A little history and some interesting facts about Tonica Direct!

Hi!

My name is Toni Hazle and I am happy to say that I am responsible for the new Tonica Diet Cake now on the market in three different countries, UK, USA and South Africa.

I originally started to develop the cake some 15 years ago, largely for my own and my friends' use.

We were all tired of the suffering we had to endure in order to shed those depressing extra pounds - the hunger, the physical weakness and the cravings which made sticking to the programmes available on the market nigh on impossible! Surely, I thought, there had to be a way to lose weight swiftly, safely  - and without all that suffering!!

FIBRE – what makes our cakes a success!

My thoughts first turned to fibre, which I believe is the single most important factor in weight loss. Fibre has so many attributes. The most obvious one, perhaps, is that fills you up for hours, thus averting the dreaded hunger! It also keeps the digestion healthy and working briskly. With plenty of fibre in your diet, you will not experience the awful discomfort of constipation so frequently associated with a significant reduction in calorie intake. Constipation is not only uncomfortable  - it also causes food to linger in the digestive tract, thus giving it far more time to convert to fat stored in your body. The brisk and healthy working of your digestive system provided by fibre is therefore of paramount importance in weight loss.

Fibre will also tend to absorb excess calories and fats left over after the body has used all it needs for your energy and for the healthy maintenance of your body. In fact, here at Tonica, we have identified - and include in our cakes - a particular fibre which is far more highly absorbent than any other. This we call our "secret ingredient" and we feel it plays a huge part in the spectacular success stories that have emerged from happy folk who have used - or are using - the cake. The challenge with this fibre - as indeed with all the fibres we use - was to make it palatable combined with other healthy ingredients which will also assist weight loss - and in this, we firmly believe we have now succeeded!

 Another great advantage of the use of fibre in weight loss is worth mentioning here. Not only does its bulk sustain you and avert hunger pangs - it also masks the effects of the sudden lowering of calorie intake into the body. Often, this lowering can induce the body into "famine mode", a human survival tool  which drastically reduces your metabolic rate. So your digestive system, instead of burning up your stored fat, becomes almost static - you feel low, slothful and your weight loss becomes practically non-existent! This is known as the dreaded "plateau effect" which most dieters will have experienced at some time or another. With Tonica cakes, your chances of this undesirable "plateauing" occurring are thus greatly reduced by the high fibre present in the cakes.

Stabilising ENERGY

We next considered the matter of energy - including eliminating those terrible feelings of extreme weakness that frequently occur during weight loss. Sugar, of course, tastes nice and can be a great energy booster. However, the problem with refined sugar is not merely its high calorific content but the fact that it supplies fluctuating energy levels. This is because it stimulates the body to produce the insulin necessary for its digestion. Once this digestion is achieved, any surplus insulin is deposited back into the bloodstream where it immediately starts reducing blood sugar levels -  until these may drop until they are actually even lower than they were before you ate anything! You then feel a great drop in energy, an increased feeling of weakness and hunger and experience great surges in cravings for unsuitable foods! Tonica has solved this problem by using "fructose" - fruit sugar - as a delicious sweetener. Not only does this taste really good, it is also healthier and lower in calories than refined sugar.It also does not encourage insulin production - your blood sugar levels therefore  remain steady and reliably high energy is sustained for several hours after eating a Tonica cake.

Nutritious and Delicious!

Our cakes are also highly nutritious and very healthy. We use only top quality ingredients and much of the fruit we bake with is fresh. We do not use any artificial flavourings or colourants. You get a variety of different flavours to avert boredom and give you that important "look forward" to factor when you are dieting. What nicer than to sit down with a delicious cake and a "cuppa"!! Some of the flavours lend themselves to being sliced into three or four pieces, each then spread with a little low fat spread such as Floro Light or Clover lighter - or your own favourite. Yummy!

A few notes on the Tonica Weight Loss System

For your convenience, we have included guidelines for your main meal. These are purely intended only to help you, especially if you wish to lose weight safely with the maximum possible speed. They need not be strictly adhered to, indeed you may eat whatever you wish at your main meal as long as it is very low in fat and you avoid refined sugar! 

And no going back for second helpings later, after you have left the table!

Once you have lost your weight, you can maintain it by continuing to include Tonica cakes in your diet. It is a good idea to replace one meal every day with a cake. Watch your weight and if it starts creeping up again, start replacing two meals again for a while until it has stabilised. It's as simple as that - and you have the double benefit  of knowing  that you are simultaneously helping maintain good health.

Fight Obesity and Improve your Health and Happiness!

Indeed, it is a very good idea to fight the modern trend towards obesity by including Tonica cakes in your diet  - whether you need to lose weight or not. They really do help people of all ages to eat healthily. Children love them and they are a very nutritious and popular addition to the school lunch box - or that of the office (or any other) worker. They are also of course, extremely convenient, wrapped and sealed as they are in easily opened individual packets. A craving for something sweet can always be satiated by a Tonica cake - with the accompanying long lasting satisfaction and energy they provide. Chocoholics in particular will be delighted with our chocolate cake!

Another good tip is that , if you have been out wining and dining - or indeed "overdone it" gastronomically in any other way - immediately afterwards, eat a Tonica cake with a glass - or even two - of water - and then put the experience behind you. This will help enormously in stopping you from carrying on with the binge, which is so often the temptation!

Apart from all the virtues already mentioned relating to our delicious Tonica cakes, I have to tell you that they save you a lot of money on your monthly grocery bill! Because you are replacing 2 meals per day with a Tonica cake, you needn’t worry about buying breakfast or lunch! Not only that, but for dinner you are eating a healthy, freshly prepared meal – no more spending your hard earned money on junk food that costs so much! And I always say… “a kilo of extra fat is an expensively acquired commodity”!

I have to finish by telling you my own experience. I produced and marketed Tonica cakes first in South Africa back in the 1990's, with much success. When I returned to England, I started marketing them again and found them also very popular with British people. Other pressures gradually took over, however, and  I unfortunately allowed the production and distribution of the diet cakes to slide. It was particularly unfortunate as I, too, after all my exposure to - and experience in  - weight loss, began to pile the pounds back on most alarmingly! (Which proves, of course, that it happens to us all!) During a recent trip back to South Africa, however, I began to recall the success and the efficacy of the cakes and, on my return to the UK, I determined to revive them and start selling them online.

Today, not only have the cakes been revived, but we have done a great deal more work on them and I believe they are more effective - and more delicious - than ever. And, what's more, I have already lost eighteen pounds! I still have some way to go but am now quite undaunted, knowing that I have the solution in my grasp!

I honestly believe that Tonica Cakes are the best system for most modern dieters because they eliminate the suffering and stress more effectively than any other method on the market today. With Tonica cakes you lose your weight swiftly, safely and permanently whilst, at the same time, enjoying a pleasurable experience.

Well, the proof as they say, is in the eating - try  Tonica for yourself!

If you have any questions about Tonica cakes, please feel free to email me, Toni, at. info@tonicadirect.com

and I will answer you personally ASAP.

Thumbs up for rapid diet

Losing a lot of weight at once is the best way to permanently slim down, studies presented at Stockholm's International Congress on Obesity showed, going against accepted wisdom even among doctors.

Katrina Purcell of the University of Melbourne in Australia, presented a study in which she compared a rapid diet to lose around 1.5 kilos a week over 12 weeks, to a gradual 36-week diet to lose 0.5 kilos per week.
"Surprisingly, and against current beliefs, this study shows rapid weight loss appears to be superior to gradual weight loss in achieving target weight," she said of the study conducted on subjects weighing around 100 kilos.

Her results showed that 78 percent of those on the rapid diet achieved the target of losing 15 percent of their body weight within the determined period, while only 48 percent of those on the gradual diet met the target.
One of the reasons, she said, is psychological and has to do with motivation.

On the rapid diet, "subjects lose 1.5 kg a week and that keeps them going. On the gradual diet, when you lose 0.5 kg now and then" motivation is harder to keep, she said.

In fact, four of the participants following the gradual diet gave up before the end of the experiment, against only one in the rapid diet group.

Purcell is however quick to warn against so-called crash diets, in which weight is lost very quickly by drastically slashing calories.

"Don't do it by yourself, do it with a dietician," she cautioned.

But her study carried a heavy handicap: it does not say what happened to participants after the initial weight loss, with many doctors and dieticians believing that more weight loss is related to more weight gain thereafter, and therefore less weight maintenance.

That is why the researcher is currently following the two groups to see who of the rapid or gradual dieters best keeps the weight off for good. Those results are expected in about three years.

But already, the Netherlands' National Institute for Public Health and the Environment has studied the link between the amount of weight lost during a weight loss programme and the maintenance of the weight loss afterwards.

According to the institute's study, also presented at the conference in Stockholm, 54 percent of those who went down in size during a weight loss programme kept the kilos off, regardless of the amount initially lost.
Furthermore, the study found that net weight loss one year after the intervention was higher for those with a higher initial weight loss.

That means "weight loss of 10 percent or more should be encouraged and favoured above lower weight losses," researcher Jeroen Barte said, adding that his team's findings "dispel a myth."

The researcher however warned "more research is need to determine optimal weight loss targets, and to establish best practices for optimal maintenance of weight losses."

And despite her findings, Katrina Purcell continues to advocate long-term diets because they imply a life-long change in eating habits.

In fact, researchers agree that eating and lifestyle habits are among the main culprits contributing to obesity.

At the congress, experts advocated controlling portion sizes, fighting against aggressive marketing from the food industry, product reformulation to lower salt and sugar contents, different fiscal measures and labelling menus for calorie content.

"We need a cultural change," summed up Bruce Silverglade of the International Association of Consumer food organisations (IACFO), an association of non-governmental organisations.

iAfrica.com