[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.

[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.

[martin_fierro]

Perfect Diet? Eat Everything

I draw the line at Freegan.

[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.