Help me eat well, please!

Cafe Society
1

Well, I’ve started a diet of sorts and have started working out. My goal is to take about 10 pounds off a month, but it’s not going quite as well as I’d hoped. I’m trying to eat balanced low-cal meals, and get to the gym three times a week. I can’t get to the gym any more than that or spend much more time there, due to work and school.

I’m trying to avoid cream and oil based sauces, fried foods, chocolates, etc., but the rice cakes and salads aren’t cutting it either, when I’m eating them one after another because they aren’t filling. So, what I would like to ask you nutrition-savvy dopers is: What foods do you recommend to be filling and still be low-calorie?

Thanks!

TygerD

2

Whole grains rock. Brown rice has a smidge more fat and calories than white rice, but it packs in a lot more nutritional value and fiber (which helps to fill you up.) And it just tastes better. After you get used to brown rice, white rice is just . . . pointless. Also try barley, millet, cracked wheat / bulgur, wild rice, and quinoa (not technically a grain, but nutritionally it’s close 'nuff). These grains can be also be cooked together with rice for variety and a nutritional boost.

Oatmeal is good too. The longer you have to cook it, the better it is for you (and the better the texture and taste, IMHO) so pass on the instant, and go for rolled oats or, even better, steel-cut oats.

The major drawback to whole grains is long cooking time. You can circumvent this by making a big batch on the weekends when you have the time, and refrigerate it in single portions to reheat. A pressure cooker also cuts the cooking time down.

Remember, a grain + a legume (like kidney beans, black beans, chick peas, etc.) = a complete protein, so you can save some fat calories and still have a nutritious meat-free meal. Rice and beans tossed with just a bit of good oil (extra virgin olive oil, sesame oil, walnut oil, etc.) can be very rich and satisfying.

3

Try to eat the least-processed things you can. That means no fast food, instant meals, things with massively long ingredient lists, white things (rice, sugar), etc. Don’t bring it home from the grocery store in the first place.

This gets easier when you start looking into what’s actually in those things (the trans fats may be gone, but you don’t wanna know what’s left!), and as you get used to real food you will likely lose your taste for all but a few processed foods. I no longer think of these things as “food” but as either “treats” or “inedibles.”

Once you’re eating mostly natural things, and you avoid nasty highly-processed stuff, then (if you’re exercising), you can eat things you like, like fatty salad dressing, and reclaim cooking habits like frying (I only like tofu when it’s deep fried … I know, that’s bad, but my overall quite healthy eating habits make up for it.)

I know you don’t believe us, but brown rice actually is much nicer than white once you get used to it (as well as being more filling and chock-full of vitamins). When cooking it use about 2 and a quarter cups water to 1 cup rice, and add a pinch of saffron (if you can get it cheap), soup stock powder, curry powder, or something to flavour it, this can improve it immensely.

Find a way that you like fresh vegetables and eat them a lot. Be careful with fat, which does make veggies much tastier but should be used in moderation. Depending on your metabolism you can get away with a little fat if you’re eating lots and lots of veggies. About half of each meal should be fresh vegetables (remember they shrink when cooking, they should take up half your plate when fresh), so find a way you like them and eat them a lot.

You can get boxes of veggies delivered to your door. This way you always have some around and it’s (usually) organic and/or local produce, so you get more vitamin bang for your veggie buck, and it’s usually much tastier than supermarket produce so you’ll enjoy it more. (Try eating a carrot out of your garden, then a carrot from the grocery store. Same with salad greens.)

When planning your meals remember that a serving of meat is only the size of a deck of cards. You really don’t need much meat in your diet at all. You need veggies and whole grains in large quantities, and only a bit of protein. Focus your plans on the vegetables (ie “what kind of veggies do I want for dinner tonight?”) then plan the rest around that.

Let me know how you like your vegetables (and which vegetables) and I can provide some recipes, if you want. I got a million ways to cook greens. I love me some kale.

4

Try and cook your vegetables as little as possible.

