Trying to lose weight is a tricky proposition. There have been countless fad diets in the past, and it seems as though several new ones are thrust onto the market every day. This can make it all too confusing to figure out what makes for a healthy eating weight loss plan. Some diets claim you can shed pounds by eating only one or two “magic” foods; others say you can eat all the fat and protein you want, as long as you don’t eat any carbohydrates; still others say you have to eat at certain times and follow strange eating rituals to lose weight. It’s enough to confuse anybody.

It is true that some diets really do work, but their ability to get rid of extra weight shouldn’t be the only consideration when deciding which one to follow. You also need to consider how healthy they are. Let’s face it, you could lose a lot of weight by not eating anything at all–by literally starving yourself–but nobody would say that starvation is healthy.

Something a lot of people seem to forget is that there is no need to go by what somebody else says is the best diet. After all, we are all different, and what works for one person may not work for you. If you have the time and resources, you can develop your own healthy eating weight loss plan. This will take a bit of work, and you will have to have a good idea of what foods you should be eating, and which ones to avoid. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons so many people choose to follow a pre-made diet plan. There’s nothing wrong with doing it that way, as long as you can be reasonably assured that the diet you want to follow is healthy.

If there is such a thing as a golden rule of weight loss, it’s this: you can only lose weight when you burn more calories than you take in. All diets that work simply use some variation of food and exercise to accomplish this goal. You can do the same thing by knowing how many calories are in the foods you eat, and how many calories you burn doing various exercises. To be fair, it’s not always easy to keep track of all of this, so following a healthy eating weight loss plan can simplify the process. This way you can follow it, and assume that the calorie calculations have already been made for you.

If you are only a little bit overweight, and in pretty good health, then you may not have to invest in a full-blown diet plan. Instead, you may be able to get away with making a few small adjustments to your current diet. On the other hand, if you are several pounds overweight, or aren’t as healthy as you would like to be then a healthy eating weight loss plan that was created by somebody with credentials makes a lot more sense.

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Moderation is one thing that you should be looking for when you are considering which healthy eating plans are the best. To put it another way, if the plan has extreme restrictions or makes wild claims, then the chances are good that it’s unhealthy. The best diets will focus on moderation in the types of food you eat, as well as the portions it recommends.

If you have been considering various plans, then you have probably seen those that make claims that can tip you off to why they may not be so good. A common example is a diet that says you can eat as much of one food as you want, but then severely limits how much you can eat of other foods. Low carb diets may be the most popular example. They let you eat all the protein and fat that you want, but try to get you to cut out as many carbohydrates as you can.

While these so-called “healthy eating plans” say you can eat all the meat, fish and eggs you want and lose weight, you need to realize there are also risks. First, people are designed to eat a whole range of foods. Yes, you may be able to lose weight on a low-carb diet, but it could have negative impact on your health if all you’re eating is meat and eggs. Second, the idea of eating all the bacon (for example) you want sounds very appealing at first, but the craving for carbohydrates is more than most people can handle, and they end up binging on carbs…and weighing more than when they started.

Any type of diet that makes similar claims should be looked at with suspicion. A diet that tells you that you can eat all of the fat you like is just as bad as any diet that tells you to eat as much sugar as you want. It just doesn’t make sense. To be fair there are also diets that tell you to cut out all fat. Surely these must be healthy eating plans, right? Not really. Again, they are too restrictive for certain foods, and that’s your clue that they may not be good for you. The truth is that there are healthy fats. Again, the key here is moderation.

Of course the appeal for all of these types of diets is the same. What happens is that a person may try a reasonable diet, but then they find they crave certain foods. Say the diet says you shouldn’t eat cheeseburgers. There’s nothing wrong with that, but then you start wishing you could eat a big, juicy cheeseburger and go off the diet. Then later on you decide you’d like to lose weight again. But here’s the catch: you look for a diet that allows you to eat the cheeseburgers you missed on the last diet. You start off doing great, but even though you can eat your burgers, the new diet doesn’t let you eat pasta. So, you go off this diet and look for one that lets you eat pasta…and you keep repeating this cycle over and over again.

But real healthy eating plans let you eat just about anything you want, but only in moderation. In other words, they make allowances for the occasional treat, but they offset it in some way; they balance it out. Such a plan is much easier to stick to and will give you long term results.

