The Glycemic Index (GI) measures the effect of foods on your blood sugar levels. Eating foods with a high glycemic index value will raise the blood sugar level more dramatically than foods with a low glycemic index value.
Traditional thinking has told us that complex carbohydrates like rice and potatoes were absorbed slowly, and that simple [...]

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What’s New About the Label?
It’s Simple. Healthy eating has never been easier, thanks to the new nutrition label. Here’s the good news:

Most foods in the grocery store must now have a nutrition label and an ingredient list.
You can buy with confidence. Claims like “low cholesterol” and “fat free” can be used only
if [...]

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The renowned nutritionist Pierre Dukan, M.D, in an exclusive interview for the Bulgarian National Television: There is no one hurt by the protein diet.
•    Teenagers should not follow any diet programs. Prevention is paramount for them.
•    The attack phase should last 7 days maximum.
This recommends the author of the best seller “Je Ne Sais Pas [...]

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Caffeine is a naturally occurring stimulant found in the leaves, seeds, or fruit of over sixty plants around the world. Caffeine exists in the coffee bean in Arabia, the tea leaf in China, the kola nut in West Africa, and the cocoa bean in Mexico. Because of its use throughout all societies, caffeine is the [...]

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NOTE: The intended audience for this article is the average coffee drinker who happens to be overweight. This is not intended as medical advice. This article is not geared toward athletes who are already lean and are trying to further reduce bodyfat levels. The author is a fitness-conscious coffee drinker — not a doctor, nutritionist [...]

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Most people have heard of calories. Calorie counts can be found on food labels and food advertisements. Do they count or don’t they? Why count calories?
What is a Calorie?
A calorie is a unit of energy. Technically a calorie is the amount of heat energy required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water up [...]

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Yoyo Diets and Weight Cycling

How many times have you successfully lost weight — only to gain it again further down the track? Some people struggle with this for most of their lives. This is “yo-yo” dieting – a continuing pattern of gaining and losing weight. Sometimes it is called “weight cycling”.

What Causes Yo-yo Dieting (Yo-yo effect)?

When your diet includes bouts of starvation, missing meals, or very low calories – you are setting yourself up for the yo-yo effect. While it seems that good results can be achieved quickly, sooner or later, the body gets the hint that less calories are coming in. The body adapts, and decides that energy must be conserved – and metabolism (the way the body burns food for energy) begins to slow down. Often this can be a ‘plateau’ – the weight loss that was initially achieved begins to slow down or stop.

Many people hit the wall at this point, and, struggling to maintain the diet, the weight begins to come back on. And what’s even worse, is that for some people, the lowered metabolism means they end up with more weight than what they started at!

This is one of the problems with dieting (as a sudden fad) – the body’s metabolism becomes less efficient with each dieting episode. The severe calorie restriction also causes loss of muscle tone. Less muscle once again means a slower metabolism. The commons signs of this are flabby upper arms (due to loss of tricep muscle tone and subsequent fat gain).

Alternatives to the Yoyo

It is a mental and emotional blow to go through all that dieting, just to be back where you started.

Rather than suddenly dieting – hoping for a quick weight loss, it is better to take a more long term sustainable approach.

• Aim for modest weight loss (even small amounts of lost fat can improve your health)
• If lowering calories do it slowly (i.e. don’t suddenly drop 1000 calories per day).
• Think of your diet as a healthy eating plan.
• Look to change your lifestyle (activity levels and what and when and why you eat).
• To break the weight loss plateau you need to give your metabolism a boost. Aim to increase your levels of physical activity. And if you are missing meals or eating too few calories you need to take a serious look at your diet and aim to eat more often (every 3 hours).
• Don’t skip breakfast.
• Can you imagine still being on your “current” diet 1 year from now?

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Burn the Fat (and Feed the Muscle)
Burn the fat, feed the muscle (BFFM) is written by natural (i.e. no steroids) bodybuilder Tom Venuto.
The book contains an valuable information, yet is presented in a very readable style, and is brimming with hard facts, and real-life experience.
UPDATE: Author Tom Venuto now has a “deluxe version” of the [...]

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U.S. drinking water contains more than 2,100 toxic chemicals that can cause cancer.
–Ralph Nader Research InstituteThe following report summarizes factual information on tap water quality and the effects of tap water on human health. For information on bottled water quality and the misconceptions surrounding it, refer to the lifestyle tab above.

Our hope is that you [...]

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I am posting this article in order to show the dark side of dieting – when things are not done properly, gone wrong or we are excessive in our measures. Here is a list of
DIET RELATED ILLNESSES
HEART DISEASE: Heart disease, which reduces blood flow to the heart and can eventually lead to [...]

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