The French Diet

The French Diet: Which Foods are Allowed?

You can eat a huge variety of unprocessed meat, fish, poultry, grains, bread, dairy, veggies and fruit. A varied diet is essential, as each food contains different vitamins and minerals essential for long term health. It's really ALL about portions.

Keep in mind that your protein at each sitting shouldn't be much larger than a deck of cards, and should be eaten with salads and vegetables.

Desserts are allowed too. Instead of everybody ordering an individual piece of cheese cake though, order one for the table. Eat it slowly, let it linger on your tongue and you will be satisfied with less. Even better, opt for the fruit salad.

Croissants, pastries and even baguettes are fine, but in very small portions. Croissants in France are a mere 1 ounce! Not monster size as they are in many countries.

Real cheese is certainly allowed - the French love to go to the fromagerie. Eating a small portion of cheese will keep you full and satisfied and dissuade you from snacking. Processed cheesed is the most consumed cheese in the United States but is definitely NOT allowed. Examples of what not to eat include Cheez Whiz and Velveeta.

Red wine is packed with antioxidants and has recently been proven to be heart healthy. The French have a low incidence of heart disease and many cite red wine as the reason. Just 1-2 glasses a day remember, not a whole bottle.

Lastly, the French eat a large proportion of vegetables and fruits. These are low in calories and nutritionally dense. They also use heart healthy Olive Oil, rather than artery-clogging hydrogenated cooking oils.

The French Diet: Which Foods are Not Allowed?

All processed snack food like potato or corn chips, pork rinds and snack bars. All snacks are out, besides perhaps a low calorie snack to get you through to the next meal. If you have to, opt for a bit of fruit or a low fat yogurt.

Soda and other sugary drinks, high calorie cocktails, Frappucinos (a Starbucks 20-ounce Frappuccino with added whipped contains a whopping 650 calories and 25 grams of fat!).

Stay off the fast food and turn your back on McDonalds and KFC. The French would turn their nose up at this low quality junk food in a second, and for good reason. Fast food is unnatural and packed with preservatives. Not on the French diet!

Pre-packaged meals and Frozen meals. The French like to prepare their meals carefully from only the freshest ingredients. You know the big aisle with the frozen dinners in your local market? That aisle is much, much smaller in a French supermarket.

How to Increase Your Metabolism

Don't starve yourself!

The first instinct of many dieters is to put themselves on the starvation diet, but although this can help you quickly lose a couple of pounds, its not the right way to lose weight in the long run.

When your diet drops below 1000 calories, your body goes into 'starvation mode', which slows down your metabolism.

As well as feeling groggy and tired, you will be using far less calories than usual and making it even harder for yourself to lose weight! The answer is to eat a sustainable low-calorie diet, but never to make your body push the 'panic button' like this as it is counterproductive.

Also make sure to eat breakfast. If you skip it, your body will enter its 'starve' mode early in the day and it will be hard to break out. To keep your metabolism working all through the day, eat small, low calorie snacks between meals.

Decrease your alcohol consumption

That's right - stay off the booze! Although certainly not the most fun part of increasing your metabolism, cutting down your alcohol intake will help as much as anything. Studies show that alcohol suppresses the body's ability to burn fat.

It may be hard to completely cut alcohol out of an active social life, so why not try limiting yourself to one drink a night. If you make it a high-volume, low-alcohol drink (a lite beer for example), you might find it easier to get through the evening!

Black Pepper, Ginger, Chile Peppers

Spicy food doesn't just taste great, it actually increases your metabolism too. Black Pepper, Ginger and Chile Peppers all raise your body temperature and help you burn fat faster!

Careful though - the curries you find in restaurants are often oily and fatty, so cooking your own spicy food is always best.

Increase your muscle mass

Muscle burns 90% more calories than fat, so the more muscle you have the faster your metabolism will be. Going to the gym is not just a one-off attack on your fat cells - your new muscle will actually keep fighting that fat long after you leave the gym. Adding 5lbs of muscle will help you burn another 250 calories a day!

