Success with Food-Combining Diets

According the the Center for Disease Control, the majority of adult Americans can now be scientifically classified as being either obese or overweight. This has led many to search for new ways of eating, but also to often complain that traditional diets take too long and just don't work for them. The principles of food combining are easier to remember and use than traditional diets, and food-combining diets make great claims as to weight loss and health benefits. If you want to be successful at a food combining diet, there many new ideas you will have to learn.

Sugars

Don't eat any kind of sugar. If you are following the way of eating advocated by the Somersizing diet, no sugar is allowed. Somersizing was developed by actress Suzanne Somers after she noticed that people in other countries, especially France, eat all kinds of foods which should be bad for you and yet have lower rates of heart disease, obesity and other health problems than the United States does. The ban on sugar includes any kind of sweetener, from honey to white sugar to molasses to corn syrup. The New Beverly Hills Diet, another popular food-combing diet, is much more concerned with artificial sweeteners. No artificial sweeteners of any kind or brand are allowed on the New Beverly Hills Diet, especially aspartame. In both cases, this not only means not adding sugars to your foods and beverages, but also not eating or drinking things which contain sugars in the first place, unless they are whole foods such as fruit.

Carbohydrates

Eat carbohydrates with other carbohydrates. Do not mix carbohydrates with fruits and proteins. If you eat pasta, then a tomato sauce is fine, but not a meat sauce. If you eat a hamburger, then eating vegetables with your hamburger is good, but get rid of the bun. It is always allowable to eat vegetables with carbohydrates. The Somersize plan and the New Beverly Hills Plan diverge when it comes to combining fats with carbohydrates, however. The Somersize plan does not allow it, while the New Beverly Hills does. It's almost never a bad idea to eat less fat, so if you are unsure about which to do, the safer side is to avoid added fats.

Proteins

Eat proteins with other proteins or vegetables. The New Beverly Hills Diet advocates eating proteins only with other proteins, while the Somersize diet says it's allowable to eat proteins with some, low-starch, vegetables. However, both stress never combining proteins with high-carbohydrate foods.

Fruit

Eat fruit on its own. Do not combine fruit with any other food. It's good to eat plenty of fruit, but do not combine one kind of fruit with another kind of fruit in the same meal.

Warning

Check with your doctor or another qualified medical professional before embarking on any kind of diet. Also, the effects and success of food combining has not been scientifically proven, so use such diets with caution.