Nutrition

Diets In Review asked:


Since when was getting a raw deal a good thing? When you decide to try the Raw Food Diet, apparently. Proponents of this natural food diet stick to unprocessed uncooked plant foods, such as fresh fruit and vegetables, sprouts, seeds, nuts, grains, beans, dried fruit, and seaweed.

Most adherents are vegetarian, while some eat raw fish and even fewer eat (gulp!) raw meat. Either way, you may as well say bye-bye to that new stainless steel stove of yours. That’s because raw food proponents believe that heating any food above 116 degrees Fahrenheit destroys important enzymes that help in digestion and absorption of the essential nourishment you get from your meals.

Critics claim that even if enzymes are inactivated when food is heated, the body uses its own enzymes for digestion. They also point out that cooking makes some phytochemicals easier to absorb into your system.

Regardless of which side you stand on, the emphasis on natural, non-processed food sources, is undeniably a good place to start.

So, are you still interested in trying the raw eating lifestyle? Since this is a pretty drastic change in your eating habits, you may experience some withdrawal symptoms such as headaches and nausea when you first give up sugar and caffeine. But don’t fret; it should only last a couple days. You may also risk some nutritional deficiencies such as protein, calcium and iron, so consider consulting your doctor first.

More diet tips and diet reviews at www.dietsinreview.com and the diet forum. Also don’t forget the diet blog



Roland

Jeff Behar asked:


The Three Day Diet is a fad diet dating back to 1985. Followers of the Three Day Diet are promised up to a 10 pound weight loss in three days. The allure of the the Three Day Diet is the promise of up to a 10 pound weight loss in three days. The reality is that most of that weight loss is likely due to fluid loss and not the more desirable fat loss.

How the Three Day Diet Works

As the name suggests, the Three Day Diet lasts only three days, though it’s said that it can be repeated indefinitely, as long as you alternate with 4-5 days of undefined normal eating. The purpose of returning to your usual eating style is to keep your metabolism from slowing, reverting to fat-storing, starvation mode

The Three Day Diet is a regimented plan that must be followed exactly for three days at a time, followed by normal eating for four or five days before opting to resume the plan again.

The Three Day Diet is a very specific food plan that must be followed precisely. Portions must be eaten exactly as specified and dieters are warned not to overeat — otherwise the promised 10 pound weight loss may not be achieved. Likewise, dieters should not under-eat, even if they are not hungry.

The combination of the suggested foods included in this plan is supposed to create a unique metabolic reaction and boost fat burning.

The Three Day Diet Meal Plan

Day 1

Breakfast

Black coffee or tea, with 1-2 packets Sweet & Low or Equal

1/2 grapefruit or juice

1 piece toast with 1 tablespoon peanut butter

Lunch

1/2 cup tuna

1 piece toast

Black coffee or tea, with 1-2 packets Sweet & Low or Equal

Dinner

3 ounces any lean meat or chicken

1 cup green beans

1 cup carrots

1 apple

1 cup regular vanilla ice cream

Day 2

Breakfast

Black coffee or tea, with 1-2 packets Sweet & Low or Equal

1 egg

1/2 banana

1 piece toast

Lunch

1 cup cottage cheese or tuna

8 regular saltine crackers

Dinner

2 beef franks

1 cup broccoli or cabbage

1/2 cup carrots

1/2 banana

1/2 cup regular vanilla ice cream

Day 3

Breakfast

Black coffee or tea, with 1-2 packets Sweet & Low or Equal

5 regular saltine crackers

1 ounce cheddar cheese

1 apple

Lunch

Black coffee or tea, with 1-2 packets Sweet & Low or Equal

1 boiled egg

1 piece toast

Dinner

1 cup tuna

1 cup carrots

1 cup cauliflower

1 cup melon

1/2 cup regular vanilla ice cream

What Food is Allowed on the Three Day Diet

The Three Day Diet gives you the freedom to eat a wide variety of foods, as long as you stick to mostly natural foods.n addition to its strict daily food prescription, dieters drink 4 cups of water or noncaloric drinks daily.

The Three Day Diet consists of ordinary foods found in your kitchen. No special expensive recipes or ingredients are required. You don’t have to buy frozen diet meals.

You can add herbs, salt, pepper, lemon, vinegar, Worcestershire, soy sauce, mustard and ketchup to your foods.

What Food is Not Allowed on the Three Day Diet

Processed food such as frozen meals, crackers, ramen soups, cake mixes, chips and candy have to be avoided. No bread, alcohol, or carbonated beverages, not even diet soda. Beverages are limited to water, and unsweetened fruit juice.

Known Benefits of the Three Day Diet

The main advantage of the Three day diet is that it helps you lose weight fast.

Apart from this fast weight loss Three Day Diet is also having other advantages like increasing your body energy, healthy skin, reduces allergies and enhanced sexual drive. Other advantages include:



The Three Day Diet can flush your body of toxins in the process as long as you stick with the program and do not overeat.



The Three Day Diet is simple to follow, reasonably cheap, less time consuming and there is no complicated recipes to follow.





The fasting of the 3 day diet can make the body to heal naturally.

Digestion uses up strength in the form of fat and muscles from our energy store Fasting also appears to release a hormone that stimulates the immune system. It also gives your intestinal system a chance to clean itself and the body time to flush out the waste products of metabolism.

A regular practice of fasting is said to also  help prevent a buildup or backlog of metabolic debris in the body, diminishing the possibility of serious illness.

Potential Risks of the Three Day Diet

Some people feel dizzy, weak, unable to concentrate and complete daily activities.If you are looking for a weight loss program and exercise plan that will help you maintain your health, weight, strength, and more, then this diet is not for you. This diet might only offer you temporary weight loss, and might not have enough nutrients in it to help you workout on a regular basis.

What the Experts Say About 3 Day Diet

“There is no such thing as a Cleveland Clinic diet,” says Cindy Moore, director of nutrition therapy at The Cleveland Clinic. “It is an urban legend that is not nutritionally sound, and the only reason it causes weight loss is because it is so low in calories, not because of any food combinations or metabolic reactions.”

Following a plan with fewer than 1,000 calories a day concerns Moore. “The plan yields about 1,000 calories a day which has the ability to lower metabolism so when you revert back to normal eating, you regain weight even quicker.”

Because the 3 Day Diet is so low in carbohydrates, it’s likely the initial weight loss is primarily water weight, as carbohydrate encourages your body to retain water. As soon as the dieter goes back to consuming a normal amount of carbohydrate, the water weight comes back.

There has been a lot of research to help us understand why weight cycling occurs. When we diet, our body still requires a set number of calories to function each day. If we do not get it from food, our body will break down its own energy stores in fat and muscle to survive. It has long been established that a diet that promotes more than a two-pound per week weight loss will break down muscle tissue for energy at a more rapid rate than it will break down fat stores for energy. Whereas, the slower one loses weight, the less our body uses lean muscle tissue for energy and the more it uses our fat stores. Lean muscle is the last thing a dieter wants to lose. Muscle tissue is the source of our metabolic rate. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn each day. The less you have, the less you burn each day. Thus, even slow weight loss diets will burn some muscle tissue for energy, particularly when unaccompanied by exercise. Choosing to lose weight fast without exercising is a no win combination that is a strong predictor of weight cycling.

Bottom Line About The Three day Diet

The Three Day Diet is a simple a low calorie diet. There is nothing magical no mystical chemical reaction that goes on as some seem to think.

The only reason that a person on this diet would lose weight is due to the severe calorie restriction. Because of the low amount of carbohydrate in the diet, it is also possible that a person on this diet will primarily lose water weight. As soon as the dieter goes back to eating a normal diet and consuming a normal amount of carbohydrate, this water weight will be gained back.

The other demerits of three day diet are:



The Three Day Diet is that never educates the dieter on how to achieve sustainable, healthy weight loss.



The diet is so monotonous, dieters gladly return to their old eating habits.



There is no documentation or scientific explanation of how the Three Day Diet food combination burn fat, increase energy, cleanse the body, or lower cholesterol.





There are numerous alternatives to the Three Day Diet that are much healthier, and will produce better results.

Look for a well-balanced weight loss plan that controls calories every day, includes exercise, and allows a wide variety of healthy foods. To lose weight, it is simply not enough to eat a prescribed diet for three days without addressing eating habits that cause weight gain.

 



Rose

Gary Vaughn asked:


The vast majority of people start dieting in order to lose weight. Losing weight can be accomplished in a number of ways. A diet is simply a specific method for accomplishing that task.

When one decides that they need to lose weight, the first thing that must be considered is the reason for wanting to lose weight. Is the weight loss going to be directed at a way to gain better health or is it more of a vanity reason? The reason for dieting is as important as the method used to lose the weight.

If attaining a more healthy lifestyle and striving for better health is the reason, it should not be of any concern how long the dieting takes to achieve the weight loss goal, if in fact there is a goal. If good health is the main objective, length of time should not be an issue because the diet should simply be a part of a life-style change in which the dieting change would be a long-term part of the life-style anyway.

If, on the other hand, vanity is the reason and the dieting person is hell bent on losing a significant amount of weight in a short period of time in order to fit into an object of clothing or simply to look great at the class reunion in a month, the method chosen for dieting will be completely different and, most likely, quite unhealthy.

Long term lifestyle type diets are usually of the type that occur in small increments of weight loss and continue as exercise is slowly increased and more healthy food, in smaller portions is consumed. These are usually quite simple diets that don’t cause a significant amount of suffering as long as the dieting person is committed to the long-term goals.

The vanity type diet is usually a quick but very self-denying diet in which the dieting person eats very little or eats foods that do not tempt the pallet as far as taste or attractiveness go. Often, very large amounts of water are incorporated into these diets and most people do not drink enough water to begin with. When they are confronted with the need to increase their water intake significantly, they hesitate or they are not very compliant. Water, when one is not thirsty, simply does not taste very good.

The vanity diet also usually requires a substantial increase in activity in the form of exercise and most people have a strong aversion to that form of activity.

There are also diets that are not in either the lifestyle change nor the vanity dieting lists but are really a forced lifestyle change that is completely necessary for the dieting person to continue to live. Once such diet is the diabetic diet. If one ignores their diabetes and continues to eat large amounts of carbohydrates, as most Americans do, they will eventually suffer serious health deterioration. So, the necessary-for-life diets are not the ones we are really concerned with in this article.

There are a number of different diets available for each of the non-necessity diets. The basic lifestyle change diet has already been described though some of the latter day fad diets are also appropriate for long-term dieting if the person doing the dieting is indeed dedicated to the lifestyle change. Some specific fad diets that would work for this person are the Atkins or low-carb diet, The Zone diet or the South Beach diet.

The extreme vanity diet person can also use the low carb diet for fast weight loss or they can try starvation or if they really want to lose weight fast and suffer a bit more but at least retain some type of decent health, they can attempt the Lemonade Diet.

The lemonade diet is highly effective but is more a fast than a diet and a special mixture of water, cayenne pepper, lemon juice and syrup are required. One must be highly dedicated to losing weight for this diet to work as no food is allowed for a period of at least ten days and the Lemonade dieter will feel worse before they feel like a million dollars. The diet is extremely effective for losing ten pounds or more in ten days though. The added benefit of this diet is that it does a thorough job of cleaning the colon.

Each one of the above mentioned diets should be highly suspect and not just accepted for it’s reputation or the current fad. One who is considering dieting should, at the very least, buy the book that is written about the diet in order to learn how the diet works with the body and effects the different body systems. Each of the authors has a lot of information included in their book about these concerns.

The main point of this article is to point out to anyone who is considering dieting that they should be very careful and choose a diet that meets their goals and health concerns. Don’t blindly go into any diet without knowing how it’s supposed to effect you, what you’re supposed to eat while on the diet, how much weight you are expected to lose in a specific period of time and what are the benefits and health concerns that attach to that diet.

In fact, it is a very good idea to discuss any diet plans with your health care professional prior to starting or even considering one of the above diets.



Theodore

Jeff Behar asked:


Dr.Robert Atkins addressed his own weight condition from a diet he read in the Journal of the American Medical Association.  Realizing the benefits of the diet he  followed Atkins later popularized the idea as The Atkins Diet in a series of books, starting with Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution in 1972. The Atkins Diet or just ‘Atkins’ is a well known low carbohydrate diet.

How Atkins Diet Works

The Atkins Diet states we can change our metabolism and lose weight easily simply by eating foods high in protein and fat and limiting foods high in carbohydrate. Consuming a high level of carbohydrates causes overproduction of insulin, leading to increased hunger and weight gain. The diet encourages the consumption of foods rich in protein.

The Four Stages of the Atkins Diet

Induction

The Induction phase is the first, and most restrictive, phase of the Atkins Nutritional Approach. It is intended to cause the body to quickly enter a state of ketosis. Carbohydrate intake is limited to 20 net grams per day.

Ongoing Weight Loss

The Ongoing Weight Loss (OWL) phase of Atkins consists of an increase in carbohydrate intake, but remaining at levels where weight loss occurs. The target daily carbohydrate intake increases each week by 5 net grams.

Pre-Maintenance

Carbohydrate intake is increased again this time by 10 net carbs a week from the ladder groupings, and the key goal in this phase is to find the “Critical Carbohydrate Level for Maintenance”, this is the maximum number of carbohydrates you can eat each day without gaining weight.

Lifetime Maintenance

This phase is intended to carry on the habits acquired in the previous phases, and avoid the common end-of-diet mindset that can return people to their previous habits and previous weight. Whole, unprocessed food choices are emphasized, with the option to drop back to an earlier phase if you begin to gain weight.

Each stage becomes progressively less restrictive and gradually increases carbohydrates allowed.

What Food is Allowed in Atkins Diet

The allowed foods include a liberal amount of all meats, fish, shellfish, fowl, and eggs; up to 4 ounces (113 g) of soft or semi-soft cheese; salad vegetables; other low carbohydrate vegetables; and butter and vegetable oils.

Sample Menu Plan from the Atkins Diet

Breakfast:

Italian sausage frittata

Cup of Herbal Tea

Lunch

Tuna salad with mixed leafy greens topped with bacon bits

Dinner:

Bacon cheeseburger with broccoli and cauliflower

Fresh fruit kebobs

Snacks:

High-protein, low-sugar snack bar

What Food is Not Allowed in Atkins Diet

No bread, alcohol, or carbonated beverages, not even diet soda. Beverages are limited to water, and consumption of caffeine is not allowed. It May be difficult to eliminate breads and cereals, especially in families with children who love these types of foods.

Misconceptions about the Atkins Diet

Many people incorrectly believe that the Atkins Diet promotes eating unlimited amounts of fatty meats and cheeses. This is a key point of clarification that Dr. Atkins addressed in the more recent revisions of his book. Although the Atkins Diet does not impose limits on certain foods, or caloric restriction in general, Dr. Atkins points out in his book that this plan is “not a license to gorge.

Another common misconception arises from confusion between the Induction Phase and rest of the diet. The first two weeks of the Atkins Diet are strict, with only 20g of carbohydrates permitted per day. Atkins states that a dieter can safely stay at the Induction Phase for several months if the person has a lot of weight to lose. Once the weight-loss goal is reached, carbohydrate levels are raised gradually, though still significantly below USDA norms, and still within or slightly above the definition of ketosis.

Known Health Benefits of the Atkins Diet

There are over 50 studies that highlight the positive weight loss results and other health benefits associated with following the Atkins Diet. These benefits include weight loss, improvement in risk factors for heart disease, hypertension and diabetes, inflammation, benefits in treating epilepsy and decreasing obesity in children and adolescents.

Study out of University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and Washington University School of Medicine randomly assigned participants to a low-carbohydrate, high-protein, high-fat diet or a low-calorie, high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet.  The low-carbohydrate diet produced a greater weight loss and was associated with a greater improvement in some risk factors for coronary heart disease.

Study out of Stanford University Medical School compared four weight-loss diets representing a spectrum of low to high carbohydrate intake for effects on weight loss and related metabolic variables. Participants assigned to follow the Atkins diet, which had the lowest carbohydrate intake, lost more than twice the weight and experienced favorable overall metabolic effects at 12 months than those assigned to follow the Zone, Ornish, or LEARN diets.

Additional Suggested Health Benefits of the Atkins Diet

Many people like being able to eat as much protein and fat as they wish, because these foods are often restricted in more traditional diet plans.

For people who have tried a low-fat, high-carbohydrate weight loss plan without success, increasing protein in their diet often results in decreased food cravings and more rapid weight loss.

The diet is relatively easy to follow; there are no complicated meal plans.

Potential Risks of the Atkins Diet

Eating unlimited amounts of fat, especially saturated fat found in meat products, can lead to increased risk of heart disease. Extensive research on healthy populations tells us to eat more fruits,vegetables and whole grains. Restricting these foods in the name of weight loss may lead to long-term health problems.

Additionally any diet that limits carbohydrate causes the body to rely on fat or muscle for energy. When our body breaks down stored fat to supply energy, a byproduct called ketones is formed. Ketones suppress appetite, but they also cause fatigue, nausea, and a potentially dangerous fluid loss. Anyone with diabetes, heart, or kidney problems should check with their physician before following a low-carb diet.

Unpleasant side effects include constipation (caused by the low-fiber diet) and bad breath.

Impact of the Atkins Diet on Diet Culture

Since the Atkins Diet made headlines n the late ’90s, there has been an explosion of low carbohydrate versions of traditionally high carbohydrate products, such as bread, pasta and even candy. Thiewed as the “grand daddy” and cause of the explosion of low carrb diets popularity in the nineties to early 2000.

What the Experts are Saying about the  Atkins Diet

Atkins Diet supporters claim it offers faster weight loss and a relatively user-friendly eating plan. Sceptics, including dietitians and nutritionists, maintain that Atkins Diet weight loss is both short-term and possibly a health risk, even though the weight loss itself may have the beneficial effect of lowering cholesterol.

Dr. Foster, one of the researchers involved in studying the Atkins Diet, acknowledged the possible health dangers of the Atkins diet and stated a longer five-year study was planned:

“This larger study of 360 participants will help us more fully assess the benefits and risks of low-carbohydrate diets on bone mass, kidney function, arterial function and exercise tolerance,” he said. “I’m very, very concerned that people will get the message from these studies that the Atkins diet is safe and effective, but I don’t believe we know that yet.”

Brigid McKevith, a nutrition scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation (BNF), said:

“We welcome the fact that the Atkins diet is being studied scientifically and that randomised controlled studies have been carried out, because it’s very popular with the public. [however] There are several potential problems with the Atkins diet. These include long term bone health, as with a very high protein intake the excretions of calcium increase, so there could be implications for the health of bones,” she explained.

“There could be difficulties for people who have an underlying problem with their kidneys or liver, because it would be putting more strain on those organs, and problems in terms of heart disease too, as it’s a diet very low in fruits and vegetables. Also, it’s very low in fiber, so in terms of digestive health, it’s not in keeping with our fibre and complex carbohydrate recommendations.”

Belinda Linden, head of medical information at the British Heart Foundation, holds similar views.

“The new studies do not indicate a dramatic weight loss for excessively obese people,” she said. “Previous studies have shown that weight loss from the Atkins Diet may involve muscle loss rather than body fat. Another potential problem is that it is so far unclear from studies whether weight loss is sustained over a longer period than six months. One of the studies shows no significant difference at 12 months.” She added that: “With minimal fruit and vegetables included in the diet, it holds serious implications for coronary heart disease and cancer. Diets need to be varied to protect against these conditions – and this one isn’t. This diet requires further long term and larger studies before its effectiveness can be confirmed.”

Volumetrics author Barbara Rolls, PhD, who holds the Guthrie Chair in Nutrition at Penn State University, offers a very simple explanation as to why people lose weight on Atkins diet:

“They’re cutting calories, even if they don’t realize it. No one has shown, in any studies, that anything magical is going on with Atkins other than calorie restriction. The diet is very prescriptive, very restrictive, and limits half of the foods we normally eat. In the end it’s not fat, it’s not protein, it’s not carbs – it’s calories. You can lose weight on anything that helps you to eat less, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for you.”

Neal Barnard, MD, president of the Physicians Commission for Responsible Medicine, a non-profit research group based in Washington, says:

“Low-carb diets have been linked to increased frequency of colon cancer, formation of kidney stones, kidney disease, and even osteoporosis… The reason for the health worries is in large part due to red meat. People who eat meat every day have three times greater risk of developing colon cancer. And then there is the problem of the kidneys. They aren’t designed to work on an oil slick of fat.”

Susan Barr, registered dietitian in New York City, says:

“There have been reports in the medical literature that say that this low-carb diet may not be as bad as we thought. That makes people interested again in this diet, but until there is more research on what stresses the diet places on the body, there is no way to know what it might be doing besides providing short-term weight loss.”

The Bottom Line

The Atkins Diet is an optimally balanced lifetime eating plan with the flexibility to meet each individual’s unique physical condition addressing factors such as age, gender, level of physical activity, and metabolic rate.

This diet may seem like the tastiest way to lose weight, but don’t be misled by claims of effortless weight loss and unlimited amounts of food. Nothing is that simple!



Tony

Dave J. Davies asked:


The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Researchers Report describes the astonishing results of a study on how a low carb diet may reduce epileptic seizures. In the report, Dr. Eric H. Kossoff discusses the results of testing, which show a 50% reduction of epileptic seizures in a third of the participants after only three months on the diet.

Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder that is known for it’s main symptom, seizures. The seizures come unprovoked and there is no cure, but certain medications and diet can help reduced the number of seizures in certain patients. About 50 million people have epilepsy worldwide.

Previous studies on children show that a Ketogenic diet can help control the numbers of seizures. A Ketogenic diet, like the Atkins diet, reduces the amount of carbohydrates in your daily food intake. The goal of such diets is to ensure that 80 percent of calories are from fat instead of carbs.

The report stated that 30 participants spent six months on a reduced carb diet, where carbohydrates were reduced to 15 grams a day. The participants were required to have failed two other forms of anti-convulsive medicated treatment for people who have epilepsy to partake in the study. Each candidate had their meals controlled, eating mostly fatty foods like eggs, meat and heavy creams.

An Atkins-like diet is simple to do. There are many programs out there that are designed to reduce the number of carbohydrates you take in each day. As a diet, it is said that the reduction of carbohydrates helps people with weight loss because the diet encourages to burn more fat rather than carbs. Additional benefits, like the study on reducing seizures, has become a topic of research over recent years.

What Happened In The Study?

Roughly two thirds of the candidates described a reduction in the number of seizures. Nearly half of the patients continued the diet after the study was over as a method of controlling the seizures. The studies revealed that patients needed to stay on the diet in order to continue getting the results.

Is it promising? Yes, however, the results also showed that the diet wasn’t so easy to follow. 30% of the patients stopped the diet, even when they had reduced seizures, because they claimed the diet was too tough to continue. The research into linking diets as a form of treatment is still relatively new. Still, studies like this one are showing how following a healthy diet can help, even after other treatments are unsuccessful.

Doctors Suggest Making Diets Easier To Follow

According to doctors involved in the study, an Atkins or Ketogenic diet can be simplified to make it easier for consumers to follow. They suggested one could find a diet that is less restrictive and without the need of a supervising dietitian.

This is true with any sort of diet that you would partake in, in order to find a change in weight loss or a change in health issues. Keeping with the program is very important. Also, making sure while you are on the program that you make it easy to follow and stick to. If you make it too tough on yourself, you could lose all that effort. You could gain weight back or start finding yourself with the same symptoms again.

An Atkins-like diet is sometimes considered hard to handle. Less sugar sometimes makes people more irritable, at least at first. Your body must work harder in order to get energy it needs. A person might feel a little sluggish on a diet like this in the beginning.

Any diet you might attempt should be talked over with your doctor before hand. While on an Atkins-diet, it can help to start out slow. Reduce your carbs a little bit each week, instead of doing it all at once. Once you are down to your desired level of carbs, stick with the program for at least three to six months to observe any improvements.

A diet journal might help. Write down the foods you eat, and how you felt that day. If you are using such a diet on your own to help with seizures, make sure to note if you ever have one in the journal. Keep track of how many might occur. Also keep note of any additional medications you might be taking during that time.

How A Low Carb Diet Works

After you have committed to the diet plan, and you talk to your doctor, the next step is to select what foods you can eat. For such diets, carbs are very limited, so things like caffeinated drinks and alcohol are not to be used. You should also limit many fruits, breads, starches (like potatoes) and certain types of vegetables.

The basis of the diet is to eat mostly protein. On most diet plans, you can eat as much meat as you would like. You can eat a limited amount of cheese and vegetables. The diet often works because you don’t often go hungry as you can eat almost as much as you want. As long as you are following the diet plan of limiting carbs, you often have freer choices.

Some say the diet is easier to follow because there is less to think about. You know right off you can eat so many meats. What becomes hard is letting go of all those carbohydrates. Carbs are addicting and in a lot of the processed foods that we eat regularly. Breads, cereals, fruits, all sorts of things have carbs in them. You need to read labels on foods a bit more carefully.

Once you learn which foods you can eat, you can easily stick to it. Obviously, letting go of addicting carb filled foods can be tough at first. While the some diets recommend starting by cutting it all out at once, going slow at first might help. Talking with a doctor and doing your own research can help you create a plan that is right for you.

Exercise is not a recommended as necessary for this diet. It does help to exercise to increase muscle mass and to help lose unwanted pounds. It would prove an additional benefit. Exercise is not needed and doesn’t appear to be a consideration in the case of the studies on epilepsy and the results of being on a low carb diet.

Cautions of Dieting

As with anything you are doing different to your body, you should pay attention to anything that doesn’t seem normal. This might include increased dizziness, too rapid of weight loss, increase tiredness without signs of improving after a few weeks. It is recommended that you stop and see your doctor if conditions don’t improve after being taken off the diet.

These warnings go double for people who are trying to use these benefits to improve health, like lessoning epileptic seizures. If your epileptic seizures become worse or increase in number, consult your doctor right away. If you have other serious symptoms, consult your doctor. Talk to your doctor if you find symptoms that are abnormal, even if they are not yet severe.

Stopping seizures or to be able to reduce the frequency of them can provide hope for a great many people. The results of the study on children and the most current study show a lot of promise. Be safe when trying out a diet and make sure to do plenty of research.



Earl