The Glycemic Diet

The GI Diet was originally developed by a Frenchman by the name of Michel Montignac. While struggling with his own weight, he started doing research, trying to figure out exactly why people gain weight.

His research led to some very interesting figures:

Of the study population, only about 15% ate too much, while almost half of them ate less than the average person!

This ruled out the common belief that obesity was the result of over-eating in general. Eventually, Montignac started exploring the foods those overweight people ate and came to the conclusion that their eating habits all shared one thing: foods with a high glycemic index, or GI.

The glycemic index indicates the ability of any food substance to increase the levels of your blood sugar – which in turn will trigger increased insulin production. High GI foods contain carbohydrate types that are broken down very quickly, and then cause a spike in your blood sugar. On the other hand, low GI foods contain carbohydrates that take some time to break down into components that your body can absorb, and the energy is thus available over a longer period of time.

Pasta, for instance, is a low GI food – and athletes from all over the world have claimed for many years that eating pasta before an important event will give you sustained energy when you need it (even before its low GI properties became common knowledge).

High GI foods – giving a spike in blood sugar levels – eventually cause the excess sugar to be stored away as fat. Additionally, the “availability of constant easy energy” means that your body has no need or desire to work on breaking down and excreting your existing fat reserves even though they are not really necessary.

As such, the GI Diet simply advocates that you switch to a diet containing mostly low GI foods. While it might require a bit of self discipline at first, there are actually a good number of edible and tasty foods that you can consume and enjoy.

Ironically, GI food charts on the Internet mostly agree that plain chocolate has a relatively low GI, while rice cakes (advocated as “diet food” by many) has a very high GI. Additionally, some foods (like carrots) have a low GI in raw form, but become high GI foods when cooked.

It could take a while to figure out which foods actually fall into which categories. While there are many GI food charts on the Internet, many of them disagree about the GI qualities of specific foods, leaving you to wonder which one is right, and just what the heck it is you need to omit from your diet.

Debunking The Myth Of Eating Less To Lose Weight

One of the biggest myths about losing weight is the idea that you need to eat less in order to shed pounds. New studies have shown that this is simply not the case. As a matter of fact, it’s just the opposite. Let us take a look at why you need to eat if you want to lose weight.

The Scientific Benefits of Breakfast

People who eat breakfast on a daily basis tend to lose weight easier. The National Weight Control Registry performed a study that showed people who eat breakfast have a better chance of maintaining a 30-pound, or more, weight loss for at least a year. Studies in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association showed similar results.

Another research group analyzed government data on over 4,000 adults and found those who ate a regular breakfast tended to take in fewer calories during the day and had a lower fat intake. They also noted that regular breakfast eaters were more likely to engage in routine exercise.

Eating breakfast also jump-starts your metabolism, says Elisabetta Politi, RD, MPH, nutrition manager for the Duke Diet and Fitness Center at Duke University Medical School. She states; “When you don’t eat breakfast, you’re actually fasting for 15 to 20 hours, so you’re not producing the enzymes needed to metabolize fat to lose weight.” In fact, sumo wrestlers do not eat until late in the day for the sole purpose of gaining weight. If you do not eat breakfast, you are actually following the sumo wrestler diet. Now, that is a scary thought.

Keep Your Metabolism Going All Day

With the right mechanisms in place, your body will naturally burn fat. However, what are the right mechanisms? That is your job; to find your body’s balance between energy consumed and energy burned. Metabolism is the name of the game. When you eat healthy small meals, starting early in the morning, your metabolism is set in full swing, mobilizing and converting fat stores into energy.

When you eat breakfast along with regular snacks and small meals throughout the day, your body gets the nutrition it needs and goes to work, breaking down your food into energy. If you wait until you’re starving before you eat anything, that gnawing feeling in your stomach is telling you something. Your body will start by robbing your muscle tissue of anything it needs first, like protein, then it will store fat because it thinks it’s in famine mode. By eating early and often, not only are you protecting the muscle that supports your frame and allows you to walk, sit, and stand, but you are also keeping your metabolism going so it works all day to give you energy.

Simple Weight Loss Tips to Get You Started:

Eat slowly. It takes twenty minutes for your stomach to tell your brain you are full. Do not eat and run. You will be looking for your next meal way before you need it.

Pick out foods you need to chew. Try apples, whole grain hearty breads, celery, and other raw vegetables. These foods will slow down your eating and satisfy your chewing instinct. Raw nuts are another option. Just be sure to monitor the serving sizes as you snack.

Drink 6 to 8 glasses of cold water per day. This helps to feel full and as your body works to raise the temperature of the water, you are burning calories. Keep bottles of water filled in the refrigerator and sip, sip, sip.

Eating oranges is much more satisfying than just drinking the juice. Keep this thought when choosing other fruits and vegetables. Consuming whole fruits and vegetables is much more satisfying.

Have a healthy snack before you start cooking dinner. This will help with overeating while preparing the meal, and after. Munching on celery is the perfect way to keep you satisfied while cooking.

If you need a sweet treat, just remember that frozen yogurt, angel food cake, and sherbet are all low fat. Low carb diets are low sugar diets, which often forbid fruit. In this case, one tiny piece of dark chocolate may be an option. This may leave you satisfied without all the sugar or carbs. You have to experiment to find the right treat for your sweet tooth that fits your meal plan.

The less you eat, the more your body protects itself and begins to go into starvation mode, holding on to more food, storing it as fat and robbing your muscles of nutrients. Make sure you eat a good breakfast to start your day right. Then, keep your metabolism working throughout the day with small meals and healthy snacks.

Stop starving yourself so your body can relax and start to lose that weight. Adding foods instead of subtracting foods, sounds odd & It’s so crazy it might just work.

Body Mass Index (BMI) is a calculation that is based on your height and weight to determine if you are underweight, an ideal weight, overweight, or obese. The test is an indication of the total body fat that you are carrying around. The number ranges are fairly accurate but there are some circumstances when the calculations may not be 100% true. As these results are purely based on numbers, you should take the number you are given and discuss other contributing factors with your doctor (such as muscle weight or body type considerations).

A BMI of 30 or over is considered obese. The higher end of the scale for overweight people (25 – 29.9) and people that fall into the obese category are at an increased risk for developing type 2 diabetes. Other danger indicators are waist circumferences. If you are a man and your waist measures 40 inches or more and if you are a woman and your waist measures 35 inches or more, there is an increased abdominal fat risk factor for diabetes and other diseases.

Maintaining a healthy BMI is all about being at a weight that is right for your height and body type. Both of these goals will bring many more benefits than just better controlled blood glucose levels. You will also have increased energy, can reduce the amount of insulin you are on, and give yourself a longer life expectancy.

Reduce your total body fat to bring your BMI into a healthy range (18.5-24.9). Consult your doctor and get advice on how to meet your goals. And if you are just starting an exercise routine, get the okay from your doctor first. You do not want to overtax yourself at the beginning and your doctor may have some restrictions for you to ensure you do not suffer from injury or hypoglycemia.

Branding is a process of intense development and conceptualization. To come up with innovative marketing ideas and an effective way to brand yourself, you need to carefully lay out the steps you need to get there. Doing so will also enable you to take note of the vital aspects involved in the creation of a brand. Brand models have been formulated to create the framework needed to build an effective brand that will be able to withstand market trends and competition.

What is a Branding Model?

There are basic models utilized in the process of brand planning. Each of them will cover different scopes and aspects of the process to create a sound branding strategy. Aside from the ability to postulate methods for arriving at a specific brand idea, these models will also help business people understand the behavior of consumers in terms of their responses to a brand, which is helpful in adjusting old branding strategies or acquiring new ones.

All of these features are key in managing and reviewing brands, which are necessary steps that must be taken by any company in their branding efforts. These models are not directly linked but one does impact another.

Brand Positioning

This model involves your effort to create an image that will have its distinct position in the market. Firmly establishing your brand will help your target market to easily remember and opt for your line of products. This is one aspect of your brand planning wherein you must focus on creating superior brands that will eliminate your competition. Here are steps you need to look into:

*This is the step wherein you begin to identify other brands you are competing against. Then, define the parameters of your own brand against your competition. This will enable you to focus your efforts.

*Next, your objective is to introduce attributes to your brand that will enable it to stand out from competition. You must also introduce elements into your brand that will produce in the mind of your consumers or target market the perceived quality of your brand.

*You must establish a slogan for your brand that will aim to reaffirm the position and values of your brand. It aims to articulate the message of the brand and what it promises to deliver to the consumers.

Brand Resonance

Once you are through the stage of creation and distinction placement in the market, your next step is to protect the loyalty of your consumers. To do that, you need to employ an efficient customer relation service and to provide a feedback system. This model follows from the initial steps laid out by the brand positioning methods. Now that you have acquired target customers, your next aim is to strengthen the relationship between them and your brand. After all, majority of the business sales stem from repeat customers.

More than anything, this stage is where you must reinforce the messages initially conveyed by your brand. Hence, customers will remain satisfied with the level of performance and quality delivered by your brand. Are your methods consistent to the identity of the brand and its missions? Take into consideration the feedback of customers on your product and how you can build up on that relationship.

Brand Value Chain

This one is more focused on the financial impact of your branding efforts. The basic idea of this model is that the value of the brand consist in the customers, so that is where you should be focusing most of your branding strategies on.

Carefully combining these various models will provide a company a reliable perspective of the different areas involved in the marketing activity. Bringing all these branding steps into the formula will enable you to easily track progress or problem areas in the branding system.