Successful diets?

[LHanson]

Little background: The wife and I are@ 45, with 3 teenage boys. We both need to lose @ 40 - 50 lbs. We almost never eat fast food. I cook 95 percent of the time. We could concieveably eat nearly every meal from our kitchen, because she works nearby, and I work from the house half the workday.

We have tried weight watchers, it seemed to work when we attended meetings, but the meetings don't mesh with our lifestyle. I am looking for a diet that is pretty regimented in terms of what food, what portions, etc. I want a script to follow for a few months.

Suggestions?

[BuckeyeBrown]

Weight watchers works without the meetings - and I need to get back on it. I think just the act of making sure you keep track of all of your points everyday helps you stay on it. If you do a little research online you can get how to calculate your weekly target points and how many points everything is worth. I've never "bought" weight watchers but I lost about 35lbs last year on it - I put 10 back on but haven't dieted at all since last Thanksgiving. It kinda blows counting your mini wheats when your on the diet, but its a solid program.

[Leonardo]

Eat smaller portions, eat 5-6 meals a day, don't eat too much fat or carbs, eat protein and aim for 1800-1900 calories. When you reach the desired weight, raise your daily calorie intake to about 2300-2400 . If you need help keeping track of what you eat, try http://www.fitday.com.
Know what you eat, your basal metabolic rate and adjust from there. It's hard to go wrong.

[GAD]

What Leonardo said, with exercise

[stratasaurus]

In my opinion, weight loss/maintenance is all about calories in versus calories out - not the latest diet fads.

Set diets are usually (not always) a recipe for failure - I have seen plenty of people around me who always seem to be on a diet but never make much progress. Diets usually mean depriving yourself of things you enjoy and eventually people wind up cheating or quitting. Many who are successful on the diet reach a goal and then go back to their previous habits and gain the weight back. Weight watchers is generally a decent program and I know some success stories, but it is a diet and who wants spend their life on a strictly set diet if you don't have to.

Lifestyle changes in small doses are very effective. The results may not come as quick, but the flip side is that, in general, the slower weight loss occurs the longer it stays off. Fad diets can also be brutal on your metabolism.

If you already eat reasonably healthy food then I would suggest tracking how many calories you are currently consuming on a daily basis using a website like http://caloriecount.about.com/ (http://caloriecount.about.com/).

Then reduce your calorie intake by about 300 calories a day and increase your calorie burn by about 300 calories a day (1 hour walk, 30 minute bike ride, 40 minutes weight training, or any other activity or combination you might enjoy).

This should start you losing over 1 pound per week, which is a good rate for long term weight loss success and keeping it from coming back. When you hit a plateau, increase your exercise intensity but don't deprive your body of calories - good calories in particular (fruit, veg, legumes, lean meats).

It worked for me - over the last 4 months I have lost over 25 pounds and still counting (I'm 5'11" and was over 205lbs now down to 180). My outlook has competely changed, I went from a total sedentary lifestyle to now being totally into running, hiking, raquet sports, and weight/fitness training. I used to say I didn't have time for that stuff, but the truth is that was just an excuse not to do it. Eventually I just scheduled the time and did it, whether I was in the mood or not. Its physically hard to do when your packing that extra weight and have no energy. But as you start losing the weight and it gets easier, you begin looking forward to that stuff and setting new goals for yourself.

I still allow myself some of the "bad stuff" like BBQ, ice cream, wine, fine dining restaturant meals, bacon, etc. I just don't indulge as as often or as much as I did before. By doing so I never feel deprived of those things and have just learned how to better balance my eating for the rest of the day on those days I do indulge.

Now that I have lost the excess pounds, I will be starting P90x in a few days to tone up get some muscle definition.

Diet alone may get you thinner, but diet and exercise will get you healthier. I feel and look completely different than I did 5 or 6 months ago and I know I am never going back to the way I was.

[Shnook]

I lost 15 pounds in 2 months simply by cutting out sugar and working out for 20 minutes 4 times a week.

[Braciola]

I have struggled my whole life with my weight.
Here are some things that really help.....

Diets don't work.
Life style changes do.

Try eliminating from your diet:

- Anything made from white flour (carbs should come from whole gains, fruits & veggies)
- Anything made with high fructose corn syrup.
- Anything made with partially hydrogenated oils.

Eat more fruits & veggies.
Eat more foods high in omega3 - salmon, soy, walnuts, almonds etc.
Walk 30 minutes every day.
Do not eat anything 3-4 hours before bedtime

[Jeeves]

I would recommend an e-book by Tom Venuto. It's called 'Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle'. He's a bodybuilder but he writes for everyone wanting to lose weight. He shoots very straight; the book was very helpful to me. I'm down to 170 from 190, but I have about 5 more lbs to go. Good luck.

[bluesdoc]

Eat mostly plants, minimally processed.

jon

[amigo30]

Good advice so far.

The best diet I've ever used was not so much a "diet" as it was a lifestyle change. The concept was to eat 5-6 meals a day, eat the right food-groups, and eat food that starts out looking like food (nothing from a box, etc).

A typical day would be something like this:

Breakfast:

2 oz of scrambled egg whites, all the fruit I felt like eating.

Snack 1"

2 oz of protien, like a few bites of grilled chicken breast. A few bites of veggies or fruit.

Lunch:

3 oz of natural protien, like grilled chicken, grilled fish, etc.
All the raw or steamed veggies I could eat.
1/2 of a baked potato with salsa on it (to keep your brain from going nuts for carbs)

Snack 2:

A couple ounces of protein. All the fruit you feel like.

Dinner:

3 or 4 oz of grillled chicken or fish or whatever.
All the steamed or raw fresh veggies I felt like.
a very small portion of a carb, (If I felt I wanted it) usually I did boiled potatoes with diced tomatoes and peppers.

There are several very cool things about eating this way.
1. Your metabolism kicks into overdrive.
2. You are never hungry, once you get past the first 3 days or so.
3. Your grocery cart is pretty cool, it has nothing but fresh meat, fresh vegetables and fresh fruit in it.
4. It's really easy to prepare a couple of days of food in reserve so that life can't throw you a curve-ball where you resort to McDonalds just to get something to eat.

When I did this diet, I let myself cheat, within limits. For example - If I was in a hurry and/or just wanted a change, I'd let myself eat some veggie soup for lunch. Sure it had some salt in it.. No big deal, as long as it is rare. It's better to let yourself cheat on a rare occasion (within the basic principles) rather than to get frustrated and ditch the whole effort.

I made it work for me. I'm a coffee drinker. Eliminating my coffee would have killed the diet for me. I still allowed myself a half cup in the morning with 1 tsp of sugar in it. Taylor the eating habits to something you can live with. My wife found she needed a few more carbs than I did to keep her brain happy. No big deal..eat a half-slice of whole-wheat bread if that's what it takes.

Anyway..this worked great for me and my wife, I lost 25 pounds in about 6 weeks, until she slowly started letting frozen pizza's and sandwiches back into our diet. We're going to give it another shot though.

[FenderBigot]

Atkins for you... South Beach for the wife. Both are similar with the low carb intake, but I've noticed men drop weight easier with the Atkins approach. They are both VERY easy to follow. The great thing about Atkins is that you can eat until you're full, then wait a few hours and eat again!

I've done the low-carb thing for a long time. It works, but you have to be strict and you cannot cheat. If you do "hard-core" Atkins for 4 to 8 weeks, you'll drop half your target weight... promise.

[xntrick]

i've had very good success with the gladiator diet which is loosely based on the souht beach diet..i eat well without starving myself and i feel great...

[Luke]

Pickles.

Any time you want to eat, have a pickle first to help fill your stomach.

