"regular food," early 13c., from Old French diete (13c.) "diet, pittance, fare," from Medieval Latin dieta "parliamentary assembly," also "a day's work, diet, daily food allowance," from Latin diaeta "prescribed way of life," from Greek diaita, originally "way of life, regimen, dwelling," related to diaitasthai "lead one's life," and from diaitan, originally "separate, select" (food and drink), frequentative of *diainysthai "take apart," from dia- "apart" + ainysthai "take," from PIE root *ai- "to give, allot." Often with a sense of restriction since 14c.; hence put (someone) on a diet (mid-15c.).

"assembly," mid-15c., from Medieval Latin dieta, variant of diaeta "daily office (of the Church), daily duty, assembly, meeting of counselors," from Greek diaita (see diet (n.1)), but associated with Latin dies "day" (see diurnal).

late 14c., "to regulate one's diet for the sake of health," from Old French dieter, from diete (see diet (n.1)); meaning "to regulate oneself as to food" (especially against fatness) is from 1650s. Related: Dieted; dieting. An obsolete word for this is banting. The adjective in this sense (Diet Coke, etc.) is from 1963, originally American English.

Go here to read the rest:
Diet | Define Diet at Dictionary.com

What Dr. Michael Smith Says:

Does It Work?

If your goal is weight loss, a detox diet might help you drop a few pounds, but youll likely just gain it back. In the end, you havent accomplished anything, and its certainly not a healthy approach.

If your goal is to detox your system, dont waste your time or money. Your body is an expert at getting rid of toxins no matter what you eat. Toxins dont build up in your liver, kidneys, or any other part of your body, and youre not going to get rid of them with the latest detox wonder. Especially avoid diets that promise to detox your liver with supplements or cleanse whatever the diet determines needs washing out.

The only type of detox diet that is worthwhile is one that limits processed, high-fat, and sugary foods, and replaces them with more fruits and vegetables. That clean-eating approach is your best bet to getting your body in tip-top shape.

Is It Good for Certain Conditions?

Not only are detox diets not good for people with certain medical conditions, they could be harmful. They dont improve blood pressure or cholesterol. Detox diets have no positive effect on the heart. For people with diabetes, they may be quite dangerous. Any diet that severely restricts what you eat could lead to dangerously low blood sugar if you take medicine for diabetes.

The exception would be a detox diet that just focuses on clean-eating. This approach would be great for anyone living with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, and even heart disease.

The Final Word

Weve heard a great deal about detox diets in recent years. But its all hype with no health benefits. There are many ways to get your body clean and healthy. This isnt one of them.

SOURCES:

Frank Sacks, MD, professor of cardiovascular disease prevention, Harvard School of Public Health.

Christine Gerbstadt, MD, RD, spokeswoman, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics; author, Doctors Detox Diet.

Connie Diekman, MEd, RD, nutrition director, Washington University, St. Louis; author, The Everything Mediterranean Diet Book; past president, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

See the original post here:
Detox Diets: Do They Work? Are They Healthy? - WebMD

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Nutrition Disclaimer Fried foods may be cooked in the same oils as menu items that contain wheat. Therefore these foods are not safe for a gluten-free diet.

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The Commons at the Cannon Center - BYU Dining Services

If you are looking to learn more about the paleo lifestyle and what it is all about then youve come to the right place!

The paleo diet/lifestyle/movement, whatever you want to call it is a way of eating for your lifestyle. Delicious, highest nutrient, easy eating foods are chosen above commercialised, modified or hard to process options.

The premise of the movement is that we are more suited to eating certain foods which havent been the product of big business or agriculture. Grains, sugary foods and modified fats are all guilty of causing harm to our bodies, and the aim is to get back on track by eating foods our bodies recognise and know what to do with.

We should be eating morehealthy fats, nutrient rich vegetablesand should be eatinglessgrains (wheat, rice, gluten based foods), carbohydrates and genetically modified or processed foods.

Paleo shouldnt be thought of as a diet but more as a lifestyle blueprint for health. There is no point in making changes to your eating habits with the goal of getting rid of some weight, only to revert to bad eating habits and put it all back on again. This is the difference between diet and lifestyle decisions, and Paleo is best used long term. Crash diets dont work because they dont allow you to really benefit from healthy dietary changes. They leave you wondering exactly why you are eating the foods you are eating and end up working against you, ultimatelyhurting your body and preventing you from losing weight.

Ultimately, you should approach weight loss as a side effect of getting your diet on track because there are so many benefitsto be enjoyed such as improved energy, sleep, mood, disease prevention and injury recovery. Crash diets dont allow your body to get to the point where it is healthy enough to recover from decades of eating the wrong foods, living a sedentary lifestyle and coping with medicines, drugs and treatments. Paleo is a low stress, low carb diet lifestyle that works for anyone who tries it and can be tailored to every family member.

