Could it be possible that our beloved chocolate may actually be good for us? This is the nutrition news we have all been waiting for. So here is the scoop on chocolate and its health benefits. Yes, you read right, health benefits!

Recent studies show that cocoa and dark chocolate with a high cocoa content contain many heart-healthy antioxidants. They contain a compound called flavonoids which may help prevent the oxidation of LDL (bad) cholesterol and raise HDL (good) cholesterol levels in the blood. There is also some evidence that these flavonoids may prevent certain cancers.

It is important that we are all on the same page here, not all chocolate have these health benefits. The healthy flavonoids found in chocolate are found in the cocoa butter and cocoa solids. Milk chocolate is diluted with milk and sugar and contains little amounts of these substances, therefore providing fewer health benefits. So, for those of you who love dark chocolate this is your lucky day! The darker the chocolate, the higher the cocoa content and the more antioxidants it contains. The quality of the chocolate you consume is also important. The cocoa butter is quite pricey so less expensive brands will replace the cocoa butter with milk fats and hydrogenated oils which are bad for our health. Look for high quality chocolates with their main ingredients being cocoa butter and cocoa solids. Unsweetened cocoa powder is one of the purest forms of chocolate you can eat and is lower in fat and calories than other chocolates.

Although this is great news for all chocolate lovers, don’t forget that most chocolate (unless you use unsweetened cocoa powder) does still contain sugar and saturated fat.

And please remember calories. An ounce of chocolate contains around 135 calories. So enjoy a cup of hot cocoa or an ounce of chocolate once in awhile to contribute to your health and not to your waistline!

Owner of Real Living Nutrition Services, Meri Raffetto is a recognized professional in the area of nutrition and wellness. She has received a bachelor’s degree in both nutrition and psychology and has extensive experience in nutrition counseling and medical nutrition therapy. She offers individual nutrition counseling and has developed one of the only non-diet online weight management programs available on the internet. Meri specializes in weight management, cardiovascular health, and sports nutrition and consults with professional athletes at Titan Sports Performance Center. Her practice includes teaching people how to eat for endurance, improve vitality, and lose weight healthfully. For more information visit http://www.reallivingnutrition.com

About the Author: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Meri_Raffetto

Hydrate to Lose Weight: Drinking Water & Its Relationship to Weight Loss was written by Michael Callen from ccwebgroup.com

It all begins with water …. Water makes up 75% of the human body, so to say it is vital to health could be nothing short of an understatement. Drinking water is a necessity for maintaining health, but it helps those of us who are trying to lose weight or decrease fat in ways you may not have considered.

First of all, by drinking water before and during a meal, it makes you feel full sooner. If you feel full sooner, it can help you to stop eating sooner. Secondly, water can be mixed with low calorie concentrates and sipped throughout the day.

By adding flavorings (such as juice concentrate or green tea extract) the water tastes more like food, which can also put off feelings of hunger and keep you feeling more satisfied between meals.

Finally, drinking lots of water helps you feel better while losing weight. When the body burns old fat deposits, it can encounter contaminants and chemicals stored within the fat. These contaminants can cause you to have flu-like symptoms. By drinking plenty of water throughout the day, you provide a vehicle to allow the body to assist in flushing out those contaminants.

So how do you drink more water? Like everything else related to losing weight or fat, discipline must be incorporated. Here are a few suggestions to help you drink more water each day:

1. Create an Accountability Partner at home or work and tell one another when you drink a glass of water, so that the other has to also. Compete to see who drinks more water.
2. Associate drinking water with daily ‘landmarks’. Brush your teeth, drink a glass of water. Have breakfast, drink a glass of water. Leaving for work, drink a glass of water. And so on.
3. Proximity. Keep the water close to you at all times. Buy bottles of water that can be frozen and taken with you if you are not going to be at home or at work. Keep extra glasses and water bottles at work and make sure you always have one full. If it is available, you will drink more water.

A couple of very important aspects of hydration that dramatically affect weight gain and loss are water retention and kidney function.

