This article gives an overview of The Mediterranean Diet and how using it will enable you to lose weight effectively, healthily and as importantly for good! If you are looking to lose 10 pounds this week, then this diet and this article aren't for you. However, if you are looking to make significant and lasting weight loss and become healthier in the process then read on.

Crash diets that we are all to familiar with are saturating the weight loss market - people who want to lose weight want to lose weight yesterday. This approach just doesn't work.

Typically these diets restrict your eating or deprive you of what your body wants or needs. You may lose weight initially but this mainly due to calories loss and dehydration. When we come off the diet the weight invariably piles on again - usually more so - and we are in a vicious cycle of trying the next 'best' diet ever.

So how do you lose weight?

There is a simple answer to this question. It isn't a great secret, but the diet industry try very hard to keep it that way. The only way is to lose weight is to eat a little less and exercise a little more.

Eating Less + Exercising More = Weight Loss.

On top of this you should only aim to lose a small amount of weight each week. No more than 1 or 2 pounds a week is plenty. In this first month you can expect to have lost over a stone! If you are willing to adjust your mindset, include an exercise plan and healthy eating habits, then The Mediterranean Diet is for you.

Remember being slim is only good if you are able to enjoy it!

What is The Mediterranean Diet?

People who live in European countries like Spain, Italy and Greece eat a typical Mediterranean Diet. A diet that is rich in fish, fruit, vegetables and olive oil.

Doctors and nutritionists worldwide agree that eating this way is very good for your health and can help avoid overweight related illnesses. It has now been established that there is a direct link between obesity and cancer, heart disease and kidney and liver failure.

Not only can it help you lose weight it can also make you live longer!

How does it work?

Experts agree that all the fruit and vegetables eaten by our European friends along with 'good' fats in foods like nuts, fish and olive oil are the key. All the fish and nuts mean it's also rich in essential fatty acids and antioxidants, a combination that will help improve your cholesterol levels and keep your heart healthy.

By: Mike Toal
If you would like to find out more information on The Mediterranean Diet, including detailed weight loss plan and recipes follow the link to my site.

Mike Toal is the author of many articles on dieting and healthy weight loss. For more information on this and other weight loss plans visit his website http://www.weight-loss-programs.co.uk.

The Atkins Nutritional Approach™, as the Atkins diet is commonly known, has worked for several people with weight problems, although the opinion about its efficacy, especially in the long term, is divided among the medical community. Considerable controversy surrounds the program. Most other diets, and there are numberless of them out there, follow the principle of avoiding high-fat foods. But the Atkins diet allows things like red meat, bacon, butter, cheese, eggs and so on, which are all high in fat. Yet, to the utter surprise of everyone who repose their trust in the tried and tested low-fat diets, the Atkins diet works.

The reason is rather simple. The Atkins diet limits the consumption of foods containing large amounts of carbohydrates, such as rice, pasta, white bread, cereal and sugar. Your body burns its excess fat during a process consisting of four phases, which the late Dr. Robert Atkins developed. In his book Dr.Atkins New Diet Revolution, published in 1972, he advised dieters to cut down on only carbohydrates, not both fats and carbohydrates as had been the practice followed until then.

During the first phase of Atkins diet, the dieter is allowed to eat only very small quantities of carbohydrates. The carbohydrates allowed are limited to a maximum of 20 grams per day, in the form of salads, or vegetables without starch.

The second phase allows the dieter to progressively increase the amount of carbohydrates by 5 grams (from the initial 0 - 20 grams in the first phase to 25 grams in the first week of the second phase) a day. Thereafter, as long as the dieter loses weight, the weekly increase of 5 grams of carbohydrates continues. Once the dieter reaches a stable weight, he has to reduce the carb-intake by 5 grams, so that he remains at the weight reached.

The purpose of the third phase is to help the dieter to maintain the weight reached at a steady level, if necessary, by increasing the intake of carbohydrates at the rate of 10 grams per week.

The fourth and final phase allows consumption of more foods of a wider variety, even though the carbohydrate consumption remains restricted. The idea is to maintain over a long period of time the weight reached in the earlier phases.

The question about how exactly the Atkins diet works for weight loss can be answered either by referring to complex scientific processes like lipolysis and gluconeogenesis and so on or by using simple and direct explanation that may be easier to appreciate. When the body is starved of carbohydrates, which provide quite a bit of the energy required to run its various systems, it turns to its stored fat and burns it to replenish the energy deficit. As more and more of the stored fat is burnt to supply energy to the body, more and more weight is lost. Another thing is that by controlling the amount of carbohydrate-intake in the body, the Atkins diet controls the quantity of insulin in the body. Being a storage hormone, insulin converts carbohydrates into sugar and stores it as fat in the body, in the normal circumstances. However, when the quantity of carbohydrates is lower than normal, the sugar in the body is not stored in the shape of fat, but burnt instead. Again, the result is weight loss.

Atkins has become popular for two reasons. One is that it works, especially when exercise goes with it. Two, it gives the dieters the freedom to eat the foods that are prohibited in other diet programs.

By: James Penn
Download your free report today and discover the SHOCKINGLY simple secrets that will shed pounds from your stomach & transform your flabby belly into firm & flat six pack abs. Visit http://www.firmupyourabs.com to download your free copy.

Featured by Resources For Attorneys, a Legal Resources and Lifestyle Resources portal.

Relaxation is a big part of fitness and a good way to relax is to laugh. Check out our jokes section where you will find jokes, humor and humorous anecdotes.

If you own a television then you probably have seen the old Tommy Lasorda commercials where he drank Slim Fast and lost all his extra weight. These days they use fitness models but the fact that we have all heard of Slim Fast still remains - in fact Slim Fast has been around for 20 years. Their weight loss program is based on substituting meals with convenience products – such as shakes, ready to drink powders, bars, and snacks. They built their whole program around their shakes – and are probably the best known weight loss liquid meal replacement program. Within the last few years Slim Fast has expanded into the on line world by joining forces with the weight loss super giant eDiets. The new on line presence allows Slim Fast to provide some of the usual weight loss tools for their members.

Slim Fast has many good qualities – such as encouraging exercise, drinking plenty of water, and eating often throughout the day. People have been using this program for years to maintain a healthy weight. Recently Slim Fast released their Optima Products. The benefit behind these new products is that they contain lower sugar content then their previous package.

Does Slim Fast Work?
Yes it does. Studies have shown that the program has caused sustained weight loss in over weight men and woman. When the study results came back they showed that people who followed the Slim Fast Meal Plan routinely to lose and manage their weight were, on average, 33 pounds thinner after a decade as compared to a matched group from the same community who chose not to participate in the study. The community based study is one of the longest studies ever to track people using a certain weight loss management approach.

Pros vs. Cons
When you have a meal replacement program people tend to question the results. It has been suggested that if the users of the program were to return to normal food all the weight they had lost would eventually return. However, this has more to do with the personal habits of the user then the actual program. When Slim Fast combined themselves with eDiets – they opened new doors into their program. Through eDiets you can choose from 2 different plans – Calorie-Controlled, Low Carb, or the traditional Low Fat plan – so there are a number of different options.

Previous to the arrival of the Optima Program, many questioned the high sugar content of the shakes and bars. In order to address the issue Slim Fast introduced Optima foods. The advantage to Slim Fast is that it’s a good way to achieve healthy portion control, and thereby lose weight.

By: Brodie Heinrichsen
For a wide variety of the best weight loss programs, exercise programs, and some of the best FREE fitness information on the web visit flexyourhealth.com/index.html.

Featured by Resources For Attorneys, a Legal Resources and Lifestyle Resources portal.

Relaxation is a big part of fitness and a good way to relax is to laugh. Check out our jokes section where you will find jokes, humor and humorous anecdotes.