Weight loss hints and tips

In planning a meal plan, the most important step is to make efforts to lower your intake of fat, salt and refined carbohydrates.

Some reduced carb diet guidlines:
* Use splenda as a substitute for sugar. Many recipes that require sugar can be changed to make use of a sugar replacement instead. It is not exactly the same so you will have to do a bit of trial and error and it might not work for everything, but it gives very good results for the most part.

* Use soy flour or soy baking mix. When you require flour for baked goods, repalce it with soy flour or a baking mix such as Atkins soya baking mix. In many cases, you can convert your best loved recipes that use normal wheat flour to use these.

Lycopene superfoods
(includes watermelon, red bell peppers and rosehip)

The chemical lypcopene is a non-synthetic coloring agent and part of the same family of phytochemicals as carotene. This chemical is the reason for the deep red color of many fruit, vegetables and pulses.

Intrestingly, unlike many other healthy agents, lycopene is not damaged during the cooking process, but is actually strengthened by going through the cooking process.

. Lycoprene's key value is that it is an antioxidant and is believed to help to lower the probabilty of cancer.

This useful phytochemical is the most effective quencher of singlet oxygen, which is correlated with aging of the skin. It is also thought by nutritionalists to slow down the development of atherosclerosis.