Of every diet you’ve heard of, The Lemonade Diet is one you probably know very little about. It is a short period, cleansing diet that takes the course of several days (approx.. a month). The purpose of the diet is to detoxify the body of its various impurities that carry a large cause in the contraction of some sicknesses/diseases (e.g. skin irritation, oily foreheads, physical emaciation, etc.) And while on this lemonade diet, your body relies solely on the energy of lemonade, with the nutritious juice it offers, so as to alleviate these contaminants in your body; losing weight is a byproduct of that.

The diet’s key ingredients are cayenne pepper, lemon juice extracts (of course), and syrup (maple). There are virtually no carbohydrates involved during the period of the lemonade diet, so you’ll be looking at a mixture of these three ingredients for about 30 days.

In addition to this part of the diet, you’ll ascribe to salt water everyday, as well as laxative tea; all to ensure that there is proper cleansing of the body (as mentioned above).

The essence of this diet relies upon the cleansing of bodily toxins to allow the digestive tract to rest (so it won’t work as hard). This leads to the expenditure or “burning” of stored fatty acids, without decreasing any somatic or central insulin levels (in non-medical terms, you’re perfectly safe losing weight under this diet). Speaking of insulin, this diet is not recommended for those who are diabetics, as lemon juice extracts may lead to high level acidosis/ketosis and cause other health problems.

There is also the lemonade diet in pill form which makes the whole process much easier to do than the lemonade cleanse Beyonce or Ashton Kutcher did.

Is it necessary to exercise to lose belly fat? Or can you burn belly fat with just diet alone? Research seems to point to exercise and specific types of exercise to get the best results. But diet does count too! So what’s the best plan?

Cardio is important for all over body fat burning, this includes belly fat. But doing some additional work such as crunches (no, not hundreds of them a day) helps too. Crunches and situps help to get rid of visceral fat which lies deeper in the abdomen and surrounds your organs, but things like walking, jogging and even some heavy duty yoga can work on the subcutaneous fat which lies just under the skin.

Read the rest of this entry »