It is advisable to consume juices immediately after preparation. After staying over a period of time the juice ferments and turns acidic and loses their natural vitamins and minerals. Fruit juices sold in stores contain added artificial acids, sugars and other additives, flavorings and colorings. For example, if the juice is peach flavored it means that artificial flavor has been used. For products, which have been indicated as sugar-free the sugar has been replaced with artificial sweetener or glucose. Avoid the consumption of carbonated soft drinks with artificial additives or at least reduce them and drink them separately from foods.
Drink plenty of water but not with meals for it unnecessarily expands the stomach. The human body contains between 50 and 75% water that depends on your weight and age. Water contributes to the normal functioning of the heart and transports nutrients to the cells. Although we all know how important water is we do not drinking enough.
Popular Diets
Life is not complicated. We are complicated. Life is simple and the simple things are the right things
Oscar Wilde
I have introduced you to some foods and my system before describing you my experience with diets on purpose. Below you will read about my personal story testing one of the world’s well known diets.
Atkins and Montignac Diet
Experience has no ethical value. It is only the title that people give to their mistakes
Oscar Wilde
I'm sure most of you are familiar with the most popular diet – the nutritional system of the American cardiologist Dr. Robert Atkins. The equivalent of this diet in Europe is known as the French diet of Michelle Montignac. Both have caused a great furor and have many followers in both the U.S. and Europe and even restaurants have menus based on their systems. Their unique program includes eating the right carbohydrates and right fats and is based on the glycemic index of foods. Montignac himself managed to lose 35 lbs for three months with his own method. This diet may have helped many of you to reach your target weight, but it didn’t have a productive effect on me. Nevertheless, it gave me good knowledge of how the glycemic index of foods affects blood sugar levels.
The Non-Carbohydrate Diet
A country which is governed by understanding poverty and misery are shameful is the way. In a country that is run without understanding wealth and honors is shameful
Confucius
Another world famous diet is the non-carbohydrate diet of Duke. I tried it, but the effect on me again wasn’t a positive one. It made me feel poorly and dizzy - because of the drop in blood sugar. I am not being subjective and I’m not disputing the fact that people can lose weight while avoiding carbohydrates. Furthermore, I am sure that this diet has helped many of you in the fight against excessive weight, but I will briefly explain my experience from it.
For starters, let me explain what happens to the body if you stop eating carbohydrates. Your body will quickly extract accumulated energy in the muscles and the liver glycogen reserves to maintain the necessary levels of blood glucose. And as already mentioned - glycogen is brain food and energy for the body. Glycogen in the body is connected with water and when the body begins to derive glycogen reserves it releases the water with the urine. That is the main reason for drastic weight loss, when you start implementing the non-carbohydrate diet. Losing a few pounds in a week or two even eating foods with high fat content will cause absolute euphoria in you. Unfortunately, as soon as you start eating carbohydrates, your body will quickly begin to recover glycogen and water stores in the tissues.
Another reason is that the metabolic processing of carbohydrates and fats as an energy source for the body is much less efficient than that of carbohydrates, which means that the body consumes more calories processing the protein and fat than the carbohydrates.
The final metabolic waste product from burning protein is ammonia, which is highly toxic, it is processed by the liver into urea, which is less toxic than ammonia and is derived from the body by the kidneys through urine.
Overall the non-carbohydrate diet has the following effects on the body:
1.Increasing liver workload - when ammonia levels increase your brain function deteriorates and may lead to loss of consciousness - hepatic coma. You can easily recognize the increased amount of ammonia in the body – by people’s breath.
2.Increasing kidneys workload - increases production of urea and leads to severe loss of microelements, especially calcium, thus it is increasing the risk of osteoporosis, especially for women in menopause.
3.It is very likely that our bodies are exposed to the adverse effects of toxic waste products from the processing of proteins. Many people, falsely believe, that excessive meat consumption builds a healthy body and bones.
A diet of repetitive food, whatever it may be invariably leads to weight loss – just as the chocolate diet proved. I must admit that after two weeks only of meat, sometimes with vegetables, I began feeling sick at the thought of only eating meat. Furthermore, when I ordered steak instead of enjoying it I started to look at it without pleasure, while dreaming of a carbohydrate dinner. Soon I began to faint; I felt absolute bodily weakness and gave up the meat diet. The result was that the weight that I had lost with frantic effort and constant hunger was gained in just three weeks.
Most people believe that healthy eating and pleasure can’t go hand in hand. My nutritional system is designed to convince you of the opposite. I love food; I feel real pleasure from eating and I do not want to sacrifice my health on the quest for the perfect figure. I spent years trying all sorts of diets and after many attempts I concluded that health and delicious food are not mutually exclusive concepts. In case you had a bad experience with healthy food, I think that with this guide I have proved to you that I eat healthy and mostly importantly I take joy in doing it. This is my belief.
Enjoy the food, the company and experience the joy of all the moments in your life! Then you will be healthy and wholesome and achieve your desired figure.
What is Health and Disease and What Role Does Food Play?
Every person is the builder of a temple which is called his body. We are all sculptors and painters, and the material is our own flesh, blood and bones. Any nobility immediately began spiritualizing the human features and any meanness or carnal desires lead him to mutilation.
Henry David Thoreau
To me is not enough to define health as the absence of disease.
I perceive health as ideal conditions and goals which have to be achieved. When I say “I'm sick when I feel sick” it's not important that I feel tired, but only the sensation of feeling tired and why, what is the reason behind it. To be healthy, to me is important to feel physically, mentally and spiritually whole – It is necessary to have all these factors:
Not to be tired: to wake up cheerful in the morning and not to feel constantly exhausted which is widespread these days and is a sign of imbalance in life and nutrition.
To have a good sleep: to fall asleep knowing that sleep is a wonderful thing and not just the end of the day. Before going to sleep I always rewind through the day, ponder conversations and events that have occurred and if I feel something was wrong or bad things happened, I just cannot sleep and have nightmares. It’s important to focus on the positive events of the day instead. I also ponder what food I ate and most importantly with whom. Having good sleep is important to wake up in the morning charged with a joyful mood and ready for action, because sometimes during the sleep we subconsciously receive important information.
Good mood: this is the hardest of all! I am only in a good mood if I know that I made good decisions and actions during the day. This also means not to manifest anger or not only suppress