Perfect Diet? Eat Everything (Fat, Carbs, Protein Must Balance, Dietitian Says)

Local 6 (Florida) ^ | August 20, 2006 | Shiloh Woolman

[Stoat]

See also this related item:

Professor Loses Weight With No-Diet Diet

[Stoat]

This sounds like what I was taught in my college nutrition course.

[Darkwolf377]

Not long ago, on another thread, I said I was having a terrible time losing weight I'd gained after being temporarily disabled for a year and a half. Oddly enough, not long after that I dropped one pants size for the first time since the accident.

I only changed two things:

I walked more. (Not running--walking, from 5-11 miles a day. I used to lift, and hopefully will begin again this week.)

I stopped drinking soda. I'm trying to drink only water, but I use milk and sometimes juice with whey protein for a meal a day.

I mention this because these changes were the very beginning of my attempt to lose weight, and they're things anyone can do. I hope to increase my exercise and eventually return to a regular gym schedule, and make more changes in diet. But in my case, I always tried to do too much, to change more than one thing at a time in terms of diet (cutting out numerous foods) and exercise (doing too many things).

These are very simple changes, and they've given results beyond the few pounds simply losing water retention pounds (I lost those long ago).

[Darkwolf377]

BTW, I've gotten numerous suggestions to do the Atkins thing. I don't think the subject of this story cares for that, but as a temporary way to drop pounds, it seems interesting, though I haven't attempted it.

[Jeff Chandler]

One very good simple thing: don't eat anything 3 hours before going to sleep.

[Jeff Chandler]

BTW, I've gotten numerous suggestions to do the Atkins thing.

Too complicated. Just eat less and eat well.

[cgbg]

Forget the Atkins diet.

I have been dieting this summer with great success and I eat all foods but limit by calorie intake to under 1500 per day.

I have lost 30 pounds so far--30 more to go to get to my "ideal" weight.

I drink diet soda--but rarely have any hunger pangs at all.

Since I live out in the country I do get a lot of exercise on the weekends. That is when the weight falls off easily.

[jonrick46]

This is good advice. I am trying to reduce my caloric consumption. One danger is that a narrow food selection for their low fat, low sugar, low salt qualities can cause boredom. Since the main battle of a diet is hunger control, boredom sabotages hunger control. Boredom will lead one to binge eating which can cause one to lose control of their hunger battle. Going to an all you can eat restaurant after a diet of tofu and vegetables is a good example. After such a boring diet, such a restaurant would make one go nuts eating everything they can. After wards, you suffer. It would cause you to spend weeks getting your hunger back under control.

Portion control is the key to hunger control. The way you set your portions will moderate your hunger control. I try to keep each meal at the same caloric count. I eat small meals every two hours. A calorie book for different foods is a good method to set your mealtime limit. I found that if I eat a meal with a large caloric count, the next time I am hungry, it is harder to stop eating when my caloric limit is set lower than the calories consumed in the previous meal. I am tempted to binge eat. I call this the rebound effect. The previous meal will determine how hungry you feel at the next meal. As you get into a routine, the portion control becomes more predictable and the hunger felt after you stop eating you will have learned by habit how to deal with. This routine takes many days to establish because of the nature of the body's hunger mechanism.

[mainepatsfan]

I tried Atkins a few years ago. It's just a short term loss and that's it. Last year I went on Weight Watchers and from May to November I went from 252 to 185. Unfortunately I lost the weight too quickly and as a result I lost a lot of muscle. So I hit the weights hard and ate more to put some back on. I'm now at 225 and I'm back to burning fat again only this time I'm going to lose weight much more gradually. I'm aiming at losing between 1-2 pounds a week.

[martin_fierro]

Perfect Diet? Eat Everything

I draw the line at Freegan.

[A knight without armor]

Why is that? I always hear that. What is the difference between eating before bedtime and eating while at a sedentary job in the middle of the day? I've always wondered what the big deal of not eating before bedtime is about.

[Jeff Chandler]

What is the difference between eating before bedtime and eating while at a sedentary job in the middle of the day?

Three hours less eating?

[cgbg]

eating before bedtime

In theory it should not make any difference since it is calories in vs. calories out that will determine how much weight you lose.

However, if you plan on surviving a diet without fainting by mid-afternoon you really need to front-end load the calories. :-)

[Honeybunch]

Can anyone comment on the Isagenix products? I work in a place where everyone seems to be jumping on that bandwagon. I'm curious and skeptical.

[Guenevere]

bttt

[Stoat]

Can anyone comment on the Isagenix products? I work in a place where everyone seems to be jumping on that bandwagon. I'm curious and skeptical.

At the outset let me be quite clear that I have zero personal experience with these products, in fact I had never heard of them before....perhaps because I have always used the 'eat everything' diet as outlined in the article that leads this thread, I have never had a weight problem and so have never looked into any dieting products.

What I did was a quick web search with the keywords "isagenix" and "scam"....after the first couple of pages of junk hits, I got to some discussion boards where people were talking about Isagenix.  It seems to be sold via a MLM or Multi-Level Marketing arrangement, where people who are selling it and want to make money have to continually recruit new "victims" to also sell the products in order make money....it sounds almost like a pyramid setup, and this explains the 'hype' that you mention where "everybody is jumping on the bandwagon".  People selling it HAVE to generate hype in order to recruit and therefore maintain their income.  Isagenix has a panel of doctors who rave about it's effectiveness and they have some celebrity endorsements, including, apparently, the Osmonds who also sing it's praises.

After I got this far I lost interest in pursuing it further because it doesn't pass the 'smell test' to me, given those findings.

I would encourage you to do a similar search, as I got the info that I did after less than five minutes.

If someone is hyping a medically-related product to you, find out if there are any articles about it in well-established peer-reviewed medical journals, not advertisements or interviews with celebrity shills.

My advice?  Eat everything, eat less, exercise more and live your life.

[ladyinred]

I lost 135 pounds years ago, and have kept it off. I pretty much did what this article suggests. It does work. Eat what you like, but less of it and you won't get so darn bored.

[Stoat]

I've always wondered what the big deal of not eating before bedtime is about.

I would have to pull out my physiology textbooks to get a precise answer for you, but my recollection is that when you are sleeping, your metabolism slows way down (far more so than the example of working a sedentary job) and in this state the digestive process doesn't work in the same way as when you are awake, and foods do not get processed in the same manner, leaving more fat behind than normal.

[Stoat]

I lost 135 pounds years ago, and have kept it off. I pretty much did what this article suggests. It does work. Eat what you like, but less of it and you won't get so darn bored.

Congratulations! 

Here's some cannoli for you   :-)

[Stoat]

I draw the line at Freegan.
 

Lawd, what a pic! The Dumpster-Diver: the heart and soul of the Democratic party.