Liquid diets are popular among people who want rapid weight loss. But are they really good?
Just taking liquid diets for many days is absolutely unhealthy habit. You expect rapid weight loss based on just liquid diets, but you forget that you will lose muscles mass when you go for such dieting.
It is not possible to get the required energy needed by your body from liquid diets. So what will the body do?
The body will not have any other option but to burn fat first and then the muscles in order to get energy. So you will lose muscles.
Once you start eating solid food, the weight that you lost might come back again. But the muscles are unlikely to be back so easily.
In order to gain back the lost muscles, you have to do regular exercises. When you lose muscles, your body becomes weak.
Muscle loss equals weakness. So you will be doing more harm to your body in the long run by embarking on liquid diets.
Most people are not accustomed to low calorie intake that you get from liquid diets. Most liquid diets will consist of calories in the range of 400-800 per day.
Drastic reduction in calories might cause a lot of unwanted side effects. Thus it is better if you try to lose weight slowly and steadily and not aim for overnight weight loss.
Lets recap the major problems with liquid diets – muscle loss, sudden reduction in calories, weakness of body and problem in keeping the weight off.
You might lose weight initially, but may struggle to keep it off after some time. You cannot remain on liquid diets forever. You have to come back to solid foods.
Once you call off the diet, you have high chances of gaining back atleast some of the weight you lost. However, sometimes you might gain back more weight than your original one.
Liquid dieting as such can cause muscle loss and only very little fat loss. Your metabolism rate may also drop as a result of it.
Another big problem with liquid diets is that you cannot continue them for very long periods of time. If you do so, then serious health issues might arise.
For example, prolonged use of liquid diets can cause kidney and lung problems, and may weaken your immune system. Lungs and kidneys are 2 major and very important organs of your body.
Would you like to cause damage to them because of your haste to lose a few pounds? It is far better to approach weight loss through healthy means.
Final verdict is that liquid dieting is not a good option for long term weight loss. It is best not to try it out as a means of rapid weight loss.
Read tips for rapid weight loss. Discover how to lose body fat easily without dieting.
Filed under Breakfast, Detox Diet, Diet, Exercise, Fat Burning, Fat Burning Tips by on Mar 19th, 2010. Comment. 
Canned soup is an inexpensive meal that is easy to make. All you have to do is open up the can and heat up the contents. Unfortunately, this can get boring fast. What is an amateur cook to do? If you are in a hurry, you are probably not going to be able to cook a full meal from scratch. The good news is that you can improve any can of soup to make things more interesting, without things getting complicated.
The right additions can turn your canned soup from a bland sort of meal to a fabulous one. For instance, a few extra vegetables can make things a lot more fun. Chop up whatever you have around and saute it quickly in a pan, or just cook it a little in the microwave. Add the partially cooked veggies to your soups and improve the flavor right away.
You can use frozen vegetables, as well. They require even less work than using fresh vegetables or many types of leftovers. Just pour them out of the bag and heat. There is a real difference in taste. Try corn or green beans in chowders or cream soups, for instance.
Meat can make an excellent addition to soups, as well, and it is a great way to use up leftovers. For a tasty chicken soup, save bits from a previous chicken meal, warm them briefly in the microwave, and add to your canned meal for a better taste. Any kind of meat, including seafood, can be used. Just make sure you cook it thoroughly before eating, for safety’s sake.
For those who do not usually have much in the way of meaty leftovers, canned meats can come to the rescue. There are great canned chicken, shrimp, crab, and other meat options out there that can really help you add interest to your soups. It is amazing how easy soup recipes can be.
Grains make great soup addition, as well. If you have a half cup of rice, a spoonful of pilaf, or half a serving of pasta left some night, don’t throw it out. Instead, put it in a bag in the fridge, and then add it to your next soup meal.
Check out your spices and condiments. Some of them can make a boring soup much more interesting. A sprinkle of garlic salt, basil, oregano, or red pepper could add that flavor you have been looking for. A splash of sherry or wine, or a little bit of an interesting vinegar (balsamic is great) are also excellent options. You can get creative with your options, too. A little bit of soy sauce adds an interesting depth of flavor.
Cheese and other dairy products work well, too. Grate a little fresh cheese on top of a soup, or add it to cream soups when heating for a delicious cheesy option. How about a spoonful of sour cream? Add it after heating the soup to make your meal a little richer.
Choose your chicken soup recipe with care. You want to use fresh ingredients and make it from scratch for the most incredible flavor. Canned soups are okay, but they tend to be loaded with sodium. Make it yourself and you can add all kinds of delicious herbs and seasonings.
Filed under Dinner, Fat Burning Foods, Lunch, Negative Calorie Foods, Soup by on Mar 12th, 2010. Comment.
Mexican cuisine makes most of us think of assertive spices; mostly chilies and cumin. This combination of spices is one, which is a perfect representative of the country’s culinary history; an ingredient, which came from the old world with the Spanish and one, which has been a central part of Mexican food for thousands of years.
Chilies are the Mexican spices with the longest history, having been used by the Aztecs for many centuries before the arrival of Europeans. Like tomatoes and potatoes, peppers are new world natives and remain one of the most important ingredients in Mexican recipes just as they always have been.
A familiar type of pepper to Americans is the jalapeno; these small to medium sized hot peppers are a common ingredient in salsas, where they lend their characteristic kick to these sauces. They are also commonly pickled on their own or as part of an escabeche (which is somewhat similar to a Mexican take on Italian giardinera). The Serrano pepper, a smaller and usually slightly hotter pepper is also seen fairly often in US markets. It is hard to imagine Mexican cuisine or Mexican food without the presence of these peppers, as well as others, which are often dried, and ground, as are anchos and pasilla peppers. You will also find peppers smoked to provide a milder, smoky heat as with the smoked jalapenos known as chipotle peppers.
Some of the Mexican culinary herbs, which are native to the country, include epazote, culantro, and Mexican oregano, all of which are very important to various Mexican recipes. Used very often in Mexican and Caribbean cooking, culantro is largely unknown in the US and hard to find other than in Mexican groceries. Its flavor, however, is similar enough to cilantro that this herb may be substituted if you cannot find the real thing in your area.
Despite its name, Mexican oregano is not even a relative of the old world herb of the same name. While their flavors are similar enough that Greek oregano can be substituted if needed, this herb is actually related to lemon verbena, not oregano. Its flavor is slightly stronger than that of the oregano used in Greek and Italian cooking and can be found dried in Mexican groceries and specialty spice markets.
Epazote, on the other hand, is an herb for which there is no real substitute. This herb is used to flavor beans in traditional Mexican recipes. While its flavor is something like that of tarragon, it is not recommended to substitute this or any other herb in a Mexican recipe, which calls for epazote. It has a flavor which is all its own.
Cumin is one of the spices, which we think of the most in connection to Mexican food. This spice is also a staple of Turkish and other Mediterranean cuisines; introduced to Mexico by the Spanish (who themselves were introduced to it by Arabs during the Moorish period in Spain), this ingredient was adopted by Mexican cooks with enthusiasm. This newcomer quickly became an important ingredient in a great many Mexican dishes.
You might say that Mexican food is among the world’s first fusion cuisines, with its blending of old world and new world flavors. Using ingredients from both Europe and the Americas, Mexican cooks created something unique, new and distinctively Mexican. It is a cuisine which has a flavor all its own and thanks in part to Mexican spices, it has become popular in nearly every part of the world.
Mexican food has quite a history and many delicious dishes to experiment with. Visit MexicanFoodRecipes.org for resources, tasty recipes like Mexican rice recipe and handy tips for trying your hand at this delicious cuisine.
Filed under Negative Calorie Foods by on Dec 12th, 2009. Comment.
