« Older Entries

A Quick Look at Some of Today’s Most Effective Diets

The idiot-proof diet is all about calorie shifting. That is, in this diet, you shift your food intake throughout the day instead of eating just 3 meals a day. The diet is popular because it’s actually very easy to follow and there are hardly any restrictions when it comes to the types of food you can eat.

mediaimage
The Idiot-Proof Diet

The idiot-proof diet is all about calorie shifting. That is, in this diet, you shift your food intake throughout the day instead of eating just 3 meals a day. The diet is popular because it’s actually very easy to follow and there are hardly any restrictions when it comes to the types of food you can eat.

The ‘calorie shifting’ model takes place because you eat every two and half hours. The theory is that because your body is consuming calories (energy) constantly throughout the day, it’s always in ‘burning calories’ mode instead of the ‘saving calories’ mode.

When you sign up for the diet, you get access to a diet handbook, an 11-day diet-plan and a diet calculator. You get to pick what foods you like to eat so don’t think that you’ll be tarving in this diet!

NutriSystem

The NutriSystem way of dieting is all about proper meal planning. People love this diet because it takes away the burden of trying to figure out what to eat during their dieting phase. You see, a lot of people actually get confused as to what they can eat when they want to lose weight. That’s not really surprising because there’s so much information out there and for every yay sayer, there is a nay sayer so it’s really tough to know what to eat.

However, with NurtiSystem, they do all the meal planning and portion controlling for you. You just need to sign up to any of their diet programs (e.g., Women’s Program, Men’s Program, Vegetarian Program, etc.) and order a multi-day (usually for 28 days) diet program.

After you choose your diet program, a menu is presented to you and you simply choose what you want to eat. The meals are then delivered to your doorstep at various intervals during your diet program.

The South Beach Diet

The South Beach Diet is popular because the name alone conjures bikini-clad bodies! Add to that the fact that it was founded by a cardiologist, Dr. Arthur Agatston, then you have a sort of ‘doctor recommended, doctor approved’ seal on the diet as well.

At first glance, the South Beach Diet looks a lot like the Atkins Diet in the sense that it restricts carbohydrates during the initial phase of the program (there are 3 phases). The first phase (14 days) encourages ‘normal eating’ in the sense that you can pretty much eat whatever you want but you must NOT eat bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, or baked goods. Fruit is also not allowed. No sugar. No alcohol.

The second phase allows you to SLOWLY introduce these items back into your diet but at lesser levels that you consumed them before of course. The third phase is more about general maintenance.

Weight Watchers

Probably one of the longest running diet programs out there is Weight Watchers. It believes in the overall approach where food, exercise, behavior and support are addressed.

Weight Watchers is known for advocating a point system for foods. Using this system, one calculates the calorie intake of the foods he or she eats. The number of points you can have in a day varies depending on your weight. The beauty of the program is that there are no gut-wrenching food restrictions so you never feel deprived of anything. However, the point system teaches you how to balance your meals so that even if you indulge on one food item, you don’t go overboard and consume too much in a day.

Tags:

What are all the benefits of BCAA supplement for girl’s fitness?

Different amino acids

As the BCAA is the best and widely used supplement for the muscle building, most of the girls are now using this supplement to burn fat and build body muscle mass. All these happen only because of the amino acids available in this bcaa body building supplement. They include,

Isoleucine
Leucine
Valine
All these three amino acids in the BCAA supplement are actually known as the branched chain amino acids which are smaller units to make up the proteins in your body. They serve to make the building blocks of the proteins and also increase the muscle mass in the body.

BCAA in muscle growth

BCAA body building supplement will be helpful to prevent and muscle breakdown and increasing the muscle growth in the girls. This is especially useful to prevent the catabolism in a recovery period after the exercises. After doing the resistance training for a few minutes, both the muscle breakdown and muscle synthesis will increase. In order to stop these things and growing the muscle, the young girls can take bcaa supplement after exercise.

Benefits of Leucine amino acid

Leucine is one of the essential amino acids or ingredients in the BCAA body building supplement. It also helps in the growth of the muscle tissues. At the same time, leucine plays a vital role in the post exercise muscle breakdown and protein synthesis for the better growth.

BCAA supplement will control muscle soreness

A lot of researches suggest that BCAA supplement controls the beginning of the muscle soreness and also reduce the muscle damages related to the heavy exercise routine. Less muscle soreness and damage will be possible by easily and quickly recovering the muscles while your body building training.