[Timinator]

Atkins for you... South Beach for the wife. Both are similar with the low carb intake, but I've noticed men drop weight easier with the Atkins approach. They are both VERY easy to follow. The great thing about Atkins is that you can eat until you're full, then wait a few hours and eat again!

I've done the low-carb thing for a long time. It works, but you have to be strict and you cannot cheat. If you do "hard-core" Atkins for 4 to 8 weeks, you'll drop half your target weight... promise.


This man tells the truth. Try it, you'll feel better, your blood work with be better, you won't be hungry and you'll loose the weight faster than any other way out there. Have the house stocked with lot's of the foods you can eat on Atkins.

[RichieD]

Eat smaller portions, eat 5-6 meals a day, don't eat too much fat or carbs, eat protein and aim for 1800-1900 calories. When you reach the desired weight, raise your daily calorie intake to about 2300-2400.

This worked for me. I lost 40 pounds in a few months (dieting along with 4-5 hours of excercise per week). The first 2 weeks I kept my carb intake to less than 10 grams per day. After the second week I bumped it up to keeping carb intake to less than 60 grams per day. I also avoided high sodium foods as it tends to increase water retention.

I can PM you my eating plan if you wish.

[JamesT]

check out Dr. gabe mirkin dot come or somethig close....

[FenderBigot]

Atkins for you... South Beach for the wife. Both are similar with the low carb intake, but I've noticed men drop weight easier with the Atkins approach. They are both VERY easy to follow. The great thing about Atkins is that you can eat until you're full, then wait a few hours and eat again!

I've done the low-carb thing for a long time. It works, but you have to be strict and you cannot cheat. If you do "hard-core" Atkins for 4 to 8 weeks, you'll drop half your target weight... promise.

This man tells the truth. Try it, you'll feel better, your blood work with be better, you won't be hungry and you'll loose the weight faster than any other way out there. Have the house stocked with lot's of the foods you can eat on Atkins.
Oh yeah... I forgot to mention one thing. My total cholesterol was over 220 and when I did Atkins I dropped 28lbs and my total cholesterol went down to 176... WITHOUT ANY EXERCISE!!!

[phoenix 7]

Work out for 45 minutes 6-7 days a week and eat moderately. It works well for me.

[Scott Peterson]

I have struggled my whole life with my weight.
Here are some things that really help.....

Diets don't work.
Life style changes do.

Try eliminating from your diet:

- Anything made from white flour (carbs should come from whole gains, fruits & veggies)
- Anything made with high fructose corn syrup.
- Anything made with partially hydrogenated oils.

Eat more fruits & veggies.
Eat more foods high in omega3 - salmon, soy, walnuts, almonds etc.
Walk 30 minutes every day.
Do not eat anything 3-4 hours before bedtime

:agree

That's my working formula. I workout a lot and there's more to what my goals are (sports performance) but I'm 42 and living it. Lost 40 lbs. inside 6 months back 5 years ago and KEPT it off and improved over that time. I'm 42. (For details, click "My Fitness Blog - Common Sense Fitness" in my sig)

[sahhas]

i don't think there is any formula:

eat less, exercise more

the sad reality of our society, we don't move, and have become lazy.there is no quick fix.

the other sad reality, in your 40s your body changes and is not like your 20s, it becomes harder to lose fat, also you are losing muscle mass at rate of about 1lb a yr

the other thing you have to think of: there is no goal, you need to do stuff all the time, you can't exercise like crazy for x -amt of months, and then stop. i think they say if you can work out 3-4 times a week for 1/2 hr, try to make healthier choices for eating, you will slowly see changes.

there are many strategies, weight watchers can help, keep a journal of what you eat, makes you more conscious. unfortunately: fast food doesn't help, but it tastes good!! watch the doc. "supersize me". that was a scary movie from a health perspective. good luck!
s---

[dividedsky]

I lost 120 pounds by drinking water instead of soda/juice/whatever, walking 3 miles a day for 3+ times a week, and counting calories. No meetings or special food to avoid (other than drinks). I still want to lose another 30 or so but I've plateaued and been taking it easy.

