This almost sounds like a confession in a social support group, where I should start with “Hello, my name is Erik and I’m a diabetic”. But it’s not, it’s just my life experience with Type 2 diabetes and how my diet and exercise have helped me curve the disease and transform my life back to a normal one.

The truth is that the diabetes control diet is important in all types of diabetes and has to be followed regardless of the medical treatment. In my case, it has helped me keep diabetes under control and give up on drugs altogether, with my doctor’s permission, of course. If you want this diet to be efficient, you will have to work it with your nutritionist because it has to be differentiated by sex, age, sedentary life style, alimentary preferences and other possible associated diseases as obesity, hypertension and so on. I also felt comfortable going to my local community Pharamcist for valuable free advice, who has in the past always given me many suggestions and support, to ask the questions I had about gluclose blood monitoring and exercise ideas.

In my case, I am a male Type 2 diabetic, in my late 30s. I was considered morbidly obese, for quite a few years until 2006, when I lost the 214 lbs and instantly turned around the years of damage I did over the years. Since gaining half that weight back, I am of course aware and concerned about my Type2 Diabetes and I like to use this guide of of general recommendations for my diabetes diet, which I follow strictly if I want to feel like a normal person:

Calories: The overweight diabetics will follow a low-calorie diabetes diet plan, which means I have to eat fewer calories that a normal weight person.
Glucoses: they must be of 50 – 55% of the total caloric amount, that means in my case about 300 grams per day. Also, I am not allowed to consume simple glucoses with rapid absorption or over processed products like sugar and derivates.
Proteins: they must count 12 – 15% of the total calories amount. So if you weight 200 pounds you will be eating about 70 grams of proteins a day.
Fats: 30 % of the calorie amount. In my case this means 140 grams a day.
Salt: Less than 5 grams a day.

As a diabetic, my diet for diabetes must consist of frequent and small meals, at least 5-6 a day and I have to eat at fixed hours, and have my dinner at least 2 hours before going to bed.

Also, I have a table that reminds me of the things I am allowed to eat. I’m hoping this might come in handy for any diabetic out there that is looking for a working diabetes diet.

Tomatoes, pepper, mushrooms, cabbage, lettuce, carrots, onions, garlic, leeks, eggplants, celery, beet
Melons, lemons, raspberries and any other berries, cherries, nuts and seed and other similar fruits
Meat and fish and all derivates
Milk and all derivates
Eggs
Non-alcoholic drinks that are made without sugar

Some aliments in my diabetes diet I can consume only after I weight them like: white bread, graham bread, potatoes, beans and rice.

And of course, a have a big no-no diabetes diet list that includes: sugar, honey, biscuits, cookies made with sugar, candy, chocolate and any other sweets, dried plums, marmalade and all other dried fruits or seeds that contain sugar or other made foods with sugar…

As an adult who is now again considered overweight, and who is now doing a lot of exercises, at least for one hour a day, I can actually eat various stuff, and I proud to present you one of my daily meal plans:

Mornings: milk and coffee (250 grams), bread (60 grams) with cow’s cheese (100 grams) and peppers.
Snack: bread (40 grams) with butter (20 grams) and non-fat ham (100 grams) and fruits (100 grams)
Lunch: Clear vegetables’ soup with bread croutons (about 100 grams of bread), meatballs with mashed potatoes (150 grams), lettuces, and bread (60 grams)
Snack again: Cow’s cheese (50 grams) with tomatoes and bread (40 grams), fruits (100 grams)
Dinner: Assorted salad and bread (40 grams), rice pudding with meat
Before bed: One glass of milk with bread (40 grams)

This plan works well in my case, but it has 1850 – 1900 calories in total. People that are following a diabetes diet must take into consideration their calorie intake and if they are more overweighed or have other associated affections. For those who are underweighted, they must go over the 2000 calorie limit a day.

Many have experienced issues regarding obesity nowadays. If you are fat, and you don’t want to be labeled as an obese or an overweight individual, you would like to look for different weight loss tips that are proven to be effective.

Well, if you are sick and tired of that stoutness and plumpness feeling which seems to be hugging your whole body, then you should look into the following tips that can effectively help you get yourself out from this flabby disaster.

Weight Loss Tip Number One - Get rid of your bad eating habits.
You are aware that your bad eating habits contributed for about 70 percent of your overall weight gain problem, right? So this is what you need to work on. If you still have the habit of eating heavy meals all the time, you have to limit that to small but frequent meals, and then snacks in between. As well as heavy eating at night, limit yourself in doing this, as much as possible, avoid this habit. At night, our body is at rest and our metabolic process is slower, if you eat, the acids stored in your food cannot be processed accordingly, which can remain present in your body and would eventually turn into fats.

Weight Loss Tip Number Two - Reduce your sugar intake.
Sugar slows down your metabolisms, which triggers your body to store more fats. Try cutting down food that has too much sugar content. Too much sugar intake may also lead to other complications such as diabetes. Too much sugar is junk in our body.

Weight Loss Tip Number Three - Eat breakfast that is fit for your day activities.
You probably haven’t heard of this more often than usual, however, breakfast is definitely important especially if you have an active type of lifestyle. The body needs a certain amount of calorie-intake that should be obtained as early as possible during the day. Eating breakfast accordingly would allow the body to maintain the adequate amount of calories needed to be converted as energy that you will be using all throughout the day.

Weight Loss Tip Number Four - Perform daily exercises that contributes in firming muscles.
Every individual has to take in a daily dietary allowance of calories needed by the body to burn. If you consume more calories than what is recommended then you have to burn it fast. The reason why one has to focus on firming the muscles to lose weight, is because muscles are able to burn calories fast. So the more you perform daily fitness exercises which deals with firming muscles, the more chances you have in losing weight quickly.

Weight Loss Tip Number Five - Set up realistic goals that you can achieve.
Losing weight entails certain obstacles that may lead to frustration, and you definitely don’t want to stress yourself too much about it. To relieve yourself from all the worries and the pressure, you have to set the right expectations to achieve the goals that you can accomplish. Your goals may depend on how much weight you want to lose for a certain period of time. You should be willing to give in to those things you have to do to be able to achieve this, not because you are forced to do so.

So there you have it, five weight loss tips that can help you lose weight effectively. Believe me, once you start to apply this, you’ll definitely get the weight loss results that you ever wanted.

Please be sure to come back and leave your thoughts and ideas in a comment.

Delicate subject, the cabbage soup diet, as I know lots of people that really appreciate it and also an equal number of people that don’t think much of it. My personal experience with the original cabbage soup diet is quite irrelevant, as the results did show but slowly went away as I was letting go of the diet and moving on. So, I am quite inclined to turn the tide in favor of those against this diet. I’m sure there will be many voice to try and convince me that I’m wrong and even people willing to show me where I went wrong, but I don’t really want to know, mainly because I didn’t really enjoy the diet itself. I’m a person pro diversity and I am a person that needed a constant weight loss plan. This diet seems very fit for a woman that is trying to fit into her prom dress after she just gained a few extra pounds, because it provides fast and efficient weight loss, and if you want to weight X pounds on a certain date, you will. But after that date, you could gain all you’ve lost if you take wrong steps. So, the cabbage soup diet is a temporary solution, that would do just fine for minor weight troubles, but that’s where its beneficial action range pretty much ends.

When I first decided to try the cabbage soup diet recipe, it came to my attention that this way a popular one if you want to lose weight and don’t feel hungry. I don’t really like cabbage, but I said what the heck, this might be the answer. I mean, to lose the unwanted pounds without feeling that you are torturing the body would be a real blessing in the end.

There are some people that take the exclusive cabbage soup diet, and that basically means that you will be eating cabbage soup, made of …cabbage and other vegetables boiled in there, for one whole week. But that’s not the diet I took, I took the more diversified variant that sounds something like this:

Copy of cabbage soup diet:

First Day: You eat only fruits and all the cabbage soup you want. It’s only permitted the tea without sugar, black coffee, blackberry juice and water.
Second Day: Eat unprepared vegetables or boiled vegetables (no beans, corn ). At dinner time eat a big baked potato with butter and of course the cabbage soup.
Third Day: You can eat fruits, vegetables and cabbage soup, but no baked potatoes today.
Forth Day: Today you will eat eight bananas, milk and as much cabbage soup as you want. Today you need the carbs from milk and bananas, as well as the calories in them.
Fifth day: Boil about 400 grams of chicken or fish in the juice from 6 fresh tomatoes. Try to drink at least 8 glasses of water and eat only one soup portion.
Sixth Day: Eat 2 or 3 veal stakes with salad or fresh vegetables (no potatoes) and eat cabbage soup at least once.
Seventh Day: You can eat boiled rice, fresh vegetables and fruit juice with no sugar, at discretion, and at least one portion of soup.

So, the main idea is not to make us eat only cabbage soup, but to eat moderately and to fill the gaps with that cabbage soup. But since I hate cabbage, it didn’t work for me. The cabbage soup diet acts as an alimentary plan that makes the soup as an alimentary supplement when you are too hungry and you’ve already consumed all the other permitted aliments that are low on calories but are full of vitamins and proteins or fibers. This basically means you would be eating 1000 calories a day, which seems promising for a diet. But this can’t be done on the long term. Way too little calories. This is why the boomerang effect appears. When you suddenly reduce the calorie intake at half, your metabolism will fell disorientated and will start to accumulate fats immediately, when it gets the chance.

Even if I rapidly gained some of the weight I’ve lost with this diet I see a good result: it helped me get accustomed with a healthier eating style, axed on vegetables fruits and meat without fats. This is indeed the only advantage I see in the cabbage soup diet. If I would’ve taken the diet that only allowed me to eat cabbage, then I might’ve lost a lot more pounds in the beginning, but in the end you’ve been left with nothing benefic. The combined cabbage soup diet has at least this advantage, which is undeniable so try the cabbage soup diet best recipe now.

Please post your thoughts in a comment below.

I’m sure you all already know that there is no quick way to lose weight, neither is there a magic pill to take away your extra weight in one night and then let you wake up a new slim person. I have learned that all this can be achieved, but in time, with patience and a lot of will. And with herbs. I know that there are many herbs that can affect the way our body evaluates the food we eat. This works like drugs that affect the metabolism, only that they are natural ways of altering metabolism. This means that our brains will believe that the stomach is full when it isn’t. These herbs are a lot like hoodia and such, but be careful what you take, because they have to be 100% natural to work.

Then, there are other herbs, like green tea, that contain caffeine and will speed up the metabolism. This means that we eat more and we burn fats better. And also, there’s another side effect of caffeine consumption that will help in weight loss. If you have too much energy, you will feel the need to exercise. This means you will not be sitting all days on the couch watching TV, and you will start doing something active for a change. After turning on green tea, I started early morning jogging, I started to sleep about an hour less and still feel rejuvenated. Some of the weight loss herbs are quite helpful, but I have stumbles on a number of products that I later found to be very dangerous for my health.

Keep as away as you can from anything that doesn’t have ingredients clearly stated. They might contain things that are forbidden by the law. You will be surprised to know how many natural herbs are very toxic for our body. Take a look at my list of herbal weigh loss products that must be avoided:

Herbs and extracts that act as a laxative, like senna, aloe and other types of so called diet teas. There are some good diet teas, but they must not have laxative effects.

Chinese herbs like fen-phen and ma huang. These have severe bad effects. They are really bad herbs and they both contain ephedrine. They can cause irregular heart beating and hypertension if consumed for too long, so the risk is not worth taking even if they can offer you good weight loss effects.

Not all herbs are bad, don’t worry. I have tried and still consume many. I highly recommend cayenne as a spice. It’s a good way to spicy up the food and at the same time to get higher metabolism levels without fearing hypertension. You can also try diet teas like green tea. A cup of green tea is half as harmful as a cup of coffee when it comes to caffeine effects if I may use the word harmful in this context… Also, algae and hoodia are herbs and extracts that will allow you to feel full faster.

Talking about seaweed, after trying some I’ve pretty much become dependent of them, as I love the way they taste in a salad, so you should also do it!