What do you do?
Find a Conversation
| Fri, 09-16-2005 - 11:04pm |
What is everybody doing to "diet"? What do you pay attention to? Generally I'm a fat & calorie counter. But I'm always reading about some new diet secret here or there, and I think I've heard everything. So, I'm trying to combine the secrets and find something that works for me. I've been using fitday.com to track my food, which is working out great. I just noticed the other day they have a "report" where you can see your nutritional information, you know, what nutrients you are getting or lacking. You can see how your nutritional needs are being met for the day, the week, the last 2 weeks, the last month and so on. That prompted me to start taking my calcium supplements again. Because I can track my nutrition as the day progresses and as I eat foods, I can just take 1, 2 or 3 tablets as needed to meet my needs. I even added them into the custom foods and now when I take a supplement it boosts my overall nutrition.
Some things I've recently heard about to help with weight loss:
Calcium & moderate Protein: 1800mg calcium and 15% of calories from protein (so about 50g for a 1200 calorie diet).
Carbs: we've all heard about limiting carbs. I just spent the last hour or more searching all over to try to found out how many or how much carbs a person should have. Sheesh, is it top secret or what. The Food Pyramid and other recommendations say 8-12 servings of grains or whatever, but I had a hard time figuring out how much! YIKES. So from one of the low-carb diets I found they recommend 30-60g while on their diet and 60-120 for lifetime maintenance. So I looked back on my chart and I've been getting like 180-200.
Fiber: I read an article that said some people don't get enough fiber when they're dieting and to give your diet a kick in the pants you should increase your fiber. But again, I had to really dig around to try to find out how much fiber a person should have in a day. One article said 25-30g per day. Somewhere else said 15g. Mine has been around 16-20g
So what does everybody think? Anybody have any helpful information? (BESIDES EXERCISING, we all know that's the secret to success LOL, but do you know how long you have to be a treadmill to burn off one Snickers bar...)

Walking, 4.5 mph, level, firm surface, very very brisk pace
Have a good one,
Gayle
LOL that was too cute about the snickers bar gayle.
For me I am like gayle I watch carbs because I am an addict I love bread, sandwiches, toast, pasta, all of it, and Before I was "dieting"/changing my lifestyle whatever you want to call it, I would eat bread with every meal mostly white bread too, I would have toast for breakfast, sandwiches/hotdogs/pizza for lunch, and have toast or garlic bread with dinner. I cut out breakfast completely by going with
hi
Well like you said exercise is key and I put in 1.5-2hrs six days a week. A combination of cardio and strength training. As far as food goes here is a rough breakdown of my daily intake.
5 carb servings
3 protein servings
3 fruit servings
3 veg servings
2 milk servings
3 fat servings
2 litres of water a day
An example of a carb serving is a slice of bread, 70g of cooked pasta or a small bread roll.A protein srve is 1 egg, or a small chicken breast skinless .A fat serve is 5ml oil or 15ml fat free salad dressing. A veg serving is a cup of greens or 100g of mushrooms or zuchinni etc. I use a scale to watch my portion size. I try and limit junk food to once a week and to very small bite sizes.
Phili
No wonder everybody else looses weight, but me.
Hi Everyone,
Just wanted to share. After being on countless diets, I finally found out what worked for me.
My friend gave me a copy of the book, "Natural Cures They Dont Want You to Know About" and basically, its Kevin Trudeau basically blowing the whistle on the food manufacturers, and how they put all kinds of fat causing drugs in the food and water supply.
I've been struggling with my weight for 15 years!! All I did, this time, was the following
1) drank spring or distilled water
2) ate organic fruits and vegees
3) stopped buying store bought salad dressings, breads, etc..
4) substituted white flour with whole wheat flour, white bread, with real whole wheat bread
5) I kept drinking like a fish, however.. In the past, i thought this is why I repeatedly failed. I still drink, but I plan to stop.
