Diet Reviews

New Review : Caralluma Product

Carallluma fimbriata is another one, like the all too popular hoodia, that is a plant who is from the succulent family. Succulents look like cactuses, or cacti, and I supposed you could call them from the cactus family as well.

Caralluma is a plant that, when ground up and turned into a powder, or shoot, if eaten straight in it’s native land, far far away, will curb your appetite, and can even help to curb your thirst. It is another plant that is used by tribesmen to help stave off their hunger and thirst for longer periods of time so they can get more important things done eating.

Leave it to us diet-obsessed Americans to find these types of miracle plants, and use them as ingredients in diet and appetite suppressing products designed to help us lose weight. Well, that’s exactly what’s been done, and the product I’ve reviewed is Caralluma Burn, which is a pure Caralluma diet supplement that does not contain any of those additives that make you feel like you want to jump out of your own skin like caffeine or any other types of harsh stimulants.

The problem with these types of diet aids that use stimulation as their main way to suppress hunger is that they often leave the person hungrier than they ever were when they wear off. This product is unique in that it does not use any stimulants, as a lot of hoodia products do, to aid you in your strike against hunger to help fulfill your weight loss goals, rather it just uses the power of this unique caralluma plant to ward off hunger and help your blood sugar remain stable for hours on end so that you can begin to burn your calorie stores and reduce your overall weight.

After all, weight loss is by it’s very definition a loss of excess calories, and in order to do that, you have to intake less. Caralluma Burn helps you do that by reducing cravings and appetite. Read on for a full review of the Caralluma product.

What is a “Flexitarian”?

I found this concept to be intriguing, partly because I think it’s kind of how I tend to eat.  You see, I go through periods where the smell and sight of meat, especially red meats, kind of makes me sick.  For example, the other weekend I got some tritip beef and the smell of the raw meat made me just about want to gag. I hated that the cooking of this meat made our whole downstairs smell for hours, and the smell somehow was nauseating to me.  I try to take these kinds of cues from my body as signs that I just shouldn’t eat meat that day.  Some days it might be very appealing, and I’ll opt for that steak though.

The flexitarian diet is basically one that is primarily vegetarian but you can incorporate an animal fat into your diet once daily. As long as it’s a healthy meat preferably. This is a bit different from the typical American diet where people eat meats with almost every meal, for example, some sausage for breakfast, some lunch meat on a sandwich for lunch and some chicken for dinner.  This type of diet can tend to be high in saturated fat and also not easily digestable, putting more strain than necessary on the digestive system and the bowels.

Flexitarians get the best of both worlds without overdoing it in the meat department.  You can eat a vegetarian or vegan meal for breakfast and lunch, and then try a healthy, organically produced meat for dinner, but still watch your portioning, and you may see your signs of health improve because you’ve converted to a mostly plant based diet, whis is excellent because you are getting a lot of phytonutrients, tons of natural chlorophyll and antioxidants, and tons of naturally cleansing and regulating fiber.

Some of the meal ideas you can use are things like brown and wild rice with some avocados and tomatoes chopped over it (one of my faves), maybe a veggie sandwich if you’re at a restaurant, or a salad minus the meat but with a healthy portion of low fat cheese and an olive oil based dressing, a bowl of lentil soup, the possibilities are endless and if you go to a restaurant that caters to vegetarians, then you have all that many more choices.

The DASH Diet

Many Americans have hypertension and need to keep track of it with the help of a physician and often are prescribed medication to control it. From a dietary standpoint, high blood pressure can be brought under control more effectively with nutritional measures combined with specific medications as prescribed. The DASH diet is specifically designed to lower blood pressure. The DASH stands for the Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension. This diet has been proven to lower blood pressure in clinical studies. It is more than the traditional low sodium approach only.

The DASH diet is very high in the fruits and vegetables category. The recommendation calls for 4-6 servings of fruit in addition to 4-6 servings of vegetables per day. On the average, Americans typically eat 2-3 serving of fruits and vegetables combined per day. The DASH diet calls for 8-12 servings of the fruits and vegetables combination daily.

In the grains food group, the DASH diet calls for 6-12 servings for an individual on a 3100 calorie diet per day and 7 to 8 servings for someone on a more calorie restricted diet of 2000 calories per day. At least 3 whole grain foods need to be included in this category per day.

Dairy products need to be low fat or non fat on the DASH diet. Two to four servings of the dairy are recommended on the DASH diet. For lean meats, fish and poultry, the DASH diet recommends 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 servings for the people who are on a 3100 calorie per day diet and 2 or less servings for those who are on a 2000 calorie per day diet.

