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Many over-the-counter diet pill manufacturers say their product will help you see miraculous weight loss — like losing up to 30 pounds in 30 days — without diet or exercise. Their claims sound too good to be true, and most of them are.

A few pills, especially the newer prescription varieties (such as Meridia and Xenical), have been shown in clinical studies to help dieters shed a few pounds. But the majority of the ads you see on the Internet and TV are for products that are unregulated, untested and unproven. Read the rest of this entry »

What Is Diverticulitis?

Diverticulitis is another one of those conditions that has followed from industrialisation, and a fundamental change in eating habits to a diet of processed food. The condition emerged after milling became commonplace in Western countries, starting in the US. Milling grains strips out valuable fibre, and since the early 20th century a shortage of fibre in diets has been commonplace amongst the American, and other Western, population.

Diverticulitis actually follows on from a condition called diverticulosis, which tends to come with age, particularly over 60. Diverticulosis is quite common, and past the age of 60 about half the population have this condition. With diverticulosis people experience the formation of small pouches in the intestinal tracts. These pouches are called diverticula. They are, in themselves, harmless, and most people never know they have them. Read the rest of this entry »

“Polyols” or sugar alcohols are a number of different carbohydrates that are neither sugars nor alcohols–and are commonly used as artificial sweeteners in a range of products, from ice cream to chewing gum.

While these tasty sweeteners appear to be the perfect solution for both low-carb dieters and low-carb food producers, recent studies of sugar alcohols have painted a somewhat different picture.

To begin with, sugar alcohols are not entirely carb-free. Most studies have indicated that sugar alcohols contain approximately 1/2 to 1/3 the amount of calories as sugar–and in the form of carbohydrates.

In addition, studies have shown that sugar alcohols are absorbed by the small intestine, but the process is slower and fractured. This affects a rise in blood sugar, but again is smaller and more gradual than with sugar–and the rise tends to vary from person to person. Read the rest of this entry »

(ARA) - Americans love salt. It’s in the news, it’s in our food, and it’s a part of our culture. It’s estimated that the average American consumes more than 4,000 milligrams of sodium a day. The Food and Drug Administration’s recommended daily allowance is 2,400 milligrams, or about one teaspoon.

Recently, salt has been in the news as experts debate its role in high blood pressure. Researchers have studied the causes of high blood pressure extensively over the past three decades. Scientific studies have confirmed and denied a connection between salt intake and high blood pressure, leaving many to wonder: should I reduce sodium in my diet? Read the rest of this entry »

Sensible diet prevents obesity!
Healthy living prevents most diseases!
(Unfortunately, old age is not a disease.)

These truths should be self evident.

Yet recent shock headlines tell us that “medical problems caused by obesity are costing U.S. tax payers $75 billion per year”.

The human body is a biological machine. We all know that overloading a mechanical machine can cause it to break down, yet we allow ourselves to overload our hearts, joints, and more. Moderate exercise helps “tune up” the machines we live in. Read the rest of this entry »

The heated debate, within diet circles, that began a few years ago and continues today is over the effectiveness of the high-protein, low-carbohydrate, type diet versus its counterpart, the high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet.

To the delight of the Atkins diet enthusiasts, recent studies have suggested that a diet high in protein and low in fat has a greater effect on diet induced thermogenesis (calorie burning) than a high carbohydrate low fat diet.

Before we go further we need to familiarize you with a few terms we will be discussing in this article. Your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) is the total energy your body burns in a day. TDEE consists of 3 components: diet induced thermogenesis (DIT), basal metabolism, and physical activity. Read the rest of this entry »

An increasing trend over the last few years has been for diet books to make things complex.

I expect it’s because each one vies with the other to come out with some brand new theory or other about why we gain weight and why their diet plan is the only one to help us lose it. And the low fat, low calorie stuff has already been covered!

My problem with this new trend is that the diets all involve more counting and while basic maths was never a problem at school I don’t want to use it at the dinner table to know what I can eat. And while counting calories is one thing (most of us are probably walking encyclopaedias by now with how many calories our usual choices contain) the new diets are so much more complex.

With the new diets we need to know carbohydrate counts and fat grams, GI index and all sorts. And sometimes it’s not enough to have a straight count we have to work out our percentage of carbohydrates, proteins and fat (yes, follow one particular diet and you have to balance these at EVERY meal). Read the rest of this entry »

When I was growing up, I thought soy sauce was salty water with dark coloring and some secret soy and wheat stuff mixed in. That’s because my parents did not know any better than to buy LaChoy brand.

Some of the cheapy stuff from China is not any better.

Oriental friends introduced me to real home cooked delights that one never finds in a typical Chinese or Japanese restaurant in my country. They even introduced me to authentic ethnic restaurants.

I gradually learned that there is a tremendous variety in Soy Sauce, whether made with added wheat (Shoyu) or without (Tamari). Some connoisseurs spend as much time studying the character of soy sauces as others do on wines. Read the rest of this entry »

Made from cow’s milk, whey protein is a pure, all-natural, high-quality product that contains little to no fat, lactose or cholesterol and is a rich source of essential amino acids. In its purest form, whey protein isolate, it provides benefits for men and women of all ages, including infants and toddlers.

Whey protein provides innumerable benefits to athletes and dieters, boosts the immune system, helps bone strength and improves overall wellness. As time goes by, new studies on whey protein continue to verify and amplify its positive benefits. Currently, whey protein is regarded by a growing number of people to be beneficial in cardiovascular health, athletic strength and the proper growth of infants and toddlers.

Of recent note — due to the wave of popularity of the Atkins diet that has swept across the country — has been the interest given to high-protein diets. There have been many studies that have concluded that high-protein diets are a good method for weight loss in many people. However, what few people know is that there is a difference in the type of protein used in the diet as regards the overall health of the dieter. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the first things that you’ll do when you decide to lose weight is to set a goal weight. For most, that goal will be their ‘ideal weight’, but for many, that ‘ideal weight’ may be exactly the wrong weight for them to be aiming for.

Years of dieting or being overweight have the physiological effect of moving the body’s concept of the ‘ideal weight’ from what is truly considered ideal. The ’set point’ is the weight at which your body naturally feels most comfortable. If you’ve been overweight for a very long time, or if you’ve consistently ‘yo-yoed’, your body may respond to your initial weight loss by lowering its metabolism because it believes that you are starving to death. This slowing leads to discouraging plateaus that often knock people off their diets entirely, and lead to regaining all or part of the lost weight. Read the rest of this entry »