Do you know there are almost a hundred million American people going to a weight loss diet every year? Yes, almost a hundred million of them. It works, though. About ninety-five percent of them lose weight AND regain it in the next five years. Basically, they lose it now, and get back to their old body five years later. What makes it worse is that a third of them will gain more weight than before.

How could this happen? That’s the danger of following one diet program to another. Your weight loss will up and down like a yo-yo when you switch your weight loss diet program. Following the conventional weight loss diet program or using any weight loss drugs may cause you to gain more weight than you have before, and not to mention several illness of your health.

Read the newspaper today, and you’ll find out there are approximately sixty-five percent of people in America are overweight. Even if they know they need to stay thin, it seems like their body reject it. They start eating unhealthy or greasy foods, and thinking that they will stop tomorrow because tomorrow they will start their new weight loss diet plan. What they don’t realize is that tomorrow never comes. So, they keep repeating the same pattern all over again, and ended up with adopted several health disease such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and so on.

Also, obesity also donated about nineteen percent heart disease that costs about thirty billion dollars per year, and diabetes cases that costs nine billion dollars per year. Don’t doubt it, because this information came from the researchers at Harvard University.

So, how you could fight this obesity problem?

If you have REPEATEDLY fallen head over heels to many weight loss diet plans and programs that promise you to lose several pounds by tomorrow, it is time for you to stop. They bring you no good, and only cause you physical discomfort and a deep disappointment. It’s true you probably lose some weight, but what will you do if you stop it and your body gain more weight than before? Avoid any weight loss diet plan that forces you to eat just one type of food. It’s not healthy for you. A healthy diet is a balanced one that consists of several types of foods. What you want from your diet is the healthy, safe, and a permanent weight loss.

There are so many fad diet plans that you probably ever done before, such as Atkins diet, South Beach Diet, Cabbage Soup diet, the Grapefruit diet, Beverly Hills diet, Breatharian, the Rotation diet, Ornish Plan, and so on. If you really want to do a weight loss diet plan, pick the one that consists of variety of foods, and stick to it.

Give yourself about 6-12 months to follow the same diet pattern, and let your body recognize it. If, and only if, after that time ranges you’re still not lose weight, you could change the diet plan. But do remember; only choose the weight loss diet plan that keep you healthy.

Drinking lots of water would also keep your hunger down. It is known that drinking lots of water is one of the important tools to reduce weight, it would also fill stomach. Consumption of protein consisting food would certainly help you not being hungry quite often, because digestion of proteins takes longer than the carbohydrates and this would not have a major impact on blood sugar level and keep your tummy full.

There are few items which you may want to know which has high proteins which you may want to intake while in the process of your weight control quest and they are mentioned below:

Note: Too much of proteins would place load on the kidney which would lead to other diseases.

• Most of the fruits and vegetables has high proteins which you can consume and if you notice these days these information is basically mentioned on the packages of vegetables and fruits of the quantity of proteins and others it carries.
• Dark meat mostly on the thigh of chickens consists fats, however the other part of the chicken the white meat and also the turkey breast consists good amount of proteins
• Seafood also consists good amount of proteins which can be eaten for good diet.
• Egg is also a source of proteins.
• Dairy products such as yogurt, milk provides proteins, however you may want to limit the quantity taken because it consists fats as well.
• You can also look out for protein bars and protein shakes which is healthy and an alternate for keeping your hunger at bay.

Snacks like bread or even an apple can be consumed when you are hungry as this would not just keep your hunger away but it would also help your maintain diet.

Now that you’ve quit, you may feel that something’s missing, and this feeling may be linked to the times and situations in which you used to smoke. Some of the extra snacking you may be doing might also be linked to feeling sad, frustrated, or stressed. Many people, whether they have ever smoked or not, tend to eat more when they feel low, jittery, or nervous.

As tough as some of these roadblocks are, there are ways to get past them. How? By planning ahead! We will ask you to identify your roadblocks to healthy eating that are specifically related to having recently quit smoking. Later on, we’ll deal with some more general roadblocks to healthy eating. For now, let’s focus on keeping you off cigarettes and making sure you are keeping your eating in check.

Key to Overcoming Roadblocks, Anticipation and Cleverness

In other part, there has been discussion about the importance of anticipating roadblocks and temptations as the key to managing or avoiding them. From your experience over the last few days tracking your eating habits, try to think about what challenges may lay ahead for you. If you anticipate and think cleverly about ways you can cope with your challenges, you should be able to get past them.

Below are some of the most common roadblocks for ex-smokers trying to make healthy eating choices. Tips follow for how to get past each one. Even if some of these don’t apply to you, you can still use the tips as starting points for your own strategies.

- Roadblock: Increased feelings of hunger and overeating.

“After quitting, I started feeling hungry more often and tended to eat more, especially at those times when I used to smoke.”

How to Get Past It: Know if you are really hungry. Slow down. Eat balanced meals.

Knowing If You are Really Hungry. A point to ponder as you work on making healthy eating choices is the difference between hunger and appetite. Hunger is based on your body’s need for food to give it energy. Appetite, on the other hand, is when you eat based on your emotions or other factors like time of day. Sometimes our body gives us signs of physical hunger, such as a rumbling stomach or fatigue or irritability.

But other times, the sights and smells around us trigger us to eat, even though we really aren’t hungry. Do you notice any patterns in your food diary? Maybe you tended to eat when you were frustrated or stressed. Maybe you ate more when you were bored and irritable. People commonly lose control over their eating at these times and frequently overeat or eat when they aren’t really hungry. Your eating style is part of a system of habits just as your smoking habit was. Sometimes these habits have become so ingrained that we don’t even realize what we are doing.

Next time you open the refrigerator for foods, ask yourself the following questions:

• Am I really hungry ?
• When was the last time I ate ?
• Would a snack do, or do I need a full meal ?

Make a list of five tasks you’ll do before eating anything to see if you are really hungry, you may not want a snack when you are done. For example, try taking a quick (2- or I 5-minute) walk (or longer), wash your face, stretch for a couple of minutes, file or paint your nails, or call a friend.

Slowing Yourself Down. In addition to considering whether you are really hungry before you eat, you may also want to find ways to slow down while in the process of eating. Try to chew your food more slowly. Try drinking water throughout each meal. It will slow you down and fill you up. Even after dinner, don’t linger at the table, get up and clean the kitchen or get indulged in some physical activity. Small steps like this will help you a lot.

This diet advocates going back to basics, to the way people used to eat in the past. It tries to combat the modern illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes by changing the way we eat and exercise.

In order to combat heart disease we need to cut down on cholesterol, therefore this diet limits the intake of fat to about 10% of what we eat. In order to combat diabetes and the spike in insulin caused by sugar laden foods we should avoid that as well. Going to the basics means we have to spend more calories than we take in, and it can be achieved by eating a lot of fiber, vegetables, fruit, lean meat and plenty of water.

The diet recommends eating three meals a day plus a few (at least two) snacks in between meals to avoid hunger and the binging that goes with it. Since fat is the substance that makes us feel full and it is to be avoided, you will have to know the caloric content of foods and combine high calorie with low calorie food to produce a meal that is overall light in calories. It also recommends avoiding salt which is known for raising blood pressure.

Together with this strict diet a daily exercise is recommended – at least 30 minutes a day, and reduction of stress by way of meditation.
Since such a regiment is not easy to follow, Pritikin has centers in different cities that are called Longevity Centers. There, for about two weeks, you will be given the correct foods, you will exercise and you will hear lectures and see movies about the terrible affects fat and sugars have on our bodies.

Research has shown that people coming out of those centers have lowered their cholesterol dramatically and people with type 2 diabetes have reversed the effects of the condition and even those who were using insulin injections did not need them anymore.

The problem with this diet is that it is not easy to maintain. Knowing the calorie levels of different foods, avoiding “comfort foods” heavy in fat, exercising every day are not easily maintainable. That is why the company has come out with a line of foods, dry and canned, to help you keep with the program past the Longevity Center stage.