What do you think of when you hear terms like: fat burners, fast diet, lemonade diet, slim quick, or Beyonce diet? When I hear these terms and their claims for easy weight loss, I think of an unhealthy diet that lacks in nutrition and long term success. With all of the cleanse diets, fasting diets and juice diets out there, it is difficult to make a decision on what will work the best for you.
Let me tell you from experience, none of these diets will work! Sadly, there is no true key to easy weight loss that does not involve a change in lifestyle and mindset. The only way to successfully drop weight and keep it off is not to go on the latest acai berry diet or any other fasting diet or master cleanse diet out there. It is to eliminate the "bad" foods from your diet.
A popular perception of one of the many cleanse diets out there may sound effective, for instance a liver cleanse diet, liver cleansing diet, or diet that involves fasting for weight loss. The silliest diet I have heard about recently is the lemon detox diet or lemon diet - this approach is also known as the lemonade diet, lemon juice diet or lemonade cleansing diet. Regardless of what it is called, it involves following a lemonade diet recipe that guarantees fasting weight loss. But, don't be fooled, these are merely quick fixes that may help you drop pounds initially, but once you go off the diet, the pounds come back. And, you are risking compromising your health in the process.
From my own personal experience, I can tell you that the best way to lose weight and keep it off (I lost over 45 lbs in 9 months and have returned to the weight I was in my early 20s) is to eliminate foods like white sugar, refined white flour, dairy and most meat (organic, grass fed is OK, but I prefer no meat – only fish occasionally). It sounds difficult and very limiting. And, for some it might be, but it works!
Before I made these changes, I tried things like the raw food detox diet, cayenne pepper diet and the liver cleansing diet. The result - I gained weight! Why? Because once I went off of these ultra limiting diets, I ate more and therefore gained more weight than I had lost. When I changed my lifestyle and started to eat lots of raw, organic produce - a good mixture every week (it is important not to get caught in the rut of eating the same foods all the time), the pounds started to melt away.
Originally, I changed my lifestyle for health reasons. The side effect has been steady, healthy weight loss. I feel better than ever before and healthier. There are some great recipes out there for easy, healthy vegan diets. And, so many products available that are prepared. A great rule is the rule of 5. If there are more than 5 ingredients, don't buy it! If there are ingredients you cannot pronounce or identify, don't eat it. There are many substances that manufacturers sneak into processed foods that are simply unhealthy and are believed to be the cause of so many of the chronic health issues that plague Americans today.
My grand parents ate only freshly prepared foods everyday. They both lived to ripe old ages with high mental capacity. They were Mediterranean and ate a mostly Mediterranean diet, believed to be the healthiest diet around.
Choose your food sources wisely. In the long run, you will be healthier and happier as a result!