First of all, water retention. Water retention is an interesting issue because it is one of those issues that runs completely contrary to how we would imagine it would work. Water weighs about seven pounds per gallon, so its easy to imagine that we could shed a few quick pounds by losing some retained water… but how do we do that? Well, as it turns out, we lose retained water by drinking more water!

The body has such a need for water that it retains extra water if we don’t supply the right amount on a daily basis – and most of us do not. By getting into a habit, or regimen, of drinking more water than our body actually needs, our body becomes convinced that it doesn’t need to hoarde extra water. Once your body is “convinced” that you are going to provide more than enough water to simply survive, it will let loose of the extra water it has stored up in your cells.

Secondly, let’s look at your kidneys. Well not directly at them, but let’s talk about them. In order to do their job properly, your kidneys require an enormous amount of water. If the water is not supplied, your body goes to Plan B, which is to enlist the assistance of your liver. Because the liver is able to metabolize fat (turn it into energy), every second your liver spends bailing out the kidneys is a second it isn’t burning stored fat. Drinking more water allows the kidneys to run at their optimal level and keeps the liver available to burn fat.

For dieters, there is an additional aspect worth consideration. Because we are attempting to burn EXTRA fat (not simply the supply of fat in our daily diet), we actually create an extra water deficit. It takes water to do the normal work of processing waste from our bodies, and it takes EXTRA water to process the stored fat and waste that comes from that job.

Earlier in the article we shared a few tips on how to drink more water each day. Here are a few more tips to help you start your hydration habit:

1. Whenever you feel the urge to binge or have a hankerin’ for something that you KNOW you shouldn’t eat or drink, immediately drink a big glass of water. It’ll do two things… first it will fill your stomach, preventing you from putting the bad stuff in there, and secondly, it will put some time between you and your craving, giving it a chance to pass.
2. Water out, water in. Make it a habit to drink a glass of water after you use the restroom. Did you remember to shut the light off??
3. Drink with a straw. Some people say that you drink more and drink faster if you use a straw. It’s worth a try, right??

References: University of Minnesota, Extension Water Quality Program

How to Lose Weight: Food for Thought was written by Gary Cordingley from cordingleyneurology.com

When it comes to weight loss, most of us would like to engage in what psychologists call “magical thinking.” We’d like to believe that some easy trick or ritual would allow us to shed pounds while eating anything we liked. Wouldn’t it be nice if consuming all our food before 6 p.m., doing yoga, or hopping on one foot for five minutes would allow us to chow down with all our favorite goodies and still lose weight?

Unfortunately, despite what legions of people with a book or a product to sell might claim, it’s just not so. Yet it really is possible to come up with a system for losing weight. The real secret is this: It’s all about the calories.

Most of us have heard that sensible weight loss involves some combination of diet and exercise. As a physician, I’m surely not going to tell people to avoid exercise. For most people, exercise is a very healthy thing to do. But when it comes to losing weight, unless we’re training for the Olympics, the effect of exercise is minor. What matters most is how many calories go down the hatch.

This bears explaining. Our bodies use the calories we consume to fuel our basic life-processes. The heart needs lots of fuel (calories) to beat its usual 100,000 times in 24 hours. The brain, liver and kidneys also require lots of fuel to perform their many chemical reactions and metabolic tasks. Most of the calories we burn in 24 hours (about 1500 for women and 1800 for men) we would still burn even if we were in a coma.

It’s true that working the muscles in our arms, legs and trunk requires fuel (calories) as well, but you’d be amazed how long you would have to row, jog, swim or walk to burn off the calories in one slice of cherry pie. (Answer: In order to burn the 486 calories in a slice of cherry pie a 175-pound person would need to row for 35 minutes, jog for 37 minutes, swim for 41 minutes or walk briskly for 63 minutes.) For most of us it would be more practical to just not eat the pie.