Nuts, seeds and legumes are more limited on the DASH diet. Three to six per week are recommended for the 3100 calorie per day diet and four to five servings per week for the 2000 calorie per day diet people. While the DASH diet was designed with blood pressure control in mind, often people who are on it have the added benefit of losing weight.

Adherence to the DASH diet provides a high fiber nutrition with low caloric intake and is well balanced. Another added benefit, that was not what the diet was initially designed for, is that it may curb memory loss and help to increase your focus and mental skills.

Liquid and Detox Diets Really Just a Form of Starvation?

I’ve been around long enough, and intuned with the diet and weight loss circuit, to see a lot of fad diets and kind of crazy weight loss theories and diets, and one of the most perplexing to me is the liquid and detox diet, which go hand in hand because a detox diet is usually one that is based in the dieter mostly just drinking some sort of concoction.

I even tried one, the most popular and well known detox diet, called the Master Cleanse, whose instructions come in a neat little pamphlet-like yellow booklet, and instruct the user to prepare a concoction of lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper, and drink only that for days, combined with preparing a salt water internal enema, where you drink warm salt water and basically poop within a half hour, cleansing the intestines and the colon – it’s called something like a “salt water bath”. My boyfriend went on the Mater Cleanse with me, he lasted one day and I lasted three. We hated it to be honest.

I know that they say that after day three is often when you lose any desire for food, but for me quite frankly, I felt that it just wasn’t normal. And for someone who has struggled with eating disorders her whole life and still lives with the demon of bulimia from the past, I felt like not eating was just another (accepted) form of an eating disorder. I hated having to smell people’s lunches and foods when I went out to the mall during that time, and I even suffered through watching my boyfriend eat a piece of pizza since he hopped off the wagon before I did.

Honestly, for the few pounds I would have lost that would have been all water weight anyways – you don’t lose any fat that short term – I just felt that it was sort of a bizarre disguise for a starvation type eating disorder. I know there are some that swear by the health effects of the cleanse, but for me, it just wasn’t the right thing, and I personally believe that you can eat right and cleanse the body through eating, not starvation, better than you can by only consuming liquids and defacating more often, which is what these diets are designed to do for you.

There are some who do the cleanse regularly, a couple times a year, and swear by it, and that’s great for them, but I just don’t think it’s for everyone, and I don’t think that it should be primarily used for weight loss purposes, I think it should be used as more of a cleansing – break from food and it’s trappings sort of thing, otherwise, you’re going to tread in dangerous territory with thinking that this will be a long term weight loss goal getter for you.

Dr. Suzanne Gudakunst Fat Loss Secret : Scam?

Hmm, good question. I came across this Dr’s supposed fat loss secret that has earned her “death threats” – from who, it vaguely even gives the details on that, and is highly doubtful. Who’d want to broadcast it if they really were threatened life and limb because of a supposed “discovery” that the medical establishment didn’t want them to reveal anyways? I’d think if my life were really threatened, I’d want to be a little less conspicuous and not disclose this fact to the public, but hey, that’s just me!

Ok, here’s why I doubt this program is anything totally revolutionary, and maybe I shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, but some warning bells went off when I surfed the website of this fat loss secret plan. Dr. Suzanne Gudakunst, first of all, is a woman who is shown several times on the website, in a cowboy hat and some young looking gear no less, trying to look hip and sexy, which is my first warning sign and which sets off alarms whether this woman is really a Dr. at all to be perfectly honest. I’m not sure what kind of doctor would want to present herself this way, as a brash and low brow salesman.

She goes on and on in sales copy about being thin, sexy, losing weight, and how these worms and other parasites are eating you alive from the inside out, causing disease and premature death, and even going into some unbelievable stories about young, healthy patients of hers that have died out of nowhere only to the puzzlement of their friends and family, seeming to attribute these untimely deaths to an unhealthy colon and digestive system. Hmm, really, because I’d be willing to bet autopsies would show that they dies of some unfortunate disease of sleeper disorder that was never evident until it was too late.

The problem I have with advertising like this is that it really plays on people fears and desires, and gives the reader little substance. For example, I have no idea what her product actually is by reading through the sales copy. Is it a book, a supplement and a book, a DVD? You don’t really know what you’re getting, and it comes in a platinum version which is more expensive, and a regular version as well. So, what more do you get with the platinum version? It doesn’t really say.

She goes on and on about how she “cares about you” also, which seems pretty doubtful considering this sales copy is set to push a product that is poorly communicated. If anyone has any further information, good or bad reviews, please post them here, I’d be open to hear both sides, and I’ll admit I haven’t tried it, so I can’t really give it a review, I can only judge by the cover so far.

