What is a good diet for someone who wants to cut weight, but not necessarily give up food?
August 28th, 2010 | 
Author: I love food, and will probably never have the discipline to diet properly. I don’t want to look like a body builder, but would like to keep my weight off since I recently lost 30 lbs.Is there a good diet out there with good food that helps lose weight, or just keep weight off? Or a guide to nutrition because I have never been a 3 meals a day type of person.
Posted in 
Tags:
The following healthy living recommendations will help you if you’re trying to lose weight, tone up your muscles, have aspirations of building lean muscle mass, are attempting to get a wash board stomach, or just want to feel better:
*1) Burn more calories then you’re consuming everyday and measure your results using the following formula: Calories Consumed minus Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) minus Physical Activity minus the Thermic Effect of Food (TEF). A website that explains this formula in more detail and will help you determine how many calories you need to reach or maintain a certain weight is at http://www.primusweb.com/fitnesspartner/library/weight/calsburned.htm
Get a diet and fitness calculator that you can put on your computer or cell phone. This will allow you to easily calculate the above formula, set goals, log your daily calorie consumption, and register your physical activities.
Set realistic goals for your ideal body weight. Here are two websites that will calculate a suggested body weight:
Adults: http://www.halls.md/ideal-weight/body.htm
Teens/Children: http://www.kidshealth.org/kid/exercise/weight/bmi.html
It is difficult and unhealthy to lose more than one or two pounds per week. There are 3,500 calories in a pound. If you eat 500 fewer calories per day for a week you will lose one pound. If you burn through exercise 500 more calories per day for a week you will lose one pound.
*2) Eat natural and organic foods found on earth versus something created by a corporation to make money. Eat meals in small portions throughout the day and take a good multi-vitamin supplement.
Avoid “High Glycemic Load Carbs” (sugar, pastries, desserts, refined starches such as breads, pasta, refined grains like white rice; high starch vegetables such as potatoes) and drink lots of water. Read this article for more information on high GL Carbs:
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates.html
Do not try fad diets or diet pills. Here is an excellent food pyramid that anyone can follow: http://www.rayandterry.com/html/images/PyramidLRG.gif?osCsid=26a424be471d1337e7c2f105d5c64d9d
*3) Exercise on most days by doing cardiovascular training and/or resistance training activities.
Read a book or find a certified trainer to make sure your doing all resistance training exercises correctly. A great book to buy that teaches you the resistance training basics is “Weight Training for Dummies”. A superb magazine to buy with resistance training routines that will not get you bored is "Muscle and Fitness". Signup for the free newsletter. An excellent free online resource is at http://www.exrx.net/
A good book to buy that teaches you the cardiovascular training basics is “Fitness for Dummies”.
*4) Get plenty of sleep. Sleep experts say most adults need between seven and nine hours of sleep each night for optimum performance, health, and safety.
*5) Educate yourself continually on health issues and make a life long commitment to good health. A great free publication is “Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005”. A superb book to read is “You The Owner’s Manual”. An excellent periodic publication is the “Nutrition Action Health Letter”. A reputable test you can take to measure your biological age is at http://realage.com
Look at all areas where you can enhance your health. For example, make improvements in the quality of the air you breathe. Review outdoor air quality forecasts where you live and get an indoor air purifier. Send me an email or yahoo instant message to "gainbetterhealth" if you want an indoor air purifier recommendation and if you have any questions.
*Click on all the source links below to get the full benefit of the recommendations. The answers presented to your health questions are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Sorry to say try to eat more snack often try eatting like 6 times a day make sure its stuff thats good for you and not crap.
Atkins worked for me… you get to eat plenty so you’re not hungry all the time.
