It seems nowadays that everywhere you look, be it television, magazines, billboards or here on the internet, someone is telling you their great tip for how to shed a few pounds. With so much conjecture and hearsay going on regarding dietary advice it is really more helpful to know what things you should be ignoring as opposed to what you should actually be listening to. That's where this guide might help. This looks at some of the more damagingly misjudged pieces of bad diet advice you might pick up here or there and why they are so wrong. 

It is highly likely you have, at some point, heard someone tell you that drinking with meals is what makes you bloated and flabby. The argument is that any beverage (even water) has a diluting effect on your stomach acids and make food indigestible. This actually could not be more wrong – the combination of water and digestive fluids in your gut actually help you break down food more effectively. Another popular one you might have picked up is that by cutting out carbs completely and sticking with a protein only diet you will soon become trim and slim. Though this works in the short term, as the dehydrating effect on your body will help you lose some fluid based weight, it does not actually help cut down on fat and once you break the diet (which you really have to do, as eating that way for a long time is not healthy) the weight will return right away.

One of the more bizarre tips you may well have heard regarding dieting is the idea that the best way to lose weight is to cut down on all fruit except grapefruits. As crazy as it sounds this has somehow become a popular idea in some circles, the thinking being that the high sugar content in fruit contributes to fat building in the body. There are plenty of other things that should be cut out of a diet ahead of fruit if you are trying to lose weight. In fact the sugar in most fruits is almost harmless thanks to the high levels of fibre they also contain.

Pizza is one of the world's most popular foods. A simple, savoury, crisp blend of cheese, tomato and whatever your favourite toppings may be, it has a cross global appeal like few other fast foods. Yet when people go on a diet it is often the first thing on their list of no-nos. The twin dangers of melted cheese and plenty of dough, plus the added fat content of whatever you stick on top, has earned pizza the reputation of being a food which must be avoided if you want to lose a few pounds.

Yet it does not have to be that way. In fact, with the right ingredients and toppings you can seriously alter the fattening quality of a pizza while keeping all the things you love about it. While it is unlikely you will find a take away pizza which is low in fat you can make it at home on your own in a manner that is fun, fast and deliciously tasty.

The main thing you need to do is heighten the content of fibre in the recipe, while lowering the carbohydrate. A little bit of carb is fine but you need to steer clear from the carb-overload that comes with most pizza recipes. To start, use whole wheat dough to make the base. This is not complicated to make from scratch but if you do prefer to buy your bases, you should be able to find delicious whole wheat bases in the supermarket. The next thing to do is use low fat mozzarella cheese instead of the regular high cholesterol kind. Already you have dramatically lowered the fat content of the pie, while doing no damage at all to the taste factor.

When it comes to toppings this is where you get to be creative. Avoid layering on the pepperoni, salami, ham and extra cheese. Instead go for lots of mushrooms, onions, pepper, sweet corn and capers. If you want to add protein, go for some anchovies or tuna. The choices here are almost limitless, just stay away from fatty meats and fried toppings.

Who doesn’t love cooking? Even if cooking isn’t your strong point, it can’t be denied that making your own food is an extremely practical thing to do. For one thing, you don’t have to worry about forking out in order to eat something halfway decent. Simply spend a little time practising and you’ll soon be able to eat pretty much anything you want. Another advantage is that you have control over the quality and healthiness of the food that you eat. Here are some tips for good, healthy recipes and food preparation.

If you’re making a cake or some kind of pastry, for example, it’s likely that you’ll usually use a fair bit of sugar. Of course, this creates problems for anyone who either has a hard time with sugar or feels the need to eat healthily. So, in order to whip up some healthy recipes, sometimes you need to look for a good substitute. Honey can usually do the job, but you need to remember that honey is more of a concentrated sweet than sugar.

Many people shy away from using oil in their cooking, especially if they are at all worried about the health side of their diet. However, you don’t need to be so concerned about cooking things with oil if you do it in moderation. As long as you heat the oil up properly, the food you cook won’t absorb too much of it. If you heat the oil until it thins a little and runs easily, you can cook up your healthy recipes perfectly.

We all know the value of healthy eating. Now, of course, there’s a legion of voices out there that say, “In order to be beautiful, you must weigh less than 100 pounds and eat like a rabbit!” It is probably safe to say that these voices can be ignored with impunity. They do have one good point, though: healthy eating is one of the important elements of a healthy life. There are, however, many ways to spice up your menu without adding too much fat or sugar to it.

