How do you know what diet plan is going to work for you? I am sure any one of them (WW, SB, Atkins, LA Weight Loss, Sugar Busters, Fat Smash...) would help you lose weight but how do you know if it is something you are going to stick with? I guess I am just confused of what I should be doing. Currenlty, i am on Fat Smash. It has been OK. In 4 days, I've lost 3 pounds. However, I am sick of eating fruits, veggies, tofu and brown rice. So I think i may even be starving myself. I had to cheat a bit today and eat some chicken. I needed some other protein than tofu! So, anyone.... how did you choose? What 'diet' do you absolutely love and feel will help you achieve your goals?
What a great question! I've tried so many diets before and never stuck with one very long. I'm currently doing Jenny Craig and absolutely love it. I started on May 13th and have lost weight every single week. The food is delicious (for the most part) and the best part is I don't have to plan a menu or cook (other than vegetables). When you get to your goal, they teach you how to eat your own food and maintain your loss.
I chose Jenny Craig because it takes most of the work out of losing weight. I don't have to think about food all the time, like what am I going to cook, how much can I have, etc., etc.
Everybody is different so you just have to try different things until something clicks.
What I have found is that any plan that allows me to eat what I love will work for me! I think I have found it in the French Diet/low GI carb way of eating. I am able to eat fruit, veggies, whole grain food, dark chocolate, lean meat, and other protein. I don't feel deprived, because I can eat what I like on this.
Atkins did not work for me because, although I love a good steak, I got sick of eating fatty meats and cheese and eggs and really missed fruit and whole grain bread and rice. The low carb versions were okay, but I felt deprived.
I think we should look at what is important to us and find a plan that will conform to our lifestyles and eating habits, instead of us trying to conform to the diet/eating plan. When you can eat the types of food that you enjoy on a 'diet', there's no reason to cheat! Why would you??
There's something for everyone! Ask yourself what is important to you in your eating plan and you'll find it!
IMHO, you have to think about this as a change you are making for the rest of your life. It's not just a temporary diet; to maintain your weight loss after you reach your goal, you have to be prepared to change your eating habits permanently. If you've been on a diet for only 4 days and you are already sick of the foods you are eating, my guess is that it is going to be very hard for you to sustain that diet for any length of time, much less permanently change your eating habits. I would look for a diet the includes the foods the types of foods that you like to eat. If you don't like veggies but do like meat, then maybe one of the low carb plans, like the South Beach diet would be a better choice for you.
My approach has been to just restrict my calories. I keep track of everything I eat and make sure I don't eat more than an allotted number of calories per day. It's worked really well for me and I definitely feel like I can eat this way for the rest of my life. I like it because I pick the foods that I eat so I can incorporate the foods that I don't want to give up.
But this plan isn't for everyone. Making sure I stay within a calorie limit requires a lot of advance planning; I plan out my daily menus each week before I grocery shop. This is something I enjoy doing, but not everyone wants to put this much thought into what they eat. If planning isn't for you, there are other diets that provide more direction (like Jenny Craig) and require less thought/decisions on your part.
I like veggies and carbs and I'm not big on meat, so it was clear to me from the very beginning that I wouldn't be able to sustain an Atkins or South Beach-type diet. I also like to cook, plan meals, and try new recipes, so I needed a diet that allowed me to do that.
Think about what types of foods you want to eat and how much work you want to put into figuring out what you will eat and then look for a diet that meets those requirements. Also, if you have foods that trigger overeating, look for a diet that will help you avoid those foods.
One thing that helped me, is deciding to create my own food plan, because whenever I followed a "diet," I felt like someone else was in charge of what I ate. I also decided that I would remove the word "cheat" from my vocabulary. I keep track of everything I eat, and I have set certain nutrition goals for myself, and I am happy to see that I am meeting those goals more and more often (I picked a goal range for WW points/calories, water, fiber, and fat and exercise). The goals will change as I lose weight, and become more active, but I'm comfortable that they're my goals.
There are a lot of programs out there that are healthy, so you don't have to write your own diet book to lose weight, but you definitely have to follow a plan or plans that you can live with (I know people who alternate between several plans, such as high protein and low fat diets - every few months they change their style of eating to keep from getting bored).
