Weight Control Diet

Weight Control Diets Gain Momentum

There seems to be a diet plan for every type of person. Most of these diet plans usually make the claim that they are the best weight loss program around. Weight loss diets like the Diet la Shangri, the South Beach Diet and the Atkins Diet, may work for some people, but there is not a specific healthy diet available that can work for every person or every lifestyle.

How To Find A Weight Control Diet Fit For You

New weight control diets seem to be created daily, all promising that they are the weight control diet that is perfect for you. Despite the different approaches these diets take, they can all be considered weight control diets. To find a weight control diet that is right for you, you have to take your lifestyle, environment and personal eating habits into account. It is important that you find a weight control diet that you can follow for life. The most important thing to focus on when looking for a weight control diet is balance. Benefits of Weight Control Diets
By focusing on controlling your weight and finding a healthy diet that is easy for you to follow, you can help your body maintain a healthy weight. It is important to view any diet as a weight control diet instead of a weight loss diet or weight loss program. This will help you create healthy goals instead of trying to constantly lose weight.

Why Weight Control Diets Are Important

By starting a weight control diet now, you are reducing the risk of "yo-yo dieting" and potential health risk related to obesity. Finding a healthy weight that your body is comfortable maintaining can help reduce stress and heart disease. It is more important to learn to maintain a healthy weight than trying lose any additional weight. Dieting is not a one time venture, instead you have to learn to change your behaviors and lifestyles to suit your new relationship with food and health. Taking small steps like cutting back on artifical sugars and reducing your calorie intake can really jump start any diet program you decided to try. By incorporating a proper diet into your daily life you can make small changes that can have lasting results. No matter what diet you decide to try and ultimately stick with you, you have to be committed to your goals.

Shangri La Diet

What Is The Shangri La Diet?

The Shangri La Diet is a weight loss program based on the book of the same name by Seth Roberts, an associate professor of psychology at UC Berkeley. It is based on the concept that at any given time, your body desires to be a specific weight, and it will increase or decrease feelings of hunger and its metabolic rate in order to obtain that weight. According to the Shangri La Diet, eating certain foods causes a shift in the weight that your brain wants you to be, based on flavor. In other words, eating certain foods makes your brain think that you should weigh a lot, so you eat a lot. At the same time, there are some foods that make your brain think you should eat very little.

What Is The Diet Plan Of The Shangri La Diet?

To cure this, the Shangri La Diet recommends consuming 100-400 calories of sugar water and/or flavorless edible oil every day, at least an hour before or after consuming anything. This practice breaks the brain's connection between flavor and calories, causing the body to eat less, and consequently generating weight loss without being hungry.

Besides the sugar water/oil, the Shangri La Diet allows you to eat whatever you want, but Roberts reminds dieters that an unhealthy diet is still bad for you, and the Shangri La Diet should go along with a healthy eating habit of small portions of nutritious foods. The Shangri La Diet also has some "extra credit" techniques to offer additional weight loss tips. This includes eating foods with less flavor, trying new foods and flavors, cooking more, eating one food at a time, and eating foods that are digested slowly.

The Shangri La Diet follows a similar concept to the L.A. Weight Loss program. Both encourage portion control as an essential element of weight loss. However, the Shangri La Diet puts much less stress on nutrition and balanced meals while L.A. Weight Loss makes sure that there are elements of each food group in every meal.

What Are The Results?

Practitioners of the Shangri La Diet, including Roberts, claim that the diet's ability to reduce appetite is dramatic, often immediate, and maintainable. They notice that eating what they used to consider small meals makes them feel extremely full, they no longer have an interest in their previously favorite foods, and they have an aversion to food. The Shangri La Diet can be considered a diet based on natural weight loss, in which you eat less calories than you burn, because it suppresses your appetite and causes you to eat less. However, it does not promote healthy weight loss because eating too little can slow your metabolism. Also, it does not include exercise as an important element.

Weight Loss Program

What Is A Weight Loss Program?

A weight loss program is an organized plan created to help people lose weight. It is important to talk to a health care professional about controlling your weight before deciding on a weight loss program. If your health care provider encourages you to lose weight, a weight loss program is an effective way to help you reach your goals. It is important to choose a program that is based on regular physical activity, and an balanced and healthy diet plan that you can easily follow. The most successful weight loss programs promote healthy behaviors that you can incorporate to your everyday life.

The safest and most effective weight loss programs include in their plans:

Nutritious eating strategies that decrease calories but don't prohibit specific foods or food groups

Suggestions on how to increase moderately intense physical activity

Gradual and consistent weight loss, on average about ½ to 2 pounds per week. This may be a bit faster when you start your diet

A maintenance plan to keep the weight off once you've lost it

How Do Different Weight Loss Programs Compare?

Some weight loss programs call for drastic changes rather than healthy changes that are meant to sustain for life. The Celebrity Diet calls for only drinking a vitamin-infused juice formula and water for two days. Although there is immediate weight loss, this diet cannot be maintained for life. Another drastic diet, Diet Shangri La, has its dieters consume 100-400 calories of sugar water and/or flavorless edible oil every day, at least an hour before or after consuming anything. This weight loss program claims to suppress appetite, causing dieters to eat less; however, it does not encourage exercise.

Other weight loss programs are meant for a complete change in lifestyle so that dieters can maintain their weight loss. The South Beach Diet consists of three phases. It is about permanently changing your eating habits, having a variety of food, eating good carbs, healthy fats, and avoiding overly-refined processed foods, high-fat meats, and saturated fats. This weight loss program is purely based on food changes that are very healthy and useful for weight loss, however, it neglects to encourage exercise. The Atkins Diet is also a multiple-phase diet. It promotes eating healthy foods, but its focus is low-carbohydrate. It is also a food-based weight loss program that neglects to mention exercise. A third weight loss program is the Zone Diet, which focuses on a 40/30/30 ratio of calories obtained from carbohydrates, proteins, and fats respectively. All three diets are about proportions of food to each other rather than total caloric intake. They are considered with consuming what they consider to be a proper ratio of each food group, which will lead to weight loss.