If you can't make it to the gym, then there are ways to make everyday activities into a workout. Carry your groceries home, walk the dog yourself, lift small weights while watching TV or take the stairs at work - it all helps.

Vitamin B and Calcium

The B-Vitamins give you more energy and increase your metabolism. Drinking coffee will increase your metabolism too, but Vitamin B is a much more healthy, sustainable way to do it. Make sure your daily supplement incorporates B-Vitamins and in particular B-12.

Recent research has found that 4 daily servings of low-fat dairy products can boost your body's fat-burning ability. Calcium actually increases your metabolism. So add some low-fat yogurts to your diet, maybe as a small snack between meals.

Drink More Water

Speed up your metabolism by drinking more water. A healthy, well-hydrated body is important to flush out toxins and aid in metabolizing fats. A simple way to determine if you are consuming enough water is to take note of the colour of your urine. If it is colorless or light yellow you are on the right track, if it's any darker you need to increase your water intake. Drinking ice water also helps the body expend more calories by heating it up.

Boost Your Omega-3 Fatty Acids

In recent studies it has been shown that an increased intake of Omega 3 fatty acids can help to balance blood sugar levels and control appetite. Good sources of this metabolism-boosting acid can be found in flax, hemp seeds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, salmon, mackerel and herring. Many people use flax oil as a supplement.

Increase Your Iodine Intake

Increasing your Iodine intake can help stimulate thyroid gland function. The thyroid gland is responsible for regulating body metabolism and energy expenditure. Kelp extract supplements are a potent source of Iodine, as well as eating all different types of seaweeds and seafood.

Drink Green Tea!

Green tea regulates blood sugar levels by reducing the amount of insulin produced. This prevents fat being stored and keeps your appetite under control. A 1999 study showed that Green Tea extract resulted in a significant increase in energy expenditure.

EGCG, the main polyphenol in green tea, is an effective thermogenic which increases the metabolism of fat. This is not just a result of the caffeine in the tea, because those who lose weight on Green Tea lose more than those who were given caffeine alone.

Don't Stress If You Blow It!

If you fall off the wagon and completely blow your diet one day, it's not necessarily a bad thing. Your body is expecting a certain amount of calories a day, so a good pig-out will rev up that metabolism motor. So if one day a week you lose control, it's ok. Just forget about it and get back on track!

Frequently Asked Questions About Weight Loss And Diets

If you're on a diet, or considering going on one, you're in luck. We've put together ten of the most frequently asked questions about diets and weight loss and compiled them here. Enjoy!

1. How much should I weigh? Your doctor can answer that question most accurately. More important than how much you weigh is your body/mass index, which measures your height against your weight.

2. What's the best diet for losing weight? Any diet that provides all the nutrition that you need for health, and in addition, provides fewer calories than your body burns regularly.

3. How can I keep off the weight that I lose? If you lose weight gradually and re-educate both yourself and your body about food, you'll have a good start. The secret to keeping weight off is to balance your energy needs with your food intake. Eat enough calories to supply your body's energy needs, but not so many that your body stores the excess as fat.

4. What's the story with obesity and diabetes? Obesity increases the risks of a number of chronic health conditions, and diabetes is one of them. People who are more than ten percent overweight increase their risk of developing type 2 diabetes substantially.

5. How do I decrease my intake of sugar? Obviously, you can decrease your intake of sugar by cutting out sweets and refined snacks, but you should also watch out for 'hidden' sugars. Check ingredients. High fructose corn syrup and sucrose are both simple sugars that add lots of calories and little nutrition.

6. How often should I weigh myself? Most diet experts recommend that you weigh yourself no more than once a week. Some go so far as to tell you to throw out the scale entirely! A more accurate measure of your loss is your clothing size. If your clothing is feeling looser, you're doing great.

7. Do I really have to exercise? You don't HAVE to, but it will be a lot harder to lose weight if you don't. A half hour of moderate exercise daily is the minimum activity level for healthy weight loss. You can get it walking, running, cleaning your house - anything active burns calories.

8. What's a calorie? A calorie is a measure of energy. Foods are rated with calories based on the amount of energy they provide to the body when consumed.

9. Can I lose weight without changing my diet? Weight loss results when you burn more calories than you consume. If you only need to lose a small amount of weight and your diet is generally healthy, you can lose weight by increasing your activity level to burn more calories. If your diet is poor, or if you're more than a few pounds overweight, you really need to learn a new, more healthy way or eating, or you'll put the weight back on when you go back to 'normal' eating.

10. Should I eat fish on my diet? Unless it's expressly forbidden by your diet, absolutely. Fish is high protein, low saturated fat, and high in omega 3 fatty acids. Some doctors recommend eating as much as 10 servings of fish per week.

When Fast Weight Loss Becomes Unhealthy

You've made the decision to lose weight as quickly as possible. You have your diet in place and you expect to follow it religiously. At this point, you may be wondering how much weight you can lose in a given week and whether fast weight loss can be dangerous for your body.

There are a number of things that can affect your weight loss. For instance, family history, or genetics, can play a significant role. Also, your weight loss may depend upon how much exercise you're engaging in, as well as how much stress you are under. Your metabolism, or how quickly you burn calories, can also have a major effect.

Theoretically, you could lose as much as 20 pounds a week. However, much of that weight could be water weight. That means that, once you go off your diet, you are likely to gain much of that weight back. Also, unless you engage in strength training, you will be losing muscle as well as fat, since about ¼ of the body's weight consists of muscle. It is interesting to note that, at most, you can probably lose four pounds of fat in a given week.

Nature has a way of protecting the body against excessive weight loss. If, for instance, your calorie count suddenly drops, your body will compensate for the fact by reducing your metabolic rate. As a result, you'll need fewer calories to maintain your weight. This explains why some people lose weight up to a point and then cannot lose any additional weight, no matter how hard they try.

If you lose weight quickly, there's a good chance that your health will be jeopardized. For instance, fast weight loss has been linked to the appearance of gall stones. Also, you may experience loose skin as your weight goes into free fall. Perhaps most distressing of all, if you experience rapid weight loss, there's a good chance that you will gain the weight back again. This is because it is very difficult to maintain a healthy diet regimen. You may find yourself falling back into your bad eating habits after a period of deprivation.

Fast weight loss also places you at greater risk for an eating disorder. You may be tempted to starve yourself, leading to anorexia. Or, because your food cravings are so great, you may want to binge and purge, leading to a case of bulimia. This is why it is so critically important to lose weight under a physician's care. Otherwise, you could be doing more harm to your body than good.

Although the body has the capability of shedding a great deal of weight over a period of time, most medical experts agree that one should not expect to lose more than one or two pounds a week in order to remain healthy. This can be disappointing to a dieter, especially one that needs to lose about 50 pounds. However, doctors believe that the go-slow approach is best for long-term weight loss. Otherwise, you could end up with a number of health problems you weren't anticipating.

There are a number of approaches you can use to lose weight. For instance, you might follow the Atkins plan, the Zone, or the diabetic diet. You might try Sugar Busters or the Carb Addict's prescription for losing weight. However, it is vitally important that you accompany your diet plan with an effective exercise routine. One of the best exercises you can do, in fact, is the easiest--walking. It has been said that you can lose as many as two pounds a week, just by walking alone.

As has been demonstrated here, rapid weight loss should be approached with caution. It is far better to lose a few pounds each week and maintain that weight loss over the long term. In essence, all good things take time, and that is particularly true when it comes to weight loss. Perhaps the best advice is to be patient. Follow a reasonable diet, get plenty of exercise, and drink a good amount of water. That way, you should be able to slowly lose weight--without jeopardizing your health in the process.