Are you starting a weight loss plan? Start a spreadsheet to go along with it.

Remember all the hype surrounding Beyonce and her occasional detox diet?

It's now officially being referred to as the Def Jam Diet. For some reason, everyone associated with the record label is drastically dropping pounds. However, now that Beyonce's (supposedly) pregnant, she can't do drop the pounds with the extreme dieting. (Well, duh, Beyonce, you're gaining weight because you're pregnant.)

There's been question about what exactly the Def Jam Diet is (because it seems to be working for the likes of Jay-Z, LA Reid, and Mariah Carey. Now everyone can breathe easily because the Def Jam Diet "is just the hip rapper way to say Master Cleanse."

Oh. Yeah, anything is more hip than saying you drink nothing but some strange concoction of lemonade, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper.

[via Huffington Post, via NY Post]

MSN money asks use to to take a moment and imagine if no one in the US were overweight. I lose. I can't do it! I know so few people, myself included, who aren't overweight (they consider overweight to be 20 or more pounds too heavy). However, I'll humor them by suspending disbelief, and attempting to imagine.

MSN says, "add the savings up on health, food, clothing and efficiencies, and you could buy a professional home gym for every U.S. household -- or hand each $4,270 in cash." There would be a total of $487 billion dollars in national savings. Read the article for details on how they came up with that number.

What would you do with your extra $4,270 dollars? I'd definitely go out for lots of fancy dinners with no skimping on the dessert course. Hmm.. that would defeat the point though, wouldn't it?

People have been trying to lose weight and get in shape in many different ways over the decades. We've tried low-fat diets, low-carb diets, running, swimming, electric impulse, starving ourselves, taking pills, and even eating just liquids for weeks on end. But did you ever think about taking a bubble bath?

This gizmo is from 1933, and it shows a woman in a bathtub filled with non-alkali soapsuds, created by the power of a waterproof electric motor that sits next to your tub. Personally, I don't care if it is "waterproof," items such as a bathtub and anything electric aren't items I want in the same room.

Look at that pic...that's a lot of suds from only a teaspoon of powder.

The March issue of Glamour Magazine features an article on scary celebrity diet tricks that no woman (or presumably, man) should try. The article gives a run-down of some pretty insane weight-loss tactics, and then suggests alternatives for each them. The alternatives, however, basically just negate the aforementioned trick (ex: instead of using laxative teas, don't use laxative teas). So while I didn't find the article very useful, it's always a bit fun to glimpse the absurdity of lifestyles of the rich and famous. I mean, $3,000 for cleansing supplements?

My favorite diet-trick of the article was to "obsess over the tabloids," because I know that's what I always do when I feel like shedding some pounds. And remember, it's important to eat solid foods.

Perhaps one of the reasons we're having trouble with our efforts at weight loss is that we can't visualize what we are consuming. In other words, when you look at a plate of fried chicken with a heaping scoop of mashed potatoes and a brick of mac n cheese, you can't really tell how much fat and how many calories you're about to consume.

Website Foodsel is a tool that not only gives you detailed nutritional information of popular foods, but lets you visualize energy, sugar, and fat. For example. if you were to eat an entire 12" Pizza Hut cheese pizza, you'd be consuming 4.4 sugar cubes, one entire stick of butter, and would have to burn the equivalent of 87.5 D batteries. That's a lot of energy to burn.

How's that for some visual non-stimulation?

Think you're helping your weight loss because you're saving calories with artificial sweeteners?

Put down that pink/yellow/blue packet and step away from your latte.

New research from scientists at Purdue University claim that artificial sweeteners, long thought to aid in dieting, actually makes it tougher to lose weight. Because sweet foods normally prompt the body to get ready to take in a lot of calories, the body gets confused when the taste of sweetness from an artificial sweetener is not followed by a calorie flux. You'll eventually end up eating more, or burning fewer calories.

Guess that means I'm going back to plain old sugar.

Friends, we're bringing all kinds of snacks, foods, and desserts to the table for Super Bowl, but let's be real about something. Most of these foods are meaty, carb-y, and definitely go against every New Year's Resolution you made a month ago. Steak chili? Sour cream based dips? Potato chips? Deep-fried everything? Yeah!

But, well, yeah.

Though the Super Bowl may be but one day, and not even an entire day, but an afternoon, some of us do want to stick with healthy options, or have some dietary restrictions, like reader hayduke who left us a comment today asking for suggestions for Super Bowl food ideas with the following guiding principles (we don't like to call them "restrictions"):

• Sister is vegetarian
• Sister also eats gluten-free
• Dad needs to lose 20 pounds, so something "light"

Hayduke has a few things already lined up, but would like some more ideas (as would we!) If you have recipes or ideas to share, leave them in the comments!

I hate to be the one to do it to you, especially after trying to pawn off organic gummy bears and Fruit Roll-ups on you as "candy," but someone has to do it. Someone is going to remind you how many calories are in that Snickers bar you just swiped from your kid for yourself, and it may as well be me.

Website A Calorie Counter has a fairly decent table of calorie counts for some of the more popular chocolate and candy bars. It's a side-by-side comparison to see how they all stack up against each other in terms of their nutritional content and ingredients like saturated fat , sugar, and trans fat. The funny thing is, most of the bars within a certain category flutter about the same calorie count. For example, most chocolate bars are about 200 calories, so you really aren't saving much by choosing a Nestle 100 Grand Bar at 180 calories over a Heath Bar, which is 210. You're better off going to a completely different category like hard and powder candies, but to really save calories, you know that the best thing to do is not eat it.

By now, you all know I have an odd fascination with energy drinks. Part of the reason is that my over-stressed, overworked and underslept body body need them -- I think I've had so much coffee in my life already that I've developed a tolerance to the effects of the caffeine in it. Part of the reason is that...nothing. I don't know why else I would want to drink a beverage that almost always tastes like over-sweetened Capri Sun with the bitter chemical aftertaste of say, nail polish remover.

Okay, so that's a little harsh.

It doesn't really taste like Capri Sun.

Now there is a new class of drinks that takes energy to the next level. These drinks claim not to be zero calories, but negative calories, because the chemical formulation actually causes you to, well, burn calories. Granted, energy drinks do the same, since technically, with all that increased "energy," you will run around like a chicken with her head cut off. If you recall, we posted about Enviga last year, which has the same marketing spiel - drink a can of Enviga, you potato del couch, and you will lose weight just sitting there eating Flamin' Hot Cheetos dipped in Blue Cheese Dressing! (I did not try this, but don't think I wouldn't). I tried Enviga. I didn't lose weight.

Celsius is a new energy drink in this category. I tried it. It was...interesting.

We want to believe that there is a magic pill that will melt the fat off our bodies. We even hope there's some secret formula that nobody else knows. In the end, however, in our heart of hearts, we always know that "the formula" for staying trim is no formula at all. Quite simply, we have to exercise more and eat less.

Right?

Well, not exactly. According to various bits of research done here and there and compiled by AOL Diet & Fitness, it seems that for one particular trouble spot for a lot us, abs, eating more might be key.

Hold your horses, Soon-to-be-Taut Tonto. You can't just go eating everything in sight, thinking that the more potato chips and bacon you cram down your throat, the tighter your abs will be. There are specific nutrients in foods that seem t help fight ab fat. Unfortunately, potato chips isn't one of them. What are they? There are five things, and the matrix above is just a few suggestions for ways you can incorporate these into your diet that will get you to flatter abs:

Hooray! Yet another article about the end-all, be-all method to finally, yes finally (!) lose weight!

Ugh.

Strangely enough, the tips in an article by Sally Squires of the Washington Post are absolutely normal, and if I'm going to poke fun at anything at all, it's the fact that the logic behind the Energy Density method is absolutely sound.

Basically, you replace food with a high energy density with foods that have low energy-density. It sounds fancy. It sounds scientific and complicated. Energy density? Do we need to carry around little notebooks with an entire database of foods and their energy densities?!?!

No. Energy density is just a fancy way of saying "caloric bang for your buck." You want to eat foods that give you less caloric bang for your buck, and remove foods that have a higher number of calories for the volume of food you eat. For example, an apple is low density. Mashed potatoes with butter that's the same size as that apple is high density.

It's not rocket science, but if you need more concrete to-dos, here's a list from the article:

• Add fruits and vegetables to cut calories
• Get more fiber
• Add a course to your meal like salad to cut down on a higher density main course
• Sip on soup
• Cut out fat where you won't be sacrificing too much flavor
• Eat dessert, but make it fruit.

Late last year, a TV production company filmed a new reality program in England. Nine volunteers set up camp in the Paignton Zoo in Devon, next to the ape house and for 12 days, ate like the apes did. This meant that they consumed nearly 11 pounds of fruits and vegetables a day as part of a three-day rotating diet that was designed by a nutritionist. They also were given small amounts of honey and nuts, and during the second week ate some cooked fish.

On average, each of the participants lost 10 pounds and experienced significant reductions in blood pressure and cholesterol. The majority of the participants signed up because they were experiencing health concerns and needed to do something drastic in order to improve their health.

I realize that this is sort of old news, but I just heard about it and I found it intriguing. I'm also very curious if this will become one of the many reality TV shows exported to the United States. Americans are willing to try a variety of drastic measures to lose weight. Will eating like an ape be one of them?

We've already psoted about American cell phone companies offering a service to their customers that allows them to communicate with a diet advisor via their cell phones, and now, there is a rising concern in Japan about expanding waistlines, so they're doing the same thing.

People who participate in the program send photos to a diet and nutrition expert via their cell phone cameras. The experts analyze their dietary intake and send results back to the participants within three days, along with advice.

Like I said before in the post about Sprint's service, this seems a "little too late." Getting information after you've already eaten a 10,000 calorie burger with a side of super size fries that you probably shouldn't have done that seems futile. Wouldn't it be better if you sent a picture of your rare steak dripping with blue cheese butter and have an instant text message reply that says "No!"

Even though the official start of summer isn't until some time in mid-June, we all know that summertime really kicks off with Memorial Day weekend -- and for lots of us, that means lounging poolside for the first time this year, or hitting the beach. Time to get our bodies ready for swimsuits.

Lady Thrills has put together a list of the Top 10 Foods that Help Burn Fat. Granted, you can't just eat a teaspoon of cayenne pepper then sit around on the chaise lounge all day. Getting into shape means eating well overall and exercising. But a little kick along the way from these ten things can't hurt!

1. Cayenne Pepper
2. Cinnamon
3. Ginger
4. Citrus Fruits
5. Apples and Berries
6. Soybeans
7. Bananas
8. Essential Fatty Acids
9. Garlic
10. Dairy Products

[via: GourmetGlam at ThisNext.com]