What Is The Best Diet For You?
It is daunting isn't it? The amount of information is overwhelming. It's everything from diet books to weight loss blogs, from websites devoted to weight loss to weight loss programs to TV shows all about weight loss. Then we have the battle of the diet books. Which diet is better: high protein/low carb, low fat, low calorie, vegan, vegetarian, Japanese, Indian, Mediterranean...? The choices are endless and the passion, with which those who have found the answer speak, is akin to religious fervor. The vegans vs. the Atkins lovers sounds like a new reality show, don't you think?
So, if you have decided it is time to lose some weight, which way do you turn?
My advice is to turn inward not outward. By that I mean, educate yourself about nutrition, food, calories, what your body needs, which cultures have the healthiest diets and are the longest lived. Read about the people who have lost significant weight and kept it off to see what they do. Learn how many calories are in the foods you love and how many calories you should be eating to be the weight you want to be.
The best diet for you is the one you make up for yourself, on a daily basis. Think about it rationally for a moment. Let's say I write a diet book. I am sitting at my computer designing 4 weeks of meals and snacks. I send this out to my agent, who changes some things, and then it goes to my editor at the publishing house. The editor changes things and gives me some notes too. Finally, we have a book that will be published. Eventually the book comes out and gets to you. This can take years. By the time you get the book you will be following a diet I made up 2 years ago while sitting in a Starbucks with my laptop. (By the way, most diet books were not written by nutrionists or registered dietians.)
I can guarantee you that when I was sitting at my computer making up what you should eat today; I didn't take some things into consideration. Things like: what you like to eat, what you ate yesterday, how you are feeling today, if you did or did not work out today, if you are going out to eat tonight and if so what type of restaurant, if you are full before you have finished the amount I suggested, if you are male or female, if you get migraines, if you are diabetic (or have any other health related dietary concerns), if you are perimenopausal, premenstrual, menopausal, young, old, if you would rather eat the dinner food for lunch and the lunch food for dinner, if you hate beets, etc... I made up some generally healthy diet that will create whatever effect I am claiming to give you in my book. This is not the best diet for you.
All you need to know is some basic numbers and you can lose weight on your own. You need to know that to be the weight you want to be you need to balance your energy in/energy out equation so it equals that weight. In other words, if you are female and want to weight l30 lbs., you take that weight times 10 (times 12 for men) to give you your daily allotment of calories without exercise. Therefore, being female if I want to weigh 130 lbs. I get 1,300 calories a day. If I burn an additional 300 calories working out, then I can eat 1,600 and still weigh 130 lbs. It is math.
Food has calories, units of energy, that our bodies burn for fuel. Different foods have different amounts of calories with the lowest being fruits and vegetables and the highest being fats. If you eat low calorie foods, you can eat a lot.
To be successful on your own diet you need to keep track of what you eat, how many calories and how much you burn in exercise. Not fun, I know, but if you are willing to do this you need never buy another diet book, join another weight loss program or listen to anyone tell you what to eat ever again. That is fun. You can also eat whatever you want, within your calorie allotment, go out to eat, travel, never eat beets, eat your dinner food for lunch, etc... It completely frees you. That is also fun. It gives you full responsibility for your own diet and weight. Take control.
That's it for now. Good luck and let me know how you're doing.
If you'd like to participate in the research for Irene's new book about the process of weight loss please visit http://www.eatingdisordertherapist.com/ and take the survey.
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Hello Susan60 -- -- Is that THE TRUTH about your losing all that weight drinking beer? Or are you being a friendly - - - TRICKSTIR? If it actually would work, it sounds like a rather pleasant way to do it.
If it is the truth . . . Got any idea how long it took to keep up all the guzzling????
How about this diet: simply eliminate all salt from your diet. Then all your food will taste bland and frankly unappetizing. As for sweets, replace your refined cane sugar with more natural sugars or with artificial sweetener. Do some exercise, especially walking as a starter. And, as Marilyn Vos Savant says, learn to throw away good leftover food, unless you're going to use it for another meal. Don't snack on it. It's better to waste it by throwing it away than by feeding it to a fat body that doesn't need it and will be harmed by it.
For me, the answer has always been to move my body. I can keep my metabolic rate up and eat "normally" ( as in no particular diet strategy) as long as I keep moving. Walking 5 miles a day in a little over an hour does the trick.
It is not the math. It is your individual metabolism and everything else that is complex about you. I can eat the exact same amount of calories, and do the exact same amount of exercise, and lose weight differently. On Atkins or other carb (especially avoiding sugar in all forms) reducing diets, I can eat a lot more calories and lose a lot more weight. On low fat, calorie restricted diets, I either do not lose weight or I lose much more slowly. Once again, it is not the math, at least not for everyone. Get over it people and stop trying to make everything so once size fits all. I know the nutritionists and scientists wish they could make this true, but a lot of us out there know that science has not quantified nor controlled for all the various factors of our marvelous, crazily individual, bodies. Outliers count too. Do what works for you.