What is the “Diet Plate”

There’s a new idea that I’ve always thought would be good, and I was actually surprised no one had put one to market yet, of course at least not that I knew of. But now someone has, and it might just catch on. Except they didn’t originate in America, the diet obsessed land, they put it out in Britain. It’s called the Diet Plate, and for about forty bucks (yikes!), you can purchase the Diet Plate and you get a free diet bowl to go with it. What are they, and how can they help you lose weight?

Well, all the Diet Plate is, is a tool to help you control your portions and take the guesswork out of your portion sizes for various food groups. For example, it has drawn the sizes of protein servings, veggie servings (which happen to be unlimited, so long as they are not in a buttery or creamy sauce of some kind) and last but not least (and unfortunately usually the most fun to eat of the groups, and also the smallest allowance as we all know too well), the carbohydrate group. This last group could be some sort of pasta, a baked potato, or bread of some sort, and of course for diet purposes it’s the smaller portion of the three.

Now, for the free bowl that comes with the Diet Plate, that is used for breakfast cereals, to show you what kind of portion of cereal constitutes a good amount of calories for your breakfast. I’m not sure how many people would actually use that since a lot of people prefer to have things like yogurt, meats and fruits and maybe english muffins or something of the sort for breakfast, but there you have it, and it’s free, so who can complain!

This whole portion control thing is really the key to losing weight, but also I believe that eating the right combinations of foods and what types of starches, veggies, fruits and meats you eat really matters as well, so hopefully the plan and directions that come with explains that some foods may be better choices, regardless of portions, just from a nutritional value and filling value to keep you fuller longer and keep you on your diet.

I always like the unlimited veggies part, but too many times people think that this means they can eat things like creamed spinach or veggies in butter sauces, and that’s not the case. So while portion control is an important part of weight loss and healthy weight maintenance, I think that the types of foods you choose will keep you healthier and on a diet longer because it kicks in your natural appetite suppressants, or on a good eating plan for the rest of your life, whereas low quality foods will just make you hungrier.

Oh, and portion control doesn’t just apply for meals, it of course applies also for snacking throughout the day, which is often forgotten if one is practicing portion control with meals.

Low Carb Diets Good for Focus?

In a study on the benefits and drawbacks of a low carbohydrate diet, it was found that while a low carb diet may be detrimental to your short term memory, it may actually improve your ability to focus more on the task at hand.  Also, diets that have virtually no carbs at all were found to be detrimental to both focus and short term memory, since the brain runs on glucose, and pure protein diets don’t supply enough of this (it’s basically sugar, which is what carbohydrates are converted into when they are digested and absorbed by the body). 

This finding does not surprise me at all, because I have tried low carb diets and also an almost no carb diet (the Atkins diet advocates virtually no carbs, which is a terrible idea because it cuts out almost all fruits and veggies) and I noticed that both my memory and concentration seemed to improve when I was on lower carb diets, like South Beach and The Zone, but when I tried Atkins, I not only had a very short fuse patience wise and got low blood sugar spells almost constantly, but my memory and focus were virtually shot. 

I definitely do not advocate an extreme low carb diet such as Atkins because it cuts out so many of the foods that replenish our vital nutrients, vitamins and minerals, and many meats are devoid of anything but protein and maybe a few trace vitamins.  Also, the Atkins diet is very short on fiber which scares me since diets low in dietary fiber are linked to colon and colorectal cancers, and meat rich diets have also been linked to different types of cancers in both men and women.

Also, high protein, no carb diets do not really discriminate on meats.  As long as it’s a meat, it doesn’t matter, whether it’s a fatty meat like bacon or sausage, or eggs like a big fat honking egg omelette loaded with cheese, as long as that final carb count is low.  This is a terrible way to eat.  Not only will you constantly have a hard time going to the bathroom, but you may very well find yourself in a bad mood most of the time because your blood sugar is so low. 

If you would like to try to cut the carb content down in your diet, you could try a good carb blocker as well.  They act as a high fiber barrier against the absorption of carbohydrates and excess calories, at least that’s the idea of them, so you can read more about those as well if you’re looking for ways to cut the carb content in your diet. 

The Raw Diet : Excessively Hard?

I personally think two of the hardest diets to stick to, at least for me personally, would be the vegan diet and the raw foods diet.  On the vegan diet, which many adopt for health reasons and some adopt it because of weight issues or simply because they don’t believe in eating any animal byproducts or animal meat at all.  Whatever the reason, the vegan diet has proven excessively difficult for some to stick to.  Sure, it’s a great diet to manage the weight, but is it really healthy in the long run?

For some, it can be healthy, but that’s only if they still make sure they get the right alternative sources of protein in their diet.  Also another problem may be getting the right kinds of healthy fat in their diet.  For this reason, some vegans may have excessively dry skin or problems with their hair. 

Also, some vegans may simply not get enough calories in their diet to sustain energy and brain function.  As long as you’re a vegan who knows how to properly balance your diet without animal byproducts or proteins, it can be a very healthy diet.  Oh, and you should make sure you live by a natural foods store if you’re a vegan because they offer a lot of vegan-specific foods.

The raw foods diet is another strict one that many may find excessively restrictive.  The raw food diet is exactly what it says.  You don’t eat any cooked or processed foods.  The benefit of the raw food diet is of course that you get a lot of nutrients that are otherwise boiled, steamed, baked or microwaved out of your food.  Many of the beneficial enzymes that are often also cooked out of the foods that you eat stay intact when the food is not cooked or heated in any way.

For this reason, many on the raw food diet swear that their health has vastly improved, and belive that they are also extending their life span and enhancing their health and longevity because of the minimal “bare bones” processing of their foods.  It’s also of course excellent for weight control because you get more from your food and may be more easily satisfied, whereas cooked foods don’t provide as much “bulk” and may not fill the stomach up as much as their raw counterparts. 

On the raw food diet, you eat a lot of raw, uncooked vegetables and fruits, and you can also eat a lot of nuts and seeds that are not processed.  But animal products are pretty much a no no as I understand it, so this may be the hard part for a lot of people to swallow – it’s almost like a more intense vegan regimen if you think about it, at least the non-animal raw food diet is. 

Gluten Free Diet’s Popularity

I remember when my grandparents both went on a gluten free diet.  I thought that, at the time, these so called “gluten free diets” were for “old people” who couldn’t handle the digestion process as well in their older age, and that doctors prescribed these types of diets as a matter of precaution against difficulty digesting and also in any harm to the large and small intestine, since I guess this is where the disease takes place.

The disease I’m talking about is Celiacs, and it basically means the person has either lost the ability to digest gluten, which is found in wheat products, and virtually every processed food you can think of save for the specialty ones made without gluten, or were born without the ability to digest this epinomous food type.  I remember how restrictive their diet seemed.  I would look at their cupboards as they got older and see things like gluten free bread, crackers and baking mixes and thought wow, thank goodness this horrendous affliction hadn’t gotten ahold of me, because I was such a starchhound as a kid.

However, one thing you can eat is potatoes and you can also eat rice, because they do not contain any natural gluten, but what you can’t eat is much more numerous a list.  Some question whether the gluten allergy or disease really exists, or if the gluten free diet is really of as great a benefit as some doctors say it is, but there are those that swear they feel a hundred times better when they are on the gluten free diet than when they were off.

Many say that it improves their energy levels, relieves chronic constipation, and even can put them in a better, more balanced mental state.  Gluten free foods were sold by billions of dollars last year alone, so there’s definitely a market for these specially made types of foods.  Because so many common foods that are easy to make contain gluten, many find it hard to discover foods and baking items that actually taste good and also meet their no gluten requirements. 

Does Nutrisystem Taste Good, Or Even Work For That Matter?

Nutrisystem, one of the leading dieting programs out there right now thanks to mass marketing as well as a convenience that many Americans can’t pass up as far as availability in this busy, hectic world we’ve all created for ourselves, has created quite a buzz online and lots of good and bad reviews have been found online when you search for people’s experiences not only with the results of the system but also with their experience as far as the edibility of the food and the ease of sticking with it.

I’ve read that the food isn’t so bad, and easy to follow, but I’ve also read scathing reviews about how the foods tastes like sawdust, and has a lot of sodium in it to make up for the lack of flavor.  So, I’ve asked a few people at work that have been on the Nutrisystem plan at one point or another, and I’ve gotten the same mixed reviews.

One person thought the food was perfectly acceptable, but also thought the portions were not large enough to be satisfying, which makes sense because the way we lose weight is by cutting caloric intake, and it’s necessary to do portion control to do that.  Another person said that she unwrapped one of the meals, I believe it was supposed to be a hamburger with a bun, and was so sickened by how it looked and smelled that she couldn’t even bring herself to eat it. 

It’s hard to know whether food is good, or good to you, until you actually try it yourself.  Nutrisystem certainly isn’t cheap, but if you compare it to what you’d spend on your own healthy meals per day, it might be right up there with that, considering the higher costs of food these days. 

I think it’s around ten dollars per day to be on Nutrisystem, but that’s the last I checked.  I’m sure they run promotions periodically to get more people on board.  My concern with these meals is that they really aren’t nutritional.  I mean, if they’re mailed to you, how many preservatives and chemicals must they have in them? 

Also, where does the fresh fruit and veggies come in?  I’m a firm believer that fresh food is the best, most fulfilling food and is necessary in long term weight loss, so that is an element that is obviously missing from Nutrisystem as far as I know.