I tried the Simple Diet in the past and I really, really liked it. I want to start again but want to use the leftovers from the dinners that I prepare for my family for my daily entree's. How can I do this and stay within the guidelines of calories, fat and protein? Is it mostly portions or will I have to research those things somewhere?
Thanks!
Gwen
There are several ways to calculate the fat, calories, and protein in home recipes (to make sure they fit into the guidelines).
You can make recipes from books that include the nutritional analysis.
You can use a book or online resources to look up the nutritional analysis on every ingredient, and add them all up, then divide by the number of servings (portioning out the appropriate serving amount)
or
you can use recipe building software (available as software you can download (to your computer or smartphone) or recipe analysis websites online (you input the ingredients, the number of servings, and the software does the math for you).
A less precise way is to look up the nutritional analysis of similar food. For example, you look up "meatloaf" on a nutritional analysis website, and it will give you several choices including (usually) "meatloaf, homemade" and also restaurant and grocery store meatloaf analysis.
Since these websites don't know what you put in your meatloaf, they're basing their analysis on the "average" homemade meatloaf. Your meatloaf may be fattier and more caloric, or it might be less (so the estimate given may or may not reflect your meatloaf). However, a guesstimate based on the average meatloaf, is better than none.
Weight measurements tend to be more accurate than dimension measurements, so a food scale is a very handy tool.
You can just guess and choose portions that are similar to frozen meals, but this can be a lot trickier to judge (unless you do know the approximate calorie, fat, and protein count of the food you're preparing). Most frozen meals under 300 calories average about 8 to 10 ounces, so that can help you guide your own portions.
Fat averages about 200 to 250 calories per ounce (and an ounce is 28 grams).
Meats averages about 55 calories and 6g of protein per ounce (but can range from 35 calories to 100 calories per ounce, depending on how much fat)
You can use these calculations to make some good guesses, and guessing may be good enough. The only way to tell if your guesses are accurate is to use your best guess and see if you lose weight. If you do great. If you're not, maybe your guesswork is off and you either have to try a different tactic, or continue guessing but reducing the portions of your guesswork.
Hi everyone! I haven't posted for a while, but just started the diet (after watching Keisha's Youtube videos!) 2 days ago.
Because my job (self-employed, used bookseller) involves driving around a lot, I actually really like this and think it will fit in very well with my lifestyle.
There is an upcoming potential deal breaker though - my husband and I have been planning a really long trip (almost a month!) in October, by train, from coast to coast! (It's a belated anniversary celebration. :-) )
Actually the only time period I will need to strategize on is the 3 days on the train. Certainly take enough shakes and bars with me, but there won't be a microwave so no way to cook "entrees".
Oh well, as problems go, trying to fit in a diet on a luxurious train trip across the country is probably not the biggest one! But I may be needing to check in here and ask for some tips on the road! Thanks in advance! :-)
OMIGOSH your anniversary sounds LOVELY! I certainly would just do the best you can on the train and don't worry over 3 days, so what you will get to goal 3 days later? Just make the best food choices and I think Kaplods posted the thing to SparkRecipes. I use that sometimes for recipes I make often so I can add them in if I am going to eat them. Good luck and glad you are checking in
Thanks, SerenityDiva! I've been giving it some thought and tell me if this sounds reasonable: have one plan (the Simple Diet) as my main, regular everyday diet; but also have a backup plan (say, just basic calorie counting) for when I can't do that.
Does that make sense? I know the ideal would be to pick one plan and stick to it 100%, but is that really possible in the real world?
Thanks, SerenityDiva! I've been giving it some thought and tell me if this sounds reasonable: have one plan (the Simple Diet) as my main, regular everyday diet; but also have a backup plan (say, just basic calorie counting) for when I can't do that.
Does that make sense? I know the ideal would be to pick one plan and stick to it 100%, but is that really possible in the real world?
I think we ASSUME that the ideal would be to pick one plan and stick to it 100%, but I think it's a false assumption. In fact, I think it's a myth that we've predetermined is fact, without any evidence. Because how many people do you know who have a plan and a back-up plan or people who've lost their weight using a dozen different plans (besides myself, I can think of no one, except now you and maybe one or two other people here have mentioned something that could be construed as a multi-plan system).
I've found that multi-plan systems work tremendously for me, and it makes me wonder how many people would benefit from such systems if they didn't believe that they had to pick one plan and stick to it 100%.
I think several plans at 90% work better in the long run, because many of the 100% plans are unsustainiable in the long run. People can be "perfect" for a while, but eventually they get worn down. Better to work five plans at 80% than one plan either 100% or 0% (which is the more common norm).
That's totally what I do, my basic plan is The Simple Diet as far as food and my backup is calories and trying to balance protein with carbs and fat, ideally as least processed as possible. I hope that makes sense.
I also think we have to stop telling people that they're doomed to failure or must not be ready for weight loss, if they can't adhere to a program 100%.
If I had to wait until I could adhere to a plan 100%, I would still be waiting. I've managed to lost 105 plans by very imperfect means. I didn't have to be 100% on plan, I just couldn't decide that if 100% wasn't possible 100% off-plan was the best alternative.
Weight loss is one of those things people consider "if you can't do it right, don't do it at all," and that's how we tend to treat weight loss habits "100% on, or 100% off.
We also tend to see weight loss as something that is so complex as to be nearly magical. If a food plan bans diet soda and you have one can a week, you're somehow going to break the magic spell, and you will not be able to succeed (because you didn't follow the magical spell exactly).
We don't trust our own common sense.
I'm not saying that some diet plans aren't much better than others, but you don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand the basic concepts, and using two or twenty food plans to lose the weight is neither a guarantee for weight loss nor a guarantee against it.
I also think we have to stop telling people that they're doomed to failure or must not be ready for weight loss, if they can't adhere to a program 100%.
If I had to wait until I could adhere to a plan 100%, I would still be waiting. I've managed to lost 105 plans by very imperfect means. I didn't have to be 100% on plan, I just couldn't decide that if 100% wasn't possible 100% off-plan wasn't the best alternative.
Weight loss is one of those things people consider "if you can't do it right, don't do it at all," and that's how we tend to treat weight loss habits "100% on, or 100% off.
We also tend to see weight loss as something that is so complex as to be nearly magical. If a food plan bans diet soda and you have one can a week, you're somehow going to break the magic spell, and you will not be able to succeed (because you didn't follow the magical spell exactly).
We don't trust our own common sense.
I'm not saying that some diet plans aren't much better than others, but you don't have to be a rocket scientist to undertand the basic concepts, and using two or twenty food plans to lose the weight is neither a guarantee for weight loss nor a guarantee against it.
ITA. I know when I started The Simple Diet I adhered 100% for 90% of the time (and I knew that going in), but remember I was all about "no diet soda." Well guess what? That was not going to stick (I was a regular soda girl but figured diet was the lesser of two evils). I try try try to tell people who ask me for advice and really want it it's what's you do the majority of the time that counts. I *do* think some people are not in the right mindset to lose weight though due to a variety of reasons. But in the end I really think having all these "experts" with different diets have people more confused and common sense would work a lot of the time at least for the majority of weight loss, I know for me I have had to tweak it after the kids to lose the "last 5-10 pounds" a little but not much.
I think I am going to do kind of a combo of this and Weight Watchers. Keep it simple with mostly frozen dinners and easy stuff.. but still have dinner with my hubby and just count points.
It was pure luck I stumbled upon The Simple Diet. I am still reading the book. Until I finish the book, I am counting calories at approx 1400-1500 a day.
You all have such wonderful ideas and appreciate you sharing them.
Last week I made about a dozen frozen dinners to suit this plan. I also bought undenatured whey protein to make my own protein shakes.
If you can find undentured whey protein at a price you can afford, I HIGHLY recommend it. It dissolves much better than typical whey proteins, and has a milder flavor. I was able to mix it with Crystal Light (30g has 110 calories, and is virtually all protein. The fat and carb content is very low).
Undenatured means the whey protein was extracted under lower temperatures and contains intact proteins rather than the unwound amino acids.
Some of the self-proclaimed experts claim the intact proteins are nutritionally superior, but others (with no less impressive credentials) say this isn't true. For me, it's more about the flavor and texture. Most whey protein powders just don't dissolve well, and the flavored protein powders are often oversweetened (to my tastes) and contain flavoirings I dislike (I absolutely DETEST artificial vanilla flavoiring, and even some "natural" vanillas don't taste right to me).
After trying undenatured whey, I will never again buy standard whey powders (well I should never say never, but the price would have to be very good for me to be tempted by a denatured whey product).
The undenatured whey can be difficult to find, and expensive when you do. I believe the syntrax line (from their description) is an undenatured whey. They have an unflavored product, but it's a little harder to find than the flavors (I believe that netrition and nashua both carry it).
If you have a problem with the texture or flavor of whey protein shakes, I can't recommend the undenatured whey highly enough.
I also went to the library and checked out a bunch of 300 and 400 calorie cookbooks. I chose the 400 calorie cookbooks because they contained recipes serving 6 (or 2400 calories for the whole batch - which makes 8 - 300-calorie serving portions). I'll just have to do a little math to make sure the fat and protein of the 300 calorie portion will fit into the guidelines.
I did discover last week that I have to portion out the recipe immediately into freezer containers or I'm tempted to serve myself too-large portions, or go back for a second helping. By portioning it out right away, I'm immediatly reminded how many calories are in the serving, and that I'm only entitled to one serving per meal.
I was also tempted to "count" the veggies in the recipe as my veggie count, but since the 300 calories are already budgeted, I have to remind myself that my 5 or more servings of freggies (fruit and veggies) needs to be on top of that.
Kaplods great ideas! I think I'm going to have to figure out what to use to freeze in, I'm thinking those Reynolds or disposible (there are generic ones now) "tupperware" type dealios? Like defrost it in water and transfer to a serving dish (I don't like to reheat in plastic). I think when I'm at 140 is when I get to stage 2, so while it's "a ways" off, I like to be ready.
I'll have to check the protein. I don't have problems with the texture of anything except for milk of magnesia...which I don't take but apparently every ten years LOL. Oh and boiled eggs, except for potato salads, but that won't change as I don't like their taste either.
I've been using the Rubbermaid set I received as Christmas gift several years ago, and a bunch of the Betty Crocker disposable containers I found at the Dollar Tree (usually two containers come in a package).
I try to use the disposables for any soup or dish that's likely to stain to plastic (like tomato). Usually staining's not a problem, but hubby isn't as careful as I am about not putting plastic in the microwave. And once you heat tomato in a plastic dish, it seems nothing will get the stain out.
It was actually this that inspired me to stop heating in plastic. I decided that if the food was getting into the plastic, the plastic was probably getting into the food.
The disposable dishes are usually made of such light pastic that with just a bit of pressure on the bottom of the container, you can "pop" the food onto a glass plate or into a glass bowl. Then I defrost for a few minutes using the defrost setting and then heat regularly once it's defrosted.
I do want to invest in another set of the rubbermaid. They're much less frustrating to use, because the lids fit several sizes of containers. With the disposable, I've found that even in the same brand and size, the lids often only fit the containers they came with. Apparently identical lids don't always fit the containers. As a result, before filling any of the containers, I have to make sure I have matched every dish to a lid that fits. I can't even guarantee that new containers will fit their lids well (usually it works fine, but every once in a while I find an exception).
I've even considered switching to freezable glass. I try to plan ahead, so I can take out the freezer containers the day before they're needed, so they can defrost in the fridge. If I switched to glass I'd have to be much more diligent.