Weight Loss Diet

Where Can I Find A Weight Loss Diet?

With so many weight loss diet programs out there, it is hard to figure out which one offers the best diet. At the same time, having so many options give you the opportunity to try many different strategies and figure out which one is best for your body to achieve weight loss.
The internet has become a huge resource for dieters to find a weight loss diet. There is every form of weight loss online. Every fad diet, along with weight loss clinics and books, has a website with information about their weight loss diet. The internet is a great place to find a free weight loss program. However, it is important to check with your physician before starting a weight loss diet, in order to make sure it is healthy for your body and will be effective and safe.

Which Weight Loss Diets Work Best?

The most effective weight loss diets are those that involve a change in lifestyle. While there are plenty of fast weight loss diets, they tend to be ineffective in the long run because they take drastic measures for a quick drop in weight, but these measures cannot become a part of a person's daily life and are often unhealthy if someone tried to continue them for a long period of time. In many weight loss diets, the first phase involves a drastic loss of weight. However, the most effective weight loss diets involved multiple phases that help dieters maintain that drastic loss of weight with moderate healthy changes that can be incorporated into a dieter's everyday life.

How Do I Find A Weight Loss Diet For Me?

Changing your lifestyle requires you to know your habits and understand what you need to alter in order to lose weight. One way of understand how your eating habits affect you is through a personality type diet. This type of weight loss diet analyzes your diet personality based on your answers from a quiz that asks you questions about how and what you eat. Once you understand yourself and realize elements of your dieting habits that you did not realize before, you can create a weight loss diet for yourself to rectify those habits that cause you to gain weight.

Dr. Kushner's Personality Type Diet is a well-known and effective weight loss diet that looks at your eating and exercising habits, labels you based on your eating, exercising, and coping strategies, and helps you lose weight based on your diet personality.

Diet Plan

What Is A Diet Plan?

A diet plan is an extremely important to have in order to achieve weight loss. Most weight loss programs put a diet plan as the top element of their program because what and how much you eat are extremely important in losing weight. The best weight loss program includes a healthy and nutritious diet plan, along with regular exercise.

Diet plans can be found through websites that offer weight loss online, health and nutrition books, and weight loss programs and clinics. There are free and paid programs available, depending on the extent of counseling you want in creating your diet plan.

In choosing a diet plan, it is also very important to include an exercise plan. Daily exercise is necessary in order to maintain healthy weight loss. You cannot lose weight and maintain that weight with just change of diet. A combination of daily activity and a healthy and nutritious plan will lead to stable weight loss. Once you are at your goal weight, your diet plan is no longer a weight loss plan but rather a lifestyle that you maintain in order to stay at your desire healthy weight.

Why Is It Important To Have A Diet Plan?

It's important to have a diet plan because it gives the dieter a course to follow. It keeps a dieter on track with healthy and nutritious eating habits. If a dieter does not have a diet plan, it is much easier to lose focus and motivation and develop poor eating habits that will not help weight loss. If you do not have a diet plan, you are more likely to take drastic measures and diet inconsistently, leading to failure in your goal of weight loss.

What Are The Different Types Of Diet Plans?

Some diet plans are based around natural weight loss, in which the dieter consumes less calories than they burn. These diet plans focus on portion control and calorie intake. When following them, however, it is important to eat enough because a dieter's metabolism can slow if enough calories aren't consumed. It is also important to remember to choose healthy food. Although eating less calories than you consume can help you lose weight, eating unhealthy foods can have detrimental effects on your body.

Other diet plans are based on the nutritional value of foods and the food groups they are in. They focus less on the number of calories, and more on making sure meals have a certain percentage of each food group. They do stress to watch portions and not to overeat, but their main concern is balancing carbohydrates, lean proteins, and healthy fats in a daily diet to incite weight loss.

Healthy Diet

How To Find A Healthy Diet

A healthy diet should focus on balance. You should follow a diet plan that include the basic food groups and allows you to indulge on occasion. A healthy diet is not meant to restrict you, but rather teach you the importance of portion control and moderation. Any diet such as the cabbage soup diet, where you do not have any variety, is not meant to be a long term weight loss diet. No healthy diet will ever ask you to make unreasonable changes to your lifestyle. The point of a healthy diet is to provide you with a positive relationship with food.

Not Every Diet Is A Healthy Diet

You may believe that every weight loss program is designed to be a healthy diet. In fact, many of you will try a diet without even checking if it has any medical proof supporting it. Diets like the Diet la Shangri, was not created using years of medical research or focus groups, but instead by a medical student who tested the affects of his diet on himself. Everyone is out to make money and whether or not this diet seems to be a healthy diet or not, you should never try a weight control diet that has not been thoroughly researched and reviewed.

Why Most Fad Diets Are Not Healthy Diets

Many fad diets or popular diets are not healthy diets. The creators of most of these diets are merely trying to make money off of your dieting dilemmas. Whether they use celebrity endorsements or weight loss guarantees, they are usually just selling you a quick tips to diet failure.

Luckily, There Are Healthy Diets Out There

There are healthy diets that allow you to lose weight and maintain your weight loss. Diets like the Zone Diet and Weight Watchers, really stress the importance of balance while also allowing you to enjoy your favorite foods. You should look for a diet that limits your cholesterol, salt, sugar and fat intake. A healthy diet may ask you to limit your intake of certain foods, but it will rarely, if ever, ask you to give anything up for good. Instead, your body should respond to eating healthy foods and ultimately you will crave those unhealthy foods less often. The key to any healthy diet is to learn to make it a lifestyle change not just a temporarily fix. If you follow a healthy diet, your body will not only look better but the extra nutrients and vitamins found in healthy food will have you feeling better as well.

Abs Diet

What Is The Abs Diet?

The Abs Diet is a weight loss diet program created by the editor-in-chief of Men's Health Magazine, David Zinczenko. Through its nutrition and exercise program, it claims to help dieters eat more to weigh less, turn fat into muscle, look and feel younger, supercharge their sex life, and live without pain. It focuses on achieving diet weight control by listing foods in certain categories of how often you should eat them, and by following a specific workout plan that focuses on strength training three times a week with cardiovascular warm-up, additional cardiovascular exercise on non strength-training days, and abs exercises twice a week.

What Is The Diet Plan Of The Abs Diet?

The Abs Diet is based around a "bulls-eye" diet plan in which dieters eat six times a day and choose their food based on the general diet food health products included in the bulls-eye. In the center of the bulls-eye are the "power 12" diet foods: almonds and other nuts, beans and legumes, spinach and other green veggies, dairy (fat-free/low-fat), instant oatmeal (unsweetened, unflavored), eggs, turkey/lean meat (steak, chicken and fish), peanut butter (all-natural), olive oil, whole grain bread/cereal, extra protein (whey) powder, and raspberries and other berries. The outer rings of the bulls-eye recommend foods to eat often, then foods to eat occasionally, and the outermost ring has foods to eat rarely. The Abs Diet nutrition plan is not a low carb diet. Instead, it focuses on diversifying meals to get a combination of lean protein, complex carbohydrates, and healthy fats.

What Makes The Abs Diet Different?

Although it carries many similarities to other diet programs, the Abs Diet is unique for various reasons. The 12 power foods listed contain the foods that make up Mediterranean diet, including fish, grains, fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and olive oil; however, the Abs Diet is more a more complete diet program because it also includes an exercise regimen.

The Abs Diet is also more complete by other diets because it promotes a diet that is meant to be maintained for a lifetime. The foods listed and the exercise regimen can be incorporated into a dieter's daily lifestyle permanently in order to achieve and maintain a healthy weight. While other diets, such as the Cabbage Soup Diet, focus on instant weight loss with a diet plan meant for a limited number of days, the Abs Diet, encourages a nutrition plan that can be followed forever to reach that goal weight and stay there.

Mediterranean Diet

What Is The Mediterranean Diet?

The Mediterranean Diet is not much different than our dietary recommendations. However on the Mediterranean Diet, they don't follow them exactly. In general, the weight control diets of Mediterranean people contain a relatively high percentage of calories from fat. Like a low carb diet the focus remains on protein.

The Good Fat Found In The Mediterranean Diet

People who follow the Mediterranean diet eat less saturated fat than those who follow a typical American weight loss diet. In fact, their saturated fat consumption is well within our dietary guidelines of a healthy diet.

More than half the fat calories in a Mediterranean Diet come from monounsaturated fats (mainly from olive oil). Monounsaturated fat doesn't raise blood cholesterol levels the way saturated fat does. In America there is saturated fat in almost everything eaten. American dieters are obsessed with the latest diet food, health product or low fat alternatives, but they usually don't consider the amount of saturated fat they are consuming. The Mediterranean Diet focuses on hearty meals that fill you up for the long run.

The less saturated fat you allow in your diet, the better. So, whether you follow the Mediterranean Diet by the book or not, you should adapt some of their methods of cooking, limiting your intake of highly saturated foods and tons of white bread.

Why The Mediterranean Diet Can Be Healthy

The heart disease rate in Mediterranean countries is lower than in the United States. Death rates are lower, too. But this may not be entirely due to the diet. Lifestyle factors (such as more physical activity and extended social support systems) may also play a part. However, Americans are often attracted to quick fix diets like the Cabbage Soup Diet or the Watermelon Diet that provide temporary rapid weight loss. The Mediterranean Diet includes vegetables, fruits, meats and leafy greens. The Mediterranean Diet came about because of all the fresh food available in Mediterranean countries. The Mediterranean Diet celebrates a variety of food and unlike in the American culture, they understand the importance of portion control and they fill up on fresh food instead of tons of processed and sugary food.

The key to the Mediterranean Diet is to appreciate fresh food. Not only is it filling, it is also healthier for you in the long run. For an American, the Mediterranean Diet may require a different approach then they are used to, but it is definitely one of the few high profile diets that show potential and balance.

Low Cholesterol Diet

The Benefits Of A Low Cholesterol Diet

A low cholesterol diet is probably one of the easier diets to follow, given the variety of foods available. Many food manufacturers have caught onto the trend of low carb, low cholesterol foods. Diet food is readily available for people who do not have the time to fix elaborate meals. A low cholesterol diet is considered a natural weight loss diet, since it is about adjusting a person's high cholesterol diet. By following a low cholesterol diet, you will not only lose weight, but also improve your health.

How To Follow A Low Cholesterol Diet

On a low cholesterol diet, you should eat plenty of fruits and vegetables. They are not only low in fat they are also low in calories. Also, try to lower your intake of saturated fats, since consuming foods with these fats can raise your cholesterol levels and put you at risk for heart disease. Certain vegetable oils, such as those used in many margarines and shortenings, contain a particular form of unsaturated fat known as trans-fatty. They raise blood cholesterol levels, just like saturated fat. On a low cholesterol diet, you should substitute foods containing white flour with whole grain foods. Also, on a low cholesterol diet, you should use low fat or skim dairy products. Cooking with lean meats such as turkey and chicken are suggested on a low cholesterol diet, rather than fatty red meat.

