Diet Trends of the Times
April 19th, 2012 | 
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With media coverage focusing on rising obesity levels it is no shock to learn that a growing number of Britons are piling on the pounds. Government statistics estimate that by 2025, 41% of people in the UK will be obese and by 2050 it will be more than half.
Whether you have a few pounds or stones to lose or even if you simply want to be a little healthier, there are plenty of new and emerging diet and exercise trends to help you along the way.
If you want to lose weight then the fundamental principle is to burn off more calories than you consume. Negative calorie consumption helps you to lose weight and you can adjust your calorie intake to maintain a healthy weight once you have reached your goal.
Weight loss of no more than 2lb per week is recommended and it is worth remembering that sustaining a healthy weight is just as important as losing the pounds to begin with.
Natural nutrition is likely to be a key trend throughout this year and beyond, with more of a focus on eating more “good” foods, like fruit, vegetables, beans pulses and lean meats. Fruit, vegetables and other good foods are packed with nutrients and fibre which help you to stay fit and healthy without gaining extra pounds.
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The Latest FAD Diets
The Latest Dieting Trends
It seems like every time you turn on the television they’re talking about the latest diet trend and newest scientific study that proves this or that helps you lose weight the most effectively. Then six months later you’re learning the diet is actually harmful and the newest diet is the way go because it’s the complete opposite. If the first diet tells you carbohydrates are evil and you should eat all protein the next diet will tell you carbs are good and too much protein is bad. It seems like you can never win. But not all diets are bad, in fact there are some really good health and fitness plans out there. Here are the latest dieting trends, whether or not they work for you is debatable because what works for one person may never work for another simply because of body chemistry. So the only way to know for sure if a diet will work is to try it.
The Biggest Loser Diet
Inspired by the hit television show which pits people against one another to lose the most weight in hopes of winning a huge cash prize, this diet focuses on daily meal plans, grocery shopping lists, fitness programs and keeping a journal to track your progress and keep you motivated. While at home you may not be competing to win a cash prize you can set your own goals and thus create a prize for yourself if you reach such and such a goal.
Is a Raw Food Diet a New Trend?
Recently we have started hearing a lot about the raw food diet. With a large portion of our population belonging to the “baby boomer” era, eating a diet built for longevity is appealing. Our diets are full of processed foods, fats and sugar. Our ancestors had agrarian roots, when foods were eaten with all the vitamins and minerals still intact when eaten raw.
A raw food diet simply means consuming foods in their natural, unprocessed form. There are several obvious reasons why this is a good idea. Processing and cooking foods can remove much of the basic nutritional value properties inherent in the food. Over the years the conventional wisdom has been to cook pasta to al dente (medium) stage. It will have more calories than pasta cooked to the well done stage, but it will have much more of the nutritional value still intact.
The raw food diet means eating uncooked, unprocessed, organic and whole foods such as: fruits, seeds, nuts, vegetables, seaweeds, dried fruits legumes, etc. It refers to eating at least 75% of your diet uncooked. Cooking removes nutrition and flavor from fruits and vegetables. We need to eat more like our ancestors. They were healthier and more fit. They cooked very little, and surely didn’t process or cook fruits and vegetables. They ate them raw. They didn’t get water from a tap; it was natural, spring water. And they did not battle modern diseases like diabetes and cancer.
Exercise and Physical Activities
Regular physical activity provides enormous health benefits. It helps reduce heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes and many other diseases and metabolic conditions. Regular fitness exercise is also highly beneficial for weight reduction and weight maintenance, and may improve brain chemistry to reduce depression. By contrast, health studies that have monitored the wellbeing of large groups of people over many years clearly show that inactivity significantly increases the risk of overweight, obesity and chronic diseases.
New brain cell development, improved cognition and memory. Exercise stimulates the formation of new brain cells. Researchers found that the areas of the brain that are stimulated through exercise are responsible for memory and learning. For instance, older adults who engage in regular physical activity have better performances in tests implying decision-making process, memory and problem solving.
Heart Disease and Stroke. Daily physical activity can help prevent heart disease and stroke by strengthening your heart muscle, lowering your blood pressure, raising your high-density lipoprotein (HDL) levels (good cholesterol) and lowering low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels (bad cholesterol), improving blood flow, and increasing your heart’s working capacity. Optimizing each of these factors can provide additional benefits of decreasing the risk for Peripheral Vascular Disease.
An Active Health Solution
Those who reach retirement age are likely to need private medical insurance (PMI) more than ever because the chances of becoming ill increase as we get older. Nevertheless, the costs of PMI also tend to rise quite steeply in order to reflect this increased claims risk.
Such high premiums can leave policyholders who end up not making claims wondering whether they can justify their outlay, which is why so many older people are being attracted to PMI policies that offer the chance to receive a substantial discount in return for a high “excess” – the first part of the claims bill that policyholders pay themselves.
Those going this route are advised to place the equivalent of the excess value – possibly from their pension lump sum – in a bank account specifically earmarked for their health needs. In the event of a claim this can be used to pay the excess but, if no claims are necessary, it remains in the policyholder’s bank account as opposed to the insurer’s one.
One such policy, WPA’s Active Health, aimed at the over 55′s, can offer premium discounts of around 80% for those who take a ?5,000 excess. Spectacular savings can also be realised by those who take the other option of a ?3,000 excess. For example, WPA account manager Tina Kemp recently achieved a joint annual premium of ?1,400 for a couple, both aged 64, who had been paying ?7,000 a year for standard PMI.