I posted two questions last week where I happened to mention being on a healthy diet and exercise plan for pregnancy. A lot of people freaked out. I got comments like "diet and pregnancy shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same sentence" and "you’ll put your baby under undue pressure". Are people really that trained to only associate the word diet with cutting food and deprivation that they can’t even recognize when it is being used to describe healthy eating habits? Do we no longer realize that the formal definition for diet is "food and drink regularly provided or consumed " or "habitual nourishment"? What are your thoughts? When you hear the word diet do you think of "dieting" or do you use it as a word to describe ones eating behavior or patterns?
To even further clarify, in my previous questions I clearly stated "If I continue to eat right and exercise at an appropriate level". I did use the word diet, but given the context in which it was written it would not have been difficult to understand the way in which it was being used.

Some people eat only when they are hungry and stop when they have had enough. These are the lucky ones, people who stay trim and thin without effort. For them food is simply a source of nourishment and energy.

Other people eat to satisfy inner emotional needs and they don’t stop eating when they have had enough. Are you one of these people? Do you eat even when you don’t need nourishment and energy? Do you eat to feel good, or to relieve emotional pain or discomfort? This often leads to serious weight problems, so read on.

Part of the problem is the role that food plays in your life – a role of comfort and entertainment. Culturally and instinctively we prepare and serve foods to comfort those who have experienced loss, to celebrate joy or to show friendship and love.

But the major part of this problem is the way you were raised; the things that happened to you when you were a child that concerned food. This includes the use of food or candy as a reward, the things that the grownups said about food, the withholding of food as a punishment, the lack of food in some families, and the eating habits of the adults who served as examples for you.

WHAT IS EMOTIONAL EATING?

Emotional eating is when a person turns to food as a way to deal with feelings. These feelings can be pain, or anxiety, or boredom, or jealousy, or joy, or any other feeling. Emotional eating also involves obsession with food, weight and dieting.

Emotional eaters use food to avoid dealing with feelings, or to temporarily relieve unpleasant feelings. Unfortunately their eating often leads to guilt which can only be soothed by more eating, or by restrictive dieting, excessive exercise or purging.

Emotional eaters are often obsessive about their weight and how closely they stay with their diet plan. In this case they will panic when their weight goes just above their planned maximum. They will eat only certain foods, and often have an extremely restrictive diet. This type of emotional eating can lead to serious eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia, which can be life threatening.

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU ARE AN EMOTIONAL EATER?

Do you eat when you are not hungry? Are you obsessed with food – do you think excessively about when you plan to eat, or find yourself concentrating on not eating?

Do you alternately diet and binge, and then fell guilty? This is a strong indication of emotional eating.

Do you purge excess food by throwing up or use laxatives? Do you exercise compulsively? These behaviors are bulimic and are very dangerous to your health.

If you are in the habit of eating to feel better, then you might want to find out the source of your emotional eating and do something about it. In a study of 3,500 people, women suffering from moderate depression or anxiety ate an average of 118 extra calories each day. That could cause a weight gain of 12 pounds over just 1 year.

HOW DO YOU OVERCOME EMOTIONAL EATING?

Emotional eating is caused by using food as a way to handle emotional situations. Dieting is not recommended, as it can actually create more problems. When you are unable to stay on your diet you suffer guilt feelings that can only be soothed with more food and in turn, more guilt. What is needed is an approach that deals with your basic emotional issues.

Instead of trying to focus on what you are eating, you need to learn new skills to deal with stressful emotions. This can require the help of a Personal Coach or Psychotherapist. There are also many books on the subject, as well as audio programs, self hypnosis programs, and many types of instructional materials. Basically, you need to find replacements for the comfort that food now provides. You need to put food in its rightful place and learn healthy eating habits. There is a lot of help available.