There is a great book called Eat to Live which I have recently read but if you aren't cool with giving up lots of things (meat, dairy, etc) it's probably not even worth reading. In summary it's just more of the idea that you can eat whatever you want when the things you are eating are healthy.

[brlfq]

I work in a place that has 3000 employees. Every single person I've ever known that lost a significant amount of weight gained it back. EVERY ONE!

Has anyone or has anyone known someone who lost >50 lbs. and kept it off for 5 years?

I want and need to take the plunge but am a bit discouraged at the recidivism rate.

[dividedsky]

It can be hard to keep it off. I've heard many stories about people that have lost hundreds of pounds only to gain it back. It's hard for me to believe that but I know it's true. If I ever saw myself heading back up to 325 I'd be right back on track keeping it down. It hasn't been 5 years for me but I have been a couple years now and I know some people that have lost hundreds of pounds and kept it off for well over 5 years. It's all about willpower.

[Darkburst]

I work in a place that has 3000 employees. Every single person I've ever known that lost a significant amount of weight gained it back. EVERY ONE!

Has anyone or has anyone known someone who lost >50 lbs. and kept it off for 5 years?

I want and need to take the plunge but am a bit discouraged at the recidivism rate.

That's because you can't go on a diet. You need to change your life permanently. Most people relapse after they lose a lot of weight and start eating like idiots again and stop exercising.

[jzgtrguy]

First off all diets don't work. Life style changes do. As soon as you go off the diet you are right back where you started or worse. I have read the Atkins diet, The Zone Diet etc. They work and teach you about metabolism but they teach you nothing about nutrition. But if you want the end all of end all diets that really work and fight disease at the same time read, "Eat to Live" by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. It works, and besides loosing weight you are also lowering your risk of a multitude of disease.

Oh yeh, Don't for get to exercise.

[Midnight Lady]

In general, we eat WAAAAY too much meat.

Switch the emphasis from red meat to more chicken and fish. The meat portion should be no bigger than a deck of cards.

Don't fry anything unless it is in a no-fat no-stick spray.

LOTS of steamed veggies.

Eliminate as much fat and sugar from your diet as is humanly possible. Throw away the butter AND the margarine. Use olive oil sparingly.

I think we also eat too much dairy. Ice cream, sour cream, whipped cream, etc. Creamy salad dressing... I could go on and on.

Check out low fat recipes on line - you'll find thousands.

And go for a walk while dinner is cooking or before you start. Rev up that metabolism even if just a bit.

These are the things I've learned.

And what everyone else has said - it has been PROVEN -

DIETS DON'T WORK. Change your attitude to food and you'll be a winner (and a slimmer one).

[Ken Ho]

If you are not eating fast food, then your problem is probably with portion size.
To lose weight, you have to control your hunger. There are 2 keys planks to that. Reduce carbs, esp high GI stuff, and reduce portion size. You must get used to being satiated with a small portion. Once you do, and it does not take long, you will become accustomed to feeling full on a small portion.
WHite stuff, white bread, pasta, rice and potatoes are bad news. SO is too much fruit, which is really no different to soda for sugar content. Sugar and water in a fancy wrapper.
Exercise is great, and I do plenty, but itis not the kehy to weight loss. Portion control is.

[GCDEF]

I don't see Atkins as practical long term. The easiest thing to do is avoid as much fat as possible. Fat has 9 calories per gram, vs. 4 calories per gram for protein and carbs, so it's a very dense source of calories, with little nutritional value.

So, avoid oil, fried food, mayonnaise, butter, cream, whole milk. chocolate, cookies, crackers, chips, cheese and anything else high in fat.

Another really important thing is just eat until you're not hungry, not until you're full. It's easy to stuff yourself, but just have one plate and stop. You may feel a bit hungry, but in a half hour, you'll feel full. Keep fruit or something healthy around for snacking.

Watch out for simple sugars too as they offer little nutritional benefit.

[pater familias]

I'm 43, 5-11". Since Jan I've lost 30 lbs fairly painlessly by doing the following:

1. Ride a bike - loved playing sports, hated excercise for sake of excercise. bad knees from HS sports and arthritis. started riding about 10 mins a day, worked up to 30-45 mins about 3 days/wk avg with occasional 1-hr rides of about 12 miles.

2. During the week - drink small glasses of ice water every hour or two, eat ice, don't eat seconds, don't snack on nuts (big one for me)

3. Quit drinking regularly - used to have about 1 shot worth of some type of alcohol daily, now avg maybe 1 beer per month (hard, I miss good beer)

4. Weekends - eat whatever the hell I want cause hey I'm watching College Football!

[Polynitro]

you'll get a million different opinions. Here's mine:

eat whole foods.
more protein, less carbs.
exercise daily (cardio 4xs a week/resistance 3xs a week)
don't eat after 6pm

people always dismiss low carb diets as bad but remember sugar is carbs. Thats where most of carbs come from, for example a glass or orange juice has like 27 grams of sugar (carbs). I shoot for about 150 grams of carbs per day (about half the RDA) (1800 cal)...Compare that with adkins which has one eating 20 grams per day for the first 2 weeks, that would be brutal to follow. (adkins increases carbs after the initial first 2 weeks)

[PinoyBoy]

I was 215 in June 08, and was 177 in January 09. While I did get more exercise during that timeframe, I believe that the weight loss was primarily due to good eating habits, not really a diet program.

For me, what worked was this:

1 -- Portion control. I'd still eat pizza with my kids. However, instead of eating 6-8 slices like I used to, I'd eat just 1-2. I try to "size" my intake each meal and just cut down.

2 -- More veggies. I was not a big salad fan, but now I am. It makes me feel full fast. I watch the amount of dressing I put. Doesn't have to be vinegrette all the time. My favorite is still Caesar, and I just limit myself to 1-2 tablespoons of it.

3 -- Swap white bread with whole wheat, swap white rice with brown rice, etc.

4 -- Eat the high carb stuff in the daytime. Breakfast is my biggest meal of the day. Dinner is light. Like they say: eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper. Or something like that. You don't want to go to bed not having digested/burned all that stuff you just ate.

Good luck!

[Timinator]

[QUOTE=GCDEF;7022878]I don't see Atkins as practical long term. The easiest thing to do is avoid as much fat as possible. Fat has 9 calories per gram, vs. 4 calories per gram for protein and carbs, so it's a very dense source of calories, with little nutritional value.
QUOTE]

Atkins "style" eating is a long term thing. It's not perfect but if you add up diet wise most of the responces here, Atkins is closer than anything else. Green veggies, high protien meals, smart fruits, nuts, etc. Staying away from white flour, sugar, and high starches. To me, taking fat out of products and adding sugar instead isn't the right kind of "low-fat". Too many skinny people with major health problems that are eating the wrong combinations of "low-fat" foods.

Also, life changes, diets, etc. only work if you do them. What I found with Adkins was it's was the only diet I'd ever been on where I could eat a good sized portion of the foods I really liked and still loose weight.

[will132]

Do not eat after 7pm.

[phillygtr]

Take what you usually eat. Consume only 50% of that. Do this everyday. Thank me later.

[Loop-Master]

Calorie counting, excercise, and staying busy works for me.

I will take one day per week (Saturday) and go out and have higher calorie meal somewhere.

[clothwiring]

Intake Less, Output More. Eat less, exercise more. Focus on 1 lb a week. I ate significantly smaller portions (cut my intake roughly in half) and walked ~3 miles 3- times a week.