Each of us has a calories-per-day figure for maintaining body weight. If, on the average, we eat that many calories, then we will maintain body weight, neither gaining nor losing. If we consistently eat more calories than our break-even number, then we will gain weight. The unused calories have to be stored somewhere, and will probably go into our body’s fat cells. If we consistently eat fewer than our break-even number of calories, then we will lose weight. The body will get its fuel somewhere, and will burn off calories that have been put into storage in fat cells.

This is how it is. We just can’t get around the basic biology and physics.

So, if we’re trying to lose weight, how do we choose what we do or don’t eat? Well, sometimes, our choices are haphazard. A useful analogy concerns shopping. How in the world could we do a good job of shopping without knowing the prices of the items we’re putting in our shopping carts? Without knowledge of the prices our choices in merchandise could easily exceed our budgets.

The same holds true when it comes to eating. If we wanted to budget our calories, how in the world could we make good choices if we didn’t know the calorie count of the foods we eat? We just couldn’t do a good job. Our calorie intake per day would probably exceed our break-even point for maintaining body weight, and we would gain.

So, in order to make sensible choices, it’s crucial to know the approximate number of calories in the foods we eat. An easy way to do that is to buy a paperback book in the check-out line of your grocery store that lists the calorie content of usual portions of commonly consumed food and beverages. (Or look them up online.) We don’t necessarily need to check the list each time we sit down to eat, but knowing typical figures for our favorite foods will enable us to know if we’re keeping or exceeding our daily calorie budget.

This is not as awful as it sounds. In fact, there can be pleasant surprises. Suppose I typically get the munchies in the evening, and I roam the house in search of goodies to snack upon. Here is where knowledge of calorie contents can pay off. If I satisfy my munchies by eating cookies, French fries, potato chips or candies, then I’ll blow my daily food-budget in just one sitting. But what if I substitute pretzels or unbuttered popcorn? They might be just as satisfying, yet contain fewer calories. So these alternative choices might spare my daily calorie budget at no loss of satisfaction.

As a physician I often encourage my patients to lose weight. Being overweight can increase blood pressure and cholesterol which, in turn, increase the likelihoods of heart attacks and strokes. Heart attacks and strokes are the number one and number three causes of death in the U.S., respectively, and strokes are the number one cause of disability. So we’re talking about real conditions that afflict real people. Moreover, our overweight bodies put more stress and strain on our spines and our knees, making them wear out earlier, hurt more, and interfere with quality of life.

Some patients with whom I have this conversation look at me like I’m crazy. They’re eating barely enough food to keep a small bird warm, they say. The problem—or the solution—couldn’t possibly lie with the food they eat.

The incentives are clear. The choices are ours to make. We shouldn’t blame our metabolism. And we shouldn’t delude ourselves that we consume barely enough to keep ourselves alive, and yet still, unaccountably, gain weight. We need to take our health into our own hands and start making choices that increase the quality and quantity of our remaining years.

Green tea has been known to have beneficial effects when it comes to losing weight. With the proven success of the beverage in reducing body weight, more and more people endeavor to use green tea supplement in their weight loss plans. Here are some of the reasons why green tea is a valuable aid for people who want to lose unwanted body weight.

1. Green tea boosts metabolic weight loss

Drinking green tea extract has been reported in recent studies to produce a significant increase in energy expenditure, also called a metabolism boost. The researchers of the study have discovered that green tea supplement helps speed up the body’s metabolic rate by 4 percent. These metabolic effects on the body have been attributed to the high concentrations of catechin polyphenols found in green tea. These polyphenols are likewise effective in accelerating the process of fat oxidation.

2. Green tea promotes thermogenesis

Green tea in weight loss programs can also enhance thermogenesis, the process where the body burns fat and releases calories. The improvement of thermogenesis occurs when catechin polyphenols found in green tea interact with caffeine content. This is the reason why weight loss plans based on green tea supplement is effective in stimulating the body’s metabolic rates.

3. Green tea helps burn fat

Studies also suggest that green tea extract may help in burning fat. One study proved that the combination of green tea and caffeine enhanced weight loss and maintenance in overweight and moderately obese people. Several researchers suggest that the polyphenols in green tea, particularly the catechins, are responsible in produce a fat-burning effect.

