Dieting

Eating healthy food as part of a balanced diet should be your number one concern, not forgetting to incorporate some moderate exercise into your daily routine. It was just the other day that I read about the UK governments new fitness guidelines, half an hour of hovering per day (which is considered as moderate exercise) could cut your risk of heart disease by 30% and prolong your life by up to 10 years. Exercise doesn’t have to be going to the gym, tasks such as taking the dog for a walk or tidying your kids messy bedroom all count!Many people are stuck in an eternal cycle of eating food that is bad for them, then dieting to make tidying up for it. This cycle is not recommended by experts as it alters your metabolism and can cause you to put the weight straight back on once you stop the diet.

Dieting involves taking in less calories than are being used with the shortfall being make up by the body burning its fat reserves. Diets usually concentrate on controlling the energy your body is taking in sometime by tricking you into thinking you’re not hungry or by eating foods which are filling but have a low calory content. With excercise, your excess calories are burned and so are not stored by your body as fat. The importance of exercisee in any diet should not be forgotten.

There are many different types of diet, below I have listed a small selection and their basic principles:

Atkins - Currently a very popular diet, it involves eating food which is high in protein but low in carbohydrate. By limiting the amount of carbohydrate, your body stops burning glucose and instead starts to burn fat.

Weight Watchers - These diets involve assigning points values to various types of foods. The participant is assigned a weekly points target which they have to eat. By exercising they can earn points which can be deducted from their total (thus they can eat more).

Ornish Diet - This diet involves eating fruit and food which is high in fibre and limit the amount of fat you consume to less than 10% of your overall intake. Toachievee this target foods such as meat, cheese and milk must be avoided.

Low Fat Diets - These diets consist of limiting the amount of fat as fat has more calories than carbohydrate or protein.

It should be stressed that our body requires a certain amount of calories to remain healthy, this minimum amount should always be considered when dieting. The role that exercise can play in losing weight should not be underestimated. Before starting a diet, be sure to get professional advice.

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