There are millions across the population who are constantly on the lookout for diets that will make them lose weight and have a toned body. Well, while a person’s diet is a major role-player in maintaining his weight and physique, exercise is equally important. However, only eating the right food will give a person the strength to carry out the exercises.

Less Fat
Every person who’s ever wanted to go on a diet has been told to cut down on his or her fat intake. While it does make a lot of sense (and frankly we all ought to realize how much), it’s also a rather painful truth that foods with fats are way too delicious to resist! This makes them even more difficult to give up. But, if you want to a have a perfectly toned body, then you’re going to have to forgo that extra slice of pie and those delicious looking fries drenched in hydrogenated oil! So starting now, cut down on your fat consumption. However, that does not mean that all fat is bad fat. You do need fat to sustain yourself, so go for things like low fat dairy products or foods with natural fats like fruits and vegetables. Lesser fat will help your body not only lose weight but also get toned to the extent you want it to, along with the other pointers mentioned below.

Less Sugar
Another grave enemy of a toned body is excess sugar. Note that the key word here is excess. Your body needs enough sugar and starch to carry out its daily activities. However, too much of it can lead to excess weight. So, if you are serious about toning your body, then keep a watch on food items like excess red meat, fruits like mangoes, high fat dairy, vegetable oils etc. Instead of these, you can gorge on foods like fresh citrus fruits, green leafy vegetables, and the like.

More Raw Foods
The importance of this point cannot be stressed enough. The food we eat goes through a million different processes involving a million different chemicals and synthesis’. How then can we expect our weight to stay down and our body to be tight and firm? Well, the answer lies in what our forefathers insisted on: raw food. Unpalatable and unpleasant though it may seem, there’s no denying the fact that raw foods have lesser chances of making us overweight than their cooked counterparts which contain so many different processed ingredients. Salads with green leafy veggies, fresh fruits, vegetable salads with low fat yogurt, raw sprouts with a little lemon juice squeezed in, etc. are all perfectly healthy substitutes for the danger foods! You might not believe this, but apparently, even raw lean meat is supposed to be highly nutritious. So, you have your options before you. All you have to do is make your choice.

More Meals
I’m sure all of us know at least one person who firmly believes that the best way to lose weight and tone their body is to skip meals altogether. And every time they skip one meal and starve themselves, they only tend to binge on the other meal and get frustrated when they do not lose weight, or worse, put on some more! So, it’s safe to say that the other option, which is an exact opposite of starving is the better one. Instead of trying to control the hunger pangs, satiate them. Instead of skipping a meal, have three small ones and three big ones throughout the day. Yes, that’s right! Have a total of 5-6 meals in a day, all fulfilling. The catch is that they must all be from the categories mentioned above and ones with enough vitamins and minerals to get you through the day, daily. So, enjoy 6 meals a day, in small servings and portions, and in healthy food items and you’ll have a well toned body to die for!

Eating the right food needs to be combined with a suitable exercise regime in order to have a perfectly toned body. So, consult your dietitian about how much exactly of what you can eat and set a reasonable exercise routine for yourself. Your body will gradually get toned to how you want it. Happy toning!

World’s fastest diet! Does it exist or is it a myth? Well, if you are curious to know what is the fastest diet in the world, then this article shall provide you the necessary information. Fastest diet refers to diet that brings about quick weight loss in a natural way. Today, people have become too much conscious about their diet and losing weight has become one of their prime objectives in life. In the process of doing so, they often commit the common mistake of following crash diets, that show reverse effects in the long run. However, the fastest diet entails balancing the nutrients in desired proportion and maintain the calorie count at a standard level.

Facts about World’s Fastest Diet

The most harmful of all foods are those containing carbohydrates in simple forms. You automatically lose weight if you curtail consumption of carbohydrates drastically. While planning the fastest diet, you must incorporate those foods that are nutritious and healthy. Another important aspect is that, you must limit your calories only to 1500, until you are undergoing heavy impact exercises. Thus, count your calories while having meals.

Curtail Simple Carbohydrates
Simple carbohydrates should be eliminated completely if you want to achieve quick weight loss. White flour, refined sugar, white bread and white rice have dangerous consequences in body. Avoid fast foods and junks completely. Instead you can replace with complex carbohydrates, like whole wheat pasta, brown bread, oat meal and cornflakes. These foods contain healthy carbs that are essential for you in small amounts.

Include Unsaturated Fatty Acids
Omega-3-fatty acids belong to group of unsaturated fatty acids that are necessary to fulfill the nutritional demand of your body. Different types of fish like tuna, salmon, herring, mackerel are rich sources of omega fatty acids. Dairy products like low fat butter and cheese also contain unsaturated fatty acids. If you are aiming to lose weight then you can have peanuts instead of almonds or cashews. Lentils, pulses and peas are excellent sources of fatty acids.

More Amount of Proteins
Proteins become the prime source of nutrition when you are curtailing fats and carbohydrates from your diet. Rich sources of proteins include animal products like lean meat, chicken breast, beef rib and turkey. Egg white and skimmed milk also contain high amounts of proteins. Along with these foods, you must combine vegetables and fruits in large amounts to give your body fibers, vitamins and minerals.

World’s Fastest Diet Plan

• Start your day with a glass of warm water mixed with lemon juice. Lemon water is also known as the master cleanse diet that helps in emulsification of fats. Drink at least 3 glasses of water within an hour to detoxify your body early in the morning. You must consume at least 3 liters of water daily.
• Never skip your breakfast in the morning. Your breakfast should comprise one hard boiled egg or scrambled eggs. You can also have oats or cornflakes with skimmed milk. Have a banana at breakfast or a fruit dish containing apples, avocado, guava, melon and cantaloupe.
• Have small portion of lunch and incorporate more protein during lunch time. Have boiled chicken, baked fish or grilled turkey along with a plate of fresh vegetable salad. Tofu salad, spinach soup and whole wheat tortillas are enough for lunch.
• You dinner should be as light as possible. Have vegetarian meals for dinner. Prepare a soup by boiling carrots, cabbage, beet, broccoli, tomatoes, lettuce and onions. You can also bake the vegetables and cook in minimum amounts of extra virgin olive oil. Soups prepared from pulses and lentils are also healthy.
• If you tend to feel hungry between meals, then you can quench your hunger with fresh fruit juices, peanuts, whole wheat crackers and popcorn. Avoid canned juices, aerated drinks and sugary foods.

I hope you have understood how effectively nutrients have been balanced in this diet plan. Losing weight in a healthy manner in quite possible by following the world’s fastest diet explained in the aforementioned content. Consume meals in small portions and have snacks that are low in calories to maintain the standard calorie count.

5 Tips to Burn Fat Faster

Burn Fat Faster Tip 1: Increase Resistance

When was the last time you varied the resistance on the cardio machine of your choice? It’s time to break a good sweat with increasing resistance by changing the level. If it’s a treadmill increase the elevation, have you tried jogging at level 6 gradation? It will get you sweating in no time! The harder you work here the higher your heart rate and the more fat you will burn even after you have stepped away from the machine!

Burn Fat Faster Tip 2: Supersets

A superset is when you do two or more exercises right after each other without a rest period. For example say you are working on your arms today. Try doing dumbbell bicep curls and bench dips rich after each other. This allows your biceps to begin recovering while you workout your triceps, at the same time it will quicken your workout and create a serious challenge.

I like to do this near the end of my workouts because it is so energy draining. With high reps super sets are great for toning, adding definition and giving you a serious muscle-adrenaline pump!

Burn Fat Faster Tip 3: Jumping Rope Between Sets

Jumping rope is one of the best cardiovascular exercises on the planet. It incorporates training your ability to coordinate all your body parts to work together and gets your heart beating very quickly. Now try adding this between the sets of any exercise and you’ve turned your body into a fat-burning oven!

Burn Fat Faster Tip 4: Combine Exercises

This goes along the lines of your supersets, but is a little different as you want to combine two exercises in one entire movement. For instance, lunging with dumbells and then doing an overhead press with those dummbells. What this does is condition all your muscles from head to toe so you burn fat and tone your entire body in one move! Impressive, and extremely exhausting at the same time so use this technique once or twice per workout.

Burn Fat Faster Tip 5: Circuit Cardio Training

So many do circuit training with their weights, but what about circuit training with cardio machines? This variation principle will shock your body like those electric paddles they use in ER! Try 5 minutes bike machine, 5 minutes treadmill, and 5 minutes elliptical trainer, this 15 minute cardio workout will burn fat faster far greater than one cardio machine alone because different muscles will come into play with each machine and your body will have to keep adapting.

Burn Fat Faster Supplements:

• USPlabs OxyElite Pro
• Nutrex Lipo 6 Black
• MAN Vaporize
• BSN Cheaters Relief

Scientists studying the pregnancy complication pre-eclampsia say a dietary supplement containing an amino acid and antioxidant vitamins given to expectant mothers at high risk could reduce occurrence of the disease.

In a study in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) on Friday, researchers found that pregnant women taking supplements with the amino acid L-arginine plus vitamins were significantly less likely to develop pre-eclampsia compared with those taking just vitamins, or those taking a placebo supplement.

Pre-eclampsia is a serious condition marked by abnormally high blood pressure and high protein levels in the urine. It affects about 5 percent of all first-time pregnancies and is dangerous for both mother and child.

Experts estimate that the cost of treating women with pre-eclampsia is $45 billion a year in the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. In developing countries, an estimated 75,000 women die of it each year.

If mothers and their babies survive, the women later have a higher risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke and diabetes. The babies are often born prematurely and can suffer complications later in life.

Pre-eclampsia is thought to be linked to a deficiency in L-arginine, an amino acid that helps to maintain a healthy blood flow during pregnancy. Some experts also think that antioxidant vitamins can help protect against the condition.

This study took place at a hospital in Mexico City. Pregnant women at high risk of pre-eclampsia received either daily food bars containing both L-arginine and antioxidant vitamins, bars containing vitamins only, or placebo “dummy” bars containing no L-arginine or vitamins. The supplements began when women were around 20 weeks pregnant and continued until delivery.

The proportion of women developing pre-eclampsia was 30.2 percent in the placebo group, 22.5 percent in the vitamin only group, and 12.7 percent in the L-arginine plus vitamin group.

“This relatively simple and low cost intervention may have value in reducing the risk of pre-eclampsia and associated preterm birth,” the researchers, from Mexico and the United States, wrote in their study.

Two British experts commenting on the work in the BMJ said it was an important finding but crucial questions remained.

Before any more trials were started, they said, researchers should seek to establish how L-arginine and vitamins work together, what the potential harmful effects might be, and what the results might be in other populations and places.

(Reuters Health) – A new study from Bangladesh has experts concluding that most of the world’s women don’t need vitamin A supplements.

In the developing Asian nation, giving vitamin A supplements to pregnant women in the rural north didn’t cut down on their chance of pregnancy-related death, or on infant deaths, according to a new study.

Still, the researchers say making sure pregnant women get enough vitamin A through diet or supplements is “an important public health goal” for other reasons.

But experts debate whether vitamin A supplements are helpful.

“At the moment I think there’s very little evidence to support the supplementation of women with vitamin A,” Anthony Costello, of the University College London Institute for Global Health, told Reuters Health.

“It seems likely that either it doesn’t have an effect, or it only has an effect in populations where there are really serious levels of vitamin A deficiency,” said Costello, who has studied vitamin A in the past but was not involved in the current research.

“For most women in the world, that probably doesn’t apply.”

In the Bangladeshi study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Keith West of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore and colleagues followed a population of about 600,000 people for more than five years.

The research team identified every household in that region that had a married woman between age 13 and 45. Every 5 weeks, female staff members visited those households to find out — through discussion and urine tests — if any of the women were pregnant.

If they were, the staff began giving them a weekly dose of vitamin A, beta carotene, or a vitamin-free placebo pill every week until 12 weeks after they gave birth. The staff also gave all women educational materials about care and diet during pregnancy. The assignments to the various groups were done randomly, based on household location.

There were about 60,000 pregnancies during the study period, with mothers evenly distributed between the vitamin A, beta carotene, and placebo supplements.

A total of 138 women in the study died of any pregnancy-related cause. That worked out to 20 to 25 women per 10,000 pregnancies, regardless of what supplement they were taking.

Rates of stillbirths and infant deaths also did not vary based on the type of supplements pregnant women were given. Each supplement group had between 45 and 51 stillbirths for every 1,000 births, and between 65 and 70 infant deaths in the 12 weeks after birth per 1,000 live births.

CHANGING NEED?

Vitamin A deficiency has been linked with night blindness in pregnant women and with maternal death in some regions. The World Health Organization says those risks are highest in the last three months of pregnancy. In the Bangladesh study, anyone with night blindness was treated with vitamin A, regardless of her assigned supplement.

Costello, however, thinks vitamin A deficiency in the developing world has become less of a problem over the last 30 years, in the wake of economic and agricultural changes that also affect nutrition.

Previous studies, including those by West and colleagues, looked at the effect of giving vitamin A to pregnant women in Ghana and Nepal and also found no effect on rates of stillbirth or infant mortality. The Nepal studies, however, did find that fewer pregnant women died when they were given vitamin A or beta carotene supplements.

Women in Bangladesh may already consume more foods rich in vitamin A compared to Nepalese women, West says. They have a generally smaller chance of dying in pregnancy for other reasons too — for example, they may be more likely to have a health care worker present at their delivery.

Costello said that while vitamin A deficiency is becoming less common, supplementation is still important — especially for warding off infection — in people who are deficient, including young children.

“I think you can still make a case for supplementing children,” he said. “But we have to be aware that as the situation changes … the benefits of supplementation programs may gradually decline.”

And, Costello said, “There’s no need to go rushing off giving vitamin A to every woman in the world.”

West too believes nutrition is improving in many parts of the developing world, possibly making vitamin A supplementation less essential in some places, including rural Bangladesh.

“It’s still a vital nutrient. If you don’t have it along with other micronutrients, things will go wrong. But the dietary profiles are changing,” West told Reuters Health. “Is that true everywhere? I would say no, but it’s probably a general trend.”

Still, he added, “We need to remain vigilant to the nutritional needs of the rural poor…in the developing world, and prevent deficiencies.”

NO MAGIC BULLET

Dr. Prakesh Shah, who has also studied micronutrient supplements and pregnancy, takes a different message from the findings.

“Looking at one single micronutrient to have an effect on a mother dying or not dying is a little bit too much to expect,” Shah, a University of Toronto researcher who was not linked to the new study, told Reuters Health.

If women and babies are going to benefit from supplements, he continued, it’s going to be from a supplement with more nutrients — including vitamin D, folic acid, and iron.

Maternal and infant death rates are still much higher in the developing world than in places like the U.S. and Canada. However, Shah said, “Are we going to find one single bullet like vitamin A and that’s going to cure all the problems? That’s probably not going to happen.”

Forget for a moment that the shape of your midsection largely determines how good you’ll look on the beach this summer — and how well you’ll play volleyball. We’ll get back to that in a minute. The pursuit of abs goes deeper. You strive for a six-pack as if your life depended on it, and now science proves that it does. At a meeting of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity, research was presented declaring that waist circumference is more conclusive than either weight or body-mass index (BMI) as a measure of disease risk.

Miami cardiologist Arthur Agatston, M.D., author of The South Beach Diet, puts it this way: “Abdominal fat is different and more dangerous than fat elsewhere. Unlike fat directly under the skin, belly fat, which adheres to organs, is associated with increases in C-reactive protein (CRP) and other markers of inflammation that can lead to heart disease.”

Motivated yet? Good. We trust you’ll lay off the fries and onion rings. Remember, if your body fat is too high, it doesn’t matter how wisely you work your abs — they won’t show. (For most men, anything over 10 percent body fat keeps your abs in hiding.)

Obesity levels have risen sharply in the past 20 years in the U.S. and one Illinois lawmaker thinks he has the solution – force parents of chunky children to lose their tax breaks.

One in four people in a staggering 33 states are obese and State Senator Shane Cultra says that hitting people in their pockets is the way to slim-down the country.

‘It’s the parents responsibility that have obese kids,’ he said yesterday. ‘Take the tax deduction away for parents that have obese kids.’

Were a ‘sin’ tax to be introduced in Illinois, it would mean parents being denied a $2000-a-year tax break.

According to the Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (CDC), obesity in Illinois lies at a gut-wrenching 26.5 per cent, but it’s by no means the fattest state. There are 24 states with chubbier citizens. Mississippi is the worst offender, with 34.4 per cent of its population considered officially obese.

The place you’re most likely to see a flat stomach in the US is in Colorado, which has an obesity rate of 18.6 per cent.

In comparison, the European Union has an obesity rate of just 15.5 per cent, with the UK’s at 24.5 per cent, the worst in the league.

Other measures being considered in Illinois to tackle the state’s bulging waistlines include taxing sugary drinks more heavily. But with 40,000 Illinoisans working in the industry, some lawmakers are wary of punishing its finances too harshly.

Tim Bramlet, executive director of the Illinois Beverage Association, told stltoday.com: ‘We just think the beverage tax is actually the wrong way to go, and won’t help the problem.’

However, Elissa Bassler, CEO of the state’s Public Health, pointed out that money to tackle obesity must come from somewhere, because the already huge medical costs associated with the problem are only set to rise.

‘Currently, the direct health care cost of obesity in Illinois is over $4billion, and that is expected to rise to $14billion or more by 2018,’ she said.

It turns out that scrolling down a web page doesn’t provide as much of a physical workout as I had once hoped. So my dreams of getting in shape while doing nothing but surfing the web now solely rely on this fitness-friendly office chair known as the GymyGym. Besides providing a comfortable place to sit through the use of a “flat-bungee seating system” which promotes proper posture throughout the day, the GymyGym also incorporates 4 different ‘exercise stations’ for lack of a better description.

Underneath the seat are a few extra lengths of the aforementioned bungee cord attached to handles and velcro straps that allow you to do a series of strengthening exercises for your legs, arms and other muscle groups. The different routines are performed while standing or sitting, depending on what part of your body you’re working out, so you may not necessarily be able to get a full body workout while browsing your favorite website. But thanks to a couple of tension control systems also located beneath the chair, you can crank things up to 11 and really feel the burn when you do manage to sneak in a couple of reps. At $599 the chair is a bit pricey, putting it in competition with more lust-worthy models from Herman Miller, but the fact that it’s made from 95% recycled materials should appeal to eco-minded fitness enthusiasts.

Obesity is contagious – with people who have a higher number of fat friends or relatives at greater risk of becoming obese themselves, new research warns.

And while standing beside a fat pal has long been regarded as a way of looking good in pictures, the new findings could spell the end of fat-thin friendships.

Researchers have found a number of ways that fat people could influence their pals’ girth.

It can be subliminal – where having overweight pals can make people see their weight as ‘normal’ and eat accordingly until they’re the same size.

It can also be more direct, with obese people putting pressure on their slimmer friends to eat more and exercise less until they ‘achieve the same body size’.

And even being around larger pals can put you at risk of gaining weight yourself, as socialising with them is likely to revolve more around eating or watching TV and less about exercising or engaging in energetic activity.

Researchers from Arizona State University’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change in the U.S., interviewed 101 women from Phoenix Arizona, alongside 812 of their closest friends and relatives.

By looking at the Body Mass Index [BMI] of the women and their friends and relatives, they discovered that the fatter a woman’s social circle, the more likely she was to be obese herself.

This was because ‘we learn about acceptable body size from family and friends’ according to researchers, with friendships based on eating and engaging in little physical activity more likely to end in obesity.

Despite the results – published in a paper entitled Shared Norms And Their Explanation For The Social Clustering of Obesity – researchers found that most women viewed being fat as a source of shame.

Asked whether they would rather be fat or have a range of socially stigmatised conditions – including alcoholism and herpes – a quarter of women said they’d rather suffer from severe depression than be fat, while more than one in ten (14.5 per cent) said they’d rather be totally blind than obese.

Lead author Daniel Hruschka said: ‘Interventions targeted at changing ideas about appropriate body mass indexes or body sizes may be less useful than those working directly with behaviours, for example, by changing eating habits or transforming opportunities for and constraints on dietary intake.

‘When you see that something like obesity spreads among close friends and family members, this raises important questions about how it’s spreading.

‘Is it because we learn ideas about acceptable body size from our friends and family members, or that we hike together, watch TV together or go out to eat together?

‘If we can figure out exactly why obesity spreads among friends and family members, that can tell us where to focus resources in curbing rates of obesity.

He added: ‘You might learn what is an acceptable body size from your friends and then change your diet and exercise to try and achieve that.

‘Or, you might not agree with what your friends or family members think, but still feel pressure from them to achieve some ideal body size.

‘Finally, you may form an idea of appropriate body size by simply observing your friends’ bodies, which in turn changes your eating and exercise habits.’