Entries from June 2007 ↓

Atkins diet, Atkins Nutritional Approach or just Atkins is a low-carbohydrate diet and was formulated by Dr. Robert Atkins to solve his very own problems of being overweight. Dr. Atkins conceptualized this diet plan based on a theory that overweight people tend to ingest more carbohydrates. Since the body uses fat and carbohydrates for energy, eating lesser carbohydrates would mean that fats are burned more.

As some people claimed to have lost their weight on Atkins, some doctors and nutritionists criticize it. You should decide for yourself by weighing in the pros and cons of the Atkins diet plan before embarking on it.

Continue reading →

My Food Diary’s clean, sleek-looking site is refreshing. As a member, you can easily log in from the home page or get access to the site’s resources with a simple click of a button. There are certain tools you’ll like going back to at MyFoodDiary.com. For one, there’s the His & Hers Body Log wherein you can monitor the results of your weight loss efforts by tracking your body parts and fat percentage. The summary table will let you see how many inches, percentage points and pounds you’ve lost.

There are also weight loss calculators on the site that will let you compute your ideal weight, waist-to-hip ratio and BMI. An advantage of this site is the tool that lets you estimate serving sizes. The Recipe Builder is an innovative piece that lets you know the nutritional content of your meal by simply entering the raw ingredients. That way, you get to track how much of which nutrients you’re getting and ultimately, you’ll learn which recipes are best for your weight loss program.

So if the site is this good, it ought to come with a price tag, right? Exactly. Membership isn’t free. However, for a mere $9 a month, you get access to all these tools, resources, tips and advice.

To improve your chances of getting good results from using My Food Diary, honesty is the best policy in updating your food logs.

Tags: My Food Diary, diet plans, diet site

Now more than ever, Americans need to lose weight. More than half of the population is reportedly obese or overweight, thanks to calorie-laden food and a lack of a good nutrition plan. If you’ve decided it’s time to make a change on your lifestyle and diet, it may be time to start choosing the best diet plan. If only it were that easy.

The problem with too many diet plan choices
When weight control and diets are easily two of the most common topics around, you’d think that it would be a breeze to find the best diet plan for you. Unfortunately, that is not often the case. From Atkins to South Beach to the Zone, there’s plenty of diet plans to go around to make everyone look like a supermodel. Continue reading →

Aside from usual side digestive system effects from weight loss pills such as gas and diarrhea, users of Alli should also take note of another side effect - vitamin deficiency.

This is because as Alli reduces absorption of fat in the gastrointestinal system, it also decreases the absorption of vitamins.

So according to Dr. David Westbrock, New Profile Weight Management Center’s director and an endocrinologist, it’s important to also take vitamin supplements while using this diet pill.

If you’d like to learn more about Alli, you might want to read “Are You Losing It?” Alli’s diet book.

Tags: Alli, vitamins, diet pill, side effects

As an answer to lack of education on what’s the ideal portion of food for each person, weight management experts came up with a new tool for weight loss - Portion-Control Dishes.

Dr. Pedersen’s team conducted a six-month study of commercially available portion control plates and bowls in 2004. The plates were divided into sections that marked appropriate portions for carbohydrates, proteins, cheese and sauce, with the rest left open for vegetables.

“The weight loss that we saw in this study is similar to weight loss seen in studies of medications for weight loss — but without the associated potential for side effects and at a fraction of the cost,” Pedersen told CTV Newsnet from Calgary.

The sections approximately totaled an 800-calorie meal for men and a 650-calorie meal for women. The cereal bowl was designed to allow a 200-calorie meal of cereal and milk.

The diet plate has line markings to delineate proper portion sizes for meats, starches and vegetables. The main aim of this tool is to help obese patients control their calorie consumption to improve weight loss results and to control the blood sugar levels of those with Type 2 diabetes.

via CTV

Tags: diet plate, weight loss, portion size, diabetes, blood sugar

Many are thinking that a fat kid is a healthy kid. Whenever they see plump cheeks and bulging tummies on kids, they’d squeal, “Oh what a cute chubby kid!” But the truth is, having a fat kid is not something to be proud of or to have fun with really. Because if your kid is obese, there’s a wide variety of risks he or she is exposed to.

Some of the complications of obesity on kids include disabling diseases such as heart disease, gall bladder disease, liver disease, type 2 diabetes, not to mention poor self-esteem and depression, which all can continue until adulthood. To avoid or help children get rid of childhood obesity, here are what weight management experts suggest: Continue reading →

Here are some of the great reads for the health and weight management conscious peeps:

16 Tips to Triple Your Workout Effectiveness from Leo Babauta of Zen Habits. If you need to read that kind of post, if you can afford it, you’re also better off with a personal trainer which brings us to the next hot health link…

6 Workout Hacks from Dumb Little Man. My workout hack? Do it with someone you really like or hate. If you do it with someone you really like you’re less inclined to get bored. When you do it with someone you hate, you exert more pressure making you workout a tad harder. Just kidding. But has anyone tried this yet?

Weight Training with Limited Time from Former Fat Guy’s Rob Cooper. My opinion? Having a baby is almost having a new weight training routine! Ok, seriously, you can simply continue doing some simpler workouts at home during this time, right? Check out Rob’s advice.

I’m surprised that this cGMP (current good manufacturing practices) rule on manufacturing dietary supplements has just been issued recently.

“The final rule will help ensure that dietary supplements are manufactured with controls that result in a consistent product free of contamination, with accurate labeling,” said Robert E. Brackett, Ph.D., director of FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

Under the final rule, manufacturers are required to evaluate the identity, purity, strength, and composition of their dietary supplements. If dietary supplements contain contaminants or do not contain the dietary ingredient they are represented to contain, FDA would consider those products to be adulterated or misbranded.

The aim of the final rule is to prevent inclusion of the wrong ingredients, too much or too little of a dietary ingredient, contamination by substances such as natural toxins, bacteria, pesticides, glass, lead and other heavy metals, as well as improper packaging and labeling.

The final rule includes flexible requirements that can evolve with improvements in scientific methods used for verifying identity, purity strength, and composition of dietary supplements.

I thought this has been a part of the cGMP all the while.

via FDA

Tags: cGMP, FDA, diet supplement, manufacturing

Ex-Baywatch star, Carmen Electra is not just known for her curves, she is also famous for her dancing skills, something she is not shy about showing off. Electra has been a dancer since she was young and was in fact a former member of the Pussycat Dolls, a stint she credits for helping her learn new dance moves and improve her dancing.

How she keeps fit? Electra keeps a diet and workout plan, a regimen she maintains to keep in shape and also to tame her stomach, a part of her body she is not too crazy about. Lately, she has focused her energies into producing a fitness regimen to help other women keep fit and healthy Carmen Electra-style.

Electra’s fitness regimen centers around her workout videos, titled ‘Aerobic Striptease’ and ‘Fit to Strip’. Both videos feature how-to steps using strip teasing dance moves to keep in shape. While the entertainment purpose of the tape is not lost to its users, Electra swears by its effectiveness. It features the same moves that Electra uses herself to keep her body in great condition. This was the product of her collaboration with DVD producers who saw the potential in her burlesque show.

Electra is promoting her DVDs to help women lose weight and have fun at the same time. The DVDs feature both exercise and striptease routines. The videos show Electra and two other women as they dance a series of choreographed moves. The routine, Electra says, are something that women will find enjoyable to use and benefit from at the same time.

[image from reviewjournal]

Tags: Carmen Electra, aerobic striptease, celebrity workout

Mediterranean culture, lifestyle, sights, and people are something that the whole world founds incredibly attractive, but recent studies have suggested that adopting their way of eating can improve your health and weight.

The Mediterranean diet is unlike the usual fare of Americans. It consists of lots of fruits and vegetables, very little red meat, the occasional red wine, a good amount of fish, and a few helpings of nuts. Mediterranean people don’t view fats as totally evil, but there are certain types that they consciously avoid. Most dishes are cooked using olive oil as well.

At Emory University, a short-term study revealed that the Mediterranean diet offered healthy benefits for the heart. The British Medical Journal Thorax, on the other hand, had reported findings where the Mediterranean diet could lead to selective cancer protection, lower heart risks, and longer life. They did, however, emphasize the need for further research to ascertain if the Mediterranean environment, culture and lifestyle as well as genetics could have contributed to the effects.

As for weight loss, some experts say that the Mediterranean diet is essentially a health plan rather than a weight loss program. The Mediterranean may, nevertheless, pull down your weight as it improves your health. An overweight man, for instance, may lose approximately six to eight pounds within two weeks of sticking to a Mediterranean diet while an overweight woman may lose four to six pounds in the same period. After the first two weeks, followers of the Mediterranean diet can still look forward to losing one to two more pounds on the subsequent weeks.

The Mediterranean diet can be safely followed for one and a half months, but beyond that, it’s best that you consult your doctor first.

[image from hydroxi]

Tags: Meditteranean diet, Mediterranean food, weight loss