[Cap'n Fingers]

Dr. Oz has a good program here:
http://cls.realage.com/reg/regvar/regYOAD.aspx?mod=YOAD_MP

Something I read a while back that made me go Humm is that we only lose weight when we breath. Exhaled carbon dioxide is the burned fuel leaving our body. We don't sweat it out-we don't poop it out- we breath it out. When you're exercising and breathing harder just remember the extra calories you're burning are being blown out your mouth. Just something fun to think about while you workout.

[pickaguitar]

Off to the pizza buffet! lolz

[semi-hollowbody]

Back in the day I lost 60 pounds on this diet, it was called the eat less/move around more diet...it worked...the only one that ever did :) I kept it off for 10 years...all the southbeach slimfast high protein whatever diets somewhat work but the weight comes back over night

we eat too much, we eat over processed crap, we dont exercise enough...simple
portion control, exercise, all natural foods...thats the ticket!!
For the record I am currently a fat-ass...

[squeally dan]

I have worked as a dietitian for 10 years. I can tell you that the large majority of the time, diets do not work. Anytime you are doing something that you can' continue doing for the rest of your life, it will likely fail. Learn to make better choices when you eat, get more active also, but don't completely eliminate any foods.

I would recommend anyone trying to lose weight to read the following books:

1. Breaking the Bonds of Emotional Eating by Geneen Roth (even if you don't think this relates to you, read it! Its written from a women's perspective but is good for anyone)

2. Intuitive Eating (Eat because you are hungry and quit because you are full! Most of use listen to outer cues to tell us when to eat and when to stop. We need to go back to listening to the inner cues. Most of us are not very good at that)

[Leonardo]

What's with not eating at night? Doesn't make sense to me. If I stop eating 4 hours before I go to bed, and sleep 8 hours, that's 12 fasting.
I eat every 3 hours, including just before sleep and right after waking up.

[DaveF]

I think everyone giving weight loss advice should include a photograph of themselves in the post.

[art_z]

Atkins for you... South Beach for the wife. Both are similar with the low carb intake, but I've noticed men drop weight easier with the Atkins approach. They are both VERY easy to follow. The great thing about Atkins is that you can eat until you're full, then wait a few hours and eat again!

I've done the low-carb thing for a long time. It works, but you have to be strict and you cannot cheat. If you do "hard-core" Atkins for 4 to 8 weeks, you'll drop half your target weight... promise.

+1 on this. I dropped close to 70 lbs 6 years ago in around 5 months, have kept it off since.

[jay42]

You don't "go on a diet," you change your diet. It's the temporary mindset that makes people fail at weight control. I also question the notion that 2,000 calories is a normal adult diet. 'Normal' adults are now overwieght statistically, so that number is too high.

[The_Whale]

walk for twenty minutes every day.
eat less junk.
eat much more salad.

[The Guy]

Eat mostly plants, jon

this is positively bad advice. the china study is only one book among many.

[JPERRYROCKS]

It's hard with kids, work, and a lot of other responsibilites.

But if you work out just every other day for 30-40 mintues and get into a routine of exercise, it will do you a world of good.

Try to join a gym and don't stay at home. It's very motivational to be around other fit and healty people. There are tons of free classes at the gym that will work your butt off in no time and get you in shape.

You'll have so much more energy as well. Spend a little money on yourself and hire a trainer for a few months as well once a week to get you on the right path.

It's probably cheaper than all the junk you're buying anyway that you don't really need

[dividedsky]

Do not eat after 7pm.

Depends on when you go to sleep too. I typically go to sleep around 3 or 4 and eat the last thing of the night around midnight.

[TRawker]

I started jogging 12-15 miles a week. Drank 90 + ounces of water a day. And didn't really change my diet up too much. I dropped 20 pounds in about a month and a half or so.

[Rattles]

this is positively bad advice. the china study is only one book among many.

Jon is a doctor.

By plants, he is saying more fruits and veggies.

Walk and drink more water. I notice I feel sluggish if I drink soft drinks. Flavor water with a fresh orange, lemon, or lime.