6) replace regular salt with sea salt
7) replace regular and diet sugar, with pure sugar.
I dropped 10 pounds with out even trying. I never get hungry. I feel awesome! My skin and eyes glow!! My allergies are gone. The downside, organic is expensive. But I think it offsets itself with other things, like, diet aids, etc.. which is also expensive.
The closest thing I've done in the past was the fat flush diet, which worked, but I got sick of all the supplements on that plan, but essentially, they are the same thing. In this case, the author is talking about how all processed food and diet food has so many chemicals in it, it throws our bodies off the fat burning mode.
I've experienced the things the author is talking about. For example, when I travel over seas, I eat like a pig, and usually come back 10 pounds lighter, etc.. Well, thats because, here, in America, they put stuff in the food that makes us fat, because its cheaper!!!!
Ever wonder why low carb works?? and in Asia, they eat rice and noodles all day long, and they are healthy?? Well, because their, rice and noodles, and is not American rice and noodles. Same thing with Italy. They can eat bread. But American bread, is not the same, and has all kinds of sugar, and crap you dont need in it, just because its cheap cheap cheap.
For anyone struggling with weight, and other physical ailments, please, read this book. It will change your life FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOVE,
Sediqua
This really works for me.
My tricks .... im sure everyone is different and its about trying things and seeing if they work based on energy level and weight loss..
* lots of water
* i keep cut up carrots and celery around to snack on with vinagarretes or humus to dip
* energy bar for lunch
* cut up fruit for snacks ( i snack a lot- but they are healthy choices)
* healthy dinner- im a student so i dont cook much- but usually dinner is a veggie burger or veggie chic patty with high fiber/ lo cal bread, and frozen green beans with almonds or honey glazed carrots... yum
* usually coffee or hot tea with milk at night to keep me up for studying... occasionally a coke.
* moderate work out, some days light jog, some days the gym. Whatever i have time for.
but the main trick that works for me is to keep a scrap piece of paper in my pocket or purse and record every bite i eat throughout the day.. so there is no cheating... and they have websites like calorieking that tell you the calorie content of food... which is good for fast food places..
and i just make sure i dont go over whatever my goal for calories is for the day.
lost 10, 4 more to go!!!!!
-courtneyveggie
Not an expert here (still overweight 7.5 months after boy #2) but here are some suggestions.
1. Drink your 8 glasses of water-think of it as an internal shower!
2. Switch from coffee to green or white tea. Has antioxidants and doesn't need as much sugar (or any creamer) to be palatable.
3. What you eat is more important than what you don't eat. Focus on getting AT LEAST 2 fruits and 3 veggies a day rather than worry about that stupid bag of cookies you downed in 2 minutes flat!
4. Give up artificial sweeteners!!!!!!!!!! The body recognizes them as toxins. The cells hold on to fluids to try to dilute these poisons, thus keeping us fat (per Kevin Trudeau, author of Natural Cures They Don't Want You To Know About).
Thanks everyone for the tips.
I don't do the artificial sweetener at all. I HATE the taste of ALL of them, Nutra-sweet, Equal, Splenda aything. YUCK YUCK YUCK. That's always been a bit of a problem when dieting though, because I prefer to count calories and fat so when you look for foods that are "light" "fat-free" or whatever, they usually have the artificial sweeteners. I'm a huge fan of Coke, so cutting out the pop has been really hard, because I don't do diet pops. There are a couple that I can gag down, but it's just not worth it to me. I've tried the flavored waters too, but they have the artificial sweeteners too. The one that really bugs me is the yogurt. Regular yogurt is yummy, fat-free is yucky because it has the artificial sweetener in it. So I just try to make room in my diet for regular yogurt. I really try to load up on the fruits and veggies (good veggies, not the questionable ones like potatoes). In the morning I usually have yogurt or a low-fat granola bar and some sort of fruit to go with it.
So I'll just keep plugging away.