I’m not sure if this works for everyone but it works for me. Try to discipline yourself into three meals a day. Eat them in descending order. Breakfast should be the biggest meal, lunch the mid sized meal, and dinner the smallest meal (but enough so your stomach isn’t growling). Eat healthy snacks between meals and/or when you get hungry. Schedule your meal times. Try your best to eat your meals around the same time everyday. If you skip meals or eat meals at spontaneous times all the time then your body will start storing fat since it doesn’t know when your next meal will be (in other words your metabolism will slow down). Also something my grandma does for my family, which really works, is cook with less sodium. LESS sodium, not NO sodium. Eat everything! Just don’t eat too much of one thing. Eat some of everything, trying little by little to cut back on fatty/unhealthy foods.
And no discipline to diet you say? Well, try making grocery lists for everytime you go shopping. ONLY for the things you need. Then add some healthy snacks and maybe one or two less healthier things. Give yourself a budget. Maybe that way it’ll be a little easier to diet since you won’t have massive amounts of the bad foods in your house. So when you wake in the middle of the night and reach for the junk food shelf, there won’t be any junk. Or even better you could replace that shelf with 100 calorie packs of chips ahoy thin crisps. ^=^
I have lost around 60 lbs in 6 months and I will tell you what not to eat. The first myth we have been told is that fat is bad. Sugar and carbohydrate are the big nasties. In fact, reduced fat food that has had some of the fat removed is actually more fattening than the regular food because the removed fat in most cases has been replaced with carbs! This is the main reason why you must absolutely stay away from ALL processed food with no exception. Eat fresh and natural. You must have 3 meals a day and get into a routine so your body knows when to expect food. Your body is capable of doing exquisite things to avoid weight loss if it thinks it’s going to get starved, so you must feed it and regularly.
The other thing you must do is keep your insulin as low as possible by getting sugar and carbs in your diet as close to zero as you can and not having ANYTHING between meals except water. Also having at least 5 hours between one meal and another. The last meal of the day must be no later than 9pm. Insulin is a hormone that will absolutely block fat and protein burning in your body and force it to burn sugar, that’s how it works. You will NOT lose weight with your blood stream flooded with insulin, even with exercise. It’s impossible. You must have at least 8 glasses of water a day in order for your liver and kidneys to excrete the fat from your body this is crucial.
Now, what you must stay away from and I mean, non at all. Bread, pasta, rice, pastry, flour of any kind, sugar, potato, onion, parsnip, sweet potato, pumpkin, beetroot, carrots, peas, beans, beer, sweet wine, spirits, spreads like butter and margarine and be very careful of sauces and condiments. Fruit and milk should be taken very, very sparingly because they are fattening. Fruit is full of sugar too, only a very small amount. Avoid all processed food including diet soda it will stimulate insulin. 3 cups of black tea or coffee WITH meals a day is OK. Use Stevia for a sweetener.
OK, if you are still with me, what can you eat? In a nutshell you replace the carbs you have removed with protein and green leafy vegetables. Do not mix protein only 1 per meal. This is what you can eat. Lean meat, poultry, fish, cheese, yoghurt and eggs are your permitted proteins. Cauliflower, cabbage, sprouts, broccoli, capsicum, mushroom, celery, zucchini and a small amount of tomato. You can have unlimited amounts of lettuce and cucumber but ONLY at meal times. You can use balsamic vinegar as a dressing; mustard is ok too but only made from the powder. Shop bought is full of sugar! Curry powder in cooking can be used as well. One tablespoon of olive oil is ok per day, in cooking and as a dressing. Garlic is OK but not shop bought; you guessed it, full of sugar. Use fresh.
I will GUARANTEE if you stick to this you will loose heaps of weight, fast. I know it’s not easy and you need the support of your family too.
Just another couple of things I forgot. NO breakfast cereal and avoid really heavy exercise you will just burn glycogen in your muscles, not fat and it will just make you sore and tired. You need prolonged gentle exercise to burn fat like walking. You don’t need to exercise at all on this diet as long as you’re moving about. Last but not least read food labels and look at the ingredients. Avoid foods like the plague with more than 5 grams of carbohydrate per 100 grams. If you like a drink, Semillon Sauvignon Blanc (very dry and low in carbs) with a little soda water is OK with meals.
Good Luck. Jules, lecturer. Australia.