I want to let everyone design my diet... the straight dope diet

In My Humble Opinion
1

As many of you, I gained a few extra pounds over the holidays. Now, I’m ready to get serious about losing them

So, form me a straight dope diet. I am putting my fate in your hands.
Heres what I need:

Form me a weekly diet/workout regimine. Everyone throw their opinion in and tell me what to do. I’m looking to drop 20 lbs. by this i need you to give me a menu… say,
monday: breakfast, carrots, egg whites and coffee breakfast: turkey sandwich with no mayo, lettuce, tomato. etc

more importantly, I need you all to give me a workout regimine. Tell me to run a mile on monday and specifics on what weights to lift… or sprints etc.

I am putting my fate in your hands. I will stick to whatever you tell me to do. Let’s keep this serious and realistic here, no jokes (Run 40 miles)

I am 6’0 and a little over 200 pounds. I want to drop to about 180. I will keep you all posted with details and pictures if needed. I’m serious about this. You guys will be my motivation. Lets do this!!!

(Any other other offers of advice are greatly appreciated and used)

2

What I do:

I can’t consume carbs during the day, so those are all reserved for nighttime. Lunch is a must and that’s usually a Tyson chicken breast with a tomato. Breakfast is a pear or some reasonable substitute,

In the evening, I catch up on green stuff and carbs (pasta and the like).

Good luck!

3

Do a Google search for “The Hacker’s Diet.” It’s free, you can eat whatever foods you want, you don’t have to exercise if you don’t want to, and the only equipment you need is a note-book and a scale. You can lose as much or as little weight as you want, though one pound a week or one pound every two weeks seems to be a comfortable rate.

I’m still reading up on the technique myself (which is a biological- and mathematical-based approach of “eat less”), but the author claims to have lost 70+ lbs. with it, and I haven’t seen anything in it that seems out of whack.

And did I mention it’s free? :slight_smile:

4

Introducing the Ranchoth Diet™! (Not to be confused with the suspiciously similar Pavlov Diet™)

Eat whatever you want to, but while reading threads that have “TMI” or “Warning” in the title, and clicking on all the links therein.

Alternately, eat lunch and/or dinner while watching a movie from this, this, or this list. (Viewing choice depending on your budget, selection at local video stores, roomates, local laws and ordinances, and political affiliation.)

Warning: This diet may result in feelings of nausea, and a decrease in desire to live. May not be effective for sociopaths and frequent “GTA” players.

Failing that…try just eating less, and exercising more? (Like a nice jog, walk, or hike as often as you can during the week; and cut back on the sweets. Oranges are good for a snack this time of year.)

5

Breakfast: 1 serving oatmeal with raisins ( about 300 calories), or two eggs and wheat toast.
Lunch: wheat bread sandwich (tuna or turkey) or 1 can soup, ( about 300 calories). With the tuna or turkey one serving size.
Dinner: whatever the family is having, have small portions, no seconds. If you leave the table full you ate too much. At dinner I usually think of a serving size as a deck of cards and limit to 3 servings. Trying to keep to under 900 calories max. No desert.
Snacks: None, okay if you must, an apple, celery, or hot air popcorn (no butter).
All the water, tea, coffee, diet soda you want to drink. If you feel hungrey drink or brush your teeth.
At lunch walk 4 miles, should take about 1 hour.
This was hard at first but then you get use to it and its not bad at all. I can lose 2 or 3lbs a week ( 5’11’’, 205lbs). When I started this in December I was at 215. My down fall has been football, I can’t resist the pretzels and a few beers, especially now its the playoffs. So I have been taking weekends off, but after the superbowl, I will go 7 days.
Other than the walk and yard work, I don’t exercise. I’d like to work out but really don’t know how.

Robz

6

Pretty good place to start: http://www.stumptuous.com/weights.html

Ignore the stuff about it being only for women.

7

I lost 70 pounds over the course of a year (from 250 to 180… I’m about 6’2") by just setting my mind to it and realizing that, to lose weight, I had to burn more calories than I consumed. If I wanted a beer, I made myself jog an extra 10 minutes. If I wanted a candy bar, I’d make myself walk a half-mile to Walgreens to get it. Some stuff was completely cut out (like all fast food, with the exception of Taco Bell. Not for health reasons, but I needed to have some amount of leeway to keep myself on track).

Things to note: Eating breakfast jump-starts your metabolism, so eat something good like an apple or bowl of oatmeal. If you can, exercise in the morning. To lose weight, stick mostly to cardio. To get “in shape”, a dose of lifting can help tremendously. After losing all my weight I started lifting, and the results were fast and great. Everything you do will be easier with 5 or 10 pounds of muscle that you didn’t have before.

Don’t deprive yourself of anything you love. Just eat it in lesser doses and make yourself work for it. Eventually that cookie won’t look so good if you know you have to jog a mile after eating it. Taking away the things you love will only frustrate you and make you quit.

8

Read this and plan your own diet. Read this and this and plan your own workout program.

9

I’ve posted my diet before but I’ll post it again. Works great for me anyway. I do a lot of lurking on the CalorieRestriction boards and have picked up tips from those guys but I dislike doing a lot of weighing.

Morning:
Cottage Cheese and Yougurt. Just a small container of each.

Lunch:
Half a pound of veggies cooked anyway you want, just don’t smother 'em in cheese
Tuna with a little mayo
whole wheat crackers

Snacks:
small handful of walnuts
fruit

Dinner:
Spinach salad with oil&vinegar and a little crumbled feta
Half a pound of veggies
Brown rice
Protein (I usually eat tofu or beans but meat would work)

Dessert:
1 oz. of good dark chocolate

The trick is eating so many veggies that you’re too full to really eat much else. And walnuts have enough fat that they keep me from binging. The chocolate treat helps too.

As far as exercise goes, yeah it’s good and will make you healthier but it won’t do a whole lot towards dropping the pounds. I exercise a lot but I still put on weight unless I’m sticking somewhat closely to my diet. Weightlifting will give you the toned look you probably want. The Stumptous site linked above has some really great tips.

10

I forgot to put that the order you eat is important. Always eat the veggies first to fill yourself up. At first, that was a major chore for me but now I actually like the veggies and look forawrd to that part of my meal.

11

lick a rock once a day.

Eat less, and exercise.

But don’t forget to lick the rock.

The Lick a rock diet is copyright Mister Ramit. All rights reserved.

12

I don’t think it’s possible. I think you might be able to get all of us to agree on certain things, like:

“Full sugared pop is bad for you.”

Lots of calories, without a feeling of fullness or satiety.

But where I might say, “Don’t drink it. Switch to diet if you really crave bubbles.”

Others might say, “Limit how much you drink.”

And still others might say, “If you’re going to drink it, factor it in and make sacrifices somewhere else.”

Some of it depends on your psychology. For me? I find it easier to avoid a food entirely than to limit it. (Assuming I really love it.) Moderation and I aren’t on speaking terms. :smiley:

And there’s no point suggesting people eat two tons of veggies if they won’t eat any veggies. So, what do you like? What don’t you like? What are your food weaknesses? Strengths? Do you take vitamins? Will you?

I guess I’m a believer that dietary changes have to be very personalized or they have no chance of succeeding. And I don’t want your attempt to fail.

13

Boy, do I ever agree with that.

It’s only been a week for me, but I’m really loving the South Beach diet. The original plan was to do the 14-day Phase I meal plan, but when I looked at it My first thought was “this is going to be a LOT of work and money.”

So instead, I printed out a South Beach Phase I food list, went to the grocery store, bought a bunch of food that was on the list, and I just eat that.

It’ll be a week tomorrow, and I can say:

  • it’s not a hassle to make meals. At least, not any more hassle than making meals to begin with as opposed to ordering pizza.

  • I genuinely like the food.

  • I’ve not once had that “OMG I’m so hungry I’m going to eat the dog” feeling that was pretty much a daily (or even hourly) occurence for me on low-fat diets. This glycemic index blood sugar sciencey thing seems to work!

  • I’ve lost 4 pounds.

If I had to sum it up, I’d say that I really don’t feel much like I’m on a diet. It more feels like I’m just trying to eat healthy - few sweets, more lean meat, reduce the alcohol intake. I really just might be able to make this a lifestyle thing instead of a diet.

14

a) It’s for keeps. Whatever diet you go on, you stay on for the rest of your life. So it should not feel like deprivation (who wants to do deprivation for the rest of their life?)

b) In light of that, moderation. Don’t totally exclude much of anything. And your diet needs to be overall healthy.

c) Having said all that, the observations of Atkins tend to confirm my own prior experiences as well as my subsequent ones, although I’m not a formal official Atkins dieter: excess carbs make ya fat.

d) My variation on Atkins: bread and starchy veggies makes ya fat. Don’t worry about green beans, carrots, nondiet sodas, asparagus, and whatnot, even though it’s not a “fat” and not a “protein”. What you need to concern yourself with is breads, grainfoods, and potatoes, rice, buckwheat, sweet potatoes, winter squash, and other grain/starchieveggie foods. Eat them, but no more than one in that broad category per day. Except for special cheat days, which should be rare, not back-to-back, and even on cheat days you get two max. Be rigorous, as if you were a diabetic and it mattered.

e) Meat and raw & cooked veggies (minus potatoes and rice). Or if you’re a veg, stews/soups/dishes with lots of vegetables and spices, don’t put it over rice, leave off the potatoes, increase the tofu, one bread or rice or potatoes per day same as omnivores. Variety. Different cuisines, different experiences.

15

Throw in “minimize saturated fat” to this and you’ve got the South Beach diet. And really, I think the saturated fat is minimized for health reasons more than diet reasons. Calorie-wise, a fat is a fat is a fat.

16

Since July, I’ve lost 42 lbs on a diet I created myself. I call it the “eat foods that are good for you, don’t eat junk, green tea and work out” diet.

The only way to lose weight is to burn more calories than you consume. There are no tricks.

I read this great book called Super Foods: 14 Foods That Will Save Your Life by Stephen Pratt that did a good job making the science of nutrition accessible to me.

I was interested in losing weight and completely overhauling how I eat so I will live longer and be healthier. I cut out white rice (except for sushi), white bread, white potatoes and sugar not because of Atkins or carbs or glucose but because they are nutritionally void – none of that stuff does anything beneficial for the body.

I count calories and fat grams, keep a food diary and chart my weight loss with an Excel spreadsheet. I eat every 2 hours so my body knows it’s not starving. I work out at least 3 times a week, I take the stairs and not the elevator. I reward myself every 10 lbs with a non-food reward (new clothes, massage, fancy hair cut). I’ve lost 1-2 lbs almost every week since I started (currently at 42 lbs lost).

I eat as much fruit and vegetables as I want, try to eat more protein (tough as a former vegetarian) mainly as tofu, salmon and turkey. I eat a handful of nuts once a day (reduces your risk of heart disease by up to 25%). I avoid cheese, but eat fat free yogurt. I still eat whole wheat pasta and brown rice, but I’m aware of how much IS a serving of pasta/rice. For example, if we’re having stir fry, I use about 1/3 the amount of rice I used to (same with the pasta/sauce ratio). I’ve switched from coffee to green/black tea and try to drink at least 4 cups a day (fights cancer, reduces the risk of cavities). I eat some type of berry everyday.

It’s a ton more work, lots more planning. I am constantly stopping by the store to get fresh produce, yogurt, fruit. But, I feel great, I haven’t been sick a day since I started and my skin looks amazing. I’m not sleepy in the afternoons like I used to be (used to get terribly groggy around 2:00). I feel incredible!

Typical work day:

7:30 breakfast

2 Morning Star Farms Veggie sausage links
1 cup of frozen blueberries

9:30 snack

Yoplait fat free yogurt (usually, in the morning, I pretty much have a yogurt every day at some point)

11:30 Lunch 1

Soup (lentils, vegetarian chili, garden vegetable, tomato)

1:30 Lunch 2

Half a turkey sandwich on whole wheat, Dijon mustard, lettuce, tomato
Sweet pickles on the side

3:30 snack (this really varies)

Fruit (orange, apple)
Veggies (cut carrots, sugar snap peas)

5:30 snack
Handful of walnuts or
Dried fruit (trader joe’s granny smith dried apple rings are the BEST)

7:30 (not exactly at 7:30, time varies) Dinner

Whatever –
Whole wheat quesadillas (sweet potato, spinach, quinoa and black bean)
Pasta/sauce
Stir Fry

My boyfriend is an excellent, vegetarian cook, so I just eat whatever he’s making, just watch the portion size (he made spicy tomato sauce with crab meat over whole wheat angel hair last night, for example). If I’m cooking, he gets something low cal and low fat, he never bitches.

I do eat lots of salads on the weekends – green leaf lettuce, tomatoes, orange peppers, walnuts, salad crunchies and whatever my current favorite salad dressing is. We go out to eat on Saturday night, I try to make healthy choices but life can’t be all no no no no all the time.

Good luck on your weight loss, it’s definitely a journey! Definitely track the weight in some way (measuring tape, diary) to keep you motivated.

192/150/140