More:
The Paleo Diet: Low Carb Diet Lifestyle - ThePaleoDiet.co.za

Spring is right around the corner, and as I glance around my home, I see that a thorough cleaning is in order. Dust bunnies are multiplying under my bed, spider webs are glistening on my chandelier, and a layer of dust has settled on all places too difficult to comfortably reach.

As I strategically plan my upcoming cleaning project, I start to wonder if my body is also in need of a cleaning, so to speak.

Like many of you, I tend to go into hibernation mode during the winter months. With less daylight hours and physical work to do outside, along with an influx of sugary treats and comfort foods, my body has been insulated by an added layer of fat. I'm surely not alone in feeling this way, judging from the number of questions we field on the site about detox diets this time of year.

While the idea of cleaning out harmful toxins in your body or removing body fat quickly may sound tempting and even beneficial, is a detox the answer?

What is a detox? Around since the 1970s, the Master Cleanse, also known as the Lemonade Diet, is probably the most popular detox diet. Followers of this detox spend 10 days drinking a concoction of lemon juice, maple syrup, water and cayenne pepper. Side effects include tiredness, irritability, hot bowel movements, and headaches, but those are touted as signs of the beneficial detoxification process. Other detox programs can last for several days to weeks and involve drinking little more than fruit and vegetable juices. Still other programs involve drinking water and consuming no food for several days at a time.

But does the body need detoxification? If you've been exposed to high amounts of heavy metals, poisons, or radiation, you might require an actual medical detoxification. However, typical day-to-day living does not bring about a need to detox with concoctions and laxatives. The body is perfectly capable of cleaning itself. Think about all your wonderfully complex body systems involved in the removal of toxins: your circulatory (blood) system, respiratory (lungs) system, urinary (kidneys) system, and digestive (liver and intestines) system. It makes no sense that a little lemon juice, vegetable juice, or gut rest is actually going to make a difference in your health. There are no published, peer-reviewed, or well-designed research studies on detoxing that indicate any health benefit or weight loss.

Detoxing and weight loss Of course you will usually lose weight when following a detox program. The diet is very restrictive, and the daily calorie intake is much less than what you would typically consume. A person could lose several pounds weekly while detoxing. Some of the weight will be body fat, but most will be water loss and some muscle tissue loss. Since the detoxer has not learned to change his or her eating habits and food environment, the weight will quickly be regained. Overall, there is no sustainable benefitand the loss of muscle mass due to fast weight loss is harmful.

Detoxing and increased energy Many people who "detox" report a decrease in food cravings, increased energy, and a feeling of overall well-being. "Whats up with that?" you might be asking.

I definitely do not spring clean with a detox! Instead, I have a simple, 2-step plan that will work for anyone:

Read this article:
Do Detox Diets Work? Are They Safe? | SparkPeople

Photo Peter Dazeley/Getty Images

Do low-carb diets work? Anyone embarking on a new way of eating wants the answer to this question. And although we can usually find "success stories" associated with almost any diet, that doesn't really tell us what we want to know, which is the facts. (We've all seen those ads for a weight-loss miracle cure, with the tiny words at the bottom which say "results not typical".)

First, be clear on what you mean by a diet "working".

What are your goals? We tend to think of weight loss first, but reduced-carb diets are now being used to treat a number of conditions, as well as for prevention of diseases like diabetes. Weight loss will be the focus of this article, but there are lots of other health benefits that are associated with low-carb diets.

Forms of low-carb diets are some of the most popular weight-loss diets, and science bears out that in general they are at least as effective, and usually more effective, when compared to other weight-loss diets (which mainly focus on controlling calories). For example, a 2012 journal article reviewed the science and found 17 high-quality well-controlled randomized diet studies which included a low-carb group. In analyzing these studies, they found that the people on the low-carb diets lost weight (and usually more than the other diet groups), had lowered blood pressure, lower blood glucose, lower insulin, lower triglycerides, higher HDL ("good cholesterol"), and lower C-reactive protein, a marker for inflammation.

If the people in a study are more carefully chosen (NOT entirely random), so that people who are likely to benefit the most from low-carb eating are assigned to that diet, people tend to lose more weight. For example, here I describe a randomized study where the researchers went back and analyzed the data to see who did best on which diet.

The results were dramatic: even though the average weight loss was modest for the groups as a whole, people who had signs of insulin resistance (one sign of "sugar sensitivity") lost the most weight on the low-carb diet, and did very poorly on the high-carb diet. The people who were insulin sensitive (the opposite of insulin resistant) did well on either diet. So while randomized studies can give us valuable information, they often don't give us a strong indication of how much weight any one person is likely to lose.

Most weight-loss diets are based on the idea that we cannot trust our bodies' signals about hunger and satiety. Instead, we must ignore those signals and carefully and consciously regulate the amount of food we eat. (This works for awhile, but often not for long, which is a whole other topic.) Carbohydrate reduction works differently (especially for people who are senstive to carbohydrate), in that it helps regulate our appetite system so we naturally want to eat less. How it does this is not yet fully understood, but we do know that foods which raise blood sugar more make people hungrier. In addition, a low-carb diet lowers insulin levels in people who have high insulin. Since insulin regulates fat storage, many experts think that it makes it easier for the body to access stored body fat for energy.

