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 lower carb diet pointers:
* Replace sugar with splenda. Many recipes that need sugar can be changed to make use of splenda instead. It has a different density so you will need to do a bit of trial and error and it might not work for every recipe, but it does bake up nice once you get the measurements right.

* Make low carb bread crumbs for deep fried or oven baked foods. Although you can probably buy low carbohydrate breadcrumbs, you can make them yourself by using low carbohydrate bread. All you have to do is toast the reduced carb bread in the oven on a sheet of baking paper. Once it is quite hard and crispy, whizz it in the food processor using a coarse blade. Store in an airtight container.

Lycopene rich foods
(includes apricots, red bell peppers & tomato puree)

The phytochemical lycopene is a simple compound used to color foods and part of the carotenid family. This chemical is accountable for the dark red color of a good number of fruit, vegetables and pulses.

Fortunately, unlike numerous healthy agents, this useful phytochemical does not become less effective if heated during cooking, but is noticeably enhanced by being cooked.

. Its most interesting nutritional contribution is that it behaves as an antioxidant and appears to help lower the risk of cancer.

Lycopene is the most potent fighter of singlet oxygen, which is correlated with skin aging. It is also thought to prevent the progression of atherosclerosis.