The Diet Secrets

If you want to lose weight quick and fast short of starving yourself, the popular 3-Day Diet should help you do the trick.  Consisting of  a complete meal plan (3 times a day), this should help you shed a considerable amount of pounds in just 72 hours.

People have reported amazing short-term results on the diet, with some losing up to 15 to 20 pounds in that brief span.  Unfortunately, being a short-term, fast-results program, most people who undergo it end up gaining the weight back in a few weeks.

The diet itself is as simple as can be.  There is no magical synergy between the food contents, no special fat-burning effects from anything you consume and no amazing promises.  Instead, it is a simple low-calorie program designed to provide just enough food for sustenance throughout each of the three days.

While there are food plans for each 24-hour period, you can just as well use the same meals for the entire duration to minimize preparation work.  Few condiments are allowed during the diet to avoid interfering with the reduced calories.  You are, however, allowed to spice your food with lemon (as much as you want),  a little mustard and a dash of salt and pepper.

Day 1

Breakfast: Black coffee, tea or water; one glass of grapefruit juice; one toast with peanut butter
Lunch: Black coffee, tea or water; 1/2 cup of tuna; one slice of toast
Dinner: three ounces of lean protein (any meat); one cup each of green beans and carrots; one apple; one cup of vanilla ice cream (no toppings) for dessert

Day 2

Breakfast: Black coffee, tea or water; one hard-boiled egg; one slice of toast; one banana
Lunch: Black coffee, tea or water; one cup of cottage cheese; five saltine crackers
Dinner: Black coffee, tea or water; two hotdogs; 1/2 cup of carrots;  one cup of cabbage; one banana; 1/2 cup of vanilla ice cream

Day 3

Breakfast: Black coffee, tea or water; five saltine crackers; one ounce of cheddar cheese; one apple
Lunch: Black coffee, tea or water; one slice of toast; one hardboiled egg;
Dinner: Black coffee, tea or water; one cup each of tuna, carrots, cauliflower and melon fruit; half a cup of vanilla ice cream for dessert

If you’ve been through one diet program after another with no positive results, you may want  to try an alternative way of losing weight.  After “dieting herself fat”, Dr. Amanda Sainsbury-Salis decided there has to be a better way of shedding pounds and she found it by listening to her body.  Possibly one of the best weight management programs around, Dr. Amanda’s  “Don’t Go Hungry” diet is based on two physiological mechanisms that she defines as the Famine Reaction and the Fat Reaction.

She defines the Famine Reaction as basic hunger, the body’s response when your food supply becomes dangerously low.  With the body demanding you to eat, you’ll need to acquiesce or leave the nourishment urge to grow.  As such, you’ll need to eat to relieve the hunger until you’re satisfied.

The Fat Reaction, on the other had, is the body’s signal that it has had enough to eat.  It is usually manifested as a feeling of discomfort and fullness that can lead to weight gain when constantly ignored.  In a nutshell, the Don’t Go Hungry program relies on listening to our bodies’ subtle signals, instead of engaging in a fad eating program.

To avoid gaining unnecessary weight when feeding yourself,  Dr. Amanda encourages focusing the diet on whole foods - grains, fruits and vegetables.  Additionally, dieters are trained to turn to food types that are low on the Glycemic Index, to maximize long-term energy results.  Food choices that are high on the index typically produce high levels of energy followed by a sudden drop.

Her book, called “The Don’t Go Hungry Diet”, details what to look out for when tuning in to both the Fat and Famine responses as well as the kinds of food she believes are best to be used when satisfying hunger.

One of the newest so called “super foods” has found its way out of the deep, dark parts of the rain forest and now is available to work miracles for your health.

Well, with the recent hype about the acai berry, one would think this were true. So what are the facts concerning this little berry and what can be attributed to marketing hype? Hopefully this post will help you sort the fact from fiction.

The acai berry has been around for a little while, but once it was promoted by Oprah it has exploded on the health scene. In one of Oprah’s show ” 10 Foods for Age-Defying Beauty”, they listed acai berry as the number one super food food saying,

This little berry is one of the most nutritious and powerful foods in the world. It can often be found in juice form in health food and gourmet stores.

Of course what ever Oprah says is gospel so this sent people on a mad frenzy to get their hands on this fruit, which also led to hundreds of websites starting up to capitalize on the ‘acai berry diet’.
The Facts

* The acai berry grows on a palm tree in Brazil and has been consumed by Brazilians for ages.
* The acai berry is extremely high in anti-oxidants.
* Some research has supported some of the health claims
* Some dieters report decreased appetite and higher energy, but this isn’t substantiated with sound research.

Misconceptions

* One has to consume the juice and pulp to get all the health benefits, most products just offer the dried or the juice version.
* Weight loss claims are not supported by research
* Acai berries are not a quick fix, miracle berry, but part of a healthy eating plan.
* The same amounts of anti-oxidants can be achieved by eating a variety of fresh dark fruits such as blueberries for much less money.
* There is no true acai berry diet, but can be incorporated into any healthy diet.

Buyer Beware
Scams abound with the acai berry, so be careful that you order from a reputable source. The high quality pulp is expensive, so beware of sites that would offer it dirt cheap because that might just be what you are buying as it is often mixed with other things, containing a very low concentration of acai.

The Fat Flush Plan is a diet program designed to improve your overall metabolism and detoxify your body.  Using a scientifically-designed eating program, it will flush away excess fat from your body - provided that you can follow the rather stringent guidelines.

Unlike many fad diets, the Fat Flush Plan trains you towards a healthy lifestyle, taking into account not only your eating habits but your water intake, physical activity and amount of sleep.  As such, you will be required to keep a daily log of your physical activities, meals, sleeping habits and other factors that can influence your desired weight loss.

If all that seems a little extreme, that’s because it is.  The Fat Flush program is a pretty hardcore lifestyle system which, to be honest, is what anyone who’s seriously obese needs to get into.  Will it work for everyone?  The strict requirements tell me more people will give up on this than make it through.  For the few who embrace it, however, the results should be very impressive.

Under this program, you begin the program with a two-week fat flush that cuts down your caloric intake to a measly 1,100 per day.  This will be followed by a second phase that increases your food consumption to 1,500 calories per day, which you will need to maintain until you gain your desired weight loss.  The third phase will be the maintenance program where you can eat whatever your body requires but should be based on healthy options as outlined by the system.

When you do the Fat Flush Plan, you can expect steady meals based on lean protein, vegetables with plenty of antioxidants (like artichokes), healthy fat (from flaxseed oil), eggs, fruits and a few spices.  Additionally, you will need to drink plenty of diuretics, get a lot of sleep and do some exercises.  Nobody said losing weight was easy and this one is probably as difficult as a fitness program can get.