Ten Dieting Traps and Why They Must Be Avoided

As you move toward healthy weight remember that just about any diet has the potential to help you lose weight, but the real challenge is to keep it off. How does one do this? Stay away from fad diets and compulsive patterns.
If you want to lose weight for good, avoid skipping meals. Skipping meals may lead to binging later on.
Most important is not how fat you are, but what your fat/lean body mass ratio is. It is body composition that counts, not just fat.

Because fad diets often recommend large amounts of a specific food (i.e. all protein or all apples), they deprive your body of essential nutrients and lack variety and balance.
Beware of diets that promote this kind of unbalanced weight loss, Almost any food can be used to excess. Those people who tend toward excessive or compulsive eating patterns often seek out one miracle food to magically burn the fat off of their body. Unfortunately, they are always disappointed. Some of the healthiest, most nutritious foods can become problematic if used in excess, or if eaten as part of a nutritionally deficient program. Here are a few areas to be aware of:

1. Do not begin a weight-loss program before you’re emotionally ready,It is important that you are highly motivated to begin and maintain your weight management program.

2. Beware of rigid menus and nutritionally unbalanced weight-loss diets. Few people follow diets that require strict adherence to rigid menus for any reasonable length of time. Even if they start off with the best intentions, boredom and frustration usually win out in the end. This can lead to eating an unbalanced diet in a misguided quest to cut back on calories and/or fat. Some people cut out entire food groups, such as grains or carbohydrates.

3. Beware of magic herbal formulas diets that claim that certain foods or herbal pills will magically make fat disappear without any special calorie-control programs are not worth following, Avoid at all costs.

4. Beware of the diets that promise that you will lose large amounts of weight overnight should arouse your natural suspicion. Keep this in mind: at the beginning of virtually any diet that restricts calories and carbohydrates, the weight you lose is water, That’s right Water!,and studies show that the faster you lose weight, the more likely you are to regain it. Most gimmicky fad diets work in the short run because they are low in calories, not because of anything special about the diet.

5. Don’t trust a program that sounds too good to be true, you are not going to lose fourteen pounds in ten days and do so in a way that does not put stress on your body. Fat does not melt away while you sleep, you lose weight by exercising, reducing caloric intake, and increasing your metabolism in a balanced and healthy way.

6. Beware of keeping your shelves empty. Keep healthy snacking foods around the house. Because they’re afraid of overeating, many people who are trying to lose weight keep little or no food in their cupboards.

7. Beware of extreme protein diets. According to a report in the Tufts University Diet & Nutrition Newsletter (March 1985), excessively high protein intake can cause the body to lose calcium through the urine. In the long run, especially in the elderly, this calcium loss can place some individuals at greater risk for the brittle bones and unexpected fractures associated with osteoporosis. Beware of diets that use excessively high or low amounts of protein. Ingesting overly high levels of protein will increase your risk of many serious illnesses, including cancer and heart disease. Other side effects can include constipation, cramps, bad breath, and hair loss. When your diet is too low in protein, your body may damage itself by utilizing the protein from your own organs and muscles.

8. Beware of diets that recommend less than one thousand calories per day. When you cut your caloric intake suddenly, your body may reduce the number of calories it burns. Thus you may follow a low-calorie diet and still not lose weight.

9. Beware of fasting alone, it may not be the most effective approach to weight control. This is because people who lose weight through fasting not only lose body fat, but also lean muscle tissue. The loss of lean muscle mass can result in a reduction in a person’s basal-metabolic rate that makes it more difficult for them to continue to lose weight and maintain the weight loss they have already achieved. In addition to this problem, when a fasting dieter puts the weight back on, it is primarily as fat, another problem with fasting as a weight loss strategy is that extremely low-fat diets can actually increase blood levels of certain types of “undesirable cholesterol.”.

10. Beware of going from one diet to another within a short period of time. Avoid making too many changes at once. Some people will start on a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet. Then they switch to a diet that cuts back drastically on fat and calories and increases fruits and vegetables. Then they switch to an intense daily exercise and juice program. All this switching can set you up for failure.

6 Benefits of Eating Watermelon

 
the Watermelon , is a summer fruit it has a high nutritional value, a sweet taste, a spherical or cylindrical form, with a light green color or bold, red pulp containing  black color seeds. Every 100 grams of watermelon contains 30 calories, 1 gram dietary fiber 0.10 g Sugar 0.1 g protein, free of fat and cholesterol, contains vitamins such as A, C, E, D,, niacin, thiamine, B6, B12.
Also contains minerals such as iron, calcium, magnesium, manganese, potassium, phosphorus, zinc, fluoride, selenium. Free of sodium. In addition to its nutritional value also has other health benefits, including:

1. The heart:
To maintain a healthy heart needs to follow a diet low in fat, cholesterol, and is rich in antioxidants such as (lycopene), which works to fight free radicals compounds. Thereby protecting vessels and arteries from hardening. The watermelon is rich in antioxidants, a compound citrulline. Which helps to maintain good levels of arginine. Necessary for the production of nitric oxide. Which plays an important role in maintaining the elasticity of the arteries and blood vessels by helping to restrain oxidation reactions.

2. Cancer:
Watermelon is rich in antioxidants such as lycopene, it contains twice the amount found in tomatoes. Watermelon also contains vitamin C, A. These compounds play an active role in the fight against several cancers, such as breast cancer, prostate cancer, cervical cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer by protecting cells from free radicals. a Chinese study in 2009 showed  that compounds found in watermelon  increases the apoptosis in breast cancer cells.

3. Sexual activity:
the natural Viagra is the name given by researchers to Watermelons, because it's a rich source of the citrulline amino acid , which works to increase the expansion of blood vessels, thus allowing the passage of more blood to the penis vessels leading to an erection. Dr Patel from the University of Texas said that citrulline acid  turns to arginine acid. These is a preliminary step for the production of nitric oxide, which helps dilate blood vessels.

4. Infections:
watermelon plays an important role in addressing many of inflammation in the body, including inflammation of the joints. This is due to the role of vitamins contained in watermelon.

5. Kidneys:
Watermelon plays the role of detergent for the kidneys of salt limestone  because it contains potassium, which performs the task of removing salts, potassium also works to reduce the concentration of uric acid in the blood. Thus reduce the chance of the formation of kidney stones. Watermelon also works as a diuretic because it contains a large amount of water.

6. Hypertension:
potassium and manganese helps in the regulation of blood pressure, and antioxidants works to maintain the health of the blood vessels against multiple sclerosis, which helps to facilitate the mouvement of blood in the vessels, thus reducing high blood pressure.

Other benefits

• eating watermelon helps in weight loss where each 100 grams contains only 30 calories.
• eating watermelon helps to regulate blood sugar levels, potassium and magnesium helps the body to produce insulin.
• Watermelon is useful for eye health because it contains a good amount of vitamin A.

The multiple benefits of cinnamon for weight loss

 It is known that cinnamon spice is favorite among many cooks, but also its the magic ingredient to many nutrition scientists who are aware of its therapeutic benefits, it features of unique flavor and taste, and many health benefits and the most important is weight loss.
 How cinnamon helps to lose weight?

 Cinnamon has enormous therapeutic capabilities for high blood pressure:
This, of course, added to its flavor and smell that stimulate appetite. Modern medical studies have proven the capabilities of these therapeutic spices, as the researchers found in the University of Toronto that eating cinnamon could significantly reduces blood pressure, Studies show that the ingredients included in the cinnamon are stimulating the insulin receptors and inhibit an enzyme that inactivates insulin. It also lowers LDL cholesterol and triglycerides in the blood and prevents from diabetic complications and cardiovascular disease in people with diabetes type 2.

Cinnamon helps to reduce the  blood sugar level:
When levels of blood sugar increased, after a meal the body is then more likely to be overweight or have difficulty to lose excess weight. And  maintain the stability of glucose levels is an essential element of weight loss.
The study showed that cinnamon has a beneficial effect on blood sugar levels, possibly because it helps  to control glucose levels by enhancing the effectiveness of insulin. The scientists stressed that cinnamon also kills the bacteria, and that it seems clear  in Sri Lanka, where the cinnamon is used to clean teeth.

Cinnamon control insulin levels in the blood:
Along with maintaining blood sugar levels, cinnamon also helps to stabilize the insulin levels. And maintain minimum levels of insulin is another element of public health and weight loss.

Cinnamon helps to create a chemical reaction:
When eating cinnamon, the body reacts chemically to complete the process of digestion of cinnamon. This interaction helps to dramatically speed up metabolism to compensate for the excess heat generated by the process of digestion of cinnamon. When you speed up metabolism,  the body  burns more calories while increasing the rate of loss in weight significantly.

multiple uses of Cinnamon in weight-loss:
There are many ways to add cinnamon to the diet and daily meals. For example, you can add a little cinnamon to food during breakfast. You can also sprinkle a little cinnamon to the apples or pears, or other different kinds of fruits as a snack during the afternoon. you can also add a little cinnamon to a cup of yogurt or coffee or tea. You can enjoy a cup of hot cinnamon, taking advantage of the multiple health benefits of cinnamon drink.

It does not matter how to eat cinnamon as long as it is dealt with on a regular basis. All you have to do just keep cinnamon always available in front of you, it would be easy for you to add some cinnamon to your meals daily.

4 tips to weight loss

If you do not like to follow a particular diet for weight loss, here are 4 easy tips guaranteed to lose weight:

1. Avoid sweets because they are the main source of sugars that play the biggest role in weight gain because it gives  the body  too many calories. If you feel the desire to eat sugar,  Replace sweets with dates.

2. Canceled dinner from your list, or at least, eat a last meal of the day before seven o'clock ,  you will not believe how much this move will be reflected positively on your weight loss and the fact that dinner is the main meal that contributes in the weight gain.

3. Do not eat until satiety feeling, because this bad habit will cause increasing the size of the stomach with time and thus increasing the need for larger quantities of food. the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him said to use one-third of our stomach for food, one-third for drink and one-third of the air, so we keep our bodies healthy and intact. This advice will help to lose weight because it will lead to reduce the size of the stomach with time and thus reducing the amount of food that you need to feel stomach fullness.

4. Avoid small meals between the main meals because they contributes in weight gain, if you feel hungry between meals, and that your body needs more food and energy take some fruit or nuts and juices.
Whilst weight loss is beneficial but the main goal should really be a lifestyle change, eat healthy food, sleep well  and incorporate more exercise into your life for exemple you should take advantage of daily opportunities  like taking the stairs instead of the elevator and parking away from the mall and other opportunities to increase agility and physical fitness and speed up the process of weight loss.