Zen My Fitness – Linking Muscle and Mind

Celebrities have a huge influence on us.

Everything they do is always in the spotlight and at times we want to copy “everything they do”.

One area that gets a lot of attention are their diets and workouts.

Some are spot on with their weight loss but some are so far off the track it becomes dangerous, here are a couple examples of crazy and not so crazy diets they follow.

You might be surprised which celebrity gets its right!

Jennifer Love Hewitt – The Grape Whisperer

This hard working actor would work on set for up to 15 hours a day.

Not having a lot of time Jennifer would go home and make simple but high carb (carbohydrate) meals of mashed potatoes, risotto and pastas and not having the time to work out took its toll on her body as the weight piled on.

When it got to the point that Jennifer felt she need to lose weight the first diet she tried was The Grapefruit diet (also known as the Hollywood diet)  a short-term fad diet.

Usually involves eating half a grapefruit or drinking grapefruit juice with each meal and reducing caloric intake often to below 800 calories per day.

Based on the claim that grapefruit has a fat-burning enzymes, the diet significantly limits the amount of fruits and vegetables while encouraging meat intake; the combination of these high-fat, high-cholesterol foods with grapefruit is claimed to burn fat.

This diet is considered unhealthy due to the low 800 calories, you wouldn’t have enough energy for the day’s activities let alone energy for intense workouts.

It is a very strict diet plan for instant weight loss, BUT NOT a healthy diet.

Your body is going to miss out on some important nutrients not included in the diet.

A balanced diet should consist of 4 food groups. With the grapefruit diet plan, it is cutting out a couple of the food groups.

Even though it last only 12 days it’s long enough for your body go into starvation mode and really slow down your metabolism, which stops you from burning bodyfat.

Jennifer also tried taking apple cider vinegar pills which is suppose to be good for removing belly fat but admits she didn’t notice any difference  so after 2 weeks gave up.

The latest craze is called the charcoal diet.

Girls Aloud singer Sarah Harding is a fan, claiming eating carbon gets rid of toxins.

Harding sprinkles it on food and says it helps her tone up.

Rather charcoal has been used to stop the body absorbing poisons since the 19th century.

It is allegedly good for hangovers and stops flatulence, great if you happen to be near a flame!

But seriously you lose weight by a lifestyle shift of nutrition and exercise by eating less calories than your body requires.

If you like to know about the easiest and most efficient method of lowering body fat that works read Eat Stop Eat.

Gwyneth Paltrow the 37 year old actress looked like a very healthy person on the outside but she has been diagnosed with osteopenia, resulting in bone density of an 80 year old!

Nutritionist blame her macrobiotic diet of the last 11 years as the cause even though she exercises up to 3 hours a day (which is way too much, an efficient exercise routine needs only to be 45-60 minutes x 3-4 times per week like the one found in  Visual Impact, on how to develop a hot lean Hollywood body).

Below is Tracy Anderson ( Celebrity Trainer) video showing why Gwyneth needs 3 hours to workout when it really should only take a third of the time! (Thanks Darrin from LeanMeanVirileMachine for the video).

Other followers of the macrobiotic diet are celebrities like Madonna, Kim Kardashian and Carmen Electra.

The diet requires eating plenty of vegetables, wholegrains fruit and minimal quantities of fish while discouraging dairy and red meat.

Alcohol, chocolate, hot spices, sugar and coffee are also avoided.

The American Medical Association considered this type of diet a major health problem.

This diet is often lower in protein than other diets and is unbalanced in supplying important nutrients.

Brown rice normally an ideal food but the macrobiotic diet turns it into a principal ingredient.

The emphasis is upon 50% grains and only 5% of raw vegetables, the supply of vitamin C and vitamin A are minimal as well as vitamins D, zinc, calcium, and iron.

The excessive inclusion of seaweed and sea vegetables introduces considerable sodium into the diet, not helpful for maintaining healthy blood pressure levels.

One of the reasons why we try to eat a balanced nutrition plan is because foods can assist each other in becoming more effective.

For example you need calcium to build strong bones, vitamin D helps increases absorption rate of calcium i.e one can help the other.

Do not follow diets that exclude essential food groups, if you leave out a whole food group then you’re going to be low on something.

Kelly Osbourne

During her journey on “Dancing with the stars” 2009 she ended up losing 19kgs.

She is now gym regular and visits 3 times per week.

She had ditchend junk food for a diet free of sugar and carbohydrates.

Kelly says “While not eating carbs is killing me the sacrifice is worth it.”

Not a bad plan but the fact of having a low carb diet means that body’s source of fuel for energy will have to be found elsewhere, the extreme case is a condition called ketoacidosis.

Jessica Alba has found the best routine to lose weight and look hot where she combines bursts of cardio with strength training which is a very metabolic challenging style of interval workout.

She uses a 3-2-1 method meaning every day she eats 3 meals, 2 snacks, drinks at least 1 ltr of water.

Jessica eats lean meals of protein, complex carbs, healthy fats and snacks combination of fibre and protein to keep full (eg apple and piece of mozzarella cheese) it’s an excellent balanced nutritional food plan and her exercise routine compliments the whole weight loss program.

Of all these actors, Jessica has got the best overall long term solution of being healthy due to its simplicity.

Keeping it simple by consuming mainly unprocessed natural whole foods and not isolating food groups provides the easiest way to lose body fat and maintain weight.

Don’t be in a hurry, losing body fat it will become easier over time as you determine what works for you and you won’t need all those diets, pills, supplements and gadgets which come down to wasting your time and money.