First off, let’s look at oil. Everyone has heard their mother admonish them to “only use a little oil, dear!” Of course she had a point. However, some people seem to think that this means not using any oil at all in anything they eat and cutting it out of their diet completely. Now this might be necessary for some people, but not for the average person who values healthy eating. If you use the right kinds of oil, then you can incorporate a bit of oil into your diet. Try using pure corn oil or (ideally) virgin olive oil for your cooking needs.

Another favourite of the healthy eating aficionados these days is the food group known as carbohydrates or starches. They do, however, have a bit of a point when they insist that people should regulate the amount of carbohydrates they ingest. While carbohydrates are necessary – as “fuel” for the body, so to speak – someone who cares about healthy eating should be careful to only eat the right kinds. The ideal level is to eat carbohydrates that are high in fibre since, in addition to giving you energy, they will aid your digestion.

From Mexico to China, people have been serving up chicken dishes for centuries – and each country has come up with their own distinctive ways of cooking it. Though it is an exceptionally easy meat to cook, there are a couple of pointers that make chicken dishes a lot better. Here are some essential tips for cooking your chicken.

One of the best and most tasty ways to prepare chicken is a method known as pan-searing. This involves cooking the chicken at a high temperature, with the intention of getting a nice golden-brown crust on it. Though this method of cooking chicken is a pretty good one all on its own, there are a few things that you can do to take it to the next level. For example, before the chicken goes into the pan, you can rub it down with a combination of salt, spices and herbs. This will give the crust that you are trying to obtain a very rich flavour, and will also provide the chicken with a bit of extra colour.

So what spices should you use when cooking chicken? Well, the most obvious one is rosemary. This spice only goes with certain types of meat, like poultry and fish. You can also add paprika, which is a sort of dried, ground-up bell pepper powder. This will give the chicken a great taste as well as distinguishable colour. Also, do not go easy on the salt. Though you do have to be careful to overdo it, salt is probably the most important ingredient when cooking chicken, or indeed anything else. A little black pepper usually complements chicken in a rather nice way, too.

Of all the wonderful starchy things that we enjoy, mashed potato has to be near the top of the list. With its creamy consistency and warm, rich taste, mash can provide the perfect complement to a good piece of meat or a few sausages. There are, of course, pointers that can enable you to make better mashed potatoes than the stuff that you are currently preparing. It will also be healthier, too.

One of the biggest problems with making mashed potatoes is the consistency. It is sometimes difficult to generate the right balance between thickness and creaminess in your mash. In this area, like in many others, the key is choosing the right ingredients. In order to obtain the right consistency, it’s necessary to choose the suitable kind of potatoes. Although larger baking-style potatoes are good for other jobs – jacket potatoes, roast potatoes – and smaller are better for boiled, you generally want to find something medium-sized. Maris Piper potatoes, for instance, will usually do quite well. Remember, if you have the right ingredients, you’re halfway towards making better mashed potatoes.

There are few things in life that are more satisfying than a cool drink on a warm day. This doesn’t have to be anything in particular – a glass of water, a glass of beer or some orange juice – as long as it’s cold and it hits the spot. If you’re working outside, however, then orange juice would be the best of these, given that it contains sugars and all sorts of other things that can give you energy. Here are some tips to making a healthy fruit smoothies:

When you make a healthy fruit shake, it’s common to want as much of the actual fruit to still be in the shake. However, there is a small problem with that strategy: the pulp of the fruit can very easily turn the drink into a rather solid mass. Therefore, it’s usually a good idea to strain it a bit. For example, if you’re putting some apple in your drink, you may want to blend the apple with the base liquid before you start blending up the rest of your healthy fruit shake.

Though it is a little more work, it can be very rewarding to put together a good assortment of fruit in your smoothie. Combining different fruits can lead towards some interesting flavours and varieties. For example, one of the best mixes is a blend of strawberry, shredded carrot and orange juice.

Dieting can be tricky, as there are many products on the market, that says they will make us slim, but unfortunately we are not always told the truth.

More important than what we eat, is that we exercise regularly, and take every opportunity to walk or run up the stairs instead of taking the lift, and walking to the shop or post office instead of driving. Basically the more we move, the more weight we lose.

There are a couple of foods though, we must avoid in order to loose weight. Soft drinks and diet drinks need to go. Instead of soft drinks, carry around a bottle of fresh water. As soon as it is finished, fill it up again. A lot of people mistake feeling hungry for actually being thirsty, and they only realise, that they are actually thirsty, when they take a sip of water. Water is essential for weight loss, because it washes away the chemicals, that are easily stored in the body.

Do not stop by fast food restaurants, no matter how hungry you feel. Fast food restaurants should be called high fat restaurants, because that is exactly what you get. Avoid chips and fried meats at all cost. Also pizza is extremely high in calories, because both cheese and salami are on the "don't eat list". If you have to eat out, go to Subway, where they try to make an effort to serve low fat meats with lots of fresh salad. It is very difficult to find a place to eat, where they really care about your health, and in most cases it would be best to carry a lunchpack with carrot sticks, apples, and other fruit and raw vegetables or nuts for energy. Eating at home is best for dieters, although some restaurants might serve a nice hot vegetable soup for lunch. White bread should never be included in a diet. Brown bread full of seeds is an exellent choice, and can be dipped in the soup.

Avoid processed foods, and basically everything in the supermarket that comes in colourful boxes and bags. Do not eat crisps, sweets, cookies, bisquits or chocolate bars. These products are very tempting, so simply avoid going down the isle, where they are sold. Commercial foods are usually packed with a quite long list of chemicals, that are dangerous for our health. Excitotoxins are taste enhancers, used extensively in crisps and products like that. They over stimulate the neurons in the brain and kills them. The result is brain damage. These same foods are also high in salt and sugar, which should be avoided. Both salt and sugar traps water in the body, and makes us look fat.

Almost everyone will be on a diet some time or other. Temptation lurks around every corner, and it takes a very strong personality to resist every time. There are quite a few products on the market that really should be our "enemy", because these are often the worst for our health, and in some cases even dangerous.

To lose weight, we need to burn a lot of calories by exercising, going for a walk, running up the stairs and using a bicycle instead of the car. Most weight loss diets call for low fat foods, lots of fruit and raw vegetables. Some people cut out all fats from their diet. In this article we'll zero in on some mistakes people make that hinders their diet progress.

It is a mistake to eradicate all fats from the diet. In recent studies it was discovered that women who don't eat any fat at all become moody, negative or depressed. Good healthy fats can be: avocado, fish, nuts and olives. These are rich foods that should be included in the low fat diet. Exercise is good, but the body will not have the strength to work out without some carbohydrates - whole grain, like brown rice or brown bread full of seeds. Including this type of foods in the last meal eaten before working out will increase the energy level drastically, and exercise will be more fun and rewarding. Specialists say that a fruit eaten an hour or two before working out will help the body to shred more fat.

Water cleanses the body from chemicals and gets rid of any stored up junk in the system. Lack of water slows down the metabolism. Drinking 8-10 glasses of water daily ups the energy level, and helps that unwanted fat to go. Drinking most of the water in the morning and first part of the day, and a glass before each meal is the best way to drink that amount of water. Instead of juice, eat fruit, and instead of coffee have green tea or herbal tea. Green tea helps weight loss.

Starting the day without breakfast is a serious mistake: it will provoke excessive hunger throughout the day, and often for the wrong foods. The brain and the body need it. Does your body feel energised when you eat protein like eggs or baked beans for breakfast, or does it feel "ready to go" after muesli with nuts, dried fruit and maybe yogurt? Some people find that eating fruit for breakfast on an empty stomach gives them a boost and helps lose weight as well. This solution might only work if there is time to eat a more filling meal two hours later.

For many people in the world today there is the problem of being overweight. There are many reasons why that happens, for example the popularity of fast food restaurants, sitting in front of the TV for hours and not getting enough exercise, not getting enough sleep, just to name a few. Weight gain is a serious thing and if you have more weight on your body than you should, it also means that you will be more vulnerable to getting sick. If you are one of those mentioned above, below are listed some tips on how to shed some pounds:

1) Eating your breakfast every day is an important factor people just don’t seem to get. By eating breakfast you cut some calories- especially if you eat something healthy like fruit or healthy cereal- and it gives you enough energy for the day, which also means more fat burning.

2) In the evenings, establish a time when you close your kitchen and can’t go in for a midnight snack. Mindless snacking is a good way to put on the pounds, so stopping that habit will help with shedding some pounds

3) Instead of three big meals throughout the day, try eating 5 or 6 smaller ones. It may sound like you are eating more, but by eating 5 smaller meals, you gain more metabolism. The digestion of those meals helps burn the fat, so five or six digestion processes and the fat will be burning off in no time. But make sure that the meals are healthy and not heavy.