How A Low Cholesterol Diet Measures Up

There are plenty of fad diets such as the 3 day diet that do not promote healthy weight loss, quite like a low cholesterol diet does. These quick fix diets are meant to be followed short term, but are not recommended for long term results. A low cholesterol diet will change your lifestyle and help you maintain your weight loss indefinitely. Of course, there are plenty of other diets on the market that are healthy. The Abs Diet for example, focuses on low fat food that focuses on protein rich food that provides you with extra energy. Any diet that limits your intake of cholesterol, sugar and excessive carbohydrates is usually worth checking out. The best part of a low cholesterol diet, is that it can be combined with other types of diets as well. You can follow a low cholesterol diet while also counting your calories or limiting your carb intake. Overall, a low cholesterol diet is great for improving your health and slimming your waist.

Low Carb Diet

Introducing The Low Carb Diet

There are many different low carb diets such as Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution, Protein Power, The Carbohydrate Addict's Lifestyle Plan and Life Without Bread. All of these weight loss programs have a very strict reduction in the consumption of carbohydrates. Most low-carb diets replace carbohydrates with fats and proteins. Although low carb diets vary, they all center on limiting carbs and using a high-fat and moderate protein diet. Those on a low-carb diet should get at least 60 to 70 percent of their daily calorie intake from fat. Carbohydrates should make up less than 10 percent, and in some cases, less than 5 percent of your daily calorie intake using any low carb weight loss diet.

On a low-carb diet, you can eat until you're full, as long as you eat only allowed foods. Allowed foods are meats, fish, poultry, eggs, and cheese, plus a limited amount of green vegetables. Stay away from foods that are on many of these low carb diet lists.

The Lowdown On Low Carb Diets

With any low carb diet, it is important to understand the difference between limiting and restricting your carbohydrate intake. A healthy diet requires carbs since your body uses them for energy. More well rounded diets like the Mediterranean Diet, actually requires carbs as part of their weight control diet. However, despite the weight loss provided by low carb diets, the low carb diet trend is quickly fading. Many people are finding it too hard to limit their carb intake so severely and would rather resort to more balanced weight loss diets.

Why Balanced Diets Are Better Than Low Carb Diets

A balanced diet is necessary for long term weight loss. By significantly reducing your carbohydrate intake with a low carb diet, you are jeopardizing any future success on the diet. Diet's like the Cabbage Soup Diet or the Watermelon Diet, restrict your food intake so severally that the creators of these diets even stress that these programs should not be used for longer than a week. Low carb diets offer some benefits with weight loss, but any diet that has you reduce your carbohydrate intake severely enough to cause any symptoms such as headaches and fatigue should not be followed at all. Your health should be of top importance. If you body is healthy it has a better chance of losing weight and maintaining that weight loss.

Diet Food

Why Is Diet Food Important For Weight Loss?

A person's weight depends significantly on the type and amount of food one eats. One of the most essential components in the weight loss battle is finding the right diet food to help lose weight and keep it off.

In considering diet food, there are many elements that need to be taken into account:

• Nutritional value
• Portion control
• Calorie density
• Balanced meals

What Are The Diet Foods For Different Diet Programs?

The Mediterranean Diet and Abs Diet are diet programs that promote long term weight loss and maintenance by making healthy and nutritious foods the staples in your diet. The diet foods encouraged by these diets include fish, grains, fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and olive oil. This diet is meant to be followed for a lifetime, encouraging healthy eating habits that can become a lifestyle for healthy weight loss.

The cabbage soup diet and 3 day diet however, are short-term diets that do not promote a healthy eating lifestyle. They are very restrictive about what diet foods can be consumed and when they can be eaten. The cabbage soup diet includes a cabbage soup based on a given recipe, along with certain fruits, vegetables, beef, milk, and fruit juices. The main foods encouraged in the 3-Day Diet include tuna, toast, fruit, saltine crackers, black coffee, vegetables, ice cream, and cheese.

A low-carb diet is a weight loss diet program based on limiting carbohydrate intake. The Atkins Diet uses this approach to achieve weight loss. It claims to be source of long-term weight loss and maintenance; however, many dieters who limit their carbohydrates find it difficult to stick with the program and end up quitting because the variety of diet foods is very restricted with the constraint on carbohydrates.What Will Help Me Stick to Eating Diet Food?

Many diet programs have created their own diet food health products that support the nutritional requirements of their programs, and can be bought at grocery stores and nutritional centers. The most well-known commercial diet programs that have created their own diet food health products include the South Beach Diet, Zone Diet, Atkins Diet, Weight Watchers, and L.A. Weight Loss. If a dieter is having trouble deciding what diet foods to buy at the grocery store, these products offer an easy alternative way for them to continue following their diet.

Diet Food Health Product

General Diet Food Health Products

There are a lot of general diet programs out there they recommend certain types of diet food for weight loss. Some of these diet food health products promote maintaining weight loss, while others focus on dieting for quick results that do not promote a healthy diet for life. These programs have not created their own diet food health products to sell, but they encourage particular kinds of foods that can be bought in stores.

The Mediterranean Diet is a non-commercial diet program that promotes following the traditional diets from the people living in countries such as Greece and Southern Italy where people have higher life-expectancy rates and much lower incidences of chronic diseases. The diet food health products encouraged by this diet include fish, grains, fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and olive oil. This diet is meant to be followed for a lifetime, encouraging healthy eating habits that can become a lifestyle for healthy weight loss.

The cabbage soup diet, however, is only meant to last seven days because it does not promote a healthy eating lifestyle. It is based on eating as much cabbage soup as desired, along with a different food, as directed, each day. This diet is very restrictive about what diet food health products can be consumed. It includes a cabbage soup based on a given recipe, along with certain fruits, vegetables, beef, milk, and fruit juices.

Commercial Diet Food Health Products

Many diet programs have turned commercial, and created their own diet food health products that support the nutritional requirements of their programs so that dieters can maintain a lifetime weight control diet. The most well-known commercial diet programs that have created their own diet food health products include the South Beach Diet and Zone Diet. Atkins Diet also sells its own products to help dieters follow their low carb diet. Weight Watchers and L.A. Weight Loss are two programs that have clinics, but also sell their own diet food health products. These products are meant for lifelong diets to keep dieters at their goal weight. They can be found at grocery stores, nutrition stores, and the diet clinics.

Commercial Programs Supporting General Diet Food Health Products

The commercial weight loss diet programs do not restrict dieters to eating only their commercial diet food health products. While the programs create these products so that dieters have an easier time making decisions in their food choices, these weight loss programs also suggest general diet food health products that dieters can get at grocery stores and that support the nutritional requirements of their weight loss diet programs.

3 Day Diet

What Is The 3 Day Diet?

The 3 Day Diet is a short-term diet plan with 3 regimented meals a day for quick weight loss. Dieters are told to drink four to eight glasses of water or diet soda a day along with the diet. The 3 Day Diet claims to work on a chemical breakdown based on the foods eaten and the amount eaten. It also claims to help dieters lose 10 pounds in the three days of dieting.What Is The 3 Day Diet Plan?

The main foods encouraged in the 3 Day Diet include tuna, toast, fruit, saltine crackers, black coffee, vegetables, ice cream, and cheese. The diet does not have its own commercial products, but rather promotes general diet food health products. It also allows dieters to add herbs, salt, pepper, lemon, vinegar, Worcestershire, soy sauce, mustard, and ketchup to flavor their foods.

Although the diet foods recommended in the diet are not unhealthy, they do not provide a substantial number of calories, nor do they promote nutritional, well-balanced eating habits. The 3 Day Diet is not restrictive on any one type of food the way the low-carb diet is, but it is very restrictive on calories and food options. In fact, it does not allow any options at all, planning out every food for each meal of the three days. This type of restrictiveness can cause dieters to become easily discouraged and unenthused.How Does The 3 Day Diet Compare?

These foods are similar to those encouraged in a low-cholesterol diet. In some areas, such as dairy and carbohydrates, however, the diet is too general. When instructing dieters to eat cheese, ice cream, toast, and saltine crackers, there is no reference to low-fat or whole grain, which are important to a healthy diet. A low-cholesterol diet focuses on making sure its foods are as nutritious as possible, while the 3 Day Diet remains generic.

Unlike the Mediterranean Diet, which encourages healthy eating habits for long-term weight loss and maintenance, the 3 Day Diet is meant for only three days, as indicated by its name, for quick weight loss. Dieters are encouraged to eat normal food after the three days, without over-indulging, and then to start the 3 Day Diet again after four days of normal eating. This drastic change of nutrition and portions is unsafe and unhealthy for the body.

The 3 Day Diet does not include any sort of exercise regimen, either. The healthiest and most beneficial diets encourage healthy eating habits for a lifetime, and daily exercise. These diets, including the Abs Diet, help dieters completely change their lifestyle to a healthier and more nutritious one that they can maintain. The 3 Day Diet, however, only focuses on food for a short term and give no mention of exercise, making it difficult and unhealthy for dieters to stick with it for maintained weight loss.

Why we gain weight

For each of us, there are complex, interlinked reasons why we're a particular weight. Understanding what these are can help if you want to alter your weight.

Genes

An underlying tendency to obesity may be the result of our genes. People who generally have little problem controlling their weight seem to have a precisely tuned appetite.

People who gain weight, on the other hand, may be less sensitive to their body's signals of fullness.

Many genes have been identified that either increase or decrease appetite.

People who generally have little problem controlling their weight seem to have a precisely tuned appetite, while people who struggle to control their weight may be less sensitive to their body's signals of fullness.

Studies of twins who've been raised apart attribute almost two-thirds of the difference in body fatness to genetic factors. However, genetic factors don't make obesity inevitable.

Habits

Eating habits develop over many years, and are strongly influenced by our first tastes as babies and dietary patterns formed in early childhood.

These are then continuously reinforced as we grow up, which makes them difficult to change.
Too often, they lead to eating too many calories. Recognising these unhelpful habits and replacing them with positive behaviour are key steps in successful weight control.

If you always reach for sugary or fatty snacks when you watch TV, for example, distract yourself with another activity or make sure the snacks are healthy alternatives, such as fruit or vegetable sticks.

Food

People who tend to choose foods that are high in fat or contain a lot of energy (calories) in small portions are more likely to gain weight than those who fill their plates with bulky, low-energy foods, such as bread, fruit and vegetables.

Bigger portion sizes also mean more calories (see How to lose weight and A healthy weight-loss diet).

Emotions

Overeating can also be triggered by our emotions. Some people turn to food or alcohol in stressful situations, such as after a family argument or a particularly difficult day at work.
Other vulnerable times may be when you're feeling tired, bored or sad.

Identifying triggers and cues that cause you to overeat can help you to change your behaviour in these situations and avoid unwanted calories.

Write down the times when your emotions lead to eating (see Food diary). This will help you to identify situations when you're particularly vulnerable to excess snacking.

Try the following techniques:

• Ask yourself if you must have the food - thinking about what you're doing can help you avoid extra snacks
• Replace images of food with other positive thoughts
• Distract yourself from eating by doing something else you enjoy

Other causes

Medical conditions

Some medical conditions can cause obesity, but these are rare. Prader-Willi syndrome, for example, is a genetic disorder that can result in obesity because people with the condition don't feel full (satiated) and overeat as a result.

Some brain disorders can also cause obesity. For example, brain tumours can result in obesity if they grow in the part of the brain that affects appetite control. However, these are extremely rare.

Medication

Drugs that treat high blood pressure, inflammatory conditions (steroids) and mood disorders can contribute to weight gain by stimulating appetite or decreasing energy expenditure.

If you're concerned, an alternative medicine may be available, but it's vital you consult your GP before stopping any medication.

In some cases, the weight gain is unrelated to the medication. For example, drugs that help to improve low mood may increase appetite simply because they make you feel better, so you're more likely to feel like eating.

Some drugs encourage the body to retain water. This may lead to weight gain, but as it isn't fat the problem will resolve once the underlying disease has been treated.

Physical inactivity

People who lead a physically active life are less likely to gain weight than those who spend most of their day sitting in front of a computer or TV, or in the car.

Have a TV-free day each week and take up a physical activity.

There's evidence regular physical activity can help to keep the weight off in the long term, too.

Warning signs

Obesity doesn't develop overnight. It takes about 3,500 excess calories to gain just 0.5kg (1lb). Few people gain more than 2lb to 5lb each year. Weight fluctuates from day to day, but you should aim to stay about the same weight from week to week.

If you notice a consistent increase in your weight, try to stabilise it before you develop a serious problem.

Begin by reducing the amount of fat in your diet and incorporate 20 to 30 minutes of activity into your day.

Myths about metabolism

There's a common belief that people who are overweight have a slow metabolism (burn energy slowly), while thin people have a fast metabolism (burn energy quickly). This is a myth.

The term 'metabolic rate' refers to the energy (calories) you expend over a day just keeping your body functioning - your heart beating and your lungs breathing, for example. This is often called the basal or resting metabolic rate.

Scientists have measured the exact amount of calories overweight and healthy weight people burn while sitting or lying quietly. This was done by measuring the amount of oxygen breathed in and the amount of carbon dioxide breathed out.

Results from these studies have consistently shown that overweight people use more energy to keep their bodies working. This is because they have larger bodies with bigger muscles and internal organs.

However, after taking into account differences in body size, lean and obese people have been shown to have similar metabolic rates.

Basal metabolic rate can be influenced by body composition. Muscle requires more energy to function than fat. As we get older, we tend to gain fat and lose muscle. This explains why basal metabolic rate tends to decrease with age.

Similarly, two people of the same age and weight may have different metabolic rates if one is fitter (and has more muscle) than the other.

Of course, we also use energy to move around during the day. Basal metabolic rate and the energy required for physical activity make up our total energy expenditure, or total energy needs. Your total energy needs depend very much on how active you are.

But I eat very little

Often, overweight people believe they eat very little and still put on weight, hence the 'slow metabolism' theory, but research has shown people tend to eat more than they think.

When asked to write down everything they've consumed in a day, people tend to report eating far less than they actually do. This may be to impress the researcher or because they genuinely forget to include some items.

On the day they recorded their intake, they may even have chosen lower calorie foods than they'd normally eat.

The bottom line is you'll gain weight if you consume more calories than your body needs. This can be a difficult fact to face, but recognising the need for change is vital for successful weight loss.

The good news is people not only manage to lose weight but are able to keep control of it in the long term.

Can I speed up my metabolism?

There are many pills, supplements and foods that claim to speed up the metabolism and burn fat. Most of these claims are unproven.

Some chemicals, such as nicotine and caffeine, do have a small effect. However, any increase in the metabolism may be accompanied by an increase in the heart rate and other side-effects, and so aren't recommended as a treatment for obesity.

The fact is no single ingredient will melt body fat away without some effort on your part to reduce the amount of calories you eat.

How can I burn calories?

The best way to burn calories is to increase your levels of physical activity. The amount you'll burn depends on your body size, age and gender, but as a rough guide:

• 60 minutes of gardening burns 300 kcals
• 60 minutes of walking burns 200 kcals
• 90 minutes of football burns 600 kcals
• 45 minutes of dancing burns 450 kcals

In the long run, improving your body composition (increasing muscle and decreasing fat) by being more physically active will lead to small but important increases in your basal metabolic rate.

Do you need to gain weight?

Achieving a healthier weight isn't always about losing pounds - some people would benefit from gaining some. Often, that isn't as simple as it sounds, but with the right plan it can be done.

What's 'underweight'?

Many things affect our health, but research has shown that people whose body weight is within a certain range tend to live the longest and enjoy the best health. Those who are underweight are below this range, which means their health could be at risk.

A body mass index calculator can help you find out if you're underweight.

What's wrong with being underweight?

A number of underweight people are fit and well, they simply have a slender constitution. However, for many people being underweight means their bones aren't as strong as they could be and they have fewer 'reserves' if they fall ill. It can also affect a woman's fertility.

If you've experienced recent and unintentional weight loss and you're always tired, you should see your doctor in case there's an underlying health problem.

If you consciously restrict how much you eat, and/or feel anxious about the thought of gaining weight, you may have an eating disorder.

Talk to your doctor or contact Beat.

Why do some people stay slender?

People who stay slender do so because they're in 'energy balance'

People who stay slender do so because they're in 'energy balance'. In other words, they (often unconsciously) eat the right amount of food to meet their calorie needs.

Research has shown they don't have high metabolic rates and don't magically 'waste' calories. It's a combination of their inherited body shape, their natural level of appetite, what they eat and their activity levels.

How do I gain weight?

You need to take in more calories than you burn. Combining this with toning exercises helps, too.

Set yourself a realistic target and aim to gain weight gradually, at around 1kg (2.2lb) a month. For that you'll need an extra 300kcal to 350kcal a day. This is best done as part of a balanced diet.

Keep a food diary for a couple of weeks to learn more about your eating habits and to identify where you can add calories.

One way is to make meals a little larger or more calorific. Have an extra slice of toast at breakfast, drink grape juice rather than orange juice, make coffee with milk or serve an extra spoon of potato, rice or pasta.

Although exercise burns calories, it's important to include some form of activity into your plan to keep your bones strong and your muscles toned.

Aim for 30 minutes' physical activity five days a week and combine this with some resistance training. Take care not to be too active. If you're always on your feet, make time to relax each day.

Do you need to lose weight?

Losing even modest amounts of weight can help to alleviate many symptoms and reduce your risk of diseases related to being overweight.

Why a healthy weight is important

If your BMI or waist circumference is above the healthy range you're at increased risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and certain cancers such as colon, prostate and breast cancer.

You're also more likely to experience joint problems and back pain, and may find you become breathless and have difficulty sleeping.

The more weight you gain, the more severe these problems may become.

How to lose weight

Losing weight depends on energy balance. If you consume more energy from food and drink than you burn through maintaining your body's functions (metabolism) and physical activity, you'll gain weight.

Cutting calories by reducing how much you eat and drink, and increasing how much physical activity you do will make you lose weight.

If you reduce your daily energy intake to around 500 calories (kcal) below your energy requirements, you'll lose about 0.5kg (1lb) a week. This is a sensible rate of weight loss.

Are you ready to lose weight?

Before you start making changes to your lifestyle, it's important to ask yourself if this is the right time. Are you motivated to change?

The reasons you decide to lose weight will be personal to you. You might find you're more successful if you choose a relatively calm time in your life to start. Conversely, changes in your circumstances, such as a new job or house move, may be the key to your weight loss success.

Whatever you decide, make sure you're feeling positive and ready for the challenge.

Setting realistic goals

To lose weight - and keep it off - you'll need to make permanent changes to your diet and physical activity patterns.

Think carefully about your daily routine. Keeping a food diary may help you to identify patterns in your eating behaviour. This will help you to decide on realistic changes you need to make.

Set achievable goals and try to make modifications to your existing diet and how active you are. Drastic lifestyle changes will be difficult to maintain over time.

Aim to lose about five to ten per cent of your initial body weight over a few months. Research shows this kind of weight loss is achievable and will improve your health (see table, below).

Once you've reached your goal, congratulate yourself and set another five per cent weight loss target.

This way, you'll feel good about achieving small steps, rather than getting down because it's taking you so long to lose a large amount of weight.

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Sticking with it

You may lose more weight in some weeks than in others, but as long as your weight continues to decrease overall there's no need to worry.

If your weight stays the same for a week or two, don't abandon all you've achieved. Instead, focus on the amount and type of food you're eating and try to be a little more active.

Maintaining your target weight

For many people, losing weight isn't the really tricky part but keeping it off. Here are some tried and tested strategies for maintaining your weight.

Long-term change

If, once you've reached your realistic target weight, you go back to your old eating habits and activity levels, you'll put the weight back on. It's as simple as that.

This is usually the problem with quick-fix diets, they don't help you to make changes that you can maintain in the long term.

Stay realistic

Beware of 'how to be even skinnier' media messages that lure you into feeling dissatisfied. You have a life to live and enjoy, so hang on the satisfaction of being at a comfortable, healthy weight you can sustain.

Flexible restraint

Many slim people who stay that way by 'watching their weight', show flexible restraint, rather than following rigid all-or-nothing rules. They make healthy choices most of the time, but no foods are seen as forbidden.

This means enjoying small amounts of favourite foods without feeling guilty. And if you do over-indulge, or have a big night out, cut back a bit or do more exercise the next day to balance things out.

Eating healthily

Learn how to choose, prepare and enjoy a balanced diet. Low-fat cooking skills, understanding food labels and having the ability to judge portion sizes all help with this.

So does eating regular meals, taking time to really taste them and indulging yourself occasionally.

How to maintain weight loss

• Continue to eat a balanced, lower fat diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables
• Don't avoid any foods, just watch portion sizes and limit the amount of certain foods
• Have three regular meals a day at regular times (starting with breakfast), and fewer snacks
• Eat out occasionally, but limit fast food
• Sit down to eat your meals, take time over them and pay attention to what you're eating
• Keep 'self-monitoring' to stay conscious of your new eating and activity habits

Stay active

Getting regular physical activity is one of the strongest indicators of long-term success. Not only does it burn calories and increase metabolism-boosting muscle, it also boosts self-esteem and beats stress.

Studies show that just walking for 30 minutes or so each day, plus some other activities during the week, may be enough.

Learn to deal with stress

For many people, food is a quick and effective way to deal with stress. If this sounds like you, take some time to think about the stresses in your life and how you respond to them. A food and thoughts diary can be helpful.

Think about how you could manage stress differently. Things that help include regular exercise, breathing techniques and challenging negative self-talk that spirals into anxiety.

What's a healthy weight-loss diet?

To maintain good health, we need to eat a variety of foods from the five food groups. Eating them in the right proportion will help to keep weight under control.

A sensible rate of weight loss is around 0.5kg to 1kg (1lb to 2lb) a week. To achieve this, you need an energy deficit of 3,500kcal to 7,000kcal a week, which means eating 500 to 1,000 fewer calories a day.

You can do this by replacing high-fat foods with those that are low in fat such as fruit, vegetables, unrefined carbohydrates and lower-fat dairy products, and by being more physically active.

It's also important to watch the size of your portions. This can be difficult, because over time you can lose touch with what's a sensible amount of food.

Meat, fish and alternatives

Meat, fish, eggs and alternatives, such as beans and lentils, provide protein, which is essential for growth and repair. These protein-rich foods, meat in particular, are also good sources of iron, selenium, zinc and B vitamins.

Lean sources of protein can also help to curb your appetite. To help reduce the calories you get from fat, remove the skin from chicken, cut off obvious bits of fat from lamb, pork and beef, and use minimum oil for cooking.

Aim to eat two portions of fish a week, one of which should be oily fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids, such as salmon, sardines or trout.

You should have two portions of protein-rich foods every day. A portion is equivalent to:

• Meat and fish the size of a pack of playing cards
• Two eggs
• Four tablespoons of lentils or beans

Bread, cereals and potatoes

Starchy carbohydrate foods, such as bread, potatoes, rice and breakfast cereals, provide us with energy and other nutrients, including iron and B vitamins.

Starchy foods should make up about a third of your total daily energy intake.

Choose unrefined types that are higher in fibre. They'll make you feel full for longer and help to control hunger.

A balanced diet should contain about five portions of starchy foods each day. A portion is equivalent to:

• Three tablespoons of breakfast cereal
• One large slice of bread
• One chapatti
• Three heaped tablespoons of pasta
• Two egg-size potatoes
• Two heaped tablespoons of rice

Fruit and vegetables

Fruit and vegetables provide essential nutrients such as vitamins and minerals, and contain many other compounds associated with good health.

Everyone should aim to increase the amount of fruit and vegetables in their diet.

Because fruit and vegetables are bulky and contain a lot of water, they can help to control your calorie intake. Aim for at least five portions a day.

A portion weighs about 80g and can include fresh, canned, frozen and dried fruit and vegetables. A portion is equivalent to:

• Two large tablespoons of vegetables, such as peas, carrots, swede or broccoli
• Whole fruits, such as one apple, one orange, one pear
• A handful of grapes
• Two tablespoons of strawberries or raspberries
• One small glass of fruit juice
• A handful of dried fruit

Milk and dairy foods

Foods such as cheese, yoghurt and fromage frais are an important source of calcium as well as providing protein and vitamins. Choose low-fat or reduced-fat versions to reduce the amount of calories in your diet.

Aim for around three portions of dairy foods a day. A portion is equivalent to:

• A medium-size glass of milk
• A small pot of yoghurt
• A small matchbox-sized piece of cheese

Foods containing fat and/or sugar

Fatty and sugary foods, such as crisps, spreads, oils, creamy dressings, sweets, cakes, biscuits and chocolate, and sugar-rich drinks, including alcohol, are high in calories but relatively low in nutrients, such as vitamins and minerals.

Eating healthily means including foods that are packed with nutrients rather than packed with energy.

You should reduce your intake of these foods as much as possible. You can do this by:

• Swapping sugary and fatty snacks for fruit, diet yoghurt or a slice of wholemeal toast with reduced-fat spread
• Choosing water, reduced-fat milk or low-calorie drinks instead of sugar-rich drinks
• Using only a scraping of spread on your bread and using an oil spray to limit fat when cooking

Alcohol contains around 7 kcal per gram. As well as adding calories to your diet, it can stimulate the appetite and weaken your healthy eating intentions.

For more advice on cutting calories, see How to lose weight.

A word about salt

On average, we eat over 50 per cent more salt than the recommended level and more than twice the amount we actually need.

We've become used to eating foods containing salt, so reducing the amount we consume often means adjusting our palates.

A lot of salt comes from processed foods, so look for low-salt varieties and check the salt content on the label. You can also cut salt by:

• Preparing foods from fresh ingredients as much as possible
• Avoiding salty snacks, such as crisps and salted nuts
• Choosing 'unsalted', 'no added salt' or 'reduced salt' foods

Diverticulitis Diet

Diverticulitis occurs when pockets in the wall of the intestine, called diverticula, become inflamed or infected. Fortunately, sufferers can find relief by following a diverticulitis diet.

A low-residue diet is recommended during the flare-up periods of diverticulitis to decrease bowel volume so that the infection can heal. An intake of less than 10 grams of fiber per day is generally considered a low residue diverticulitis diet. If you have been on a low-residue diet for an extended period of time, your doctor may recommend a daily multi-vitamin/mineral supplement.

Low Residue Diet for Diverticulitis

Grain Products:

enriched refined white bread, buns, bagels, english muffins
plain cereals e.g. Cheerios, Cornflakes, Cream of Wheat, Rice Krispies, Special K
arrowroot cookies, tea biscuits, soda crackers, plain melba toast
white rice, refined pasta and noodles
avoid whole grains

Fruits:

fruit juices except prune juice
applesauce, apricots, banana (1/2), cantaloupe, canned fruit cocktail, grapes, honeydew melon, peaches, watermelon
avoid raw and dried fruits, raisins and berries.

Vegetables:

vegetable juices
potatoes (no skin)
alfalfa sprouts, beets, green/yellow beans, carrots, celery, cucumber, eggplant, lettuce, mushrooms, green/red peppers, potatoes (peeled), squash, zucchini
avoid vegetables from the cruciferous family such as broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, Swiss chard etc

Meat and Protein Choice:

well-cooked, tender meat, fish and eggs
avoid beans and lentils
Avoid all nuts and seeds, as well as foods that may contain seeds (such as yogurt)

Dairy:

as directed by your healthcare providers

When symptoms of diverticulitis improve, you may ease off of the diverticulitis diet and gradually add more fiber back into your diet. A high-fiber diet is very important in preventing future diverticulitis attacks. As you increase your fiber intake, increase your fluid intake as well.