That plate in the main page is killer. As a Southern Californian that fits the bill well. Then charge 50% more for it.
there was a recent "breakthrough" that proved what many of us already knew - that once you gain weight, your body will fight you (for YEARS) to keep the weight on, and if you lose it, it will fight you to regain it. It's an old Darwinian trick to make sure we can get through lean times by hanging onto body fat, and it is probably the cornerstone to every weight-loss problem we have. after 2 years, apparently, your body starts to accept the loss, and to re-calibrate itself, but for those first 2 years, metabolism will slow, appetite will increase, and you will really have to struggle to maintain your new, lower weight.
a note on the "formula," too - 1,300 calories is incredibly low! caloric needs depend directly on metabolism, which varies drastically depending on genes, age, muscle mass, hormone levels and other factors. a person who is 130 pounds of muscle will burn a huge number of calories more than a person who is 130 pounds of flab per day, and a teenager will burn many many more calories than a senior, so this "factor of 10" oversimplification is strange in an article advocating a customized regime.
why not just tell people that "a pound of fat is 3,500 calories, so every reduction (via exercise, increased metabolism or calorie avoidance) of 3,500 calories will result in the loss of one pound of body fat," followed by information on how to accomplish each of the 3 categories?
My diet : Eat half what I used to eat and only when I am hungry, and exercise twice as much as I used to everyday.
well, if a rabbit won't eat, then buddy you don't need it....
I tend to agree with Michael Pollen's philosophy of eating real food, not too much, and mostly plants.
that's my post-heart-attack regimen, combined with daily excercise. No 'diet' needed.
amen to that! Overweight, underweight, average weight - it doesn't matter. EVERYONE should eat LIVING foods to be healthy. Dead foods just lead to disease and weight problems. Buy a juicer and juice up some greens everyday if you can.
I'm on the Mediterranean diet and I use a special olive oil imported from Italy, I can totally tell the difference between it and the stuff they sell at Whole Foods and grocery stores. try http://www
"What is The Best Diet For You?
Well, the best diet for humans and the planet is of course a Vegetarian Diet, preferably a Vegan lifestyle that respects all living creatures.
Bona Petite.
there's really no evidence that a vegan diet is best for anyone. But fishes, fowl and lean meats should only be a small portion of the foods humans eat. Americans have liked a meal built around a huge slab o'flesh, but people need to eat mostly vegetables, fruits and nuts, and only limited (whole) dairy.
Low-fat and low-carb is a scam.
There is tons of evidence that a Vegan diet-lifestyle is best for the human anatomy, if one were willing to research this subject.
Space does not permit me to reveal what I have learned after 30 years of being a strict Vegan and reading extensively on the subject.
However, a small sample below will give the curious reader an introduction to the topic.
"The Comparative Anatomy of Eating"
by Milton R. Mills, M.D.
http://www
I am down 45 lbs. since my New Years resolution to lose weight by doing what Irene suggests. It works. It isn't easy, it is tedious to write it all down, everyday, but it is so worth it. Thank you Irene.
Nobody would buy my diet book. It was called "Stop eating so much and get your butt to the gym."
Thanks for the brilliant advise, MajorKong, really helpful.
I don't have a weight problem, but I think it's obvious that if people could do what you say, then no one would have a weight problem. The issue is how to do this every day and live your life while doing it. That's what people cannot master, and, yes, it is harder for some. Some people have slower metabolisms. Others have extremely large appetites, which are hard to ignore for your entire life.
Have a little empathy.
I was just being sarcastic.
It's hard work to stay in shape and keep your weight down. That's why we keep looking for the "magic bullet" that will let us do it without working at it. I'm just as bad as the next person.
This "brilliant advice," along with choosing food wisely, is the gist of the original column. More and more people are obese, so I guess your empathy level is rising proportionally.
Excellent advice Irene. If we just do some of the things you recommend, we'll not only lose weight but we'll also keep it off. You're right, we don't need diet books to help us lose weight.
Ditto!
I grew up believing I could eat anything that was in a grocery store, now I have realized some foods bite me back. Some foods that are good for most people are not good for me, and that has been hard to accept. I just gave up coffee, man does that suck! But what it was doing to me sucked worse.
This is a funny story, but it's not. last summer I quit eating. I mean I would eat but only when I was hungry. the only thing I would do is have a beer or five or six. So that was the calories I was getting. I dropped 60 pounds and had to buy all new clothes. People would say, wow you're so thin. I wasn't that thin but I looked good. They would say, how'd you do it? I said, it's my beer diet. Well, then I heard on the news of an eating disorder called drunkorexia. It's the combination of anorexia and drinking. I told my husband, hey, they stold my beer diet. I don't do it anymore. And I am maintaining my weight within a few pounds, but now I eat only when I'm hungry, try to limit sweets and workout at least 3 times a week. See? it's funny, but it's not.
That's AWESOME. Congrats.
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