Caralluma, the new Hoodia

Caralluma comes from the cactus family, and like Hoodia in Africa, Caralluma has been used in India for a long time as a means to suppress hunger. It is one of the increasingly popular class of all natural diet pills used to make you feel less hungry while trying to lose weight without relying on caffeine or other harsh stimulants. See below for a special offer to try it for yourself.

Slimaluma

Caralluma has become increasingly popular in Hollywood and among celebrities, leading to various diet pill manufacturers to utilize this powerful hunger control ingrediant. Slimaluma for example is a patented extract of Caralluma that concentrates the properties of the Caralluma plant to achieve the best appetite control and limit hunger pains while on a weight loss diet.

Caralluma Proven Clinially Effective

In several clinical studies, this Caralluma extract has proven effective at both suppressing appetite and aiding in fat loss. Feeling less hungry can be an important part of losing weight. In addition, some practitioners of Indian herbal medicine believe that Caralluma may contain other chemical compounds effective in losing fat. To try this safe, all natural plant extract for yourself see the special offer below.

Caralluma Burn

One of the more popular diets pills that utilizes this all natural appetite suppressant is Caralluma Burn. Patented Slimaluma mentioned above is a key ingredient in this hunger control diet pill. Click the link below to learn more and to order and buy these diet pills to try for yourself. A special offer is available to receive two free bottles.

Dreamfields has created a low carb pasta that can be very beneficial for low carb diet plans and weight loss in general. This low carb pasta is manufactured in such a way that the carbs are bound up extra tight with fiber and are “protected” from digestion. Dreamfields low carb pasta has been clinically tested to have a 65% lower impact on blood sugar than regular pasta, which would be very beneficial for low carb diet plans.

Dreamfields low carb pasta tastes just like regular pasta, and it can be a good way to allow pasta on low carb diet plans and others as well. The key is not to overdue it and still eat in moderation even though it is low carb. How low carb the Dreamfields pasta really is can depend on various factors, such as how long it is cooked, which type of pasta you get (thicker is harder to digest), and what else you eat or drink with it.

See these additional links for more information.
Dreamfields Low Carb Pasta Review
Dreamfields and Carb Blocker Diet Pills Review

Cheese, pastries, foie gras — France’s culinary delights are full of dietary sins. Now child obesity is rising and the myth that French people can eat anything and stay thin is fading. So the Government is fighting back. Read more at The Age.

Some of have claimed that red wine is key to the “French Paradox,” so it is interesting that they are seeing problems in people not likely to be drinking red wine (children). The “French Paradox” though often talks about heart health instead of obesity, so it would be interesting if red wine helps control obesity as well. Others have stated that obesity is controlled in French women by eating small portions slowly and savoring their food, which again might not be something children would do.

Since the early 1990s, doctors have been urging us to switch to the Mediterranean diet, claiming it will bring us a longer and healthier life. Respected researchers have proved how this diet can stave off arthritis, obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Amazingly, people living in the Mediterranean area are increasingly shunning their traditional diet according to a report released today by the United Nations. See the full news story at ABC News.

One of the reasons people on low-carbohydrate diets may lose weight is that they reduce their intake of fructose, a type of sugar that can be made into body fat quickly, according to a researcher at UT Southwestern Medical Center. See the full news release from UT Southwestern Medical Center.

The study found that one type of sugar, fructose, gets converted to fat more quickly than the other types of sugars. High-fructose corn syrup is a common sweetner in many products. Paying attention to the types of sugars in food products while on a diet and avoiding those with fructose may be another way to help improve weight loss. The study found that even four hours after a high fructose drink was consumed, the body was more likely to store fat instead of burn it.