Article Source: http://www.dietarticles.info

Terry Brussel-Gibbons, PhD, is a certified Clinical Hypnotherapist with over 30 years experience. She is Director of the Success Center in Encino, California and is a success coach, keynote speaker, and author. Download her free E-book “Weight Loss Secrets”, at www.trimandthin.com

The hallmark of a successful diet is one on which you are able to lose weight, while still feeling as if you are getting enough to eat. While that may sound impossible, making healthy choices about what to eat is just as important as how much you consume. Learning to diet sensibly can help you to lose or maintain your current weight, while getting all the nourishment and emotional satisfaction that your body needs. Following are some expert tips to help you get the most out of your diet.

Diet Tips for Losing Weight
Dieting is never easy, but knowing how to avoid some common dieting traps can help you to stick to your resolve.

1. Eat a Healthy Breakfast Every Day. While many dieters opt to skip breakfast, doing so actually hurts your attempt to lose weight. If you wait until lunch to eat, your bodys metabolism will slow down and any calories you consume for the rest of the day will take extra time to burn. Even a piece of fruit or a slice of whole wheat toast can give your metabolism the boost that it needs.

2. Get a Diet Buddy. If you have a friend who is also trying to lose weight, team up to keep each other honest and provide moral support. Knowing that there is someone else you can turn to for encouragement can help you to stay true to your diet plans.

3. Read About Ingredients. Instead of just finding out how many calories a certain product contains, look at the complete nutritional value of the item. Reading the label can tell you how much sodium, fat and carbohydrates are loaded into your meal. Calories are very important to weight loss, but they are not everything.

4. Supplement Your Diet with Vitamins. When you are trying to lose weight by reducing certain types of food, you may be unconsciously limiting important nutrients and vitamins from your diet. Adding a vitamin supplement to your plan will help you to keep balanced and healthy.

5. Plan Ahead When Eating Out. Knowing what you want to order before you even arrive at the restaurant can help you to avoid looking at the menu and giving in to temptation. Try to frequent restaurants that have fresh salads and offer a variety of low calorie choices.

6. Stop Eating When You Are Full. It may seem like common sense, but many people feel the need to finish everything on their plate, or eat until they feel stuffed. It also helps to eat slowly since the brain can take up to 20 minutes to register that the stomach is full.

7. Add an Exercise Program. Combining a sensible, healthy diet with even a moderate exercise regime will significantly enhance the results you see on your waistline.

Article Source: http://www.dietarticles.info

Wendy Wood is a full-time mom in the process of losing extra pounds and loves to show other moms how they can lose weight and be healthier as well. Sign up for your free healthy recipes at www.DietMamma.com

With the fast-paced, technologically driven world people are now living, who would have the slightest idea that the most important rampart of normal living is being neglected?

Undeniably, because of the busy courses of people’s lives, people tend to forget some of the vital fragments in maintaining a healthy lifestyle diet and nutrition.

THE CONVERGENCE

The terms “diet” and “nutrition” are defined into two different sentences but are greatly connected. By definition, “diet” refers to the food and liquid intake of a person while “nutrition” pertains to the science of dealing with food and nourishment. When these two are combined, an entirely new meaning can be derived. More than the issues of food and liquid intake and the science of food and nourishment, diet and nutrition can revolve around nutritional information on various dietary supplements and the benefits vitamins and minerals to a person’s body.

Making yourself familiar with latest diet and nutrition topics, trends, and tips can lead you to the renewal of your health and well being commitment inside your home. You must remember that it’s never too late to redirect your eating habits, but before you take that drastic change, learn what are the common diet and nutrition mistakes so you can avoid them.

1. Careless assumption that the food choices you have are better than they actually are. Experts say that people who are very particular about diet and nutrition have larger tendencies of thinking and believing that their food choices are healthier than they really are. Make sure that you eat whole, fresh, and unprocessed foods whenever possible.

2. Confusion over carbohydrates. Although many people say that low carb diets are effective, experts say that there are excellent carbs that make people eat less. So before you cut down on carbs totally, make sure that you have consulted your dietician if this diet will be good for you.

3. You think you’re eating too much when you’re not. Experts say that one of the most common mistakes people make is that they overestimate and underestimate the amount of food their body needs. Make sure that you monitor the portion sizes of your food.