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Wanting to eat better is a goal that is shared by millions and millions of people around the globe. Their reasons range from “just wanting to” to trying to treat a deadly disease, from moral reasons to wanting to lose weight. Regardless of the reason, you should research health and nutrition before deciding on a healthy eating program that is best for you. Doing the proper research will not only point you in the right direction for foods you should eat, but it will also steer you away from the foods you should avoid.

One thing you need to watch out for is a lack of balance. For example, the market is filled with diet plans that eliminate whole categories of food. While it makes sense to reduce the level of saturated fat you consume, getting rid of carbohydrates is a questionable practice at best. It is okay to eat fat, carbohydrates and protein; in fact, you should be wary of any so-called healthy eating program that claims otherwise.

When it comes to fat, you will want to limit saturated fats, and try to eliminate man-made trans fats completely. (There are naturally occurring trans fats, and these aren’t nearly as bad as their hydrogenated counterparts.) Your best bet is to have polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, though you don’t want to go overboard on them, either.

Carbohydrates have received a lot of attention in recent years. This is due, largely, to some popular diets that avoided them. Yes, it is possible to lose weight on a low-carb diet, but there may be risks involved. Also, such a diet wouldn’t really be considered a long-term healthy eating program because of the lack of balance. However, not all carbohydrates are created equally. You should limit the simple carbs found in white bread, white rice, and sugar; and replace them with the complex carbs found in whole grains, vegetables and some fruit.

Protein can be tricky because a lot of sources are high in saturated fat. Beef, for example, is high in protein, but a lot of cuts are high in saturated fat. Chicken, on the other hand, has some cuts that are higher in fat than others, so choose white meat to stay on the safe side. Perhaps the best of source of protein is beans (pinto, black, garbanzo, navy, and so on). The are high in protein and fiber, and are also very low in fat.

A healthy eating program doesn’t mean you can never enjoy your favorite foods again, far from it. First, there are plenty of healthy alternatives for most foods. Second, the key is to enjoy such foods in moderation, as an occasional treat. If you eat less of the unhealthy foods, and more of the healthy foods, then you will be headed in the right direction. But if you can’t have the foods you enjoy, then there is too great of a risk that you will simply go back to an unhealthy diet, and that wouldn’t do you much good at all.

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A lot of people have lost a lot of weight on the Atkins Diet. However, there are still plenty of questions surrounding this popular diet plan. One of the questions people have is how long should you stay on the Atkins Diet. The typical amount of time is somewhere between six months and a year, but some don’t last that long, while others stay on it on a long-term basis.

But how long others stay on the diet isn’t as important as how long you should stay on it. Therefore, a good starting point is to consider what your specific weight loss and dietary goals are. If you want to reset how your body digests food and burns calories, then you may want to stay on Atkins longer. On the other hand, if you’re just trying to lose a few pounds, then you may consider going off the diet once your goal is reached (but be careful that you don’t gain all of your weight back).

Let’s be honest, though, a lot of people have a hard time sticking to the Atkins Diet. This is usually due to food cravings. While you can generally eat all the fish, meat and eggs you want, the diet places severe restrictions on carbohydrates; especially in the earliest stages of the program. So, while you may enjoy being able to eat tons of bacon or fried fish, the novelty soon wears off and you start missing simple things like bread.

Sticking to any diet is a very hard thing for most people. However, the Atkins Diet can be particularly troublesome. The problem is that they think they can do the diet for a couple weeks, lose some weight and then return to their normal eating habits. This isn’t the case. Sure, they may drop a few pounds, but if they go off the diet too soon they will not only gain back the weight they lost, but may also gain more. This can be very discouraging, and some people are quick to say that the Atkins Diet doesn’t work, when in reality it was their not sticking to the diet that made it not work. That wouldn’t be so bad, but too many people then give up on diets all together.

One of the things that makes the Atkins Diet different is that it is comprised of four stages. You have to follow each stage precisely and you can’t skip ahead. The tricky part is that the first stage is often the hardest, as it removes all but 12 grams of carbohydrates from your daily diet. This leads some people to have cravings, lack of concentration or not feeling well. In other words, the temptation to give up is often at its strongest in the first phase of the diet.

The good news is that each phase allows you to have more carbs, and it gets easier and easier to stick to. The question of how long you should stay on the Atkins Diet is best answered by saying “as long as you can”. That’s because there is a maintenance phase that is designed to be something you can keep doing. Of course, be sure to check with your personal doctor before starting any new diet.

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