The Zone Diet is a more strongly structured version of a “good carb” diet that has become popular lately such as the South Beach diet program. Like some of the these other good carb diets it focuses on low-fat protein, low glycemic carbs (“good carbs”), and heart-healthy fats to achieve weight loss as well as better overall health. The Zone Diet has more structure in that it requires a specific balance of protein, carbs, and fat (one gram of fat for every two grams of protein and three grams of carbohydrate.) The diet is very focused on what it attempts to achieve biochemically, including manipulating hormones involved metabolism. In addition, the Zone Diet strongly emphasizes fruits and vegetables for their specific nutrient contribution and anti-inflammatory properties (in particular polyphenols.) Overall all it has a very specific plan.

For those that prefer a more structured diet, this should be a good option. Also, those that want to strive for optimum nutrition and health based on current scientific research may find this diet program particularly interesting. The Zone Diet program does promote a healthy lifestyle that can be followed once the weight loss has been achieved. Those that want a simpler diet plan might not be interested though, and the diet program may be too involved for those that don’t want to have to balance the number of grams of protein, fat, and carbs each day (though various supplements, bar, shakes, etc.. are available to assist in this.)

Rotation diets shift around the types of food you eat day to day so that your body cannot adapt to your diet as easily. Some of these diets will shift the number of carbs you eat day to day, while others will shift the content of meals day to day (for example you might have a high-carb, low-fat breakfast for two days, then the next day it would be low-carb and moderate fat.)

The point of these is to prevent your body from adapting to your diet plan. Plateaus and “sticking points” where you stop losing weight are common problems in many weight loss programs that often require some kind of change-up to work through them, but Rotation diets have a change mechanism built in. Often even before you reach a “sticking point”, your body will start to burn fat less and less quickly as it adapts to what you eating, and rotation diets can prevent this slowdown as well. The constant change-up will make it harder for your body to realize that it is losing fat, and it will be less likely to respond by doing such things as slowing down your metabolism. Especially if your body thinks it is starving, it will do what it can to slow things down.

Rotation is a good weight loss principle no matter what diet you are on, and several diets make it the cornerstone of their program. The problem is that you still need to make sure that the rest of the diet plan is sound and will work well in conjunction with rotation. The advantage to specific Rotation diet plans is that that they will have a plan to follow if you are not good at figuring out how to do the rotation yourself.

Some of the more heavily advertised rotation-style diets are:

Carb Rotation Diet (this program tends to shift the number of carbs day to day)

Fat Loss 4 Idiots (this program mixes up your meals day to day, and has software to help plan the menu.)

Scientists have long been puzzled by how the Masai can avoid cardiovascular disease despite having a diet rich in animal fats. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet believe that their secret is in their regular walking. See full story at Science Daily.

Taking nutritional supplements can have multiple benefits to any diet plan, but an extra benefit can be psychological. Just the act of taking a supplement is an extra action you do every day to help your weight loss efforts, and it is a very simple task to complete. Even if you are having a bad diet day, you are still taking small steps in the right direction that you can feel good about. It is an easy regimen to follow and maintain, which can help prop-up your diet plan with some extra structure.

It can also be a good measure of your motivation; if you find your not keeping up with such a simple plan, then it is a warning that you need to re-focus on your diet plan as a whole.

Which supplements to take will be discussed in other posts, but the most basic choice is just a good multivitamin and mineral formula. I personally use Twinlab Daily One (without iron*). Women should use the version with iron. I usually won’t buy more than the 90 tab bottle (3 month supply) so that the vitamins stay fresh.

* It is sometimes recommended that men avoid iron supplementation unless they regularly donate blood because some studies have linked excess blood iron to cardiovascular disease.

The Atkins diet may have proved itself after all: A low-carb diet and a Mediterranean-style regimen helped people lose more weight than a traditional low-fat diet in one of the longest and largest studies to compare the dueling weight-loss techniques. A bigger surprise: The low-carb diet improved cholesterol more than the other two. See the full AP news story

Interestingly, the low-carb diet worked best for men while the Mediterranean-style diet worked best for women in terms of weight-loss. It was not clear what the reasons are for this, but some experts hypothesized (guessed) that men need a more clear-cut regimen while women are more sophisticated at dieting and following more complex plans.

See the original paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine.