How do we Diet Low Carbohydrate? There’s not too many foods without carbs. There’s billions of great foods and meals with a great deal of carbs. We can’t escape carbs so let’s turn our attention to working with them.

Here we’ll look at what carbs do for you, especially if you’re looking to lose weight. We’ll show you ways you can Diet Low Carbohydrate easily.

What carbohydrates do for you?
1. Carbs supply our body with energy.
2. They fuel the central nervous system.
3. Carbs provide the major fuel for exercising muscles

So the fact is that carbohydrates are our bodies primary and most efficient source of fuel or energy.

That’s great but, and it’s a big but (no pun intended), we simply eat too many carbs in our diet. This is only made worse by our sedentary lifestyle where we don’t burn enough of our body’s fuel produced by the carbohydrates.
Mind you, with the amount of carbs in many Western country diets, an Olympic marathon runner couldn’t burn them off.

What Diet Low Carbohydrate does for you?
Less carbs in your diet means your body will start burning fat faster. In other words, once your body has finished using the carbs as fuel it will turn on it’s store of fat for its fuel needs. Great, just what we want when looking to lose weight.

How can I Diet Low Carbohydrate?
There’s no sugar-coating it, reducing your carbs isn’t easy.

The first place to go is the nutritional panel on the back of the food you eat. Make it a habit to really monitor the level of carbs (plus other things like fat and salt). This is especially useful when dieting to lose weight.

GI or glycemic index is something else you’ll need to consider in Diet Low Carbohydrate. Put simply GI is a way of comparing different carbohydrates by ranking their effect on the level of sugar in your blood.
Low GI diet meals, compared to high GI meals, have a slower, gradual and longer lasting energy effect. Most importantly for weight lose is that low GI foods tend to make you feel fuller for longer.
Less hunger should mean less snacking and less eating in general.

Higher GI food and their lower glycemic index alternatives
Rice: basmati is lower than jasmine
Potato: sweet potato is lower than mash potato
Bread: multi grain is lower in GI than white
Soda: orange juice is lower than orange-flavoured sodas
Crackers: rye crisp bread is lower glycemic index than rice carckers

There’s many ways to Diet Low Carbohydrate. But you have to make some changes to your diet. If weight loss is your goal then you’ll lose more by making these changes.

Enjoy!

‘Diet and exercise’ are the only two words, OK three, you need to remember if you’re looking to lose weight or just have better general health.

There’s been much written how the American and Western diet is totally out of balance. Too much bad stuff – like sugars, fat and salt. Even too much good stuff – like carbohydrates. Just too many calories coursing through our bodies.

Also with exercise, our lifestyle generally doesn’t require us to move our bodies much. We sit for long hours at our desks, on the couch, in front of the computer, in the car. You get the picture.

Here we’ll look at Diet And Exercise strategies, such as low GI diet and  that will help you lose pounds and live a healthier, more energetic life.

Diet  – eat to lose weight
We’ve been led to believe that losing weight is all about eating less. It is. And it isn’t.

There’s no better way to lose weight or gain health than by eating. It’s just what you eat that matters. Healthy meals mean healthy you.

No surprises but if you really, really want to lose those pounds then you simply must eat much less sugary, fatty and salty foods. There’s lots of reasons why but take my word for it, foods rich in these are poor for your health. And the leading causes of weight-gain and obesity. An effective diet and exercise plan aims to gradually reduce your sugar and salt and fat intake.

OK but I did promise something about eating when dieting.

The best diet and nutrition idea is to look for foods that fill you up. If I’m less hungry I tend to eat less, especially snacks. If I eat less, I lose weight. No great revelations there.
Low GI foods are the best guide I find for hunger satisfying meals. There’s plenty about the supermarket so start your education next time your there.

There are some foods that you can pretty much eat as much as you like in a diet and exercise plan. It’s vegetables. Green vegetables are especially good but makes sure you get other colors as well.

