Diet Reviews

21 Pounds in 21 Days Sensation (Martha’s Vineyard Diet)

Well well, what do you know. We have another “detox” diet sensation on our hands. This time the claims to the fast weight loss are pretty staggering – 1 pound for every one day you are on the diet, hence the name “21 Pounds in 21 Days” given to this detoxification-based diet. It might as well be called out for what it is, which is an all liquid diet.  It’s easy to drop weight very quickly on all liquid diets, as most people who’ve been on them can attest.

The problem is, you never really feel satisfied, and often times the claim that after three days you won’t need or want solid foods is true, but it’s because your body’s survival mechanisms are kicking in, making you feel a bit euphoric and introspective and peaceful, as a mechanism to protect the mind against starvation, which is essentially what you are doing to your body when you go on extreme “detox” diets like this. In case you can’t tell, I’m not really keen on these types of extreme diets where you aren’t really getting a whole lot of substance for days on end.

21 Pounds in 21 Days is a diet where you essentially are eating all liquids, a lot of pureed veggies and other types of detox drinks, but you are also taking in protein, which I suppose is a good part to the diet as opposed to other liquid diets like the infamous Master Cleanse, which is merely a concoction of maple syrup, cayenne pepper and lemon to keep your blood sugar up.

It also requires a coffee enema and taking various digestive enzymes with the diet.  You get a kit to do the diet, so I’m assuming that some of these products come with that kit. You are supposed to lose one pound every day, and the diet is designed by people who should know what they’re doing – one’s a naturopath and the other is a registered nurse and colonic therapist (I’m assuming this means she administers colonics).

The detox products offered on their site include berry and veggie drinks that are supposed to help you maintain your results, and boy are they highly priced, but hey, if they work and they make you feel healthy and more importantly satiated and content as a natural weight loss remedy, then I guess that’s your prerogative.

Mediterranean Diet and Diabetes Risk

It’s no secret that the traditional “mediterranean” diet, which has been hailed as one of the newer fad types of diets in the past few years, but is really just based on the way people in a certain part of the world eat, has a bevy of health benefits. But isn’t this just common sense eating? To me, it is – and diets that suppress hunger are the best way to eat, period.

You can call it whatever style eating you want, but the mediterranean way of eating does involve a boatload of omega 3 fatty acids in the fish and olive oils that permeate many of the main dishes, and it is also rich in antioxidants since it has lots of leafy greens and deeply colored veggies as well. Not only can this diet benefit you in the weight department, but new findings are showing that it also can greatly reduce your risk of developing diabetes, which is another one of this nation’s top health problems.

I’m talking about developed diabetes by the way, not the kind you are born with – there is nothing you can do about that one.

The study that shows this diet is more beneficial over other traditional low fat diets was published showing that people that were advised to follow a low fat diet actually showed a higher risk of developing diabetes than the people who were told to follow a diet that ran closely with the mediterranean way of eating.  Tomatoes, red wine, olive oil and fish and lean meats and lots of leafy green vegetables abounded in the latter.

It follows common sense that a diet which is slow absorbing into the blood stream (most of the foods in this type of diet are, they take longer to release insulin into the blood stream, and therefore are protective against sudden spikes and lows in blood sugar), so it makes sense that those on the mediterranean diet would experience better blood sugar readings. It also makes sense that people on this diet would be able to lose weight more easily, since hunger and appetite are so closely linked to your insulin levels.

When your blood sugar is low, the natural reaction to this is to become hungry and want to feed your body to make your blood sugar stabilize again, and for your mood to become normal.  The mediterranean diet helps keep your blood sugar levels more stable, and to help you go longer in between meals without bottoming out, as well as to help you eat less and feel fuller, and more satiated for a much longer time.

Why Do Low Carb Diets Work So Well?

Many of you reading this may be surprised that low carb diets are still being used as a way to lose large amounts of weight, but they are, and they actually may be a little easier to stay on long term than most other diets that use a lot of carbs and fiber, or diets that mix protein and carbs in a certain amount, such as the Zone or South Beach. Zone and South Beach are still somewhat carb reduced, but they are not like the earlier low carb diets like Atkins and the almost zero carb options.

Low carb diets, to be considered low carb and also to keep insulin levels down pretty low where the body starts to burn fat instead of sugars and carbs, actually needs to be pretty low. About thirty grams of carbs and under is the ideal number to actually shed quite a bit of weight. This means that you should really eat a lot of protein and meat and cheese, which a lot of people shun because these foods tend to be higher in fat than others.

However, being on a low carb diet doesn’t mean you have to shove fatty foods in your mouth at every turn. There are leaner options like turkey sausage, turkey bacon, low fat egg scramblers, low fat cheese and chicken and lean fish.  You just have to be careful to not totally shun veggies, as they give you the fiber, which makes you go the bathroom. Not having any fiber in your diet will definitely screw things up and have you in pain for a while!

Low carb diets work by essentially keeping your insulin levels low. When the blood sugar or insulin levels are low in the body, the body does not burn the sugar and carbs in the blood stream as energy. Instead, it pulls fat from the blood and burns fat. This means that over time, your body’s fat stores begin to whittle down, as do you behind and your belly with it!

That’s essentially why low carb diets work so well, and the lower carb you go, the quicker you will probably take the weight off. It’s amazing how fast I took off a few pounds that just would not come off after a typical high carb, low fat diet.  They just melted right off after just a week of really watching my carbs, so it does work to get fat off the body and maintain lean muscle.

Whether it can be a way of life – well, that’s up to you – and you also have to be careful to not make it unhealthy by taking in all fatty foods with no nutritional value. That takes practice, but you can do it and you can find foods that fit this bill well.

Hoodia DEX-L10 Review

So I was at this discount outlet store called Ollies that is popular down in southern Ohio, and I noticed that in the bargain bin there was one leftover bottle of this hoodia product that I had wanted to try since I’ve tried so many others that I liked for appetite control, called Hoodia Gordonii DEX-L10 by a company called Delmar Labs.  It is advertised as pure south african hoodia gordonii, which as you probably know by now is the “miracle” appetite suppressant that is derived by a cactus that grows in Africa.
DEX-L10 Hoodia Gordonii (500mg) Natural Appetite Suppressant, SEE CUSTOMER REVIEWS Capsules, 60 Count

Hoodia, I’ve found is one of the best natural appetite suppressants that I can take when I’m trying to lose a few pounds.  It’s really great because if you are sensitive to stimulants like caffeine and guarana that are in the “thermogenic” formulas, this doesn’t have any of that in it, so you don’ t get the shakes and the crash when it wears off.

This stuff has been really great so far. It does what it claims to, it reduces your cravings and your appetite -although you still get hungry, you just find yourself getting full and more satiated by smaller amounts of food it seems.  I’ve found that it’s done wonders for my sugar cravings, which is great because I almost always crave sugar after my meals to “finish off my meal”.

I have a pretty massive appetite naturally, and I especially love to eat a lot in the PM when it’s dinner time, which is my biggest weight buster.  This helps me to stop at a reasonable portion at night. I’ve been eating a Lean Cuisine at night with a big salad on the side with light dressing, one egg white, cucumbers, tomatoes and onions, and I’m ok after that, and my appetite is satisfied for the rest of the night, which is awesome for me.

The only side effects I’ve noticed for me personally is that it seems to make me more thirsty, and of course because I drink more water, I pee more, which can be a little annoying. This is odd, because hoodia is supposed to curb both hunger and thirst, but it seems to do that opposite for me with thirst.  I don’t care, as long as I’m drinking more and eating less, that’s fine by me.

I take one at about 10:30, an hour and a half before my lunch, then I take another about one and half hours before my dinner. I’ve found this works better than just one hour before meals for me, it seems to set in more with an hour and a half and take the edge off my appetite better in this time frame. I’m down 4 pounds so far and I just need to take off about 4 more or 5 would be great, and I’ll be in my skinny jeans again.

Skinny Bitch Diet Book Review : Part II

I do think the vegan diet has it’s merits, but I think that you have to be careful to still eat the right foods if you choose this lifestyle. You can’t just always be eating veggie burgers and nonstop carbs, you have to make sure that your diet is also rich in fruits and veggies, which are the cornerstone of health and weight loss. One could easily go off the right path if they didn’t know this, but the authors do point this out.

Another point they made, which was a citation from Fit for Life, and one that I’ve used in my own life which I found to be effective, was to try to eat a lot of fruit that is high in natural enzymes, by itself, first thing in the morning, instead of loading your body down with more hard to digest processed food like bagels, cereal and so forth.

The reason being that the morning time til about noon, your body is still supposedly in it’s “elmination phase” where it is still working on getting the stuff out from the day before and bogging it down with more complex digestion is the wrong way to ensure smooth elimination (as the authors say “pooping” – I love it).

The authors also strongly recommend that you go organic whenever possible, and made the point that if you can’t go organic on everything, make sure you at least get organic when it is something that you eat without peeling or removing an outer layer. So for instance, you would always want to buy organic strawberries.

The reason for this is that the peel or outer shell protects the inner fruit somewhat against the pesticides that are sprayed on the fruit to avoid insect infestation, so those are a little safer to consume when non-organic.  They also point out, hilariously, that you shouldn’t be a cheap ass and not buy organic, because look at all the other crap you spend money on.

Overall, I could go on and on about what I like about the basic, albeit crudely delivered messages of this book. It’s a great, quick read, and it leaves you with a refreshing perspective on your food. The messages are good, but not everyone is meant to lead the vegan lifestyle, so if you can even apply some of the principles you will learn in this book, you will be on your way to better health.

I would also highly recommend the book Fit for Life. I believe it was published back in the seventies, but many of it’s messages are still relevant today. Again, it’s not a diet regimen for everyone and Lord knows I couldn’t follow it to a T, but it gives you another perspective on eating and food and health, and I think it’s good to see both sides of the coin.

Skinny Bitch Book Review : Part I

This review is broken up into two installments. Why?  Because I had a lot to say about the book Skinny Bitch, and I just kept going and going and going……well you get the point. I’m not exactly short winded sometimes.  Without further ado, here’s part one of my Skinny Bitch review.

I picked up a copy of the book “Skinny Bitch” when I was at Borders a few weeks ago, and since then, I’ve read it twice. I loved it.  You may have heard of this popular book by now.  The authors are Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin, one a self professed “know it all” and the other a former model and nutritionist.

While they site another book which I love and which I happened to read years and years ago a lot called Fit for Life, which advocates food combining and somewhat eschews meat like these authors do, I found the approach refreshing and very entertaining. I blew threw this book quickly. If you are sensitive or don’t like a lot of profanity or potty mouth talk, you may want to avoid this book, but if you tend to have a trucker mouth in your own home, somewhat like I tend to have at times, then this book is for you.

I did find a few one sided opinions though, such as the idea that eating soy ice cream and tons of processed soy products instead of meats and cheeses is ok. I personally think that you need to limit soy products because they have been under scrutiny for causing hormonal imbalances and also for possibly adding to blood sugar issues.  They also may screw up the function of your thyroid gland when consumed too often – this was something I read only recently.

The authors clearly advocate veganism. Veganism is a step harder than the vegetarian diet, because you have to eliminate all animal fats and meats from your diet. This includes eggs, cheese, milk and of course all meats and fish.

This  can be a lot harder than it sounds.  A lot of breads, pastas, and readily accessible foods and restaurant foods have egg or milk products in them. Even foods you may not guess have things like whey, a dairy product, or an egg derivative in them, so you have to become an avid label reader.  I even found out that Veggie Slices cheese and Veggie Shreds shredded cheese, which I thought were purely soy based, contain whey or other milk derived products in them, so they are not strictly speaking, vegan products.

Unfortunately, the truly vegan cheese is pretty hard to melt and I haven’t found any that are extremely flavorful, but I’m sure there something out there I just haven’t found yet.  I’ve been experimenting on and off with the vegan diet since reading the book, so I’ve been exploring the options and trying out some recipes, and I must say that once you open your eyes to the options, there are some very tasty options.

I still don’t think I could be a full time vegan. It’s just too hard, and I do still crave meat once in a while, and cheese and dairy products, or they’re just too hard to avoid if you’re out and about, but I still try to make healthy choices with these too.  Quinoa is one of my favorite vegan foods. It contains the full spectrum of amino acids, so it’s an excellent source of protein and fiber for vegans.

Originally when I read Fit for Life years ago, which advocates a diet very low in meat and never combining the food groups unless it’s a veggie with another food group, I thought that was hard to apply as well, although I found that approach effective as well for weight maintenance.

What is the “Lemonade Diet”?

You may have heard the term “lemonade diet” tossed around with a bit of frequency over this past year.  I’ve often heard it paired with celebrity names, and touted as a very fast weight loss trick if you want to lose a lot of weight, in a very short period of time.  Of course, you know that with any diet that promises fast weight loss, you are going to be giving up quite a bit for losing that weight so quickly, but studies recently have shown that contrary to popular belief that weight lost very quickly comes back on, and more so, people who lose weight rapidly are actually statistically more likely to keep it off for a longer period of time.

That finding really blew some commonly, dearly held myths out of the water. I myself even though that weight that was lost dramatically and quickly would almost always surely come back on, but I think it depends on the situation, and what the events were that surrounded the quick weight loss as well.

The lemonade diet is actually a little different depending on where you look. You can actually purchase kits for the lemonade diet, which make it much easier to stick with and come up with a routine to actually make sure you’re doing it right, or there is a recipe (actually a couple of them) you can find online that involve some organic, often hard to find ingredients that you have to mix up every day on your own.

The lemonade diet, at least the original one, was a phase of the “Master Cleanse” diet, which included imbibing tons of this liquid concoction that was made up of things like cayenne pepper, lemon juice, and organic maple syrup.  This is the one that is so controversial, because you literally only consume this one drink for several days on end. You may have read about Beyonce’s experience with this diet to lose weight fast for her role in Dream Girls. She says that she lost a lot of weight, and very quickly, but she says she also put it right back on.

A lot of people want to lose weight quickly, but there is definitely a price to pay to get there. You either have to cut back on calories dramatically and increase your exercise (which is very hard, because your energy levels are lower and it’s tough to exercise), or you have to go on some sort of more radical diet like the cleanse or the lemonade diet and you should see results as well.

Health Benefits of a Vegan Diet

If someone decides to maintain this decision to be a vegetarian, he mustn’t eat meat at all, including chicken and fish. If so, you need to make sure you have select the proper amount of essential dietary minerals. To be a vegetarian you must avoid animal food, including fish and poultry.

Some vegetarians avoid animal flesh, but do not avoid some other products like eggs, cheese, milk etc. These are called ovo-lacto-vegetarians. The ones who eliminate all animal products are considered to be pure vegetarians. Different people follow different forms of vegetarianism.

The well-planned vegetarian diets are good for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, even pregnancy, infancy, childhood, and adolescence. It is good when a person is has formed a habit to enjoy the vegetarianism from his early age. This diet is well-known for athletes too.

Eating a healthy vegan can provide protection from a number of diseases.
Certain amount of fruit and vegetable can reduce the risk of ischemic heart disease.
Many people today choose the vegetarian diet for a variety of reasons. It is known that vegetarians have a healthy heart, and do not have problems like low blood pressure, diabetes, various cancer forms  etc.

The main reason why every one of us should become a vegan is health benefits. The main benefits this diet offers are: weight loss, lower cholesterol and blood pressure. The ones who are vegetarian suffer less from obesity, heart disease, hypertension, therefore they feel more energized and positive.

A number of studies have shown that those individuals who follow the vegan diet live a longer life. This diet can be a very healthy option for us, but it is important to be sure if it is well balanced.

Protein is appropriate for many body processes, including tissue building and repair.  The key in vegetarian diet is to include adequate amounts of protein, vitamins and minerals, the more you consume it, the more energy you got.

Lately this kind of diet is very popular among the people for health, spiritual and moral reasons. It is recommended mostly to consume plant-based foods like vegetables, fruits the most, then cereals, bread, dairy products. Nuts and seeds can be very healthy for your body and adequate for your nutrition.

These foods and herbs contain of host of cancer-protective phytochemicals such as carotenoids, flavonoids, isothiocyanates, isoflavones, ellagic acid, glucarates, curcurmins, liminoids, lignans, phenolic acids, saponins, phytosterols, sulfide compounds, terpenoids, and tocotrienols.

Atkins Diet Revamped?

We’ve all heard of the uber popular Atkins diet that gained momentum in the late nineties and early 21st century, enjoying a revamped poularity of the book written by the famous Dr. Atkins who advocated losing weight through a high protein, low carb diet regimen where one could enjoy fatty foods like bacon and cheese to their hearts content while they had to eschew any type of carbs, even a lot of types of fruits and veggies because they were simply too high in carbs.

Carbs were king for a while, and this diet fad even arguably lead to the demise of the popularity of Krispy Kreme donuts and other high carb treats.

You saw low carb offerings everywhere. But this diet was  a fad, and while people were losing huge amounts of weight on it and praised it for being able to enjoy a lot of the fatty foods they couldn’t on traditional diets, it also started to receive a lot of backlash for the irritability that often went along with the diet, and people had a hard time going to the bathroom on it, and  a lot of people realized that this diet simply didn’t make them feel healthy if they were on it long term.

Not only that, it’s always been criticized by the medical community as being potentially dangerous to cholesterol levels and blood pressure because of the focus on high fat foods (even though some people went the more health route and chose lower fat foods that were low carb).

In short, the popularity of the Atkins diet did die out, although it still had some avid followers. Now, they are offering a revamped book that offers a wider range of offerings in this low carb diet, but it still focuses on mostly protein, and avoiding a lot of foods that are great for you, but simply don’t fit the profile because they have “too many carbs”.

The new book is called The New Atkins for a New You: The Ultimate Diet for Shedding Weight and Feeling Great, and it promises a quick weight loss through carb restriction, but with a few new caveats.

The diet still does not allow any type of healthy whole grains, most fruits and a lot of fiber rich foods that add to your digestive health and ease of elimination (this was the hardest part for me when I tried the diet, like so many others did, years ago, I could never go to the bathroom – it actually HURT).  This is what concerns a lot of people. It does, however, still let you eat a lot of veggies, and expands on that list, so that’s a good thing.  Some still wonder if losing weight this quickly, and on what many consider an unsustainable diet for the long term, is good – I’m with them on that.

Mediterranean Diet May Prevent Dementia and Mental Decline

Well, we’ve been hearing more and more about the mediterranean diet, which is a diet that is rich in fruits, vegetables and omega 3 fatty acids, and eschews a lot of animal and dairy protein in favor of plant based proteins and fish.  Just hearing that makes it sound healthy to me.

I think of how much healthier I feel when I’m foregoing a whole lot of red meat and other types of meats, and instead going for plant proteins like hummus, nuts, and whole grains and fish, and it makes total sense to me that this also helps with mental function because when I’m eating a diet that resembles this, I totally feel like I’m on my A game mentally.

Which is why researchers are finding that being on the mediterranean diet actually helps do two things. First, it helps you to stave off mental decline and dementia, and it also helps to increase your mental acuity, your “fastness” and your total brain power, which makes you feel, well just a whole lot smarter and more focused!

People who were on this diet were found to be almost 50% less likely to suffer from dementia and other mental decline symptoms, showing much higher ability to focus and concentrate, and to recall things and think clearly.  This is a huge reason, amongst other benefits like heart disease and stroke prevention and anti cancer properties, that people should really think about trying this type of diet out.

You don’t even have to go 100% on the commercialized version of the mediterranean diet, as long as you follow some semblance of the principles of this type of diet, you should notice a substantial increase in energy, a better ability to focus, accelerated fat loss, lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and a whole bushel of great health benefits that are just waiting to be plucked off the tree for your picking.