Get a steamer, don’t let them touch the boiling water. Cook them until they just start to get tender. It’ll have more nutritional value.

Personally, I just add a little lemon and pepper to them for taste.

You might want to do a clensing phase. what you do is you spend 3 days eating nothing but red meat and green veggies, as much as you want. If you need salt, use lite salt. You want as little sodium as possible.

Two things will happen.

  1. You’ll kise weight

  2. You’ll spend a lot of time in the bathroom.

5

To reinforce and expand on what cowgirl said, get your fats in smart ways. Nuts and oils have good-for-you fats that balance out the bad-for-you fats. Don’t go crazy with them, but they can be a healthier snack alternative, in moderation. For example, a generous handful (1/3 cup) of peanuts has many calories as a Snickers bar, so you don’t want to wolf them down by the fistful. However, the peanuts have some of those good fats (along with some saturated fat, admittedly), plus significant amounts of minerals, and protein and fiber to make you feel satisified and give you some long-lasting energy. A Snickers bar is mainly unhealthy saturated fat and refined sugar, which will spike your blood sugar for a nice sugar high and then a crash. Which one is the better way to get 250 calories?

Oh, and I forgot another great diet food: sweet potatoes. They’re very easy to “bake” in the microwave, have much more fiber and vitamins than white potatoes, and unlike bland white potatoes (which I cannot resist smothering in butter or sour cream) they are naturally flavorful, and especially delicious with just a touch of butter.

6

I second the suggestion to steer away from processed foods. Bags of frozen vegetables are a good choice to keep around, they cook up quickly and with little mess. You can make a stir fry with a little oil and meat and lots of vegetables. Keep fruit around for when you want a snack - apples, bananas, grapes, or oranges. If you like juice, be sure to buy juice that has no sugar, look for stuff that is only juice sweetened or unsweetened.

Another thing I’ve found to be helpful is controlling your portions. Serve yourself dinner, eat about half and then get up and do something for 5-10 minutes. Chances are you’ll be full. Then you can put away your leftovers for an upcoming evening when you don’t feel like cooking. This more than anything else has helped me to lose weight.

7

Study a bit on what bodybuilders eat when they are cutting (fat). They’ll typically eat 6 or so smaller meals per day, which increases the thermic effect of feeding upon one’s metabolism. If you’re eating “clean” – including fat, preferably unsaturated – you’ll find that it might be difficult to consume enough calories per day, rather than the converse. Skip sweets, skip booze; if you like to eat traditional cuisines, such as Italian, or French, or East Asian, be somewhat conscious of how many of the refined grains you consume. Lean protein is cheap in the form of whey powder, canned tuna, certain kinds of frozen fish. Beans are high in fiber, tasty, and contain fairly high amounts of protein. Many people consider a macronutrient balance of 40/40/20 to be fine each day. Calcium is a must. Keep lifting weights, and don’t undernourish yourself. Once you start eating clean, and at the correct intervals throughout the day, trust me, you’ll find it a challenge to eat enough food, rather than too little.

8

The magic words are “John Berardi”.

9

I don’t know if you’re male or female (I don’t think it really matters) but I have found the Men’s Health (www.menshealth.com) Abs Diet to be very helpful to me. It focuses on all the points already mentioned here and keeps me feeling full during the course of the day. And it works! (for me at least) Good luck!

10

You need fats and protein, as others have said.

Chicken (not fried) and fish (not fried) are great. You can even cook up some lean pork, and pay extra for lean beef.

Don’t under-eat. Get your calories in if you’re working out, or else you’re doing yourself a disservice.

11

Strong agreement for the whole grains thing here–if brown rice intimidates you, go to Trader Joe’s and look for their Haga Mai rice, which has the bran and all that but cooks fast like white rice and has this amazing nutty flavor that’s addictive. A tad spendy, unfortunately, but really good.

