Fixed-menu diet
A fixed-menu diet provides a list of all the foods you will eat. This kind of diet can be easy to follow because the foods are selected for you. But, you get very few different food choices which may make the diet boring and hard to follow away from home. In addition, fixed-menu diets do not teach the food selection skills necessary for keeping weight off. If you start with a fixed-menu diet, you should switch eventually to a plan that helps you learn to make meal choices on your own, such as an exchange-type diet.

An exchange-type diet is a meal plan with a set number of servings from each of several food groups. Within each group, foods are about equal in calories and can be interchanged as you wish. For example, the "starch" category could include one slice of bread or 1/2 cup of oatmeal; each is about equal in nutritional value and calories. If your meal plan calls for two starch choices at breakfast, you could choose to eat two slices of bread, or one slice of bread and 1/2 cup of oatmeal. With the exchange-type diet plans, you have more day-to-day variety and you can easily follow the diet away from home. The most important advantage is that exchange-type diet plans teach the food selection skills you need to keep your weight off.

These diets require you to buy prepackaged meals. Such meals may help you learn appropriate portion sizes. However, they can be costly. Before beginning this type of program, find out whether you will need to buy the meals and how much the meals cost. You should also find out whether the program will teach you how to select and prepare food, skills that are needed to sustain weight loss.

Formula diets are weight-loss plans that replace one or more meals with a liquid formula. Most formula diets are balanced diets containing a mix of protein, carbohydrate, and usually a small amount of fat. Formula diets are usually sold as liquid or a powder to be mixed with liquid. Although formula diets are easy to use and do promote short-term weight loss, most people regain the weight as soon as they stop using the formula. In addition, formula diets do not teach you how to make healthy food choices, a necessary skill for keeping your weight off.

You should avoid any diet that suggests you eat a certain nutrient, food, or combination of foods to promote easy weight loss. Some of these diets may work in the short term because they are low in calories. However, they are often not well balanced and may cause nutrient deficiencies. In addition, they do not teach eating habits that are important for long-term weight management.

Some programs or books suggest monitoring fat only, calories only, or a combination of the two, with the individual making the choice of both the type and amount of food eaten. This flexible type of approach works well for many people, and teaches them how to control what they eat. One drawback of flexible diets is that some don't consider the total diet. For example, programs that monitor fat only often allow people to take in unlimited amounts of excess calories from sugars, and therefore don't lead to weight loss.

It is important to choose an eating plan that you can live with. The plan should also teach you how to select and prepare healthy foods, as well as how to maintain your new weight. Remember that many people tend to regain lost weight. Eating a healthful and nutritious diet to maintain your new weight, combined with regular physical activity, helps to prevent weight regain.

The different kinds of food that we eat everyday for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks are all part of the 5 Basic Food Groups. These 5 Food Groups are easy to understand when at them in the form of Food Group Pyramid. The Food Guide Pyramid was designed as an easy way to show the groups of foods that make up a good diet. It also shows how much of these different groups one need to eat to stay healthy. It is in a pyramid shape (rather than a circle or square) to explain the different proportions of foods to one another. The foods that make up the widest part (the base) should provide the bulk (the biggest part) of your diet, and as you go up the pyramid, the requirements get smaller as the pyramid gets skinnier.

Bread, Cereal, Rice, and Pasta Group
Grain products like bread, cereal, rice, and pasta are good for health. They are important sources of vitamins and minerals. Breads, cereals, rice, and pasta are also good sources of carbohydrates like starch and fiber. Many people think that starchy foods like breads, rice and pasta are fattening. They are not. But when you add fats like margarine, oil, mayonnaise, cheese sauce or gravy to them, you add many extra calories. White grain foods have lesser fiber than whole-grain foods. There are many kinds of whole-grain foods, brown rice, whole wheat bread, grits, corn tortillas and oatmeal. Try a whole grain bread instead of white bread and use brown rice instead of white rice or mix them together the next time you have rice. This group is at the bottom of the pyramid. This means that the foods in this group should make up the biggest part of what you eat all day.

Vegetable Group
Fresh vegetables are naturally low in fat, calories and sodium. Extra fat and calories can come from cooking or other types of processing. You can buy frozen vegetables without special sauces and get the same nutrients as fresh vegetables. Some canned vegetables have added salt. While the salt adds flavor, it also adds extra sodium to your diet. When you shop for canned vegetables, look for vegetables with no salt added.
The vegetable group is toward the bottom of the pyramid. This means that lots of daily servings of vegetables are an important part of a healthy diet.

Fruit Group
Fruits are important sources of vitamins and carbohydrates like fiber and sugar. They are low in calories and naturally sweet. Fruits and their juices are good sources of water, too. Whole fruits like apples and grapes contain more fiber than fruit juices and sauces, like applesauce and grape juice. Dried fruits like figs, prunes and raisins are good sources of fiber, too. Canned fruits packed in syrup have a lot of added sugar. They are higher in calories than fresh fruits. When you shop for canned fruits, look for fruit that is packed in juice instead of syrup.
The fruit group is down near the bottom of the pyramid. This means that many daily servings of fruit are an important part of a healthy diet.

Milk, Yogurt, and Cheese Group
The foods in this group are important because all of the nutrients work together to keep our bones strong and healthy. It may be difficult to get enough calcium unless we include these foods in our diets. We can make sure we get the milk and calcium we need by making puddings and soups with milk.
Some people who have problems digesting milk products because of lactose (sugar) in milk. Today there are many lactose-free products to try. Some milk products like ice cream, cheese, whole milk and foods made from whole milk are high in fat. We can choose low-fat or skim milk products, like low-fat yogurt, skim milk and low-fat cheeses to keep the fat in our diets down.
This food group is high up on the pyramid. This means that even though these foods are important for good health, you don't need to eat as many of them in one day as you do of foods lower down on the pyramid.

Meat, Poultry, Fish, Beans, Eggs, and Nuts Group
Some meats and meat products are high in fat. There are many ways to reduce the fat you get from these meats. You can choose leaner cuts like chuck, bottom round or top round of beef, pork loin or lamb shank. You can trim fat from meat before cooking and eating. You can take the skin off chicken. Many processed meats like hot dogs, sausage, pepperoni, bacon, ham and luncheon meats are high in fat and sodium. If you enjoy eating these meats, try having them less often and when you do, try eating them in smaller amounts.
Because eggs are a good source of iron and protein, they are counted as a meat serving. Most of the fat in eggs is found in the yolk. When you use the egg whites, you can cut the fat and keep the protein and vitamins you need.
This food group is high up on the pyramid. This means that even though these foods are important for good health, you don't need to eat as many of them in one day as you do of foods lower down on the pyramid. This group of foods supplies you with the super-important nutrient protein. So this is the perfect part of the pyramid for protein!

Fats, Oils, and Sweets
Fats, oils and sweets give us calories. Fats and oils like salad dressings, mayonnaise, butter, margarine and lard tend to be high in calories because of the fat they contain. Sweets like candy, soft drinks, syrups, jams, and jellies are made mostly of sugars. Most of these foods do not contain many vitamins or minerals. So they are called "empty calorie" foods.
Fats, oils and sweets are not bad foods. When we eat them along with foods like grains, fruits, vegetables, milk and meat products they are part of a healthy diet. Eating too many fats, oils or sweets can be a problem when we eat them instead of foods and nutrients we get in the other food groups.
Fats, oils, and sweets are a little different from the other parts of the pyramid, because they don't make up a "group" in the same way the other foods do. They sit at the very top of the pyramid. This means that even though your body needs them, it only needs a tiny amount.

Weight Loss with Mediterranean Diet

Mediterranean Diet was publicized by Ancal keys an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota U.S in a report published in 1954.  Just like Glycemic Index Diets. the Mediterranean diet is really a type of weight loss diets rather than a specific eating plan.
The mediterranean diet is modeled after cuisines found in societies along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Research had shown that these societies had lower risks of disease like heart attacks and it was proposed it was a result of a better diet.
The Mediterranean area stretches from the Western Spain all the way to the Middle East. The sea, Mediterranean Sea, divides this large stretch of land from North Africa. The region has about 15 countries including Greece, Spain, France and Italy.
The Mediterranean diet is attributed better health in these societies are reported in a study seven country study of 1980 by a team headed by Ancal Keys. The report confirmed suspicion that it was blood cholesterol from meat and dairy products that was responsible for ill health in countries like the U.S.
Previously a thorough study of Crete’s dietary habits entailed in a report- Crete: A case study of undeveloped Area in 1953 had documented the diet. The weight loss diet did end up being some sort of paradox as these societies ate just as much fat as their western counterparts. But unlike them, they had lower rates of ill health. The difference was later to be attributed to liberal use of olive oil in Mediterranean diets.

Banana Diet

Banana Diet is an effective and tasty short-term weight loss method.
Bananas have very high content of potassium, a mineral that is essential to the normal muscular function. They are rich in dietary fiber and contain the entire range of vitamin B-thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3), folic acid (B6) and very little B5 and B12. Compared to an apple, it has four times the protein, twice the carbohydrates, three times the phosphorus, five times the vitamin A and iron, and twice all the other vitamins and minerals.
Bananas also contain copper, chromium, fluoride, manganese, selenium and zinc.
On the menu of the Banana Diet. 3 bananas and 3 glasses of fat-free milk per day.
Divide the allowed amount of food into the daily number of meals that you are used to.
Dieting period: from 1 day to 3 days. No longer!
Expected weight loss during 3 days: about 5 – 5.5 lbs.
The diet is strict; please, consult your physician before you start.
You can also make Banana Diet enjoyable for your face. Prepare an easy face mask which will be a good moisturizer for dry skin. Mash a banana with a fork, add 1 teaspoon of honey (optional) and mix the mass. Spread the mashed banana/the mass evenly on your clean face. Allow to remain for 10 minutes, then rinse off with warm water and pat dry with a soft towel.

Exercise - Power Walking

Walking is the most natural and fundamental of all human conscious movements; by putting one foot in front of the other and moving your arms in opposition, you can propel yourself forward at approximately 5km/h (3mph).
Add the "POWER", change your focus, adjust your technique, and at the pace can increase to 8km/h (5mph) or more. All the muscles in your body are used to create a dynamic aerobic activity that helps achieve optimum well being and fitness
Full of energy and feeling greatResearchers in the field  of sports and fitness have described walking as "the nearest activity to perfect exercise".
It seems far too simple to claim that a basic skill that most of us do without a second thought can be significant, but as you begin to learn more and more about your body and the benefits of walking you will realise that it is true; the action of walking may be simple but the results for your health and daily living are far reaching.
Our society is becoming more sedentary and overweight. We sit in our cars instead of walking, many of us spend hours seated at a desk at work, and thanks to computers we can now do a lot of our shopping without leaving home.
Not surprisingly, more people complain of posture-related aches and pains, and life really is no fun if every day is a battle to find our energy and sparkle. Yet we are missing one vital point; Exercise (especially power walking) in any shape or form is an essential part of our lives, not an optional extra that we may or may not choose to do.