What is a bland diet? It is a diet specially set to treat certain gastrointestinal or stomach problems such as heartburns, ulcers and gas.

mediaimage
An answer to a question, what is a bland diet, is that it is a simple treatment for people suffering from any one or more gastrointestinal disorders such as chronic gastritis, ulcer, esophagitis and dyspepsia.

Bland diet is a dietary regimen for people suffering from stomach disorders. Hence, it is quite understood that ingredients of a bland diet are soft food items, which are easy to digest with a capacity to keep the acidity to low levels. Questions about diet may be asked to your physicians and he/she can suggest the diet or recommend a dietician to do it.

Diet medical questions may include the queries about the food stuffs to eat and food stuffs to avoid during the time while a person experien ces any gastrointestinal disorders. However, before a dietician could decide the bland diet for a person, he/she needs to seek answers to several medical questions related to the person such as any food allergies or irritations associated with any food items and emotions medical questions of people.

Bland Diet:

The diet prescribed as a bland diet will include food items that are easy to digest and low in fiber and acid contents. Even giving up alcohol and smoking is advised while patient is on bland diet. Also a patient is advised to have 4 to 6 light meals after regular interval to avoid heavy and large meals.

Chewing food properly and eating slowly helps in the digestion of the food. Adequate sleep, avoiding smoking and controlling anxiety are supportive treatments for the standard treatment of the problem.

Allowed Food Items:

• Dairy Products
Milk, cheese, yogurt with low-fats and other dairy products are easily digested and hence, can be included as a part of bland diet. However, there is no restriction on ice-creams and one may consume even ice creams during bland diet, but it should not have any product such as nuts that are not allowed in bland diet.

• Fresh Fruits and Vegetables
Fresh vegetables and fruits are allowed to a bland dieter. However, while carrot, squash, green peas are good to eat in a bland diet, broccoli, onions and green peeper should be avoided as it forms gas. In fruits, oranges, grapefruits, and bananas are allowed.

• Proteins
Protein requirement of the body, while on a bland diet should be met with soy products and meat. Fried chicken and greasy hamburgers are not allowed to be consumed, while grilled and baked chicken is allowed.
Low-fat peanut butter and eggs are also efficient to meet the body’s protein requirement in a bland diet.

• Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are contained in whole grain breads, pasta, oatmeal, corn flakes, white rice and sweet potatoes. All these food items are allowed.

Bland diet is designed for treating certain medical circumstances such as gastrointestinal problems. Hence, to answer what is a bland diet, we can say that this is a diet that aims at improving the digestion with the help of a timed-routine diet and soft to digest food items. Once the problem is controlled patients can return to their normal diet.

The term “fitness supplement” is familiar to almost everyone nowadays. Fitness supplement is a supplement that is designed to help people who use it to achieve several results that include but are not limited to weight gain or weight loss, muscle building, adding vitamins or minerals to their diet, and many more. There is such a variety of fitness supplement products on the market that you will definitely find the right supplement for your needs.

Fitness Supplement – weight loss supplements.

Weight loss supplement is a fitness supplement that is designed to help people who use it to achieve a considerable loss of weight. The weight loss supplement can be based on various chemicals, vitamins, minerals, herbs, etc. Examples of weight loss supplements include but are not limited to Solidax ADX, Phentermine, Kava – Herbal, Xenical, Fat Absorber TDSL, Bontril, Meridia, and many more.

Fitness Supplement – body building supplements.

Body building supplement is a fitness supplement that is designed to help people who use it to achieve weight gain, muscle building, and strength training. There are many other reasons for using body building supplement products but these three are probably the most popular. Be careful with body building fitness supplement products as some of them could be very dangerous.

Fitness Supplement – nutritional supplements.

Nutritional supplement is a fitness supplement that provides additional sources of nutrients when people don’t get enough of them through food or when a well-designed diet doesn’t work. Nutritional supplement increases the intake of vitamins, amino acids, minerals, herbs, etc. It gives you the opportunity to achieve the average daily intake of some specific nutrient. If you are an athlete, you will have access to some types of nutritional supplement or supplements developed specifically for athletes.

Calorie Restriction Theory The basis of calorie restriction is pretty simple. People who advocate this kind of dieting imagine your body as a big rubber bag; food goes in and gets used for energy, but if you’re not using enough energy, the food gets turned into fat and the bag expands. To cut down on fat, just decrease what goes in. It takes about 3,500 excess calories to make a pound of fat, so by reducing your intake by 500 a day, you should lose a pound a week. Starvation Mode Unfortunately, things are a little more complicated than this theory suggests. While reducing the amount you eat does cause weight loss, it can backfire. This is especially common if you decide to cut out a large number of calories. It may seem like reducing your intake even more will cause you lose more weight and to lose it faster, but you could actually find yourself gaining. This is due to the fact that your body enters a phase called starvation mode when your food intake drops below a certain level. This level varies for everyone, but is usually between 900 and 1,200 calories per day. If you’re a very active person or have a naturally high metabolism, however, it could be much higher. When you use a diet that restricts you below this threshold, your body believes that it’s going through a famine and that resources are scarce. Instead of getting rid of that pesky fat, it starts holding onto it even more tightly. Instead of attacking fat for energy, it begins to use up lean muscle tissue, especially if you’re not doing any resistance training to build up that tissue. You lose weight, but you probably won’t lose much fat. You’ll also probably notice that your energy levels start to drop. You may feel tired and listless throughout the day. This is due to your body cutting down on the amount of energy it needs in an attempt to get through the famine. As your metabolism slows down in response to perceived starvation, your weight loss will probably slow down and start to plateau. In the end, severe calorie restriction and fad dieting leaves you tired, flabby and with a reduced metabolic response. Long-term Effects of Dieting Problems with calorie restriction don’t stop there, of course. In the long term, repeatedly using highly-restrictive diets to take off those last few pounds can actually lead to more weight gain. Recent studies in the weight loss field have shown that even people who successfully lose large amounts of weight tend to gain it back. That’s because the calorie restriction causes their bodies to believe that they need to return to their “normal” size as soon as food is more readily available. If you’ve been using a strict diet, after you lose the desired amount of weight, you’ll probably find yourself slipping back into your old eating habits. You may even find that you crave unhealthy foods like refined sugar and fried, salty snacks. People who’ve lost weight through restrictive diets are often actually hungrier than people who are naturally thin, since the previously-fat people’s bodies are still trying to put the weight back on. Over time, your weight may even go up. Long-term weight loss studies have shown that repeated yo-yo dieting encourages people to increase their bodies’ internal upper weight threshold, potentially getting fatter than they were before they started dieting. This tendency is highest in people who lost large amounts of weight very quickly through calorie restriction or other faddish methods. What’s the Solution? All this information can be disheartening. After all, most people want to take off fat and stay healthy and fit, not slow down their metabolisms and potentially gain more. The good news is that long term, sustainable weight loss isn’t impossible. It’s just a little more complicated than “eat less, lose more.” Studies have shown that minor calorie restriction, especially if it’s done by reducing your intake of unhealthy foods, can be quite effective, but that activity may be the real key to reducing weight. While exercise alone won’t burn enough calories to whittle your waistline quickly, it will help you keep your energy level up and maintain muscle mass. Resistance training activities are especially important for this, so it’s vital to make sure you’re taking in enough energy to stay active. Over time, you can replace fat with lean muscle, which actually burns more calories and can increase your metabolism, instead of starving your body and slowing down your metabolic rate. The more energetic and active you are, the better your results are likely to be. Reasonable Expectations It’s also important to maintain reasonable expectations when you go to lose weight. Doctors at the U.S. National Institutes of Health say that most successful dieters take off about 8 to 15 percent of their highest body weight. That means that a 200 pound person can expect to effectively lose 16 to 30 pounds. This isn’t an upper limit, of course, but it’s what most people lose without the risk of gaining it back. If you want to lose more, those figures can be disheartening, but there is hope. Slower weight loss backed by sound nutrition and an activity level powered with plenty of energy increase the chances of major loss. This plan might not get you into a bikini by the end of the summer, but it’s the best-documented way to take that weight off and keep it off. If you’re hoping to take off some fat, don’t be tempted by plans that tell you to eat nothing but grapefruit and coffee or subsist on spicy lemonade. Instead, cut those calories only a little, ramp up your activity level, and make sure that you’ve got the energy to keep moving. It might take a little longer, but you’ll do a lot better at losing fat, permanently.