Every good trip to the store should result in a whole bunch of veggies. My staples are broccoli, red bell peppers (great source of vitamin C and so versatile), lots of alliums (garlic, onions, shallots, leeks, etc.) and whatever is seasonally available. Mushrooms add buttloads of protein for almost no calories, and you can sneak them into a lot of different recipes. Try the crimini variety instead of the standard white mushrooms, much better texture and taste. Also go for fruits, better for you than any sugary snack and very satisfying when you get used to them.

Beans are good, eat lots of beans.

Dump the beef, it’s fatty and gross and is chock full of antibiotics and who needs that? Chicken breast, lean pork, ground turkey, etc. Try veggie “meats” too, you can find corn dogs out there that are way tastier than the “real” thing and much better for you. Veggie chix patties make great sandwiches too with much less fat than the real meat kind.

Give soy cheese and almond cheese a try, some of them are really good. Soy in general is an excellent addition to any diet; lots of protein without the fat–makes most people fart like a wind tunnel, but that gets better over time.

Those horrible overprocessed “diet” foods are the devil–nourishment free and spendy as hell. Losing weight is a process of amending your entire relationship with food, not about attaining a one time goal. Eat right, exercise some, and you will get to a natural comfortable weight you’ll have no problem maintaining for a lifetime.

12

The Abs Diet by David Zinczenko, editor-in-chief of Men’s Health Magazine, is a decent read, with a good beginner’s full-body strength-training circuit and some sound nutritional idea. There are a few weird things in the book, and some arbitrary recommendations on diet, but plenty of meal plans to get started, geared towards people who don’t have any real interest in cooking elaborate meals.

The dietary philosophy of the Abs Diet is: don’t bother counting calories. Instead, worry about eating good foods at the correct intervals throughout the day. Also, allow yourself one cheat day per week.

The fitness directive of the Abs Diet is basically: build muscle. Period. A roughly 30 minute workout 3-4x/week for the first six weeks is, Zinczenko claims, sufficient to build enough muscle to increase your metabolism enough to both lose weight during your resting periods and to counteract the muscle-wasting effects of the various steady-state cardio routines most dieters feel compelled to engage in, against the advice of the diet. HIIT is used to increase VO2 max in short highly fatiguing sessions 1-3x/week while preserving as much muscle as possible. In addition, afterburn is supposedly very significant following a HIIT session, as opposed to spending a great deal of time on steady-state cardio.

Planning specific recipes is trivial when you take stock of clean ingredients available to you – it’s hard to make something really nasty when you have good, not necessarily expensive, ingredients at your disposal. It may not be haute cuisine, but even a gourmand can take pleasure in combining good stuff like nuts, vegetable-based oils, greens, lean protein, fresh fruits, dairy, beans, etc.

13

Forgot another thing–spice the hell out of your food. Since fat enhances flavors and most of us eat waaay more fat than we need we perceive lower fat foods as bland and icky. Use more spices and herbs than you regularly do to add interest to foods. I regularly make dishes that people swear must be horribly fattening and are amazed when I tell them how blameless they actually are–I have a really well stocked spice rack and I’m not afraid to use it! I also have landscaped my entire front yard in edible/medicinal herbs and it always needs some pruning.

And fish, eat lots of fish. Those omega-3 fatty acids are so good for you.

No sugary pop. None. It’s horrible.

And don’t weigh yourself! It’s counterproductive and discouraging. Gauge progress by how you feel and how your clothes fit, because that’s what you’re really shooting for, right? Looking and feeling good? What does some arbitrary number have to do with that?

14

Don’t drink any calories. Obviously soda is out (diet is ok in moderate amounts) but also any kind of fruit juice, which has the same amount (sometimes more) sugar calories than soda. Drink water, flavored seltzer, herbal tea, etc. Drink plenty of water with your meals, especially with your fibrous veggies, to help you feel full.

When buying canned vegetables, read labels and avoid any that contain added High Fructose Corn Syrup. A can of whole tomatoes should contain only “Tomatoes, juice/water, salt.” When you start reading labels you’ll be shocked at how HFCS sneaks into your diet. Bastard agribusiness.

Eating meals and snacks of straight starch is a big mistake. Not only does it not fill you up, but the starches prompt an insulin response that will make you hungrier, sooner, than if you ate a meal or snack of mixed protein, starch, fiber and fat.

Raw veggies are a great snack but one does get a bit bored at times. For a tasty variation that’s still low in calories, I cut up cauliflower and marinate it in vinegar, oilive oil, basil and red pepper flakes. You get a high fiber, high nutrition veggie with just a little fat and a lot of flavor. You get a cup of cauli (1/2 tbsp olive oil, 4 tbsp vinegar) for under 100 calories.

If you are estimating your meal servings and portions, you might want to spend a week measuring everything and entering the results in a calorie/nutrition analyzer like www.fitday.com. Calories may be creeping in where you don’t expect them.

15

I always have trouble when I got OUT to eat. I have lost a lot of weight over the past year cutting out carbs at home and following some of these guidelines I found on the AARP website when I go out to eat.

I also eat several small meals a day and try to work out three times week (even if that only means walking for a while on the treadmill). I have found there are no magic secrets, it just takes dedication and support. (oh, and allowing myself a little splurge every sunday :wink: )

Good Luck- hope this helps.

16

You might want to adjust your goal a little, based on two considerations:

To lose 10 pounds of fat per month, would require you to consume about 1166 calories per day *less * than you burn (3500 calories per pound, so 35,000 calories per month difference between intake and outgo). That means either a huge heck-of-a-lot of exercise, or a dangerously low calorie intake.

Also, if you are working out with weights in order to build muscle, remember that muscle weighs more than fat, so you may be making better progress than the scale by itself will show.

Congratulations on the effort, and I second many of the eating suggestions of those who have already posted.

17

I know it is fashionable, but I would not recommend becomming carb-phobic as carbs a re a good source of energy you use in your workouts. That doesn’t mean big old heapings of mashed potatoes, bread, pancakes. But complex carbs are a good part of a well rounded diet plan that includes exercise.

18

Eat some high-fibre cereal or granola for breakfast. It makes you feel full, so you’re less likely to crave snacks during the day.

19

I just lost 60 pounds in 8 months. Here’s my experiences:
[ul]
[li]Leafy vegetables and fruits are the most filling per calorie. They also provide vitamins, fiber, nutrition, and other good stuffies[/li][li]Consider lean animal protein esp. chicken, turkey, and seafood. OK; I am sure that I’m gonna get flamed for that, but I stick by it.[/li][li]If you’re older than about 40, and especially if you’re female, at least two servings of milk. Milk products are filling, good, and provide protein and carbs. Yogurt is particularly good.[/li][li]Do whole-grain carbs in moderation, with variety.[/li][li]Do about 2 tsp. of healthy oils/day[/li][li]CUT DOWN YOUR PORTION SIZE. As an experiment, eat your normal fare, but only 1/2 what you normally eat![/li][li]Write down everything you eat, even if it’s a piece of celery.[/li][li]Don’t ignore cravings. If ya want to eat chocolate, eat chocolate. Don’t gorge on it, and don’t do it every day, but don’t put it off until you can’t stand it any more.[/li][li]Think about making your “diet” into your diet, the way you’ll eat for the rest of your life.[/li][li]Split your meals into more per day but less per meal[/li][li]Eat fresh stuff. Organic if you can find it and afford it, not because it’s “healthier” but because it’s usually fresher and more flavorful.[/li][li]When you shop, stay on the edges of the store. This happens to be where all the fresh stuff is, if you think about it.[/li][/ul]

What I’ve just given you is a summary of the Weight Watchers system. I lost the 60 lbs doing WW. For whatever reason, WW has worked where everything else didn’t. It’s worth checking out.

20

Allow me to rephrase, I have cut down on carbs. (i.e. eat complex carbs early in the day and before workouts) I’m Italian, it would be treasonous to totally cut out carbs!!! :wink: