Mass cards or shopping for the perfect present.

• Keep yourself and your house warm if possible. If you are cold your body will crave food.

In the upcoming issue we will look at a healthy Christmas Dinner/Lunch for you to cook.

Diet A-Z: Cabbage Soup Diet - What, Why and Review

For now i have missed out B diets and jumped on to C. The only B i could think of was the blood type diet - where you eat foods thats are only meant to be for your blood type - but with no scientific evidence of it helping iv decided to avoid it, at least for now and move on to the C’s…

The Cabbage Soup Diet

This is a short term diet that is usually thought of as a fad diet. It will or should result in quick but short term weight loss. It should only be done for one week at a time (and then a couple of months off) for a special occasion/holiday. The diet allows you to have as much cabbage soup as you wish for an entire week, whilst having a limited amount of particular other foods throughout the week.

Origins

The cabbage soup diet first became mainstream around 20 years ago. Who created it is still unknown but i would like to go out on a limb and suggest it was somebody that either liked cabbage soup or could not afford much more cabbage soup and as such had it regually. This person noticed they lost weight eating it, and the cabbage soup diet was born. That is just speculation however, and it is more commonly thought to have been created by military institutes as a high fiber get-in-shape quick meal plan.

How do you go on the “Cabbage Soup diet”?

As described above, you are allowed to eat as much cabbage soup as you can stomach. Cabbage is sometimes referred to as a negative calorie food, and tap water should contain zero calories and as these are the two main ingredients you can understand why you are going to lose weight fast.

Tips

On each day of the week you are allowed a secondary food source, such as fruit or rice.

Drinks should be water only (unless you are on a fruit day, in which case you could drink pure fruit juice).

It is not a sustainable diet, you do it for a week then return or transfer onto a regular diet, such as weight watchers.

If you are feeling ill, stop the diet. You are probably not getting all the food your body needs.

If you are bored of the soup, spice it, herb it or put a little salt in it. I like pepper so used plenty.

Try vitamin tablets daily to make up for the lack in the food you eat. They may or may not work, but its worth taking them just in case.

Cabbage soup meal plans

This is a typical cabbage soup menu for the whole 7 days, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Day 1 - Cabbage soup + as much fruit as you like (but no bananas)

Day 2 - Cabbage soup + vegetables including 1 baked potato with a small amount of butter

Day 3 - Cabbage soup + fruit and vegetables excluding potatoes and bananas

Day 4 - Cabbage soup + up to eight bananas and as much skimmed milk as you want

Day 5 - Cabbage soup + 20 ounces of beef (at most) and up to six tomatoes

Day 6 - Cabbage soup + beef and vegetables (no potatoes)

Day 7 - Cabbage soup + brown rice, vegetables (no potatoes) and pure fruit juice

Review

I did this diet a long time ago and have trouble remembering it all. I do remember making a big mistake the first couple of days on it, and having nothing but cabbage soup and water. That is not right for this diet - do that and you are starving yourself.

The diet was a struggle - half way through when i would get hungry my body hated the idea of drinking more soup. But i completed it, i lost around 7 pounds and i never did it again.  7 pounds sounds good for a week diet but i will go into that in the next section.

Criticisms

A strong criticism of this diet is that most of your weight loss will be water that your body usually retains. The more liquid you drink the less you retain so after a diet of liquid you have less water and weight less. I can back this up with the fact i put back on most of the weight a couple of weeks later even though i was still eating healthily.

With a rapid diet like this you are going to lose as much muscle as you do fat and that is not a good thing, seeing as how organs such as your heart are muscle (unless you are doing a bit of exercise too).

Most people overdo the salt in the soup to make it palatable. That has other repercussions for your health.

Is it for you?

It may be worth trying if you need to lose weight quick for a good reason and you realize that it is not a sustainable diet, that when you finish you need to move on to a proper, healthy diet.  I don’t recommend yo yo diets, as i feel this one could easily become, so be aware of putting the weight back on after and do not do this diet too regularly.