DIET

This is still being worked on (and used)

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Down 0 lbs  1-1-10

Antioxidants   Fiber   Cardiac

Once again, (4th and last) time for me to get serious about losing weight.

To lose weight    -   it must be important to (the editorial) you.

This is something you don't have to do more of to win.   Less bother, expense, shopping, prep, cooking, eating, clean up, and waste - is more weight lost.   Less is more.

I've done this before and the only way for me to lose weight is to Really cut back on the food.   The fact that you & I are overweight is compelling proof that we are eating more than we need.  There is no Royal Road to weight loss.

Exercise is good to occupy your time and thoughts, but it is mainly for muscle tone.  Don't use exercise as a way to counteract eating too much - you can't exercise that much if you are over 18 and not a pro or Olympic athlete.   More muscle will certainly burn more calories, so in effect your metabolism rate will go up.  Muscle is more dense than fat, so it will weigh more per unit of volume.  In the case of dramatically increased muscle, gauge your diet progress by waist size and not weight.  It is a lot easier to keep the weight off by simply not eating the offending food in the first place.

Beer, wine in moderate amounts have virtually no effect;  however, beer And food is deadly to weight loss.   Don't worry about what you eat or the calorie count, think small amounts and not eating very often;  think going for long periods in between a couple of small meals daily.   The diet of eating 5 or 6 small meals every day is for people who are at their fighting weight and just want to maintain.  Don't drive yourself nuts over this.   Some people get irritable, upset when on a diet;  realize this may happen and curb your emotions when they flare.

A diet where you do a little, take a stab at it or get moderate, simply doesn't provide enough weight-loss feedback to stay with it.   Success begets success.  Loss begets loss.  I notice that it is much easier to stay away from food and ignore the 'hunger' feeling when i see that i am losing 1/2 to 1 lb a day;  it really spurs me on.  It is very encouraging to see the hoped for results actually happen.  At this point, you can't get lax and think that you can now eat more as your body now 'knows' what to do.  You have to wait until you reach your desired weight before you can ease up and eat a little more.

Generally, the way most of us eat now    we will continue to gain a little each day.

The 5 or 6 small meals a day fits into this model for maintaining weight at the current level because the small amount that you eat each time is just enough calories to balance out the calories your schedule burns until you eat again.  The meals are so small that you use up the calories and nothing is left over to be stored as fat.  But, that will not get you quick weight loss of 10 lbs a month.  Two small meals a day and exercise will get that loss for you.

If you cut back to 3/4 of what you normally eat, you will probably stay the same weight.  We simply do not need to eat as much food as we think we do.  Eating until you are stuffed is a big fat mistake.  Many people cut back on some stuff hoping to lose a little at a time, maybe 15-20 lbs a year.  To me, this doesn't provide the immediate weight-loss feedback to keep me on track.  You will feel like you are denying yourself and getting nowhere.   Suffering for no results.

Cutting your food intake to 1/2 of what you normally eat will result in slow weight loss, but you must be patient as the results won't show up soon.  Good luck.

If you really want to lose weight noticeably and fast, make up your mind to do so and cut back to 1/4th of what you normally eat; get down to 800-1200 cal a day and realize that this is the only way to get serious about weight loss.  Movie stars and models starve themselves, but this is the extreme - a single grape, champagne, and cocaine for dinner is not realistic.   Being bone-skinny is not healthy nor attractive.  Losing too much weight too fast may cause damage to the muscles associated with your heart;  ask your doctor.

You have to eat 2 small meals a day with a snack of cheese, fruit, celery, or an oz of semi-sweet choc chips.  Get a list of the anti-oxidant foods.  Take a multi-vitamin daily.

The two small meals i use are:
1) 3 pm:    2 scrambled eggs, 1 slice toast, kool aid, vitamin
2) 9 pm:    Top Ramen with veg
     or,  grilled cheese on sourdough
     fried or scrambled egg sandwich, egg salad, tuna, chicken salad
     Turkey breast sandwich   3 ea 7 pounders in the freezer now.   $1/lb on sale
     a tomato or cuke sandwich,  one of my favorites
     loose hamburger (fat poured off) with onion  (my poor days revisited)
     a salad, fish, chicken etc.    something small and not deep-fried or ridiculous ..
     steamed vegetables
     English muffin w/cream cheese
     peanut butter on wheat whole grain bread
     cottage cheese relish plate   
     cup of hot chocolate, w/milk 200 cal., w/water 80 cal.

Making casseroles, spaghetti & meat balls, macaroni and anything, chowders, stews, chili, etc will make it too easy to eat a big portion as there is plenty left over, enough for 4-8 more meals -- got to eat it before it spoils, right?  Cut your recipe in half.  Also, over shopping will nag at you to eat more so that the food doesn't spoil.  Buy just enough to eat that week, sparsely. 

I don't worry about using butter, real mayo, dressings, etc as not enough is used to bother with losing the taste of the good stuff.  Not much salt is ever used here due to taste preference.

(Everything could be made with Gary's chilies which will not let you keep the food in your body long enough to be absorbed, anyway.  Also, going to lunch with Jack at Skipper's All You Can Eat day is a tasty treat but not a good idea for this page.)

10 lbs a month is lost this way.

Argument for Small Meals

You use up 65 - 100 calories an hour sitting around with slight movements or about 2500 calories a day.  Eat more than this number and you gain weight.   Let's simplistically say that your body can process a pound of food a day, perhaps a half pound at any eating session.  If you had 2 meals of 1/2 lb each more than 4 hours apart you should be fine to stay at the same weight. But, if your lunch was 0.7 lbs, that extra 0.2 lbs just might go to fat.  If your dinner was at the local All You Can Eat place - you've had it.  So, eating one big meal a day will create some fat that will have to be burned off.  Then according to this model, it is a good idea to eat small meals far enough apart in time to give your body time to process it for the energy you expended and the energy that you will expend for the next few hours.

Proposed Model

You have a habit now (one that makes you gain weight) and you will be replacing it with another habit (one that makes you lose weight) and then later another one that will allow you to keep the weight off once the sought after weight is achieved.   Mind set.  A model doesn't necessarily have to be completely true to be of value.  If it works for you then it is a good model.  Models that Newton and Bohr came up with were not quite right for all cases, but they served, and still do, science and engineering well for decades and for basic studies today.

Food in your stomach is used to run the body.     This lasts 3-4 hours after you eat.  You will not lose weight during this period.  No letters, please.

No food there and the body Has to go to the stored fat for energy  4-20 hrs after you last eat.  This is the only time you will lose weight.    Eat a snack and then you start the process all over.  Extend this last period and you will lose more weight.  Eat at least once a day; 1200 calories per day min without a doctor's guidance.  I just lost 13 lbs in 9 days by eating an egg sandwich and a glass of kool-aid once a day,  2 hrs later i eat one Creamsicle.  

When we are young, going that long without food seems to hurt and we feel that we are doing some damage to our body.  But, as we get older, that 'pang' is not painful.  Reconcile that hungry feeling with knowing that weight is now being lost only during this feeling  and then it is no longer a discomfort.   It is the feeling of losing weight.

So, the trick is to eat a little slowly and not often.   Vary your meals.    A plate of just steamed Broccoli is fine for a meal - melt butter on it and sprinkle with salt.   Eat your small meal, get out of the kitchen and wait 20 mins to see that you really are not still hungry.   Let the body have this time to produce the chemical that tells your brain that you are no longer hungry.    These small meals get eaten faster than your previous bigger meals so slow down eating and try to take the same time to eat a meal as before.

Think of food as a weak poison - you can stand a little, but too much will eventually kill you, or think that food is too much work to buy, prepare, cook, & clean up.    Think like you are poor and can't afford all the really fancy food.      Use a flu or a cold as a good reason to not feel like eating.   Try going 16-20 hours with out eating at a time  - overnight.  Mind set.

Go for long periods between small dishes.   It is really not that difficult if you have your mind made up to lose weight.  Are you determined?

You can't gain weight breathing air and drinking water.  I'm thinking of calling this the POW Diet.

Hints

Forget eating to a time table;  when you get home, when you wake up, when others eat, when it is the most convenient time, when you are bored, etc

Cut back on shopping.   Stop thinking about food & recipes.  Stay away from the Food Channel.    Don't buy the ingredients  and you can't cook them.  This diet saves money, time and effort.  When on a diet is your garbage can less full?

It is amazing how little food we need as we get older.  People tend to start getting fat; storing food that is not needed, when we get to 25 or so.  Fat on you means that you are eating too much, more than you need.

Instead of having a full meal of meat, potatoes, vegs, bread, drink, & desert after you have gone without eating for 6-16 hours - try just having one or two of these items now, and another one in 2 or 3 hours, etc.   Spread the meal out in small portions and not much of each item. Then back to not eating at all for 6 to 20 hours.   It is like having one meal a day, but spread out over 6+ hours.   Use a salad plate instead of a dinner plate.   You are adopting a different habit.

Read, exercise, go to sleep, do anything  but feel sorry for yourself.  Exercise and sensible nutrition are always good ideas.  Building muscles during this period will add weight.  For the same visible size person, a muscular person will weigh more than a couch potato as muscle is more dense than fat.  Appearance & fitness may mean more than actual weight in achieving your goal.

Take a multiple vitamin pill daily.   Women who are considering pregnancy should consume proper amounts of folic acid and other required vitamins and minerals.  Folic acid before you get pregnant !

Drink plenty of liquids; i use kool-aid with very little sugar.  OK, ...some beer.  Actually, you could lose 3-5 lbs in a bout of drinking if you didn't eat - alcohol is dehydrating.  That's what i hear, anyway.  Hot chocolate , unadorned, in the winter.  Flush out your system with plenty of water and help the diet.  Forget getting anti-water pills.

Peanut butter is fattening, but if you just eat a little it will suppress the appetite more than anything else that i know of.   Of all the nuts, cashews and pecans are the fattiest.  A slice of whole wheat with PB covers a lot of the daily requirements - counts as one meal.

Forget deserts and candy.  Don't even look at them.

Easy on bread, potatoes, pasta and rice.  Eat meals on a salad plate, no seconds, no mounding.   Get out of the kitchen!

"Hungry?"
"I could eat."
or,
"We'd better eat now otherwise it could be hours before we get the chance again." 
"That would taste good."
...it is all over, you are not serious about weight loss.

Occasionally, you will stray during your diet and eat a little more and that day you will not lose weight - you will stay the same.  This gives you a hint at two things:  how little food you really need and a glimpse at what amount of food you can eat after you attain your desired weight and want to maintain it.

Future

When you get down to your true ideal weight for your height, not necessarily what you think it is, you can ease up slightly in your diet (1/2 of what you are eating before the diet), but know and understand that you have to eat moderately, dare i say like a responsible adult, for the rest of your life or the weight will come back on.    As you get older, you move around less and need less food.  This means that added weight, increased waist,  is due to you eating more food than your body requires and stores it as fat.   Simple, eh?

Antioxidants
http://www.healthchecksystems.com/antioxid.htm  (tech)
http://www.answers.com/topic/antioxidant  (Defn)
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/columnnn/nn000322.html (foods)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/06/040617080908.htm

Fiber
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4574
http://www.gicare.com/pated/edtgs01.htm
Fiber is the part of plants that your body cannot digest.  It is actually a type of carbohydrate.  However, because it's not digested or absorbed into your body, fiber has no calories.
Fiber is fond in fruits, vegetables, whole-grain breads and cereals, legumes (such as kidney beans, chickpeas, and lentils), seeds, and nuts.  Only plant foods have fiber.
There are two kinds of fiber found in plants:
Insoluble fiber does not dissolve in water.  It helps to speed the passage of food through your digestive tract.  It helps with constipation, hemorrhoids, and diverticulitis.  Good sources of insoluble fiber include wheat bran, whole-grain breads and cereals, fruits and vegetables.
Soluble fiber dissolves in water and forms a gel.  It slows the passage of food through your digestive tract.  It helps control high blood cholesterol.  Good sources of soluble fiber include oat and rice bran, dried peas and beans, barley, fruits, and vegetables.  Univ Idaho.

Cardiac
Cardiovascular disease (heart or vascular) involves damage to arteries, blood vessels that carry oxygen-rich blood through your body.  Smoking or high cholesterol levels can damage arteries.  Plaque, fatty material, then builds up and narrows the artery.  Atherosclerosis.  It takes 10 years of non smoking to restore these arteries.
Coronary arteries carry blood to the heart muscle.  Atherosclerosis in these arteries is known as coronary artery disease.  If blood flow through a coronary artery is blocked, a heart attack (death of part of the heart muscle) occurs.
Peripheral arteries carry blood to the brain.  Atherosclerosis in these arteries is called peripheral artery disease.  If blood flow through a peripheral artery in the brain is blocked, a stroke (death of a part of the brain) occurs. ID Heart Ctr.

Questions ?