Diet recommendation

[eanels68]

I am wondering if anyone has a good diet recommendation that helps for losing weight besides with training. I don't know if the High protein, high carb, zone or what other diets are the best.

 

Thanks

 

Erik

[robwilliams]

I'm not convinced that you can lose body fat by diet alone - you have to build some sort of cardio routine into the equation.

 

I jog each morning for around 30 mins BEFORE breakfast so my body HAS to burn up stored body fat as I haven't consumed any nutrition since the night before.

 

I try to maintain a mild calorie defecit throughout the day in that I try to burn up more calories than I consume. There is no real way of knowing how many you take in and how many you burn up, you just have to use your judgement unless you want to get real scientific about it.

 

No more McDonalds, other fatty or sugary foods, ice cream etc. etc. for me. I eat a healthy diet and try to get a good blend of carbs & protein without getting too fussy about it all. Also, I eat a bit less overall than I used to, but now I eat more regularly. Some refer to this as the warrior diet. It stops your body going into fat storing mode because it thinks you haven't eaten for a while - which is what can happen when you only eat 3 meals a day.

 

30 mins after my morning run, I eat breakfast (bowl of cereal). This is essential in getting the metabolism going. After that, I eat some melon or a banana at 10:30 AM, a small healthy lunch at 1:30 PM, afternoon snack (banana or 2 rice cakes) at 4:30 PM, then a small healthy dinner at about 7:00 PM. Sometimes I have a small bowl of cereal before bed.

 

During the last couple of months, I've being doing some work with dumbbells, working on all muscle groups. This has helped me build up some muscle tone, without bulking up and also helps with the metabolism.

 

In 3 months I've gone from nearly 80Kg down to 73 Kg. My body fat loss is much greater than 7 Kg as I have put on quite a bit of muscle tone.

 

Anyway, this is working for me and it is sustainable. Don't diet, change your lifestyle and eating habits!

[Neil]

Many people have very drastic ways of dieting. Matt |Furey recomends eliminating all starchy carbs and eating plenty of lean proteins and fruit and vegetables. My teacher who has many diplomas in kineasilogy and nutrition says that you need 35% fat in your diet and if you eat less thatn that you will actually put fat on. He sais the reasen peolple are so over-weight in america is the cheap meats that every one buys, and since the body only needs 8% protein daily the rest is stored in the body and not used resulting in large stomaches, waist, bums etc.

 

My teacher sais a very good book to get is the Okiniwan Program. This was written by researchers whpo did a survey of the longest living people in the world. It just so happend that it was the people of Okiniwa, and so I think they simply followed the principles of what these people ate to keep the body healthy. My teacher sais its very good and by far the best diet book you can read not only for losing weight but keeping your slef healthy.

 

You can have a look at it here.

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index%3Dbooks%26field-keywords%3Dokiniwan%20diet/103-2737979-7305446

[The_Ryno]

Diet and exercise are the ONLY way that you're going to get in shape and stay that way. PERIOD. Here's a start. Take your current body weight in lbs and multiply that # by 13. That's the total of calories per day that you will generally need to maintain that weight. Now if you want to lose weight, subtract 500 cals. Burn more calories per day than that and you will lose weight. Remember to adjust those numbers as you lose. Smaller body mass will require fewer cal. to maintain than a larger one. Also, factor in the speed of your metabolism. If you're slow, consume fewer calories. As a rule of thumb, Take in 1 gram of protein per lb of bodyweight (target, not actual) and 2g of carbs per lb per day. Get your fats from whole grain or fish, otherwise, a good EFA supplement would do. As far as Americans being overweight from low quality meat, try again. The USDA has the highest quality standards of any agricultural agency in the world. Factor in the number of organ meats and other by-products (mad cow anyone) that the average Brit consumes, and you'll see that the argument holds very little water. In addition, the human body is VERY VERY unlikely to store protein as fat. Although it can happen, basic physiology is such that you will store carbs for energy more readily than protein. Unassimilated protein is processed through the kidneys and expelled due to the difficulty that the body has in converting amino acids to sugars. Watch for my General Diet Advice thread.