Exorcise your fat with exercise
Get it out of your body by moving more. There’s two ways to burn calories through exercise. Incidental exercise and planned exercise.

Incidental exercise is moving around in your daily life. Walking to the station. Climbing stairs to the cinema. Cleaning the house. If your mindful of this type of exercise and do more of it you can burn 10% to 15% of your daily calorie intake. Without even really trying. See, diet and exercise doesn’t have to be rocket science.
Just do a little more of this incidental movement  – get off the bus or train one stop early. Do some weeding in the garden. Walk to the shops. Just take a nice walk with family or friends.

You might find adding more low GI foods and high protein foods will help give you the sustained energy to exercise more.

Planned exercise. To really trim down and change your body shape you’ve got to make exercising a part of your week.
I recommend you take it gradually. First few weeks just half an hour jog/walk and a few push-ups and sit-ups.
It won’t take long before you start really looking forward to your exercise. It’s then you’ll get creative with the exercises and maybe target parts of your body that you really want to change.

With anything related to diet and exercise you’ve just got to get started. Start small and keep it going. Before long you’ll notice changes to your energy levels and your body shape. It’s these changes that will keep your diet and exercise on track.

Enjoy!

Diet And Nutrition can be put another way – “You are what you eat”.

The best strategy for weight loss and just general well-being is to eat…eat better and eat less, more accurately.

So how can we eat better?
A really easy way is to begin reading the nutritional panel on the products you buy. Actually, read the panel before you buy and let what you learn help you decide to buy or not.

Things to look out for on the nutritional panel
* Energy – the first thing on the panel. It’s also vital for you because if you eat more energy (calories) than you burn off you’ll put on weight. Eat less energy than you burn and watch the pounds go.
* Carbohydrates – these are effectively the sugar content of the food. Less sugar, especially the refined white kind, the better.
* Fat – we need fat for proper Diet And Nutrition. It’s saturated fat you need to really reduce, especially weight loss diet.
* Salt – we just eat too much salt or sodium in our diet. For losing pounds, losing salt will help.
* Fiber – it’s one of your weight loss friends. Not only does it help keep you regular so you feel lighter it also helps you feel fuller for longer.
* Protein – like everything in Diet And Nutrition you need balance. But a healthy level of protein also  helps keep your hunger away for longer.
* Cholesterol – we consume too many foods high in cholesterol. There’s plenty of low or no cholesterol alternatives.

Eating less.
Sounds easy but we all know how hard it is to eat less. There’s just so much temptation. Everywhere we look we have calorie-rich food placed in front of us. Just writing this has made me hungry.
But effective weight loss relies on you burning more energy than you consume.

Here’s some ideas to get you started.
* Low GI foods tend to keep you from feeling hungry. On the other hand, high GI foods, while not all bad, can leave you feeling hungry and reaching for a sneaky snack. A balanced diet to lose weight should feature low glycemic foods.
* Protein and fiber are also important in Diet And Nutrition to keep you feeling full for longer. High protein foods are abundant as are foods high in fibre.
* Less sodium. Salt retains water which adds weight.
* Eat natural, unprocessed foods. Yes, yes, we’ve heard that before when researching Diet And Nutrition. It doesn’t mean a diet of tofu and seeds. It does mean changing your habits. So start slowly and each day with each meal eat something fresh.

Diet And Nutrition for weight loss can be summed up by eating better and eating less.

Enjoy!

How do we Diet Low Carbohydrate? There’s not too many foods without carbs. There’s billions of great foods and meals with a great deal of carbs. We can’t escape carbs so let’s turn our attention to working with them.

Here we’ll look at what carbs do for you, especially if you’re looking to lose weight. We’ll show you ways you can Diet Low Carbohydrate easily.

What carbohydrates do for you?
1. Carbs supply our body with energy.
2. They fuel the central nervous system.
3. Carbs provide the major fuel for exercising muscles

So the fact is that carbohydrates are our bodies primary and most efficient source of fuel or energy.

That’s great but, and it’s a big but (no pun intended), we simply eat too many carbs in our diet. This is only made worse by our sedentary lifestyle where we don’t burn enough of our body’s fuel produced by the carbohydrates.
Mind you, with the amount of carbs in many Western country diets, an Olympic marathon runner couldn’t burn them off.

What Diet Low Carbohydrate does for you?
Less carbs in your diet means your body will start burning fat faster. In other words, once your body has finished using the carbs as fuel it will turn on it’s store of fat for its fuel needs. Great, just what we want when looking to lose weight.

How can I Diet Low Carbohydrate?
There’s no sugar-coating it, reducing your carbs isn’t easy.

The first place to go is the nutritional panel on the back of the food you eat. Make it a habit to really monitor the level of carbs (plus other things like fat and salt). This is especially useful when dieting to lose weight.

GI or glycemic index is something else you’ll need to consider in Diet Low Carbohydrate. Put simply GI is a way of comparing different carbohydrates by ranking their effect on the level of sugar in your blood.
Low GI diet meals, compared to high GI meals, have a slower, gradual and longer lasting energy effect. Most importantly for weight lose is that low GI foods tend to make you feel fuller for longer.
Less hunger should mean less snacking and less eating in general.

Higher GI food and their lower glycemic index alternatives
Rice: basmati is lower than jasmine
Potato: sweet potato is lower than mash potato
Bread: multi grain is lower in GI than white
Soda: orange juice is lower than orange-flavoured sodas
Crackers: rye crisp bread is lower glycemic index than rice crackers

There’s also high protein foods. These have the effect of filling you up so the hunger cravings are kept a bay longer.

High protein foods can be found not only in meat and eggs. There’s baked beans (many beans like white beans are good for protein), lentils, cottage cheese, yoghurt. Some cereals are surprisingly high protein. Check the nutritional panel.

There’s many ways to Diet Low Carbohydrate. But you have to make some changes to your diet. If weight loss is your goal then you’ll lose more by making these changes.

Enjoy!

The term ‘metabolic rate’ means the energy (calories/kilojoules) you use over a day to keep your body going – your lungs breathing, your heart beating. This is also referred to as the resting or basal metabolic rate.

Researchers have calculated the exact amount of calories healthy weight and overweight people burn while sitting or lying quietly. They did this by measuring the amount of oxygen breathed in and the amount of carbon dioxide breathed out.

Myth Busted: Overweight and lean people have similar metabolic rates.

Results show overweight people use more energy or calories to keep their bodies working. This is because they have larger bodies with bigger muscles and internal organs.

However, once they take into account the differences in body size, lean and obese people have similar metabolic rates.

Increase muscle, increase metabolic rate.

Your metabolic rate can be influenced by your particular body composition and age. Muscle requires more energy than fat. And as we get older, most of us gain fat and lose muscle. This explains why the metabolic rate tends to decrease with age.

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

People eat more than they think.

Many overweight people believe they eat very little but still put on weight and use the ‘slow metabolism’ theory, but research shows people often eat more than they think. Many also believe they eat healthy foods more often than is the case.

The bottom line.

You’ll gain weight if you consume more calories than your body uses. It all comes back to the guiding philosophy of eat less, eat better, move more. There’s no escaping this fact

Speed up your metabolic rate.

There are many pills, supplements and foods that say they speed up the metabolism. Most are unproven.

Nicotine and caffeine do have a small effect but any increase in the metabolism may have the effect of increasing in the heart rate. These aren’t recommended strategies for losing weight.

No miracles, just inescapable common sense.

No single ingredient will burn fat away without reducing the amount of calories you eat.

Burning calories.