BCAA in burning fat

Many girls are experiencing a problem of body fat especially belly fat which will completely reduce their overall body structure. In order to improve their look and appearance with the desired fitness, everyone is recommended to try using the BCAA supplement along with your diet plan and fitness training. It will be highly beneficial to burn body fat and completely reduce excessive body weight along with dieting. Many studies have proven that BCAA supplements help controlling the leptin, satiety, adiposity, glucose, and also the overall body weight.

BCAA for athelets

Most of the sports personalities and athelets are essential using this branched chain amino acids (BCAAs) in order to increase their metabolism level and building their muscles. The amino acids in this supplement will be helpful for the muscle growth and also build new proteins in their body.

What BCCA does for girls?

Branched chain amino acids supplement is often used to treat obesity, liver disease, and various brain conditions of the girls. In the healthy girls, BCAA supplement helps to build the body muscles, improve concentration, and also prevent fatigue. When the women are consuming these amino acids in a daily manner, they will improve your overall exercising performance and also decrease the muscle breakdown.

Benefits of BCAA body building supplement:

When the girls often take BCAA body building supplement, you will surely experience a lot of health benefits. They include,

Improving exercise performance – When the women with the goal of body building are doing regular exercises, they will cause the boost in the serotonin levels which will then cause fatigue in their body. Having BCAA supplement along with your regular weight loss & fitness exercise will surely reduce the levels of serotonin and thus eliminate fatigue in the ladies. Thus, this supplement will totally improve the exercise performance. According to the results of many studies, bcaa supplement in the body building training will increase the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood with the improvements of overall physical and mental health.
Experts suggested taking BCAA – The human body usually gets BCAA (Branched Chain Amino Acid) from the various types of foods like legumes, meat, and etc. But they are slower process to mix all these essential amino acids in your blood and muscles for increase the protein and helps in muscle growth. Instead of consuming such kinds of foods, the exercise trainees can go for the BCAA readymade supplement currently available in the market. This body building supplement is suitable for both men and women to get significant macronutrients to build the muscle mass. There are various manufacturing companies providing different brands of BCAAs in the market. From among them, it is essential to pick the reliable and reputable company to get all benefits of BCAA supplement for your fitness.
Reducing muscle breakdown – The branched chain amino acids in this supplement is primarily metabolized in the skeletal muscles of the humans for your overall exercising benefits. They often help decreasing the soreness of the muscles, repairing the damaged muscles, and also improve the overall muscle function. A lot of studies also show that the BCAA supplement helps to reduce the induced muscle damage related to the exercises and also encouraging the muscle protein synthesis. Thus, it helps reducing the muscle breakdown in the girl’s body and improving their muscle growth for desired range of body building along with the enough muscle recovery.
The BCAAs in the supplement form is a perfect choice for all girls who are doing weight loss, fitness, or body building exercises in the gym or at home. This supplement is actually free form and don’t require digestion. The different types of essential amino acids in this supplement will be rapidly absorbed into the human blood stream for taking maximum effect in growing muscles, burning fat, and several other benefits. The branched chain amino acids actually spike the amino acids levels of the girl’s blood to the greater level and also extent faster than the peptide bound aminos.

Some forms of these BCAAs will also spike the plasma levels to the same higher level to make quicker impacts on the protein degradation and protein synthesis. It can be used as the immediate energy source for the athelets or the girls who are doing weight loss or body building exercises. Isoleucine and Valine in the BCAA supplement are actually considered as the glucogenic amino acids which will then be converted as the glucose to serve as a significant energy source. This complete energy given by the bcaa healthy supplement will be highly beneficial to fight against the fatigue in the women’s body during their body building and fitness workouts.

Tags:

Get Slim With Atkins Diet Plan

The Atkins’ diet has been a craze for a couple of decades. Here’s how you can gain from it.

mediaimage
All of you who are reading this article right now have definitely been on a diet at some point or the other of your lives. The battle of the bulge is an ongoing problem and we are always on the lookout for various means to win this war.

Along with exercise, our diet and nutrition also plays an important role in reducing our weight. Hence, this obsession persists in all of us to undertake some form of dieting. But going on a diet is definitely not an easy thing. What to eat and what to stay away from is always a perennial problem.

One of my friends told me that she ate the normal menu which she cooked for the family, but her weight loss recipe is “portion control.” This is a really simple diet plan. In this plan, you cut down on the portion of food you consume. For example, if you usually have two pieces of toast for breakfast, you should eat only one piece. If you normally eat two cups of rice for lunch, cut it down to one cup. In this way, you are automatically reducing your calorie intake by half.