When I ask people what they like best about following a low-carb diet, they will often mention not feeling hungry, not having food cravings, and having more stable energy levels compared to other types of diets. This seems to be true even after the weight loss phase of a diet.

OK, now you have the facts! But being successful on a diet isn't just about knowing the science. How about hearing some encouraging stories from people who have had success with low-carb eating? And then go on to find tips, recipes, and lots of information to help you try out a lower-carb life.

Sources:

Lennerz BS, Alsop DC, et al. Effects of dietary glycemic index on brain regions related to reward and craving in men. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 98:3 (2013) 641-7.

McClain AD, Otten JJ, et. al. Adherence to a low-fat vs. low-carbohydrate diet differs by insulin resistance status. Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism. Jan;15(1) (2013) 87-90

Santos FL, Esteves, SS, et al. Systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical trials of the effects of low carbohydrate diets on cardiovascular risk factors. Obesity Review. 13:11 (2012) 1048-66.

Link:
Do Low-Carb Diets Work?

One of the best ways to improve your digestion and general health is to take some good quality probiotics. But how can you be sure that those little pills you take, each containing billions of good bacteria, actually make it through to your intestines? After all, they have to get through the acidic environment in your stomach first, right?

Luckily, theres no reason to be concerned. Probiotic bacteria, whether in a commercial form or in probiotic yogurt, are perfectly capable of making it all the way through your digestive system. The evidence shows that oral probiotics can colonize your intestines and even pass all the way through your digestive system without any problem at all.

If you read my earlier post on the acid/alkaline balance in your gut, you already know that your intestines need to be slightly acidic for optimal digestion and a strong immune system. The good bacteria in your intestines play a large part in this.

Lactic acid bacteria, for example lactobacillus acidophilus, are a good example. As part of their metabolism they secrete small amounts of lactic acid and acetic acid, lowering the pH of their immediate environment and making it more acidic. In fact, the word acidophilus literally means acid-loving in Latin, and they are well-suited to surviving an acidic environment.

Another factor to remember is that these bacteria usually spend very little time in your stomach. If you take your probiotics after eating, they will mix together with the liquids and saliva in your stomach. And around 50% of this liquid will pass through to your intestines within 30 minutes of your meal, taking many of the probiotics with it.

Lastly, your stomach may also be less acidic than you think. For example, immediately after eating your stomach pH typically rises to a level of around 6.0. This is only mildly acidic, and should be reasonably easy to survive for most of the bacteria in your capsule. In fact, something like 75% of probiotic bacteria will survive a short exposure to this kind of mild acidity.

This is not all theory. There is actually lots of research demonstrating that probiotic bacteria can make it safely though your stomach. Here are a few of the research papers, along with a quotation from each one.

Recovery of Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG from human colonic biopsies (Alander, 2003) The colonization of Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (L.GG) in five human colonoscopy patients was studied In all patients L.GG was the dominant faecal lactic acid bacterium as a result of the administration.

Analysis of the Fecal Microflora of Human Subjects Consuming a Probiotic Product Containing Lactobacillus rhamnosus DR20 (Tannock, 2000) The composition of the fecal microflora of 10 healthy subjects was monitored before (6-month control period), during (6-month test period), and after (3-month posttest period) the administration of a milk product containing Lactobacillus rhamnosus DR20 DR20 was detected in the feces of all of the subjects during the test period, but at different frequencies.

Intestinal transit of an orally administered streptomycinrifampicin-resistant variant of Bifidobacterium longum (Fujiwara, 2001) It is clarified that BL2928SR [a strain of Bifidobacterium longum] has the ability for long-term survival in the human gastrointestinal tract, and alters the composition and metabolism of the intestinal microflora.

Colonization and Immunomodulation by Lactobacillus reuteri ATCC 55730 in the Human Gastrointestinal Tract (Valeur, 2004) Dietary supplementation with the probiotic L. reuteri ATCC 55730 induces significant colonization of the stomach, duodenum, and ileum of healthy humans, and this is associated with significant alterations of the immune response in the gastrointestinal mucosa.

Commercial probiotics can be expensive supplements, so you should make sure that you absolutely get the most value from them that you can! There are two simple tips that you should follow to achieve this.

First, take your probiotics with food. Eating a meal temporarily reduces the acidity of your stomach and makes it easier for the probiotics to pass through. This means that more will survive the journey through to your intestines.

Second, take a brand of probiotics that contains lots and lots of bacteria. You should be aiming for at least 10 million CFUs per capsule to start with, and then increase your dose even further when you feel ready. Some of these bacteria are bound to die during transit to your intestines, so the more that you ingest, the greater the chance of an effective colonization.

If you need more advice on how to choose a good probiotic, check out my Ultimate Candida Diet program. It tells you everything you need to know about the low-sugar diet, probiotics and antifungals that you need to beat Candida.

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Can Probiotics Make It Safely To Your Intestines? The ...