Trying to decide between Bistro MD vs Diet To Go? These are two very popular nation-wide diet food delivery services. They both make food fresh – with no preservatives – and deliver meals to your home or office.

They are both also two of the most affordable and highly rated weight loss meal delivery services currently on the market.

So that leaves a lot of people wondering – what’s the difference? Which one is best for them?

This article will review some of the key differences between these two services to help you make a more informed choice:

#1. Type of Plan

Bistro MD has one main plan – an overall low calorie, smart carb diet that was designed by a physician and specialist in the weight loss field, Dr Caroline Cedarquist.

However there are specialty plans within Bistro MD for diabetics, men, women, women in menopause and women who have just had a baby and want to lose the pregnancy pounds.

Diet To Go has 3 plans – Balance (traditional low fat), Balance D (for diabetics) and Carb30 (low carb plan). Within these options, there are also options for vegetarians and a no-seafood option.

#2. Price Per Day

This is a hard comparison to make as it really depends on you – how many meals you want etc. It also depends on any current specials each plan is having.

However, overall, the Diet To Go plan is slightly more affordable than Bistro MD, starting around $19 a day and up. Bistro MD starts around $22 and up. However again, this depends on the options that you choose (see #3 below).

#3. Flexibility

Both plans give you a lot of flexibility with your options. Diet To Go for example, lets you choose to get 2 meals a day (lunch and dinner) or 3 meals a day.

Bistro MD offers 3 meals a day – with the option of an add-on snacks/dessert package.

Also, both plans let you go online and swap out meals (for example if you don’t like a certain meal and want another one) for no extra charge.

And neither plan locks you into a long term contract – which is great.

#4 Meal Quality

Overall Bistro MD meals are slightly more gourmet than Diet To Go – which also explains the price difference.

For example on Bistro MD you get meals like:

Roasted Turkey Breast with Gravy, Seasoned Brussel Sprouts and Spiced Apples

Chicken Cordon Bleu with 3 Cheeses with Dijon Mustard Sauce, Quinoa with Rice and Fresh Broccoli

On Diet To Go you get meals like:

Chicken Tenders with Pepper Sauce and Brussel Sprouts

Baked Salmon with Pineapple Salsa and Carrots

And of course, if you’re looking for desserts, Bistro MD is the service that offers this option.

So those are some of the main differences between Bistro MD vs Diet To Go. Again, both are excellent services with a lot of happy customers and tons of weight loss success stories.

And they do everything for you in terms of calorie counting, food prep and more – which makes losing weight really easy for you.

It really comes down to what you’re looking for in a diet delivery service. Just remember to take your time, relax and enjoy your food – the weight will be dropping off before you know it!

You should begin your weight training program with both short and long-term goals. Identifying goals is an important means of maintaining interest and enthusiasm for weight training. A key point is to establish realistic short-term goals that can be reached in the first several weeks of training. Reaching these goals provides the motivation needed to continue training.

Developing an Individualized Exercise Prescription

The exercise prescription for strength training has three stages: the starter phase, the slow progression phase, and the maintenance phase.

Starter Phase

The primary objective of the starter phase is to build strength gradually without developing undue muscular soreness or injury. This can be accomplished by starting your weight training program slowly beginning with light weights, a high number of repetitions, and only 2 sets per exercise. The recommended frequency of training during this phase is twice per week. The duration of this phase varies from 1 to 3 weeks, depending on your initial strength fitness level. A sedentary person might spend 3 weeks in the starter phase, whereas a relatively well-trained person may only spend 1 to 2 weeks.

Slow Progression Phase

This phase may last 4 to 20 weeks depending on your initial strength level and your long-term strength goal. The transit ion from the starter phase to the slow progression phase involves three changes in the exercise prescription: increasing the frequency of training from 2 to 3 days per week; an increase in the amount of weight lifted and a decrease in the number of repetitions; and an increase in the number of sets performed from 2 to 3 sets.

The objective of the slow progression phase is to gradually increase muscular strength until you reach your desired level. After reaching your strength goal, your long-term objective becomes to maintain this level of strength by entering the maintenance phase of the strength training exercise prescription.

Maintenance Phase

After reaching your strength goals, the problem now becomes, how do I maintain this strength level? The bad news is that maintaining strength will require a lifelong weight training effort. Strength is lost if you do not continue to exercise. The good news is that the effort required to maintain muscular strength is less than the initial effort needed to gain strength. Research has shown that as little as one workout per week is required to maintain strength.

Getting the body you’ve always dreamed of – defined abs, broad shoulders and that overall-ripped physique you see on Hollywood actors and actresses and the most popular professional bodybuilders can be a challenging prospect especially if you can’t keep up with the often grueling training and workout routines that need to be done to achieve just that.

But then again, when you want something bad enough, you’ll always find ways to get what you want. Fitness isn’t easy but it is not something impossible. When you’re an athlete, you’ll need to be able to complement your training to be able to maximize your workouts and ensure you meet your goals. To do this, you have to make sure you have the best pre, intra and post workout supplements and to make sure you have the best, here are some things you need to remember and understand, especially about intra-workout supplements, which are said to be the newest means to achieve muscle gains.

First of all let’s define intra-workout supplements. These are supplements that boost your energy while you train. During training you do so many routines and switching from one to another for extended periods of time can take its toll on you especially if you lacked energy at the start of your training. Intra-workout supplements are the reinforcements you call in to minimize catabolism and to ensure your muscles keep being repaired and built during training. They increase your intensity to help you keep training for longer times.

Intra-workout supplements are usually made of three components namely electrolytes, carbohydrates and amino acids. Electrolytes help maintain adequate hydration, carbohydrates act as a fuel to keep you going during training and amino acids prevent muscle breakdown and promotes protein synthesis. Athletes who are serious about reaching their goals stack them together with their pre and post workout supplements to make sure they will see changes in their physique.

What many bodybuilders don’t realize is that during training they expose themselves to many catabolic factors which can interfere with their strength and muscular development. Doing resistance exercises for example, induces changes in the rate of muscle protein turnover, resulting in both the promotion and degradation of protein synthesis. This is only one of the reasons why taking during workout supplements is necessitated because failure to do so may result in muscle degradation or simply put a waste of your efforts. Being unable to take the best intra-workout supplements also increases the likelihood of developing hypersecretion, a highly catabolic hormone that could also out a stop your muscle-building efforts.

Intra-workout supplements also work fast and are easily digested and absorbed by the body. They also fight cortisol, which is a hormone that is released during exercise that can break down the muscle tissues and during workouts, when glycogen levels go down, the cortisol levels go up. Taking these supplements can reduce the effects of this process.

Again, fitness isn’t easy and anything that is easily done or had can also be taken away just as easily and you can feel and look worse than you were before your workout failed. If you are to undergo serious bodybuilding, it is best to do it right and to do it right, make sure you have the best pre, intra and post workout supplements at hand. Do research on your own and check your own body as well to make sure you can take these supplements safely so that you can use them effectively.

It’s no secret that what we choose to put in our bodies has a profound impact on what happens on the outside of our bodies, as well as impacting our overall health. Poor nutrition has been inexorably linked to everything from obesity to cancer. So when it comes to shedding those extra pounds, it’s no surprise that nutrition and weight loss go hand in hand.

The relationship between nutrition and weight loss exists because of the primary role that food plays in weight control. In order to lose weight you must reduce caloric intake and increase physical activity. A balance must be achieved between these two components in order to achieve a healthy weight. And in order to find the balance that’s right for you it’s important to evaluate how nutrition and weight loss affects you personally.

Many people – when they take an objective look at their food choices throughout the day – will be surprised by how poor their diet really is; a day spent skipping breakfast, nibbling chips and sweets, downing coffee to stay awake, and gorging themselves at night. It’s a cycle with which we are all, unfortunately, familiar. Staying in this unhealthy pattern will slow metabolism, deplete us of energy, and cause our bodies to store excess fat. In order to establish a positive relationship between nutrition and weight loss, it is imperative to make some critical lifestyle changes.

Nutrition and weight loss begins with making different choices when it comes to food. First and foremost, skipping any meal in the hope of weight loss is not only unhealthy – it also doesn’t work. In order to keep the body’s metabolism at a consistent pace – that which burns calories throughout the day – you must give it something to burn. By eating a healthy breakfast, we jumpstart our metabolism for the day. That is also why most experts recommend eating small meals frequently throughout the day – to keep our metabolism burning at the optimum rate.

But it is also just as important what and how much food we put in our mouths. In order for nutrition and weight loss to have the symbiotic relationship it is meant to have in order to optimize health, it is imperative to focus our meals and snacks around whole, natural foods. Choose fresh fruits, green, leafy vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins. Avoid fried and processed foods. And keep your portion sizes reasonable.

Nutrition and weight loss is inseparable. In order to achieve your optimum weight, you must turn a critical eye on the foods you are eating. Make some better choices and big changes, and you will soon find that you feel – and look – better than ever!

Are you overweight or obese and want to lose weight immediately? Or maybe you are one of the many people who are confused as to which weight loss diet program is best to help regain a slim and trim body. Well, if you want to really lose weight then you will need to get up to speed on the different diet programs out there and which ones will be best suited to your lifestyle.

So following are some of the better known weight loss diets and an overview of each one.

* Atkins Diet – This is a well-known and accepted weight loss diet program today. This is a triple combination of a low-carbohydrate, high-in-fat and high-in-protein diet plan. Atkins is being used for more than a decade now by people who have been trying to lose their extra weight.

The Atkins weight loss diet program is all about eating healthy and nutritious food without carbohydrates. Foods that are encouraged by the Atkins Diet are leafy green vegetables, lean protein, fruits, nuts, and whole grains.

– Pritikin Diet – It is a weight loss diet program that is high in carbohydrate and low in fat. The main objective is to lose the weight by eating vegetables, grains and fruits that are high in fiber. The focus is on eating raw, unprocessed foods. The fat intake must not go beyond 10% of the total daily allowed calories. In addition the Pritikin Diet emphasizes daily exercises, with 30 minutes being the required minimum.

This plan is designed to help you lose weight and prevent heart conditions. Fruits such as apples, cereals and brown rice are known to be good for the heart.

– Zone Diet – You will find this weight loss diet program is not as restrictive as compared to other diet plans. This plan consists of eating foods in the right ratio. Meaning that you can eat carbohydrates, proteins and fats but you just have to be careful that you are not overloading your diet with any one of them. Once the proper ratio is achieved by daily food intake the body will achieve proper hormone balance and release anti-inflammatory chemicals which are good for your health. A great plus to this diet is that you are less likely to experience fatigue and hunger on this program.

– South Beach Diet – This is one of the newest fads in dieting. Its weight loss diet program is basically about controlling fats, a low intake of carbohydrates and high in protein meals. Its goal is to take out all the bad fats and carbohydrates and replace them with good fats and good carbohydrates. It is simple in concept but may require you to learn new recipes and dishes.

Before you start any diet plan make sure you know what you are getting into. Learn the do’s and don’ts of each diet and ask to see what the results have been for people who have already finished with the diet program. Try it for 30 days and see how you feel. If you feel more energetic and the weight is starting to come off then you know this is the diet for you.

Everyone has different health and fitness goals.

Some want to build muscle. Some want to lose stubborn belly fat. Some want to run better. Some just want to improve in their sport.

Well guess what?

Strength training can help you accomplish all of these goals.

The popular notion of strength is someone who can lift prodigious weights. But there is no singular definition of strength because it is specific to what the person wants to achieve.

But the purpose of a strength training program remains the same: to help you progress and improve by increasing your capacity to accommodate greater resistance.

A successful strength training program must be built on a solid foundation.

For a foundation to remain strong it must be supported by 4 sturdy and tested pillars:

1. Progressive Resistance

2. Progressive Overload

3. Nutrition

4. Rest And Recovery

Progressive Resistance is the underlying principle of building strength. If you want to get stronger, you must periodically increase the amount of resistance applied to your muscle.

What if you have reached your limit?

If your progress has stalled or you have reached a plateau then we transition to Progressive Overload. This is the principle which requires you to overcome strength plateaus by increasing the amount of resistance at specific sticking points or weak areas.

A good example would be sprinters who use a weighted sled or resistance bands to improve their starting time off the blocks. Basketball players use Plyometrics to improve their second jump.

The value of a good nutrition program can never be over-stated. Food provides the calories to fuel your workouts and the macronutrients to jump-start the recovery process. But you have to know what foods to eat and when.

Finally, you will not get stronger if your body will not have enough time to rebuild damaged muscle tissue.

If your workouts stimulate fibres to build bigger and stronger muscles, rest and recovery creates the environment that enhances strength and induces muscle growth.

A strength training program is an effective way to achieve overall health and fitness. It will help you build muscle, burn fat, improve strength and develop great conditioning.

Before you embark on a strength training program, either visit popular exercise websites or engage a personal trainer to help you through the first 2-3 months of training as it’s essential that you use correct technique to avoid injury during your strength training program.

Have you ever been confused about the advice you’ve been given for building muscle? Are you sick of hearing multiple answers for what you know is a simple question?

Well, now you can put all of the bro science behind you and get ready to uncover the 7 biggest muscle building myths you thought were true.

Myth #1: You can gain a pound of muscle in a week

This is definitely not the case. At the maximum, you could achieve a gain of about one pound every two weeks. That will also depend on your diet even more than your exercise habits.

Myth #2: Supplements will maximize muscle growth

I’m sorry to inform you that supplements will not boost your muscle growth like proper diet, and training techniques. Those companies spend millions of dollars trying to make you believe that. It’s not your fault.

Myth #3: You can build muscle eating the same amount of food

This may be the main thing holding you back. The majority of people associate lifting weights with building muscle. But, you can lift weights and not build any muscle if you’re not providing your body with the calories to repair the torn muscle tissue.

Myth #4: Working out more equals more muscle

This is untrue for several reasons. But the biggest reason is because if you workout six days a week, you’re not giving your body enough time to recover and build that muscle.

Myth #5: The more protein you eat, the more muscle you’ll build

Your body can only synthesize so much protein to build muscle with. By consuming too much protein, your robbing your body of the other essential nutrients it needs to repair your torn muscles.

Myth #6: There is a single best program

In reality, each quality program has the ability to take you where you want to be. It’s more about finding the right program for you. The one that fits your schedule and gives you great results. Look for customized approaches.

Myth #7: If women lift heavy weights, they will get bulky

Women do not produce enough testosterone and other potent factors the same way men do. Unless the woman in question is taking steroids or hormones, they simply will not get big and bulky.

I hope this cleared up a lot of the confusion surrounding natural muscle building. We dissected the top 7 myths and now we can move forward with enlightenment, and more realistic goals to set.

Thank you for reading!

One exercise you will want to consider adding to your workout routine is the pull-up. Pull-ups are a fantastic back training that will help to strengthen the entire back region as well as working the biceps.

The drawback? They are tough. So tough in fact many people cannot even perform a single pull-up at the start. If this is the case, you may be feeling quite frustrated and not sure how you can progress along when it seems like you cannot get started.

This is where pull-up assist bands come into play. These bands are going to help you execute the full pull-up by taking some of the weight off the lower body. The result is you can complete a pull-up – albeit a modified one, getting you closer to your end goal of doing a full pull-up straight. So this all said, what other benefits can you receive from using pull-up assist bands?

Let’s go over a few points to keep in mind…

1. Direct Transfer Over To The Exercise In Question. First, you are going to get excellent transfer over benefits to the full pull-up training. Alternatively, you could just perform a standard pull-down, but this is not going to be exactly like a pull-up. It will be similar, but you would not be making the same movement pattern. Thus, the transfer over benefit is not as high.

By using the pull-up bands and doing a standard pull-up, this ensures you are going to be best able to move into the full pull-up with ease.

2. Improved Core Strength. These pull-up bands are also an excellent way to improve your overall core strength. When using them, you are going to be contracting your abs hard, resisting momentum from coming into the picture. The result is you are keeping your core nice and tight, building up better overall muscular endurance.

Overall muscular endurance can then not only make the pull-ups easier but provide excellent transfer over benefits to other exercises as well.

3. Perfect For Home Workouts. Finally, the last super benefit pull-up assist bands have to offer is they are ideal for those who are doing home workouts. While at a gym you do have the option of using the lat pull-down machine, at home, chances are you do not have this choice. Therefore, using the pull-up bands provides an excellent alternative.

So consider pull-up bands for your next workout. Don’t get discouraged you cannot perform the full pull-up. Just work your way up to it by using this piece of equipment instead.

The benefits of probiotics are seemingly numerous and they address a host of lifestyle issues. From the use of antibiotics and the contraceptive pill, and the imbalances that these can cause in the gut microflora, to irritable bowel syndrome and diets rich in processed foods and environmental toxins, our intestines are under constant attack. Probiotics, the ‘friendly bacteria’ that live in our bodies are edged out by the unfriendly variety, resulting in digestive disorders, infections and colonic related diseases.

In a healthy gut, probiotics thrive in abundance, ensuring that there is no space for the malignant bacteria to wreak havoc in our bodies. Probiotics have been a natural part of our ancestors’ diets for centuries. However, the growth of the fast food industry, with the emphasis on convenience as opposed to quality, means that many harmful practices have become the norm in the way we grow, cultivate and consume our food. Nowadays, unless we make the effort to buy organic, chances are that our meat and dairy have been laced with antibiotics, not to mention the artificial fertilisers in crops, all of which make their way into our systems. Some of this is unavoidable, such as the chlorine in tap water that also kills off the friendly bacteria in our bodies. But we do have to make a conscious effort to ensure that our diets are giving us the nutrients we need rather than saturating us with harmful chemicals.

Add to this the fact that what we eat has also changed significantly- we no longer get the required nutrients just from our diets so we have to turn to food supplements. This is now big business, as more and more people are becoming aware of the long standing deficiencies in their diets and the health problems that these are causing. With the majority, it has now got to the stage where a concentrated injection of the lacking nutrients in the form of food supplements is required. If we naturally derived these from balanced diets, there would be no issues of side effects or precautions to consider. As it is, due to the lack of these friendly bacteria in the type of food we regularly consume, we need food supplements in order to effectively reintroduce them back into our systems.

Probiotic supplements, as with other food supplements do have some side effects and precautions to consider before taking them, albeit generally fairly minor ones. The rule of thumb is to gradually introduce the supplements into your diet: the good bacteria start destroying the bad bacteria in your gut and this may result in gas, bloating and stomach cramps for a few weeks. In order to minimise this, it is advisable to avoid probiotic rich foods when you first start taking the supplements. Once the probiotic supplements have assimilated into your system, you can start eating food containing them.

These side effects are known as ‘excessive drainage syndrome’, and could also be accompanied by headaches and diarrhoea. These are akin to the unfriendly bacteria making a ‘last stand’ as it were, in your system. They are being killed off and the intestines are being re-colonised by the beneficial bacteria and these side effects are a symptom of that. Also, if you are on immunosuppressants, it is best to seek medical advice before taking probiotic supplements. The introduction of these friendly bacteria into your diet could over-stimulate the immune system, causing serious problems. People with otherwise impaired immune systems, or underlying health problems should also consult their doctors if they are thinking about taking probiotic supplements. There have been cases where individuals with problematic immune systems suffered from infections as a result of taking probiotic supplements.

Generally however, the main side effect that people experience is the digestive related issue of excessive gas and bloating when they first start taking the supplements. If you experience this and it is causing a lot of discomfort, it might be worth lowering your dosage and slowly increasing it as the friendly bacteria integrate into your system.

If you are vegan or lactose intolerant, there are rice based probiotic supplements available.

Leptin, also called satiety hormone, is made by adipose (fat) cells that helps to regulate energy balance by controlling hunger. Leptin is opposed to the actions of ghrelin, called hunger hormone. Both hormones act on receptors in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus to regulate appetite to achieve energy balance. The regulation of fat stores is deemed to be the primary function of leptin but it also plays in other physiological processes. Besides adipose cells, it is also produced by placenta, ovaries, skeletal muscles, stomach, mammary epithelial cells, and bone marrow.

It circulates in blood in free form and bound to proteins. Leptin levels in blood are higher between midnight and early morning, perhaps suppressing appetite during the night. The diurnal rhythm of blood leptin levels may be modified by meal-timing.

Functions of leptin –

The following are important functions of leptin:

• Primarily, leptin regulates food intake and body weight. It acts on the specific receptors in the hypothalamus to inhibit appetite. When fat mass decreases, the level of plasma leptin falls so that appetite is stimulated until the fat mass is recovered. There is also a decrease in body temperature and energy expenditure is suppressed. Conversely, when fat mass increases, so do leptin levels, thereby suppressing appetite until weight loss occurs. Thus leptin regulates energy intake and fat stores so that weight is maintained within a relatively narrow range.

• Leptin also seems to play an important role in modulating the onset of puberty. For example, undernourished and thin girls take longer to reach puberty than normal girls. Thin girls often fail to ovulate or release an egg from an ovary during menstruation cycles. Reproductive growth and fat stores are, therefore, vital in the regulation of reproduction.

Leptin resistance –

Besides many factors involved in the causation of obesity, an important factors is leptin resistance. Many believe that leptin resistance is the leading driver of fat gain in humans.

The main function of leptin is sending a signal to the brain, “telling” it how much fat is stored in the body’s fat cells. Since leptin is primarily produced by fat cells, obese people have very high levels of leptin. Given the way leptin is supposed to work, these people shouldn’t be eating because their brain should know that they have plenty of energy stored. But the problem is that the leptin signal is not working. As a result, there’s a whole lot of leptin floating around that the brain doesn’t “see” that it is there. This condition is known as leptin resistance. It is now believed to be the main biological abnormality in human obesity.

Therefore, leptin resistance makes the brain change our behavior in order to regain fat that the brain thinks is missing. The brain thinks that we must eat so that we don’t starve to death. Simultaneously, the brain also thinks we need to conserve energy, so it makes us feel lazier and thus makes us burn fewer calories at rest.

Losing weight reduces fat mass, which leads to a significant reduction in leptin levels. When leptin goes down, this leads to hunger, increased appetite, reduced motivation to exercise and decreased amount of calories burned at rest. Basically, the reduced leptin makes the brain think it is starving and so it initiates all sorts of powerful mechanisms to regain that lost body fat.

In other words, the brain actively defends the higher amount of fat mass by compelling us to eat back the lost weight. That is the main reason why yo-yo diets fail to yield the results as the dieters lose a significant amount of fat, only to gain it back.

How to regulate leptin hormone? –

Though leptin resistance is a complex problem, it is not an irreversible one. The following factors will help improve leptin response:

• Reduce sugar and fructose consumption – Minimize using simple starches, refined foods, sugar and fructose. Fructose is a major contributor to insulin and leptin resistance. Fructose disrupts the signals of insulin and leptin, generally by over-taxing the liver because fructose is primarily shuttled to the liver for processing, whereas glucose is primarily shuttled to muscle and fat cells. By reducing the consumption of white sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, we allow liver to do other things like burning fat

• Don’t skip breakfast- Your breakfast should include largely protein and healthy fats. This promotes satiety and gives the body the building blocks to build the hormone.

• Optimize sleep – Try to be in bed by ten o’clock in the night. Take steps to optimize your sleep.

• Avoid frequent eating- When you are constantly eating, even small amounts during the day, it keeps your liver working and doesn’t give hormones a break. Try to space meals at least 3-4 hours apart and don’t eat for at least 3-4 hours before bed. This includes drinks with calories but herbal teas, water, coffee or tea without cream or sugar is fine.

• Exercise regularly- Your workout should include both aerobic exercise and strength training.

• Take more Omegs-3s – Take more Omega-3s by consuming fish, grass fed meats, chia seeds and minimize your Omega-6 consumption by consuming less of vegetable oils, conventional meats, grains, etc. to get lower inflammation and help support healthy leptin levels.

The bottom line –

It is evidently clear that leptin – the satiety hormone – plays an equally important role in regulating hunger as is done by ghrelin. Recently, lot of importance has been attached to leptin resistance in humans, which is now considered to be the driving factor in causing overweight and obesity. There are many factors responsible for causing leptin resistance in humans. The majority of these factors are related to our lifestyle. Initiating positive changes in our lifestyle will help regulate the release of leptin hormone, thereby striking a balance between food intake and body weight.