Another popular method of dieting is to stop all intake of fatty foods and sugar. In this diet, you cut down on your oil, butter and ghee intake which automatically reduces your fat deposits.

While I was leafing through a magazine, I read about one of our Hollywood celebrities following the Atkins’ diet. This immediately aroused my curiosity about the diet. Though I have heard about the diet many times, I had no inside knowledge about it. So, I immediately set to work on it and found out certain basic facts’ about the Atkins diet which I want to share with my readers.

The Atkins’ diet made its first appearance in 1972 and was invented by its namesake, Dr Atkins. According to him, this method enables us to lose weight by inducing a change in metabolism. Our body burns both fat and carbohydrates to provide energy. If we reduce the intake of carbohydrates significantly, our body starts burning only fat to provide energy. This method is called “lipolysis”, which in turn induces ketosis. In ketosis, our body burns fat as fuel. Atkins also felt that ketosis will affect insulin production which will result in less fat being formed. And, once your body enters ketosis, your cravings for carbohydrates will reduce significantly which, in turn, will reduce your body weight.

The major difference between Atkins’ diet and other types of diet is that, while most diets restrict calorie, intake, the Atkins’ plan encourages us to eat more. While most of the diets recommend low fat, high carbohydrate intake, Atkins’ does just the opposite. Instead of carbohydrate and sugar, this diet wants us to consume plenty of fat and protein.

The core principle of the Atkins’ diet is that, by limiting carbohydrates, our body is forced to burn its stored fat, rather than carbs for fuel.

The Atkins’ diet has a four carbohydrates stage plan induction, ongoing weight loss, pre-maintenance and lifetime maintenance. With the help of these four stages, you can reduce as well as maintain your weight throughout your life.

Induction – phase 1: This phase lasts for two weeks, by the end of which you can obtain significant results. Another point is that, in this diet plan you can begin at any of the phase. But it is recommended to start with induction. As you cut back on your carbohydrates significantly in this phase, you will jump start your weight loss programme. In this phase, only 20 gm of carbohydrates are allowed and hence your weight loss is significant. As you drastically cut down on carbohydrates your body shifts into high gear and starts burning fat. This takes about 48 hours to occur and you may feel hungry and irritated for the first three-four days. But don’t worry, as soon as your fat starts getting converted to fuel, you will feel fit as a fiddle. Induction will strengthen your immune system and also improve our long-term health.

Ongoing Weight Loss (OWL) phase 2: In this phase, the weight loss pace slows down as you add nutrient-rich carbohydrates to your diet. During this period, you will boost your body’s ability to burn fats as well as understand your body better. You will find the right amount of carbohydrates which you can consume and still lose weight. Your body will also prepare itself for permanent weight management. The amount of carbohydrates which you can eat is increased to 25 gm per day for the first week and increased in five gm instalment for the next few weeks. If your weight loss is significant, you can increase your carbohydrate intake. A person has to be on OWL till he or she is within three-five kg of their goal weight.

Pre-maintenance – (phase 3): Pre-maintenance is a practice run for lifetime maintenance. In this phase, you are fast approaching your target. As long as you continue to lose weight, you can increase your weekly allotment of carbohydrates by another 10 gm. You will be in this phase till you reach your goal and stay on it for one month. The ultimate goal here is to achieve a state of balance called Atkins’ Carbohydrate Equilibrium (ACE). The ACE is your individual level of carbohydrate intake wherein you neither gain nor lose weight.

Lifetime maintenance phase 4: In this phase, you have to focus on your individual ACE and strive to stay within two kg of your ideal weight for the rest of your life. By following a sensible eating plan, you gain energy, better health and confidence in yourself.

By following these four phases, you not only achieve your dream weight but are also able to maintain it throughout your life. You can learn more about this diet by reading the book, Dr Atkins’ New Diet Revolution. But, as with any other diet, this plan also has its pros and cons. The good point is that this diet recommends exercise as a vital part of the weight loss programme. Another point to be noted is that you cannot start on carbohydrates after you lose weight as this will result in your gaining back all that you have lost.

Medical experts advise that people who have gout, kidney problems, diabetes or are pregnant women should not follow this diet plan. As this diet is very stringent, do consult your doctor/dietician for proper advice.

Your dietician will provide you with a proper menu chart as to what should be eaten, in what quantities, etc, based on your eating habits and general lifestyle.

Happy dieting and hoping to see slimmer and fitter readers.

Tags: