My kitchen is the heart of my home. My friends all like to hang out in there instead of in my more spacious living room.
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My kitchen is the heart of my home. My friends all like to hang out in there instead of in my more spacious living room.
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Summer is here, and suddenly it's that time of year when we look in the mirror and discover that we may have put on a little weight. People with no health issues can always use this simple rule of thumb: eat less and be more active. Simple! But actual dieting - horrible word - needs a little more planning. Successful dieting means changing our shopping habits, cutting the convenience food and cooking from scratch. For most of us, changing our daily habits can be difficult to start with, but if we stay focused on our weight goal for long enough, then over time things will get easier and “dieting” becomes healthy eating. Losing weight can be a slow, painstaking journey. Ah, but we all love shortcuts! Which is why there are so many diet plans out there that promise results in mere weeks, if not days. Here's five of the more bizarre diet plans on offer. Please read them with a sense of humour! Here comes the Airplane! THE BABY FOOD DIETCelebrities and showbiz people need to stay in constant shape. It seems that Tracy Anderson, famous personal trainer to a host of Hollywood VIPs, discovered that baby food is the answer. The theory is that baby food is full of goodness but low in calories - if you're an adult. Somebody also pointed out that baby food is not only delicious, but also easy to carry around, doesn't need cooking or, for that matter, washing up. The only thing missing is the pleasure of sinking your teeth into a sweet, juicy peach. Gone with the Wind! FAXLORE, THE CABBAGE DIETNobody knows who first came up with this diet, but it became famous back in the 'Eighties when fax machines started appearing in every office. The cabbage diet promises to help you shed that excess weight in just one week. There's only one rule: you can only eat cabbage soup, in unlimited quantities, preferably hot and spicy. Doctors became concerned over the lack of balance in this diet. Also, no body fat was lost. The only thing for certain was that there would be side effects, and nobody would want to share and office with you! Blue is the New Pink THE BLUE SHADE GLASSES DIETThe recent trend of posting pictures of our food is based on our sense of sight. The more appetising food looks, the more we want to eat it. Japanese company Yumetai based their 'blue shade glasses' on the principle that if food doesn't look appealing, dieting becomes easy. The deep blue shade of the lenses makes food appear unappetizing to our eyes, a great help if we're struggling with our weight. Alas, we prefer pink-tinted lenses! All the time in the world THE FLETCHERIZING DIETWarning - this one needs a strong stomach. At the beginning of the 20th Century, Horace Fletcher, who was not a dietitian or a doctor but an obese American art dealer, was denied health insurance. This was the moment he decided to go on a diet. It may be that he had a grandmother who was constantly telling him to chew his food, not gulp it down. Grandmothers are always right, so our Horace decided to follow her advice to the letter and created THE CHEWING DIET. This dictates that every bite of food must be chewed 32 times. The masticated morsel must then be swallowed by tilting one's head back and allow it to slide down one's throat. Anything that didn't go down on its own must then be spat out. Horace added this pearl of wisdom: never eat while angry or sad. Horace died a millionaire, proving that there is always somebody willing to believe. Cake, Here I Come! THE SHANGRI-LA DIET.Who doesn't want to be happy? And what could be more satisfying than eating what we love the most? But can we actually diet while eating anything we like? Seth Roberts, professor-emeritus at UC Berkeley, says we can. This scholar holds that our bodies know how much they want to weigh, and our appetites have a fixed set-point - the point at which you decide you've eaten enough for the day - to help us achieve that weight. The professor continues that it's possible to reduce this appetite set-point. His diet calls for 100-400 calories per day of tasteless food to be eaten between normal meals. These flavourless foods may be things like extra-light olive oil, or sugar water or, if you're brave enough, bland food eaten with your nose clipped shut. You can eat it all at once, or in stages throughout the day. The idea is that tasteless calories lower your set point, and therefore your weight. So there you have it. From baby food to blue spectacles, from cabbage soup to olive oil, there's no end to creative ideas when it comes to diets. Unfortunately, the only thing that’ll lose weight is your wallet!
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AuthorI love cooking, and when it comes to quality I'm quite fussy. Archives
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