4. Not eating enough food or not eating often. Overeating and under eating may put the person at risk because it disrupts disrupting blood sugar and insulin levels. Make sure that you eat something every three hours and don’t starve before eating the next meal.

5. Neglecting the value of regular exercise. Making exercise a regular part of your life can definitely contribute to great diet and nutrition.

6. Taking in a lot of dietary supplements. A vitamin or dietary pill is a supplement that is meant to complement a person’s diet; therefore it should not be considered as substitutes for the foods you’re supposed to be eating. Experts say that one all-purpose multivitamin a day is enough to complement the nutrients you don’t get from the foods you don’t eat.

7. Following nutrition and weight loss guidelines by the book. Since people are different, it is only natural for them to have individual needs. Although diet and nutrition plans work for the majority of people, not everything can help you improve you overall diet and nutrition.

One of the major reasons why people get overweight or suffer from minor and major health risks is that they don’t practice having a healthy diet. Healthy diet which include eating balanced amount of food from all food groups along with exercise or regular physical activity can lessen people’s inclination to health problems.

PLANNING ON A HEALTHY DIET

Experts say that though basic principle of healthy diet is simple, most people are having a hard time sticking to it. Major reasons may include a super busy lifestyle, work that causes a lot of stress or even an environment that is not conducive to having a healthy diet.

Although it is hard to start and maintain a healthy diet, nothing is impossible if you really want to achieve a healthy mind and body. For starters, it is advisable to mix up food choices from each food group. Eating a large variety of foods and veggies can also serve as a warm up in avoiding the foods that contribute to drastic weight gain. Having a balanced intake of calcium-rich foods, whole grains, and protein-rich products will also keep you in track.

To be able to maintain eating a healthy diet, you must also know your restrictions of fats, salt and sugars levels, and intakes. Lastly, you must monitor your body weight regularly for you to know if your body is absorbing all the nutrients it needs.

Here are more tips for eating well and achieving a healthy diet:

1. Meals based on starchy foods are a good start to a healthy diet. Experts agree that people should eat more starchy foods such as bread, cereals, rice, pasta, and potatoes because they are a good source of energy not to mention being the main source of a range of nutrients of a person’s diet like fiber, calcium, iron, and vitamin B.

2. Load up a lot of fruits and veggies. Eating at least 5 portions of a variety of fruit and vegetables a day is an ideal way to maintain a healthy diet. But, it is sometimes hard to achieve because people do not want to waste time peeling or chopping certain fruits and veggies. The best way to keep up with the recommended fruit and veggies intake if to eat a variety of fruits that are either fresh, frozen, canned or dried and picking out veggies that can be finger delights such as celery, broccoli, carrots, beans and peas.

3. Be more “fishy” Despite of the so-called “high mercury content” of fish, nutrition experts say that eating more fish especially oily fish is an important component of a healthy diet because it is a good source of protein, vitamins, and minerals.

4. Try to cut down on saturated fats and sugars. Do not totally cut down on fats because your body needs it to stay healthy. Basically, fats are categorized into saturated and unsaturated fat. The former has high amount of cholesterol and the latter has lower amounts that lowers blood cholesterol. Cut down only on foods that are high in saturated fat such meat pies, sausages, hard cheese, butter and lard, pastry, cakes and biscuits, cream and the like. Also monitor your sugar intake because aside from causing decay, sugary foods can also be high in calories that contribute to weight gain.

5. Eat less salt. Too much salt can raise your blood pressure.

6. Drink lots and lots of water to keep your body well-hydrated.

Article Source: http://www.dietarticles.info

Low Jeremy maintains Diet-Plans.ArticlesForReprint.com. This content is provided by Low Jeremy. It may be used only in its entirety with all links included.

The Milk Diet is a diet that was promoted by Bernarr Macfadden in the early 1920′s. His belief was that milk was a miracle food and could take the place of all other nourishment. It was touted as a miracle diet that would cure disease and illness, not cause a person to lose weight as is often erroneously believed.

The Milk Diet is definitely a fad diet, at least in my mind, because it promotes having only one food (or beverage in this case) and not having anything else for the duration of the diet which could range from several weeks to several months, even to several years according to the creator of the diet. The length of time the person needed to be on the diet varied according to how sick and diseased the person was.

And when I say milk was the only thing consumed during the course of the diet, I seriously mean it was the only thing consumed. Even water was not part of the diet except first thing in the morning. Acidic fruits like oranges and lemons could be juiced and drank, or the fruits themselves sucked on if a person got nauseous from drinking the large quantities of milk required on this diet. But a person could only do this if they got sick on from the milk (which I would think must have happened a lot!).

How large were the quantities suggested? It was about five quarts a day for the average woman and six quarts a day for the average man, although determinations of how much to drink were based on either a person’s weight or their height. That means the person on this diet was drinking over a gallon of milk every day.

What kind of milk? Unpasteurized was preferred; as was cow’s milk with certain breeds of cows being determined to have better milk than others.

Today I think it would be hard to find a weight loss expert or health care professional who would endorse a diet like this because of how it completely eliminates important food groups from a person’s diet for a long period of time. Experts say the low carb diets many people went on a few years ago were too restrictive and those diets only restricted carbohydrates instead of completely eliminating them (although for some people on severely restricted low carb diets it felt like they weren’t allowed any carbs).

People probably get confused about the 1920′s Milk Diet being a weight loss diet because of the word “diet” being in the name of it. But, consider this: if a person drinks five quarts of whole milk a day, they are consuming almost 3,000 calories. If they drink six quarts, they are consuming over 3,500 calories a day. That is not a reduced calorie diet.

Article Source: http://www.dietarticles.info

Dorrie Ruplinger has written several articles about weight loss. For a free report on how to lose 10 pounds before Christmas visit LoseWeightForChristmas.com.

The concept of detox diet is not new. People always believed that not all the ingredients of our foods work for our body’s nourishment. A substantial amount of harmful substances also enter our body through the foods that we consume. These harmful substances get deposited in our body and eventually result in the severe illnesses. That is why we require detoxifying our body from time to time with help of detox diets. But the question is how far these detox diets are effective to reduce the toxin level of our body? Let’s examine it systematically.

Before going to find out the answer to the question, whether detox is truly effective, let’s explain simply what is meant by a detox diet. Detox diet involves the consumption of a group of foods that boosts up body’s natural elimination procedure. In general, a detox diet advocates the intake of such foods as raw vegetables, juice, plenty of water, fruits and likes and strongly restricts the intake of meat, alcohol, caffeine etc.

It has been proved that after living on a detox diet for a week or longer, the dieter starts to feel lighter as well as more energetic. Now it has been argued by many that these are more the symptoms of reduced calorie intake and not the direct consequence of the removal of toxins from the body.

Those who oppose detoxification program often hold that detox plans run inherent irony. The detox plans generally advocate fruits and vegetables intake while strictly restrict animal protein intake on the ground that these produce more toxins in the body. But in reality, liver, the natural detoxifying organ of our body can break down proteins more easily than the elements in certain fruits and vegetables.

So we can easily conclude that there is no need to deprive our body from the nutrients of animal proteins solely on the ground that they contribute to higher level of toxins in our body. On the contrary, a balanced diet consisting of fruit, vegetables as well as meat, carbohydrates and dairy products help our body to preserve its efficiency at the natural detoxification procedure.

A healthy and balanced eating habit help the body perform its detoxification process most efficiently where you may not need any additional detoxification program. But there are several detoxification plans and products that could provide you the most effective means to kick start a healthy and more hygienic life style.

A cut on calorie intake will make you feel less lethargic and also help you lose weight. Then making the bowel movements regular it will give you an improved digestive system. When all the organs will get back to their previous rhythm of work, the toxic materials will start to be flushed out automatically.

The end result is you get back your lost glory and vitality.

Article Source: http://www.dietarticles.info

Jason Uvios writes about “Does Detox Work? Learn What the Experts Have To Say” to visit :colon cleanse, best detox diet and acne and detox diets.