Diet Guru

Diabetes is the process of your body not processing food properly. This disorder can effect your energy and growth. Food we eat turns to glucose and when you have diabetes the food you eat is not broken down into glucose. Glucose is the basic source of energy for the human body.

There are 3 types of diabetes, Type-1, Type-2 and Gestational diabetes. The worst type and the one you will most likely not want to have is a Type 1 because this is where your body turns against itself. In Type 1 diabetes the bodies immune system turns against your internal organs and attacks the insulin produced in the pancreas. People with Type 1 diabetes need to take insulin shots daily in order to stay alive.

Type 2 diabetes is the most common because it is often caused by being overweight and today’s society there is a big obesity problem which helps contribute to this type of diabetes. In Type 2 the body makes enough insulin but for some reason the body does not use much of it, if it uses any at all. Symptoms include blurred vision, weight loss, fatigue and wounds that take a long time to heal.

The last kind of diabetes is called Gestational Diabetes. This is most often encountered with women who are pregnant or are late in their pregnancy. This form of diabetes usually will go away after the birth of the child. However, women who get this form of diabetes are more like to develop Type 2 diabetes later on in life.

You’ve heard of the South Beach Diet, the Hollywood Diet, and of course, the Atkins Diet. Well, I’m starting my own new diet. It’s called the Chocolate Diet. The kind of diet where you can lose weight and still eat chocolate every day.

Diets that don’t include chocolate don’t work. Slip up once with a candy bar and your diet is out the window. Cutting cocoa is not rational. If you give up chocolate, you might as well give up your diet. Depriving yourself of this delight can cause you to leave your diet all together. Why give up chocolate, anyway? It’s good for you! Yes, I said it. It’s good for you. Research suggests dark chocolate, rich in anti-oxidants, may lower bad cholesterol. And don’t forget about its mood lifting properties– you can practically call it an anti-depressant.

So how does the Chocolate Diet work? 2 ounces of dark chocolate per day. That’s 100 calories, folks. Will that alone cause you to lose weight? I like to tell myself that, but no. But it will add a little sanity to your pain-staking regimen of exercise and calorie counting. It can help you actually keep your diet if your diet consists of chocolate every day, right?

So if you’re going on a diet, don’t exclude chocolate from it. Go on the Chocolate Diet. Exercise, eat sensibly, and eat chocolate every day.

Everyone knows the keys to losing weight: Eat less and exercise more. Sounds simple enough, but in the context of real life and its demands, it can be anything but simple. So how do successful losers do it? To find out, WebMD asked experts across the country for their best diet tips.

Best Diet Tip No. 1: Drink plenty of water or other calorie-free beverages.

People sometimes confuse thirst with hunger. So you can end up eating extra calories when an ice-cold glass of water is really what you need.

Best Diet Tip No. 2: Think about what you can add to your diet, not what you should take away.

Start by focusing on getting the recommended 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables each day.

You’re also less likely to overeat because fruits and vegetables displace fat in the diet. And that’s not to mention the health benefits of fruits and vegetables. More than 200 studies have documented the disease-preventing qualities of phytochemicals found in produce.

Best Diet Tip No. 3: Consider whether you’re really hungry.

Whenever you feel like eating, look for physical signs of hunger, suggests Michelle May, MD, author of Am I Hungry?

When you’re done eating, you should feel better — not stuffed, bloated, or tired.

Keeping your portions reasonable will help you get more in touch with your feelings of hunger and fullness.

Best Diet Tip No. 4: Be choosy about nighttime snacks.

Mindless eating occurs most frequently after dinner, when you finally sit down and relax.

Either close down the kitchen after a certain hour, or allow yourself a low-calorie snack, like a 100-calorie pack of cookies or a half-cup scoop of low-fat ice cream. Once you find that you’re usually satisfied with the low-cal snack, try a cup of zero-calorie tea.

Best Diet Tip No. 5: Enjoy your favorite foods.

Instead of cutting out your favorite foods altogether, be a slim shopper. Buy one fresh bakery cookie instead of a box, or a small portion of candy from the bulk bins instead of a whole bag.

Best Diet Tip No. 6: Enjoy your treats away from home.

When you need a treat, Ellie Krieger, RD, host of Food Network’s Healthy Appetite, suggests taking a walk to your local ice cream parlor or planning a family outing.

And for those times you just can’t get out? Krieger stocks her kitchen with fresh fruit, which she thinks can be every bit as delicious as any other dessert.

Best Diet Tip No. 7: Eat several mini-meals during the day.

If you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight. But when you’re hungry all the time, eating fewer calories can be challenging.

She recommends dividing your daily calories into smaller meals or snacks and enjoying as many of them as you can early in the day — dinner should be the last time you eat.

Best Diet Tip No. 8: Eat protein at every meal.

Protein is more satisfying than carbohydrates or fats, and thus may be the new secret weapon in weight control.

Getting enough protein helps preserve muscle mass and encourages fat burning while keeping you feeling full. So be sure to include healthy protein sources, like yogurt, cheese, nuts, or beans, at meals and snacks.

Best Diet Tip No. 9: Spice it up.

Add spices or chiles to your food for a flavor boost that can help you feel satisfied.

When you need something sweet, suck on a red-hot fireball candy for a long-lasting burst of sweetness with just a few calories.

Best Diet Tip No. 10: Stock your kitchen with healthy convenience foods.

Having ready-to-eat snacks and meals-in-minutes staples on hand sets you up for success. You’ll be less likely to hit the drive-through or call in a pizza order if you can make a healthy meal in 5 or 10 minutes.

Best Diet Tip No. 11: Order children’s portions at restaurants.

“When you are eating out, order a child’s pizza or a small sandwich as an easy way to trim calories and get your portions under control,” suggest Perdomo.

Another trick is to use smaller plates. This helps the portions look like more, and if your mind is satisfied, your stomach likely will be, too.

Best Diet Tip No. 12: Eat foods in season.

If you don’t love certain fruits or vegetables, it could be because you ate them out of season when they have little taste or flavor,” says Pensiero. “When you eat seasonally, fruits and vegetables are more flavorful, at their best, and I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Best Diet Tip No. 13: Swap a cup of pasta for a cup of vegetables.

Simply by eating less pasta or bread and more veggies, you could lose a dress or pants size in a year.

You can save from 100-200 calories if you reduce the portion of starch on your plate and increase the amount of vegetables.

Best Diet Tip No. 14: Use non-food alternatives to cope with stress.

Sooner or later, you’re going to be faced with a stressful situation. Instead of turning to food for comfort, be prepared with some non-food tactics that work for you.

Sass suggests reading a few chapters in a novel, listening to music, writing in a journal, practicing meditative deep breathing, or looking at a photo album of loved ones.

Best Diet Tip No. 15: Be physically active.

Although it may seem counterintuitive, don’t use exercise either to punish yourself for eating or to “earn” the right to eat more.

Focus on how great you feel, how much better you sleep and how much more energy you have when you exercise. Physical activity is good for you whether you are trying to lose weight or not, so keep it positive and build a lifelong habit.

When we eat, our body converts digestible carbohydrates into blood sugar (glucose), our main source of energy. Our blood sugar level can affect how hungry and how energetic we feel, both important factors when we are watching how we eat and exercise. It also determines whether we burn fat or store it.

Our pancreas creates a hormone called insulin that transports blood sugar into our body’s cells where it is used for energy. When we eat refined grains that have had most of their fiber stripped away, sugar, or other carbohydrate-rich foods that are quickly processed into blood sugar, the pancreas goes into overtime to produce the insulin necessary for all this blood sugar to be used for energy. This insulin surge tells our body that plenty of energy is readily available and that it should stop burning fat and start storing it.

However, the greater concern with the insulin surge is not that it tells our body to start storing fat. Whatever we eat and don’t burn up eventually gets turned into fat anyway.

The greater concern is that the insulin surge causes too much blood sugar to be transported out of our blood and this results in our blood sugar and insulin levels dropping below normal. This leaves us feeling tired and hungry and wanting to eat more. The unfortunate result of this scenario is that it makes us want to eat something else with a high sugar content. When we do, we start the cycle all over again.

What to Watch For

Simple Carbohydrates: Because of their small molecular size, simple carbohydrates can be metabolized quickly and are therefore most likely to cause an insulin surge. Simple carbohydrates include the various forms of sugar, such as sucrose (table sugar), fructose (fruit sugar), lactose (dairy sugar), and glucose (blood sugar). Watch for the “-ose” ending.

Hidden Sugar in Processed Foods: Watch for “hidden” sugar in processed foods like bread, ketchup, salad dressing, canned fruit, applesauce, peanut butter, and soups.

Sugar in Beverages: Be aware of the amount of sugar in beverages, especially coffee and soda pop. It can add up quickly, and most such drinks aren’t filling.

Fat-Free Products: Sugar is often used to replace the flavor that is lost when the fat is removed. And as if that’s not bad enough, without any fat to slow it down the sugar is absorbed into your blood faster.

Cereal Box Claims of Less Sugar: Many newer cereals do contain less sugar, but the calories, carbohydrates, fat, fiber and other nutrients are almost identical to the full-sugar cereals. The manufacturers have simply replaced sugar with other refined, simple carbohydrates.

No Sugar Added: It doesn’t mean that the product doesn’t naturally contain a lot of sugar. 100% fruit products often contain concentrated fruit juice, still another form of fructose or sugar.

Table sugar (sucrose) is often said to provide “empty calories” because it has no nutritional value other than providing fuel for energy. Honey and other more natural sugars, on the other hand, are often considered to be healthier because of the trace vitamins and minerals they provide. Still, for weight loss purposes, all of these sweeteners can simply be treated as sugar.

What You Can Do

It is also important to understand what happens when you skip a meal or go on a crash diet. When you skip a meal your metabolism slows to conserve your energy. And when you lose weight too quickly for a few days, your body thinks it is threatened with starvation and goes into survival mode. It fights to conserve your fat stores, and any weight loss comes mostly from water and muscle.

Regulating your blood sugar level is the most effective way to maintain your fat-burning capacity. Never skip a meal, especially breakfast, and eat healthy snacks between meals. Eating frequently prevents hunger pangs and the binges that follow, provides consistent energy, and may be the single most effective way to maintain metabolism efficiency.

When you will be away from home or work, plan your snacks and take them along so that you will be able to eat regularly and won’t be tempted by junk food. This may be good advice for people who stay at home, too.

But remember that it was probably snacking between meals that caused you to become overweight in the first place. It will be very important that any snacks are healthy; that they are pre-portioned so you won’t be tempted to overeat; and that meal sizes are reduced to compensate for the additional calories the snacks provide.

High fiber snacks and meals also help to regulate your blood sugar level. The fiber slows down glucose absorption and your rate of digestion, keeping your blood sugar level more consistent and warding off feelings of hunger. This makes eating apples and oranges a better choice than drinking (pulp free) apple and orange juice.

A Note about Diabetes

Some people either produce too little insulin or their body doesn’t respond to it properly. This creates too high a level of blood sugar in their blood which leads to diabetes. For further information please visit the American Diabetes Association website.

Women who eat a high-fat, high-sugar “empty calorie” diet are likely to become overweight in later years, says a new study.

On the other hand, yo-yo dieters who cut fat out of their diet or drastically reduce their fat intake may not necessarily be protecting themselves from becoming overweight either, the study findings suggest.

Overall, 214 (29%) of the women became overweight by the end of the 12-year study period, the investigators report in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

Women categorized as “empty calorie” eaters - i.e. “junk food junkies,” were 40% more likely to be overweight than those who ate a “heart healthy” diet, consisting of more fruits and vegetables, low-fat milk, and other low-fat and high-fiber foods.

Empty calorie eaters were also more likely to be smokers - who were 20% more likely to be overweight at follow-up - and to be younger than women with other dietary habits, study findings indicate.

Yet, the “light eaters,” or chronic dieters, tended to have fluctuating weights, as might be expected, and had a slightly higher risk of being overweight, the authors note.

These women tend to cut back on their calories, but not necessarily in the most wise way. They did not replace the foods and nutrients they cut out of their diet and so lacked dietary balance and variety.

Altogether, the findings show that consumers should indeed heed the advice of nutritionists - to eat a balanced diet rich in fruits and vegetables, and to exercise, an activity all of the women studied could have used more of.

Previous study findings have shown that nearly one quarter of all US adults are obese and more than half are overweight.