4. Green tea suppresses the absorption of fats and helps in the regulation of glucose

The catechins in a green tea supplement are also effective in regulating glucose by stopping it from moving into fat cells. As the catechins in green tea suppress the fat-cell-bound movement of glucose, the rise in blood sugar, most especially after meals, are slowed down, thereby preventing episodes of high insulin spikes. Increase in insulin is associated with storage of fats.

5. Green tea helps in reducing fat digestion

Another benefit that green tea supplement can offer for people who want to lose weight is its ability to decrease the rate of fat digestion, making it crucial in controlling a person’s weight. Through the action of green tea polyphenols, digestive lipases are inhibited. This then results in decreased lipolysis of triglycerides, which may translate to decreased lipolysis of triglycerides, which may translate to reduced digestion of fat in humans.

People on weight loss programs can benefit more if they take green tea supplement rather than plainly drink green tea. It was reported in a study that taking green tea supplement is more capable of bring more antioxidants into the bloodstream when compared to just drinking the beverage. The benefits offered by drinking 20 cups of green tea a day can be supplied by just two capsules of green tea supplement, even in cases when health conditions are at its most difficult.

Author: Patricia Hammond -  green tea enthusiast.

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If you are reading this because you are frustrated about not being able to keep your weight off, rest assured you are not alone. You are only one of millions in the United States who feel just as frustrated as you are, and wonder what to do.

First of all, when you consider weight loss programs, you have to remember that they can work for you. However, there is no substitute for exercise and balanced dieting no matter which diet plan you follow.

If you are looking for a healthy diet plan to follow in order to help you keep your weight off for good, you have to first examine the purpose of a few well-known diets. If the purpose of the diet you have interest in trying promotes gradual weight loss and offers balanced meal plans then you know that it is most likely a good diet to follow.

If the diet that you are considering makes claims of drastic changes of weight in an extremely short period of time such as lose 50 pounds in less than a month or similar, then you know the diet is most possibly either a hoax or one that could cause harm to your body, mind, and emotions.

Another example of a diet that could possibly either not be effective long term or do not provide all of the nutrients your body needs are various three-day to seven-day diets. These are the type of diets in which you only eat a certain type of one or a few types of foods. Some foods that are used for these shot term diets are the grapefruit, hot dogs, read meats, and so forth. Usually this one food and a variety of other foods along with it are supposed to make up a diet that will help you lose weight.

Those who try the above mentioned temporary diets sometimes referred to as crash diets may lose at least a little bit of weight. However, if they have no long term diet plan after the first few days they are likely to gain all that weight they lost back. In order for a diet to be effective there needs to be a long-term diet plan.

One aspect not mentioned in this article yet about healthy dieting is that of exercise. Most healthy dieting plans also include provision for exercise, and encourage participants to plan an effective exercise programs. The purpose of exercise is to keep work your heart and muscles and to help burn fat. Exercise helps keep your body in ideal shape, or it helps it reach the ideal healthy state.

If you have heard of a diet plan that offers a remedy in which you can lose weight without exercise, you are usually advised by health professionals and personal fitness trainers to beware of these types of diets. Many people will recognize these diets as an easy solution to your problems; however the long-term effect is usually unknown or very unpredictable. Many people who use diet plans in which exercise is said to not be needed have a tendency to gain weight back of they are not careful.

Some examples of healthy weight loss diets are the food pyramid diet, which offers meal and nutrition plans from all the food groups. The food groups of this pyramid are generally fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy, grains, and fats. The USDA offers guidelines for daily food allowances and even promotes personalized food pyramid dieting.

Both the USDA website and Mayo Clinic have ways that you can calculate how much of eat type of food you should eat daily. Not only that but they have a calorie guide as well. It is easy to plan this type of diet, especially if you already are in good health overall and just need to lose a few pounds, or even 15 to 20 pounds.

For those who are chronically obese, greater measures may be sought than just simply following a food pyramid. Chronically obese usually refers to an individual who is usually about 50 pounds or more overweight and has not had very much success with dieting leading to permanent weight loss.

Those who are chronically obese will often try a low carb diet in which they temporary reduce to almost nothing the amount of carbs that they consume. Then, they gradually add more carbs to their diet the further along they are in it. During this time they will find out how many carbs they can eat without gaining weight, and how they can continue to lose weight at a slow, steady rate.

If the above diets are still not enough for a person who really wants to keep the weight off, that person may qualify for one of various medical treatments. For example, some people will undergo stomach reduction surgery or liposuction. Others have even taken part in a clinical study on the gastric pacemaker for appetite reduction.

There are quite a few options out there for those who want to lose weight and keep it off. If you want to find out for yourself which one would be most effective for you remember you can call your doctor or a dietician to help you find the right plan for you. That doctor will suggest both a diet and fitness program to help improve the quality of your life.

Author: Jason Cox – online product reviewer

Also Check Out: Dealing with obesity

With the percentage of persons who may be classified as obese increasing in our society, there is no wonder that people would begin to turn to natural ways of getting their weight under control. Diet tea is one of those natural substances that people are finding help with the battle of the bulge. But do diet teas really help? Here are some things to consider about weight loss teas.

Just about all teas that contain some form of pekoe have antioxidant qualities. There is a school of thought that by removing toxins from the body, we are able to process what we eat more efficiently. With that thought in mind, teas for weight loss could in fact help us to get the most from our foods and allow what we do not need to pass on through. Over time, this may help us bring our weight under control and begin to manage it more effectively.

One nice feature of dieting teas is that the majority of them have a desirable taste. This means there is no need to add any type of sweetener, natural or otherwise. In this manner, you avoid unwanted calories and carbohydrates from the natural sweetening agents, as well as any of the emerging health issues that some see with artificial sweeteners. The decreased reliance on sweeteners of any kind can translate into a more balanced approach to eating, as one will not binge because there are no calories in the diet tea served with the meal.

Teas for weight watching are also great for in between meals. A nice hot cup of diet inspired tea will help to give one the sense of feeling full without ingesting snacks that have no nutritional value, but pack a wallop when it comes to calories and carbohydrates. The ability to feel full and not be adding elements to your body that you do not need can lead to a healthier approach to eating, and thus decrease your excess poundage.

Diet tea can help you lose weight, not only because of what it contains. It also works because of what it does not contain. Because it does not add to the problem and helps you to feel full when you want to snack, you may find this wonderful tasty drink just what you need to get back to your ideal weight.

Author: Mayoor Patel

Also Check Out: Dealing with obesity

Weight seems to be a big issue these days with many news articles stating that most of the people in the US are obese, or overweight. Kids these days are also more overweight than kids the same age decades ago. What’s my view on the cause of all this, bad diet and no excercise. I know I mentioned that I was able to lose weight without any special diets or extreme workouts but what I did can be just viewed as a normal diet and minimal workout routine.

Also Check Out: Dealing with obesity

We all know that dieting can be described a number of ways, however, easy usually isn’t one of them. In fact, challenging, difficult, and tough probably more immediately come to one’s mind. So, in an effort to keep you on the tracks, here is a quick guide that gives you a few things you must to avoid in order to be successful with your diet.

- Anyone frustrated with their weight and looking to take a serious whack at it should remember that you should not rush into the toughest most rigorous diet routine you can find in hopes of just ‘melting’ the fat off of yourself.

This is an extremely common mistake. Especially for those who may be trying to tackle their weight problem for the first time. The allure of rapid weight loss is a difficult siren not to follow, but if you jump into a very restrictive diet and have no chance of sticking with it; you may rebound out of it to even more weight gain.

- Stay realistic and grounded with your goals. I don’t care what anyone claims… it won’t happen overnight. When choosing your goal start small, stay small and achieve consistency. Keep the big picture in mind. Just one pound a week a year later is 52lbs! And it’s very important that diets affect people differently… don’t get distracted because some else may be losing weight a bit quicker than your body is able to shed the weight.

- As part of your exercise program you shouldn’t hit the gym everyday. This is extremely important if you are just getting started. Muscles need time to heal and recover after any exercise routine (especially if this is your first week off the couch in a long time). This can’t happen if your off to the gym every morning. Don’t try to get back into shape in one week after being out of shape for a long time.

- Don’t go cold turkey on calorie intake. It’s true that a reduction in calories will need to take place, but if you just swear off calories and they take a drastic dive, your body will react by trying to store anything at can… and this is not a good approach at all in losing weight.

- Don’t skip your meals. See above. Your dieting objective should be to start eating the right foods with the right proportions… not starving one’s self.

- Don’t become obsessive about weighing in every day. Everyone wants to check their progress. It makes you feel like you are really serious and in control again. But don’t check your weight every day. Your dieting and subsequent weight loss is not going to start descending in a flat line. You will have ups and downs. You’re a human body. Don’t get caught up… and more importantly discouraged with daily weight fluctuations.

- Don’t allow your emotions to link to your eating. When people get bored they oftentimes eat… when people get angry, upset, or frustrated… they head to the kitchen. Don’t. Learn to recognize your various states of mind and deal with or deflect the emotion… not eat your way through it. Stay focused on your objective.

- Don’t be a dieting island. Everyone can use a little help now and then. Don’t try to shoulder the who experience by yourself. If you think you are struggling, ask for some advice from friends as well as professionals. Struggling and not seeking help leads to frustration and emotions and loss of control.

- Don’t swear off of everything that you like to eat. You’ll never stay on a diet if you never eat foods that you like. In fact, a well deserved, well placed treat is a great way to reward your hard work and energize your will power. If you keep your treats to just that… treats… and not an eating habit… in the long run… big picture… they’ll be inconsequential.

- Don’t rely on nerves of steel, resolve, and will power alone. Use your head. Be pragmatic an managerial in your approach. Plan your meals as much as possible and keep a diary of what you put in your mouth on matter how small. You can’t manage what you don’t know and don’t track. Once you keep a journal and review it, it’s much easier to convert bad eating habits in to good habits.

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Obesity is defined “clinically” as being 30 pounds or more over your ideal weight and is recognized, in North America – especially the U.S., to be a major killer taking 300,000 lives each year from heart attack, stroke, cancer and diabetes which have ALL been strongly linked to obesity. 300,000 people die each year because they are fat.

Think about that a minute and put that in proper perspective.

52,000+ American soldiers died in Viet Nam during that 10 year war…
35,000+ Americans die each year from car collisions
100,000+ Americans die each year from prescription drugs

But…
300,000+ Americans die each year from obesity-linked diseases. And that isn’t my uneducated guess, that’s the number given in the 2001 Surgeon General’s Report. The report also said that 31% of Americans are obese. With a population of around 300 million people that means 93 million Americans are walking time bombs. People who may die prematurely from a disease directly linked to being obese. And unfortunately the problem has continued to become worse, not better, with obesity now taking a foothold in children. An estimated 14% of children under 18 are obese.

Instead of eating to live people, more than ever, are living to eat and that fact, along with poor nutrition, is causing a major problem.

What can you do right now, today, to wage war on obesity and lose weight?
Here are 3 strategies that you probably won’t take seriously until you are told you have an obesity-linked disease and even then, you may not do anything to help yourself. But, if you are ready to take control of your life and health these 3 things could save your life.

1)Change your eating habits. Eat to live instead of living to eat. Which means:
a)Eating smaller meals 3 – 5 times daily
b)Exercising portion control
c)Cutting useless, empty calorie foods from your menu
d)Consuming less calories than you burn daily

2)Get Moving!
a)Walk at least 30 minutes per day to burn calories
b)Take the stairs not the elevator
c)Participate in a physical sport at least 3 times per week

3)Use safe diet products to help you:
a)Burn fat
b)Suppress appetite and curb cravings
c)Block excess carbs and fat and
d)Cut calorie consumption…
Also Check Out: Diet Reviews