How do you know what diet plan is going to work for you?
Also to add: the diet plans do work, but I firmly believe that exercise is key! The eating plan will help you get to your goal, but our bodies need to be in motion in order to burn the fat permanently. The two go hand in hand.
I'm trying to get my eating to a point where I won't need to review the book before every meal to make sure I get it right! After that, I will focus on exercise. That will help you also. If you are exercising, you'll be able to feel whether the foods you are eating are helping you, by giving you more energy to get through your workout, or hindering you, by making you feel exhausted and sluggish. Actually, even without exercising, I can physically feel how certain foods make me feel. Overprocessed or 'junk' foods make me feel like crap! What I am eating now makes me feel full of energy that lasts all day. That tells me that what I am eating is working for me!
I agree with BlueToBlue, one should change your eating pattern for the rest of your life and not just temporary, i.e. diet. When considering a diet plan consider whether any food groups are left out. If so, in my opinion, it is not something one can stick to. Sooner or later your body will need those nutrients, etc.
In general most healthy plans will work if you stick to it.
One thing that helped me, is deciding to create my own food plan, because whenever I followed a "diet," I felt like someone else was in charge of what I ate.
Amen to that!!! I have said over and over that I don't like people telling me what to eat! I really believe in fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean meats--it's what I enjoy eating (okay, so I like some of the processed foods, too, but I have been eating less and less of them!).
Whatever diet or lifestyle change you choose to make yourself healthy and to lose weight, you have to be able to stick with it and the only way to do that is to like the food that is available. Calorie counting is very easy and if you incorporate watching the fat, carb and protein content along with calorie counting, you can almost eat anything you want as long as it stays within your daily caloric range (but eating the whole foods really helps to keep it within range).
Hello everyone!! I have tried several of diets and the one diet that has worked for me is Atkins. I have lost over 80pds on Atkins and I'm still loosing. Along with that & exercising, I feel like I have so much energy and I feel more alive. I never felt this way on any other diet. I can't imagine what I'm going to feel like when I hit my goal.
I also am not choosing to "diet". To me, a diet is something that you do now in order to make changes that happen later. (i.e I eat like this now so that I'll weigh 150 by next spring, or so that I'll get back into a size 6, etc.)
This does 2 things that I think are actually counter-productive to physical health: 1.) There is often an unspoken but understood caveat to not eating healthy now (undercutting cals, eating in a nutritionally unbalanced way) in order to "get" healthy at some point down the road. 2.) There is no chance to learn how to maintain the new body once you get it. The "diet" ends, but the only thing to replace it are the old eating and exercising habits that caused all of the weight gain to begin with.
There is the mental part, as well. I think that diets all too often have the tendency to emphasize to people that somehow they've failed- that they've "been bad", and perhaps are still bad. It sets up a system of sin and righteousness in relation to food that I just don't think is necessary and that is in fact harmful to most people. It's the whole "I ate the cookie, I've blown it, I might as well eat the bag" phenomenon. The "I ate the bag of cookies, I have no will power, I can't do this" aborted attempts.
Instead, I'm just teaching myself what proper portions look like, I'm re-training myself to recognize true hunger and separate it from mental hunger, and focusing a lot more of my free time to enjoying physical activites. By doing this I will lose weight, but I'm not doing this to lose weight. I'm doing this to be healthy, and to be healthy now, not sometime in the future.
Andoreth has a great way off looking at this and an even greater way of expressing it. Thanks!
I've done the diet thing. It didn't work. Atkins made me crave all the forbidden foods. WW made me crave anything over 24 points. Calorie counting is better, but I still get a little desperate and anxious when I get to 1200 calories for the day and *can't* eat anything else. Besides the constant focus on food isn't good for me whether it's on what I can eat, when I can eat, or what and when I can't eat.
Right now, I'm just trying to concentrate on being healthy--in terms of what I put into my body, activities in which I participate, and my thought patterns.
thank you my friends for the great insights. I will listen to my body and see what is best for me. I need to learn that nothing is forbidden... everything in moderation. I am also in the zone when it comes to excercising, which is always a plus! Keep up the good work!!!!
Diet Plans
