At first glance there seems to be nothing to make this weight loss diet stand out from all the others and it seems at first to be a glorified system for counting calories, where in fact you don’t count calories on this diet plan, the secret lies in the gradual weekly dietary changes and the clever system of visual clues, used for gauging portion sizes. In fact, you can eat just about anything you like on this diet and still loose weight.

Change One is the official Readers Digest Diet and was written by John Hastings with Peter Jaret and Mindy Herman, RD.

John Hastings is the senior staff editor for health at Reader’s Digest magazine, the world’s largest consumer magazine. He has worked as a journalist in the fields of health, medicine, nutrition, and fitness for 14 years.

Mindy Hermann is a registered dietitian who speaks and consults on weight loss and nutrition.

Peter Jaret is a frequent contributor to Reader’s Digest, Health, Eating Well, National Wildlife, and other magazines.

I found the gradual change to be one of the biggest benefits of this diet. No radical changes in what you eat and more importantly, no acute hunger pangs because all of a sudden you aren’t eating enough.

Each week you learn new tips and tricks which when added to the previous weeks successes, ultimately help you to develop good eating habits.

There is a lot of flexibility with the Change One diet, you will receive custom diet plans based on the amount of weight you want to lose and the foods that you like and dislike.

And you really can eat the food you enjoy, I was really skeptical about that initially, but you’ll even get recipes for these foods, amazing! There are limits to the amounts of unhealthy food you can eat though.

Dietary experts almost all agree that a diet must encourage healthy eating and the Change One Diet does that nice and gently.

If you’re looking for a diet that will help you loose weight and then keep that weight off, then I recommend the Change One Diet which scores an 8 on my scale of 1 to 10.

For more information on the Change One Diet please visit http://www.changeone.com

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Carbohydrates aren’t all good or all bad. Some kinds promote health while others, when eaten often and in large quantities, may increase the risk for diabetes and coronary heart disease.

What are carbohydrates?

Carbohydrates come from a wide array of foods – bread, fruit, vegetables, rice, beans, milk, popcorn, potatoes, cookies, spaghetti, corn, and cherry pie. They also come in a variety of forms. The most common and abundant ones are sugars, fibers, and starches. The basic building blocks of all carbohydrates are sugar molecules.

The digestive system handles all carbohydrates in much the same way – it breaks them down (or tries to break them down) into single sugar molecules, since only these are small enough to absorb into the bloodstream. It also converts most digestible carbohydrates into glucose (also known as blood sugar), because cells are designed to use this as a universal energy source. This is why carbohydrates can make us feel energetic. Carbohydrates fuel our body. Your body stores glucose reserves in the muscles in the form of glycogen ready to be used when we exert ourselves.

Carbohydrates are the highest octane – the most desirable fuel source for your body’s energy requirements. If you don’t have an adequate source of carbohydrate your body may scavenge from dietary protein and fat to supply glucose. The problem is when you’ve depleted your stores of glycogen (stored glucose in muscle and lean tissue) your body turns to burning muscles or organs (lean muscle tissue) and dietary protein or fat to provide blood glucose to supply energy needs. When this happens, your basal metabolic rate drops because you have less lean muscle tissue burning calories and your body thinks its starving and cuts back on energy requirements.

So you should continue to eat carbohydrates discriminately selecting those which have the greatest health benefits.

The carbohydrates you consume should come from carbohydrate-rich foods that are close to the form that occurs in nature. The closer the carbohydrate food is as Mother Nature intended, the greater the density of other vital nutrients. If you are looking for health-enhancing sources of carbohydrates you should choose from:

Fruit: rich in fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, folate, potassium and often vitamin E.

Vegetables: fiber, protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, often vitamin E, potassium and a wider variety of minerals than fruit.

Whole grains and grain foods: rich in fiber, protein, and some B vitamins and are very rich in minerals.

Legumes: an excellent source of protein, fiber folate, potassium, iron and several minerals.

Dairy foods: protein, vitamin D, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, riboflavin, and vitamin B12.

You can also source carbohydrates from processed foods such as soda pop or soft drinks, snacks such as cookies and chips, and alcohol. These generally are considered to be a poor food choice and should be consumed rarely. The carbohydrate source (sugar and flour) in these food choices has been highly refined processed. A diet rich in refined carbohydrates and processed foods has been associated with heart disease and onset of type 2 diabetes.

Why are these sources of carbohydrates to be avoided?

1. They are calorie dense and contribute a large number of calories in a small amount of food. For example a 7oz bag of potato chips or corn chips have approximately 1000 calories. Most women on a weight management program will be aiming for 1200 daily calorific intake. So, this is what we mean by calorie dense and nutritionally scarce.

2. They offer little appetite-holding power because they have no fiber or protein. As a result you end up searching for food again soon after your first serve.

3. They contribute nothing to your nutritional profile except calories. This means you have fewer calories left for foods that your body requires for good health.

Whenever possible, replace highly processed grains, cereals, and sugars with minimally processed whole-grain products and ensure you have at least five serves of fruit and vegetables daily.

Rather than cut out carbs completely for a very short-term gain (usually weight loss), there are greater long-term health benefits in learning how to distinguish good carbs over bad carbs and incorporating healthy carbohydrates into your weight loss program.

(c) Copyright Kim Beardsmore

Kim is successful a weight loss coach who will help you find consistent results. You will learn how to stabilize at your goal weight and never ‘diet’ again. No public ‘weigh-ins’, meetings that cost you money or fads…simply long term results -  http://tinyurl.com/4oqfl

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