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

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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.

Guilty and frustrated from cheating on your diet plan? These diet plan saving tips will keep you on track!

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It’s nine thirty at night and you have followed your new diet plan perfectly to a tee all day. A pizza advertisement comes on the commercial break of your favorite show and you notice it is close to your next mealtime.
Up to the kitchen you go to eat your next meal. When in the fridge pulling out your nicelyprepared diet plan meal, you notice some left over Fettuccini Alfredo your wife or roommate brought home. Sure looks good you think as you catch a little bit of saliva about to drip on your shirt!

“Just a little taste won’t hurt my diet plan,” you justify…

“ I’ve stuck to my diet plan all day……”

A little taste and before you know it you tell yourself the extra carbs and calories will be a good boost to your workout tomorrow!

An hour later your gut is stretching and Indigestion plagues you from cheating on your diet plan!!

“I should have stuck to my diet plan!” is going through your head as you lay down to have nightmares of a fat ass! “Tomorrow I’ll stick to my diet plan “, you chant in your head!But you fall from your diet plan only a day or two later!

The occasional stray from your diet plan can really add up!And billboards,tv’s, radios and people are everywhere pushing fast foods and junk to sabotage your diet plan!

Here are five diet plan saving tips to arm yourself against the onslaught of the Cheating War!

Diet Plan Tip #1 – Eat Slowly – Take your time when you sit down to eat.

The chances you will stuff yourself or overeat diminish and you will reach the point of satiety much more quickly if you eat slowly!

The more you are satisfied with what you have eaten the less likely you will continue to think of food. That chocolate Black Forest cake won’t be as tempting either!

Diet Plan Tip #2 – Have Delicious Meals That Fit Your Meal Plan Prepared Ahead Of Time.

Having meals prepared ahead of time makes it convenient to eat according to a plan and on schedule.

You can make it more convenient to stick to your diet plan than it is to eat that bag of candy by having your diet plan meals prepared and available when it is time to eat– and when you gethungry.

Diet Plan Tip #3 – Get Used To Eating For Your Purpose Instead Of For Your Taste Buds.

Satisfying your taste buds when you get the urge to gorge down a Big Mac will never develop a healthy, lean, muscular physique! Keep in mind you are eating to develop a lean, healthy muscular physique every time you open your mouth! The temporary taste satisfaction of a jelly-filled donut will be gone real fast but the empty calories you just devoured can defeat a whole day’s worth of bodybuilding effort!

Diet Plan Tip #4 – Be creative with your cooking to make sticking to your diet enjoyable.

Ideally, with proper preparation and some reciperesearch you can create delicious mouth watering meals that meet your diet plan criteria. Learn to cook. Employ spices from other parts of the world. India and China are twocountries with interesting choices to really spice up your diet plan. When you don’t have to force feed yourself with your nose plugged the chances are much higher you can stick to your diet plan more easily!

Diet Plan Tip #5 – Drink Water.

Drinking water between meals can help to reduce your hunger pains temporarily by giving a sense of fullness. For those of you that sabotage your diet plan munching here and there,keeping a water bottle with you wherever you go can really help.Just sip away when its oral satisfaction rather than hunger driving you.

A fruit and vegetable juice is a liquid into which all nutrients from the fibre have been extracted making the juice highly nutritious and easily absorbed into your bloodstream. Your body does not have to expend all its energy into digestion but instead use it to maximise the nutrients instead.
Most of us eat the same salads or vegetables every day. Juicing opens you to a wider range of fruits and vegetables which we are not likely to consume if eaten whole. Consuming a variety of foods is the key and only way in getting all the necessary nutrients your body needs to be in optimum health. Juicing helps you achieve this naturally without having to resort to artificially produced vitamins and minerals as supplements.
It’s very hard to cover the daily recommended portions of fruit and vegetables especially if you dislike green vegetables. Juicing takes the pain out of that. It’s an easy way to get your daily recommended intake because vegetable juice when combined with a sweet fruit or a squeeze of lemon or lime juice neutralizes the bitterness and makes it very palatable.
However, the most crucial point of drinking fresh juices for hard-core raw food advocates would be that food is eaten in its raw form. Cooking at high temperatures destroys enzymes and heat sensitive vitamins. That destruction is reduced to a large degree by juicing.
The contentious issue that arises when raw food consumption is discussed is whether or not plant enzymes have a role to play in preserving our body’s supply of enzymes. Those who argue otherwise say that our body has its own enzymes, that it will not have any use of enzymes from plants and that it will continue to produce enzymes for as long as we live.
The reason enzymes have become such a ‘hot’ topic among advocates of raw food is because enzymes are catalysts that speed up chemical reactions in the body. Enzymes equal life. Without enzymes all biological processes vital to life would slow down. All vitamins and minerals that we consume become useless. Toxic substances will build up to dangerous levels without being flushed out. Our body’s ability to heal and absorb nutrients will slow down. Enzymes help the body to correctly digest food and also to provide instruction on how to utilize the various nutrients in the food source. Enzymes regulate tens of thousands of biochemical functions that take place in our body every day. Even thinking involves enzymes. Without enzymes our bodies will fail to function and life will eventually cease to exist.
Enzymes are destroyed by heat when food is cooked and also by the application of additives and preservatives in highly processed food. Whether or not the enzyme theory put forward by raw food advocates is true will continue to be proven or disproved by many.
Putting that aside, the benefits of juicing is hard to dispute. It nourishes you, it opens up to you a natural supply of vitamin and mineral supplements, it can aid you in weight loss and will help detoxify and cleanse your body simply through the nourishment it provides. It will improve your health if you have been on a lifelong diet of highly processed food, overeating and never having met the requirements of the daily recommended intake of fruits and vegetables.
The debate of whether or not your body has a lifelong supply of enzymes or whether or not we need the benefit of enzymes from raw food is not a reason to dismiss juicing as just another fad because the drawbacks of highly processed food is just too much to bear. Why anyone would not want to juice baffles me.