The best way is to increase your levels of physical exercise and eating filling foods. Here’s a guide to how many calories you’ll use doing different activities:

• Walking 60 minutes – 200 kcals
• Gardening 60 minutes – 300 kcals
• Football 90 minutes – 600 kcals
• dancing 45 minutes – 450 kcals

The fact is increasing muscle and decreasing fat will lead to small but vital increases in your basal metabolic rate.

Eating less – Go Low GI

We’ve established that to lose weight we simply have to lose some food. Easier said than done. One effective way is to start including more low GI foods in your diet.

Also, increase the amount of high protein foods, especially in your breakfast cereal. The fuller you feel at the start of the day can determine how much food you consume during the day.

Eat more at breakfast and less and less during other meal times.

About the author

Justin Smidmore is the owner of The Metabolic Food Company, makers of SuperStart breakfast blend. He likes to give people commonsense information regarding weight loss, weight management and healthy eating. He is quick to add he is not a dietician (he’s not even sure how to spell it) or nutritionist.

Most weight loss plans simply ask too much -  they ask us to tip our lives completely over. We are often asked to make all our meals around highly processed foods that we didn’t select, cook, or even choose. Someone else make all of these decisions for us. No wonder most diets are not maintained, goals aren’t met and weight put straight back on.

So now what?

The better idea is to look at what you enjoy and work around that, at least to a degree. Eat more of the healthy stuff and less of the unhealthy, weight-increasing stuff.

• Alcohol – no doubt giving up drinking will help shed loads of weight. But some responsible adults enjoy a beer or glass of wine. You gotta enjoy life! So if you normally have a glass of wine a night, make it a glass every second night.
• Breakfast – bulk them up with fresh (or quality canned) fruit. Try low GI cereals which make you feel fuller for longer.
• Coffee and tea - have one less cup a day. Instead of sugar use a natural sweetener like Stevia.
• Snack on almonds and seed mix – sure it’s high in fat but it’s good fat, filling and natural.
• Dessert – instead of ice cream go for low fat yoghurt. Add some of that low GI cereal for texture and added satisfaction.
• Dinner – stir fry your favourite vegetables with lean chicken or beef. Use a herb and spice blend (with no sugar) for flavour boost.
• Carbs – reduce the amount, especially in your breakfast and dinner. Try your stirfry without rice or noodles -you’ll be surprised how easy it is.

These are just a few ideas. Remember the key is to maintain your diet until you reach your goal weight. To do this the diet has to fit into your life, not you into it.

Enjoy!

T’dah!

Yeah, right. Eat less food and I’ll lose weight. Easier said than done. Too good to be true. Too simple to be effective.

Eating Less can be done.

Here’s just a start of the filling, appetite suppressing, hunger pang thwarting ideas from reputable sources. There’ll be lots more to follow.

…. In fact, carbohydrates are natural appetite suppressants, because gram for gram, those carbohydrate foods with a low glycemic index are the most filling and prevent hunger pangs for longer periods of time.
Glucose Revolution by Thomas Wolever MD PhD, page 1

Remember, too, that fiber, for the most part, does not contribute calories. Also, that it helps you feel full and encourages appetite control because it absorbs fluid, expanding and creating the satisfied feeling the dieter craves.
Complete Guide Health Nutrition by Gary Null, page 141

Enjoy eating less,

Justin

The purpose of this article is to state the reasons why a Low GI Diet should be considered for you and your family. I should point out that I’m not a GI zealot. Or a zealot of any nutritional point of view. I hope that this shows.

The main reason I support a Low GI Diet is that it is largely supported by most knowledgeable nutritional and diet experts. It also stands up to everyday practicality.

The Case For A Low GI Diet…in no particular order.

1. Low GI, healthy foods release their energy slower and steadier than moderate and high GI foods. Actually Low GI unhealthy foods do as well but we’ll get onto why Low GI doesn’t always mean a healthy option.
   • You’ll notice less slumps, especially the infamous mid-morning and mid afternoon ones.
2. Low GI diet can keep you feeling fuller for longer. The main benefits of this are:
   • less snacking
   • less cravings
3. Low GI Diet products and foods are everywhere. It just takes a little awareness and suddenly the supermarket or grocery aisle becomes full of options. Not all low GI foods are marked as such. A short selection is below. The idea is to demonstrate just how ‘everyday’ a low GI diet is.

Low GI Diet must-haves

• Low GI breakfast with nuts, seeds and grains
• Oats e.g. porridge or natural muesli
• Multi-grain bread
• Pasta
• Low-fat milk and yoghurt
• Most fruit
• Sweet corn
• Sweet potato
• Legumes

Not all Low GI diet foods are created equal.

And not all low GI foods are healthy foods. At first I thought low GI diet also meant low or no sugar. Wrong. In fact, there are some low GI products with loads of sugar. So be wary of these and check the nutritional panel and ingredient list.

Enjoy!

Burn energy too quickly?

Here’s some healthy foods and ideas to put together your own breakfast menu for sustained energy.

A short bit about longer lasting energy.

All foods release their energy into your bloodstream at different rates. One measure of this is called the Glycemic Index (GI). The higher the food indexes the faster it releases its energy. And the faster the energy is spent.

• High GI index above 70.
• Moderate GI foods index between 56 to 69.
• Low GI is anything indexing 55 and under.

So on this breakfast menu we’re going to concentrate on a low GI diet. A number of healthy breakfast ideas that will keep you going until lunch.

Low GI breakfast menus

1. The Box Seat – get in the best position for the day with a low GI breakfast cereal and full fat milk. Why full fat milk? Most of the benefits of milk are in the fats, which contain CLA (fat burning and omega 3′s).
2. Cafe breakfast – don’t you just drool over the breakfast menu at your favourite cafe? What they can do with eggs is amazing. The good news is that a ‘traditional’ breakfast high in protein and good fats is good news for your body. They fill you up and release their goodness over a longer period of time. Just make sure the food is cooked as healthily as possible…and with fatty sauces like Hollandaise.
3. A king’s breakfast – like the cafe breakfast above, just lots of it. The old adage “eat like a king at breakfast, a prince at lunch and a pauper at dinner’ makes a lot of nutritional and energy sense. Poached eggs, whole grain toast, avocado, tomato, low GI muesli with full fat milk, black tea. Just don’t forget to get off your throne by dinner time.

Enjoy!

It’s not a time for my best breakfast ideas. Or any ideas for that matter.

That’s why I go for the same old, same old breakfast. Usually something with a mule-like sugar kick and loads of carbs. Delicious, don’t get me wrong, I love the sugary, carby cereals. Fortunately (or is that unfortunately?) there’s lots of breakfast cereal brands out there to fill the gap.

It’s now 7.48pm on a Monday night…

…Perfect breakfast ideas time.

So here’s some of my favourites:

1. Liquid Breakfast – blend a banana, low fat milk or soy milk, soy, linseed and almond meal, low GI cereal and go, go, go. Actually make it a fruit salad smoothie. Throw in whatever fruit you have, even the slightly overripe stuff.
2. Eggs-cellent breakfast idea – eggs on whole grain toast are a great under-rated way to start the day.
3. Low GI diet breakfast – sounds complicated but low GI foods and cereal products are easy to find. And well worth the effort. Start the day with a slow-release food and avoid the m-id-morning ‘sugar low’.
4. Oats with grated green apple – simple, delicious, cheap and nutritious. A great combination.
5. Healthy Breakfast – low GI cereal, whole grain toast, fresh juice and a green tea. This is not only super healthy, a low GI diet helps keep your hunger away for longer than higher GI foods.

Sometimes the best idea is to prepare a little before bed the night before.

Also, a healthy breakfast sets you up for a virtuous day. You just feel better about yourself safe in the knowledge you’ve started the day healthily.

Enjoy!