Diet plan?

[Tom1212]

Hey everyone!

I'm new here and I've never really tried to control or focus on my diet. I've always been fairly slim and very comfortable with that.

In the last couple of years I've put on a few unwanted pounds though, mainly due to a lack of exercise and bad diet. I'm not looking to lose mass weight- just maybe four or five pounds. I've been running and working out and I'd really like to tone up. You'll forgive me I hope because I'm not very well informed on what makes a good diet (I've never felt the need to adjust my diet before). What I have recently learned is that to lose weight there needs to be a calorie deficit and that cutting out carbs will speed up or help in some way to increasing fat loss. I've also heard that a low carb diet would mean taking no more than 20g per day. That sounds hard, particularly when my regular cereal (honey oat clusters) contain between 38- 60 per serving. I hope I'm not reading the packet wrong!

I've been trying to watch the carb intake over the last week. I've been reading the back of every packet, box and tub. I've been online checking for good, effective low carb diets to help me shed a few pounds but it seems everyone wants to sell me something!!! I need some solid advice. I'm hoping that you guys can suggest an effective diet plan that could help me to lose four to five pounds.

Any help/advice will be much appreciated. Thank you :help:

[mizski]

Tom, you may like Primal Blueprint. It focuses on eating healthy foods and living a healthy lifestyle. Because there are no grains or legumes, limited dairy, no packaged/processed convenience foods (aka junky foods) the diet is naturally low carb. Those who have a lot of weight to lose like I did bring their carb level down even further by limiting fruits and starchy veggies. The Primal Fitness program is outstanding. There is no carb or calorie counting.

There is a TON of info on the PB blog including free Primal Fitness ebook and Primal Cookbook.

Primal Blueprint (http://www.marksdailyapple.com/)

With a plan like Atkins, I suggest you start well into OWL with perhaps a carb level of 50g NET carbs to start. (Atkins net carbs = total carbs minus fiber)

I don't think you need to go down to 20g net carbs and certainly NOT 20g total carbs. Getting rid of all or most of your grains and sugars alone will make a huge difference in your waistline and more importantly, in your health.

[Elizellen]

Welcome to the board, Tom! :wave:

I agree with Mizski :agree: just dropping that cereal and eating a lowcarb breakfast might do the trick on its own, but try dropping all grains and sugar and I bet you will see quick results.

Of course, all diets stop working when you stop following them, so you might need to continue to cut down on grains and sugars to keep the pounds off!

[Tom1212]

thanks guys, thanks for the good info and the welcome. What a good forum! Some great items/infor/advice on here.

I'll take a look at PB now, sounds interesting! When you say 'sugars' obviously there's things like sweets and cakes etc, could that also apply to fruit- which contain natural sugars? I've been eating a whole load of fruit recently! I hoped that would help me

[JohnGibson]

Tom,

Fruit is a different animal. Its sugars are bound up in lots of fiber. However, we (humans) have been genetically modifying our fruits to be sweeter and sweeter and thus more sugar contained in them than their older heirloom ancestors.

Check Mark's Sissons' primal pyramid it shows you were your foods should be coming from.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-to-succeed-with-the-primal-blueprint/#fitness

Tom, I applaude you getting here at this point in life, unlike myself that had over 100 pounds to drop, you are getting here and looking into better eating now.

I have recently started moving over to a more primal approach, and think it dovetails excellently with Atkins. Atkins got me to this point of my journey (90 pounds off) and as I stay in Pre-Maintiance I am seeing that Maintenance can look very primal.

[JohnGibson]

Tom,

Here is a link to Mark's shopping list... it shows you a good selection of what you get to eat.

I doubt you will feel deprived on this way of life:

http://cdn.marksdailyapple.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Primal-Blueprint-Shopping-List.pdf

[FREE2BEME]

Hello and welcome! :wave:

I want to tell you that I really admire your desire to get healthy despite not being overweight. That's impressive to me, since so many people that I know tend to only want to get healthy and change their diet if they're overweight or obese. But really, we all need to be eating good foods and exercising our bodies, regardless of the numbers on the scales. This post was encouraging to me.

Of course, all diets stop working when you stop following them
LOVE THIS!!!!

[FREE2BEME]

Tom,

However, we (humans) have been genetically modifying our fruits to be sweeter and sweeter and thus more sugar contained in them than their older heirloom ancestors.
Really?! This kind of freaks me out. When I read this, my stomach did one of those dip things... you know, like when you drive over a hill really fast and then the car kind of does that drop thing that causes your stomach to drop too. But good to know, I guess. I'll be more intentional about limiting my kid's quantity of fruit now.

[JohnGibson]

Brandy,

Fruits are good, don't get me wrong, but the honey crisp apple your kid is eating is not the same apple nor the same sweetness that we had even 50 years ago.

The good thing about this is the genetic modification is that it isn't gene splicing (thank god) but good old fashioned cross breeding...

One of the major problems I have with the US food is that they are adding SUGAR to everything... EVERYTHING...

Anyhow... if you really want to get a stomach flip... watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

Sugar the bitter truth...

[Tom1212]

Hey guys, thanks so much for your warm welcome and very useful replies. I've certainly got a better idea of what I need to do now. I know it's not a massive amount to lose but I really want to get into sports again. I quit smoking a few weeks ago and started running which I found awful because my body couldn't take it. It reminded me just why I should not smoke and it gave me the desire to get fit again.

I am finding the cigarette cravings very tough and I'm trying to eat less calories and carbs every day which is also hard BUT I know it's all for a good cause.

The losses you guys have made are simply amazing! Congradulations to you all. You must be very strong people. It's inspirational.

[JohnGibson]

Tom,

Defiantly check out http://marksdailyapple.com.

His fitness blueprint is amazing, and its very common sense.

john