Diet Food

Diet Foods

  By Suzy Staywell

low carb diet foods

Magic food

I was visiting a friend a few years ago, and when she opened a cupboard in her kitchen, several boxes of food from a popular weight loss program fell out. Stereotypes

Some might include those frozen meals such as Lean Cuisine or Healthy Choice, or the commercially available foods connected to diets such as Weight Watchers and South Beach Diet.

If any of these examples represents your definition of diet food, you need to get a new dictionary. While some of these foods can form part of a healthy weight loss diet, the list of diet foods can include any and all whole foods, when eaten in appropriate portions, and should always include foods that you enjoy and can eat for the rest of your life.

Narrow diet = Recidivism

If there is one way to insure that, even if you lose weight, you will gain it all back, it is to define the food you can eat in such a narrow way. You tell yourself that you will eat this diet food until you achieve your goal and then you will go back to eating all of the foods you really like. Thousands, maybe millions of people lose weight using this thinking, and then find themselves gaining it all back, and then some, when they stop eating so-called diet food and go back to eating normal food. Billions of dollars are spent every year on diet food, but we are still more overweight than we have ever been.

First, stop thinking about foods in terms of diet food and normal food, and instead start thinking of healthy food versus unhealthy food. Healthy food includes fruits, vegetables-not just carrots and celery sticks, whole grains, lean meats, whole eggs, legumes, low-fat dairy products and good fats such as monounsaturated fats and even nuts and dark chocolate. This represents a huge list of foods and they all can form part of a successful weight loss plan and more importantly a successful life plan to maintain your weight once you have lost it.

Next, think about the amount of food you eat and educate yourself about portion size. Most people, especially overweight people, fool themselves about how much they are eating. Ignorance is no excuse under the law or in healthy eating.

For example, a 1600-calorie diet, the portion sizes for each day would be 1-1/2 cups of fruit, 2 cups vegetables, 5 oz. whole grains, 5 oz. lean meat, 3 cups low-fat dairy and 4 tsp. oils.

Finally, keep a food diary, in which you write down everything you eat, including portions. Make your own magic

In the incident mentioned above, my friend looked a bit sheepish when those boxes of programmed diet food were revealed.

Popular Diets - The Diet Food List Model

By  Lars Svenstrom

Diet food lists have been around for quite some time. Dieting is difficult because most people do not know what is healthy. They need some guidance as to what foods are beneficial for their body and what foods should be limited or outright avoided. Let's take a quick look at just three of the popular modern diets which take advantage of the food list model.

The South Beach Diet

While there is no one standard list of diet foods for this plan, there are approved foods which are kept on a list which is updated on a regular basis. There are different food lists for each phase of the plan, with the phase one list being the most restrictive. The Atkins Diet

While there has been tons of criticism and debate over the Atkins Diet, it is another low carb plan that operates off of a diet food list. While there is an Induction stage that is very strict just like the South Beach Diet, the lists of food for the entire Atkins plan are stricter with carbohydrates.

Fat Loss 4 Idiots

The plan makes use of a huge diet food list which is available online for plan participants, but it also provides a very unique menu generator that automatically creates meals and snacks from the approved diet food list. This makes it fast and easy to stick to the approved foods.

It makes dieting easier and increases the chances that more people will stick to the approved diet food list for a longer period of time.

The foods approved on this diet are extremely healthy and they are combined in ways that are satisfying and delicious, according to the follower's own taste buds.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com

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