Diet

Welcome to the Diet section of this website. This section contains a set of topical articles based on some of the many aspects of dieting for the promotion of good health and the maintaining of a slim, fit body.

It may seem quite obvious to many that dieting is considered the most popular means of losing weight.

This is probably because it is perceived as being easier to lose weight through eating calorie and portion controlled meals than it is through working out in a gym or exercising at home.

It certainly takes a lot less energy to eat a specially prepared meal than it does to run a few miles every day or pound away at a variety of exercise machines, but in one sense this one of the failings of only dieting and not combining the diet with exercise to lose that weight.

But despite the shortcomings of diet only weight loss plans, most people still opt for this way of trying to slim down and regain the figure they probably lost over the years of eating the wrong foods and not getting enough exercise.

Diet Options

There are several meal related options available to people who prefer this way of losing weight. The best known kind is the diet sheet, where you prepare and cook all your own meals from a specially prepared plan from a nutritionist or dietitian or following a plan from a book or a course obtained from a library or on the Internet.

The permutations are almost endless with high profile diets coming under fire for failing to address certain issues or for using tactics that create an imbalance in nutrition. Such diets as the Atkins spring to mind where carbohydrates are completely omitted in favor of high protein foods and those that are high in saturated fats.

Other popular diets come and go, while long time stalwarts like Weight Watchers continue to provide helpful advice and effective dieting methods to their millions of customers.

Diet Food Delivery Diets

There is another kind of dieting program that is marketed to busy people who don't have time to prepare and cook their own meals from ingredients they have to buy in from the stores. This is the diet food delivery kind of program where a company produces all your meals and ships them to your home, with well known brands such as Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig, Bistro MD, Diet2Go, Medifast and eDiets amongst the better known of them.

These diet meal delivery diets are sheer convenience because there is no work involved for the dieter. All you have to do is eat the food and watch the weight fall off!

Of course, there is a compromise with this kind of program in that the food is never going to be up to the quality standards of home cooked meals. But of you are used to regularly eating mostly junk food and processed store meals anyway, then this kind of method is perfect for you if you really don't have the time to work a conventional diet.

Losing Weight Through Food

The whole idea of dieting is to lose weight easier with a secondary benefit of improving health through eating better, more nutritious food. It usually means eating less than you are used to, mainly because you have probably been eating too much, which contributed to your weight gain in the first place!

It also entails eating meals that are specially prepared to include healthy foods that are low in calories while avoiding those that are high in calories, saturated fats and all the bad things that lead to weight gain.

Things such as refined sugar based products, those with high glycemic carbohydrates which are generally based around refined white flour or white rice products are off the menu when you are dieting. Although some diets do allow you to have "treats" along the way just to satisfy that temptation to eat sweet foods.

Drink Water!

When dieting, it is important to also be aware of what you are drinking. Soda and other sugary, flavored drinks should be avoided at all costs and that includes diet soda. While it may seem to be a good idea, it's not just the sugar in soda that makes it a bad choice.

Low calorie or low sugar versions contain artificial sweetener aspartame which. Among its several unhealthy properties has a tendency to stimulate hunger, which is why you often see people eating packets of potato chips while drinking low sugar soda!

The best thing you can drink while losing weight is plain water. I know this is pretty boring, but it is the perfect thing to hydrate your body with, it quenches your thirst better than any other drink (really!) and it has zero calories and zero additives!

It is recommended to drink around eight glasses of water every day. It not only helps you lose weight, but the other benefits include clearer, healthier skin and a better complexion, lower tendency to get cellulite and your digestion is easier with less chance of indigestion.

At the end of the day, losing weight is also a state of mind as well as what your are physically eating and being more active. As long as you remain positive and determined to succeed, you will eventually succeed!

Titles

Below you will find a list of fitness related article titles to be found under this category: