Ledom, here's the scoop…
Protein: thickness and size of your palm (each meal), 1/3 of that for each snack
fish; meat; soy products.; egg whites (I don't follow him on the egg thing, I think yolks have tons of nutrients in them and I eat them in moderation).
Good Fats: olives and olive oil/raw nuts and nut butters (without added sugar)/low fat cheeses (not processed); avocadoes (yayyy, guacamole is a Good Thing, just skip the chips!)
Carbohydrates: there is a glycemic index that rates the different types of carbohydrates as good or bad.
Examples of bad (avoid completely if you want to burn fat, use in extreme moderation if you are maintaining your desired weight) are: sugar of all types; wheat products (including most breakfast cereals - SLOW COOKED OATMEAL is OK; corn; beets; carrots; rice (omigod, there goes the carrot sticks and rice cake routine everyone has been using for "weight loss"); potatoes; pastas; breads (it doesn't matter if it's whole grain or white, it's all turns into the same amount of sugar in your bloodstream and gets stored as - tadaaa - fat.)
If you have bread it has to be whole grain unprocessed (peasant style) rye bread, not the fluffy light rye breads that have sugar and wheat flour mixed in. Eliminate baked goods like bagels, muffins, cookies, cakes, etc. Wheat tortillas in moderation are OK, as long as you have them wrapped around your home cooked beans, meats, veggies and lowfat cheese.
Good carbs are unprocessed beans you cook yourself, most non-starchy veggies, and the low glycemic fruits.
Three meals a day and two snacks are mandatory. Eat within an hour of waking. Have a snack between lunch and dinner and another just before bed so you don't go to sleep hungry. In a nutshell, eat something every four or five hours (except when you're sleeping of course…).
Meals and snacks should contain protein, fat and carbohydrates together, in the prescribed amounts. You can eat tons of steamed veggies and enormous salads with olive oil dressings. Certain fruits are good: grapefruit; pineapple (and juice); unsweetened berries; pears. AVOID bananas, papayas, mangoes, watermelon (it's loaded with sugar) and grapes if you want to burn fat. Reintroduce the sugary ones in extreme moderation if you're really craving some once you hit your goal weight.
Avoid most fruit juices - it's best to give your stomach all the fibre and stuff to work on - the more it has to work on the food, the slower will be the release of the sugars into your bloodstream - juice is too much of a hit all at once. I stick with tinned pineapple and pears w/ fresh or frozen berries without added sugar.
A typical snack:
3 olives/3 raw almonds and a few spoonfuls of fruit
4 oz wine w/ 1 oz of lowfat cheese (cheese counts as a protein and a fat)
1 oz lowfat cheese w/ the almonds and fruit
(I love these snacks!)
I stopped using honey in my coffee (that was the toughest one for me!) and sugar in tea (stopped drinking tea altogether, I stick with unsweetened herb teas). Cut out the morning banana (I still have a very small bowl of really good quality organic breakfast cereal in the morning, without the honey or the banana and just a sprinkling of almonds or sunflower seeds and some milk). I also cut wayyy back on my rice consumption (tough b/c we love Indian food!) and use potatoes as a condiment (I buy the baby ones and will steam one or two to add to a stirfry if I really want some). I eliminated pasta altogether - it doesn't do it for me anymore). I substituted pappadums for corn chips and tacos to go with the guacamole and now eat a lot of hummus which you already know is good J
I cut way back on the beer and switched to organic red wine instead. It's better for me and after you've been low carb for a couple of weeks the sugar in the alcohol goes straight to your head and you only need about 8 oz. to do the trick!
This really works for me. I went from 179 to 166 in about six weeks (with plenty of exercise, mind you…). I'm hoping to go another 15 lbs once I get back in the saddle here. However, I've lost many inches and my clothes are falling off me, so it's not all about weight, it's about shape as well. I've converted quite a bit of fat to muscle and hope to keep it up for the rest of my life.
If you want glycemic indexes, I'm sure you can find them at the library or on the web somewhere. Hope this helps.