Despite aggressive public efforts to curb the rise in obesity, Americans in most states are becoming more obese with each passing year, according to the most recent in a series of annual reports from the Trust for America’s Health   and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation  .

This discouraging trend emphasizes the failure of policies aimed at healthful nutrition and physical activity, and suggests the country is unlikely to achieve the health goals set forth by Healthy People 2010 an effort aimed at reducing the prevalence of overweight and obesity to less than 15 percent among adults and to less than 5 percent among children by the year 2010.

As in years past, states in the South were found to have particularly high obesity levels, with the region accounting for eight of the top 10 most obese states. Mississippi had the highest adult obesity rate at 32.5 percent, making this the fifth year in a row that the state achieved the dubious honor. Four states, including Mississippi, now have rates above 30 percent

West Virginia at 31.2 percent, Alabama at 31.1 percent, and Tennessee at 30.2 percent. Colorado continued to have the lowest rate, with only 18.9 percent of the adult population classified as obese, and remains the only state in which the adult obesity rate is less than 20 percent.

There has been a breakthrough in terms of drawing attention to the obesity epidemic, now we need a breakthrough in terms of policies and results.

The Atkins weight loss program is based on the theory that your body needs more protein and less carbs. The Atkins Diet   gives you the tools to change your eating habits, adopting a permanent lifestyle change that helps you lose and maintain your weight without having to count calories  . Dr. Atkins believed that you would feel better, look better, and be re-energized by following the basic tenets of the diet.

While the program is somewhat restrictive in the initial stages, this allows your body to slowly ramp up and adjust to a new way of eating. The food you eat allows your body to target fat stores to be used for energy, rather than carbohydrates. Carbs turn to glucose to fuel your body. If you restrict your intake of carbs, the body will look elsewhere for that fuel, which means that energy will instead come from the fat stores in your body.

This is not a diet where you will starve yourself, by any means. You can have butter, cheese, sour cream, mayo. You will have to restrict the carbs like pasta, potatoes, dried legumes, and the sweets, but not totally. As you ramp up into the different phases  you will be able to add more items to your diet, increasing your carb load. Once you have reached your goal weight, you will maintain it with some restriction on carbs. You will never go back to the old days of bread, pasta, cake and ice cream every day, but you will be able to indulge on a more regular basis.

For over thirty years, fat in our diet has been considered the culprit in obesity, heart disease, and high cholesterol. Unfortunately, the resulting “low fat” foods and diets haven’t resulted in most people controlling their weight or becoming healthier. In fact, the opposite is true.

It’s the type of fat that matters in addition to how much you consume. Reducing your intake of some types of fats reduces the risk of several chronic diseases, but other types of fats are absolutely essential to our health and well-being.

Sifting through all the conflicting information on fats can leave you with even more questions. What do you need to know about polyunsaturated fat, omega 3 fatty acids and other terms in the language of fats? Learn to incorporate the good fats into your diet while reducing your consumption of the bad fats.

Today, almost everybody thinks about carbohydrates as primarily a food to be avoided. The manufacturers have flooded grocery stores with thousands of new “low fat foods” which contain a range of everything: from muffins to pasta. However the primary question remains of whether cutting carbs will produce results. On the contrary it could sabotage your diet. Until the Food and Drug Administration defines what low fat foods mean the term can be deceiving.

Most of the companies are lowering carb counts by replacing sugar and wheat flour with artificial sweeteners, sugar alcohols and soy flour. This definitely doesn’t mean you can eat low-fat foods with abandon.
It is not necessary to cut out carbs from the norma diet. It takes more bad carbs, or foods with lots of added sugar and refined starches, to fill you up. But whole, fiber-filled starches such as oatmeal, vegetables, beans are digested more slowly. This is the reason that you feel sated longer.

The healthiest low-carb approach to take towards your diet would be to watch your calorie intake and eat a diet rich in lean meats, veggies and whole-grain carbs instead of those made with white flour and lots of sugar.
One of the primary things to look out for is that you should not be hungry on a  low carb foods diet since low-carb foods stablize insulin and blood sugar. If you get hungry, eat something low-carb. Generally, low-carb foods diets are not calorie restricted.

For Low Fat Recipes:
It is the way or manner in which you cook your food that makes all the difference to it’s fat content. Therefore the following tips for low fat recipes will help you dish up the most delicious food, but also keep in mind your objective of consuming fewer calories.
1. Heavy-based or good quality cookware:
If you use heavy bases for cooking you will find that the amount of fat needed for cooking foods can be kept to a minimum. However, if you do need a little fat for cooking, make sure you choose oil, which is high in unsaturated such as corn, sunflower, olive or rapeseed oil, and of course use as little of these as possible.
2. Use Good Quality Bake ware:
Using good quality bake ware will ensure that it doesn’t need greasing before use to make low fat cakes. You can also choose to use non-stick baking paper and only lightly grease before lining.
3. Use Non-stick Coated Fabric Sheet:
If you use fabric sheet, which is re-usable and non-stick, it can be cut to size and used to line cake tins, baking sheets or frying pans. Make sure that it is also heat resistant up to 290C/550C and microwave safe; it will last for up to 5 years.
4. Don’t Add Fat When Grilling:
Try and use as little fat as possible. However, if you absolutely must, then just spray a small amount of olive or corn oil.
5. Use Your Microwave:
Most of the microwave foods rarely need the addition of fat. So all you need to do is add herbs or spices for extra flavor and color to the low fat food.
6. Invest In A Good Steamer:
Steaming is a great way to cook the vegetables without retaining any fat. Steaming keeps more of the essential  vitamins and minerals that boiling affects.
Following the above tips will ensure that you have low fat recipes without actually compromising on the range of food that you eat, or on the taste of your food