|
Junior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 6
|
New Diet Plan
Hi - I am a "newbie", having just registered yesterday. Have been "fighting" weight all of my adult life - all 50 years of it! - never too much overweight to be classified as "obese" but fleshy, stocky with lots of accumulated abdominal fat. So, 3 years ago I was up to 178 (5'4") and decided not to eat chocolate, etc., and to cut down on fats as I didn't want to take cholesterol medicine. Well, my weight dropped as did the cholesterol - as did my animal product eating - I am pretty much with a plant-based diet now - BUT - I got down to 147, then gained to 152 over holidays - so I have to stop this upward spiral. My goal is 135 - certainly doable, but it seems very far at this point, as I have gained and lost the same five pounds for a year now, at least!
I must confess I do not regularly exercise - got out of the habit a coupla years ago when I had rectal/colon problems and surgery (am all healed now, so have no excuse). And I MUST go back to it because I believe it is so essential not only in keeping weight off or losing but keeping the "old" body fit (use it or lose it!), since I am two years away from 70! (Wow, to write that figure makes my blood run cold, I want to tell you!)
Anyway, after reading many nutrition books, looking at diets, etc., I have decided to combine them all into the "WWW" Diet (Warden's Wonderful Weightloss) which follows the following formula (according to experts, this would be optimal):
20% - protein (no meat protein for me except for fish) like egg whites (because of cholesterol), cottage cheese, farmer's cheese, soy, "fake" meat (morningstar, bocaburgers, etc.), skim cow's milk (cause I can't stand rice, soy, or goat's milk!) nuts, seeds, legumes, fish (anything with fins and scales, but no "bottom fish" like catfish, flounders, and no shellfish or shrimp or lobsters or crabs -- all scavengers of the deep - they eat anything in the water!). Too much protein causes an overload of nitrogen in the kidneys (from processing the food) and causes the body to lose calcium.
20% - fat (good fats, like flax seed, olive oil, olives, walnuts, itty bitty amounts of butter once in a while, fish oils, nut oils, nut butters, etc. Absolutely NO trans and very little saturated - mostly mono-saturated. This will give you your essential fatty acids, needed for just about everything!
60% - carbohydrate - has to be to make up 100%. Carbohydrate is brain fuel and muscle fuel. But no "empty" carbs like the "whites", white sugar, white flour, white rice, white potatoes. Stay away as much as possible from high glycemic veggies, or eat in moderation, but all the rest of the veggies are great - lots of salad, fills you up - with a little olive oil, vinegar (no cals in vinegar) and spices - it's great. Put your protein in the salad, your nuts, your beans, fish, some of your fats like olives. Eat only whole grains when you eat grains. You kind of have to go easy on fruits, except they are so good and they beat a snicker bar! (If a tangerine can take snicker's place!)
Since I have a demanding sweet tooth, I am in the process of developing some recipes that will be snackworthy, satisfying, and will only utilize the "allowed" foods on this diet.
So far, I have been on it a week and lost a pound! I want to lose slowly to give my body a chance to set a new "setpoint"; otherwise after you lose, you become ravenous and eat until you gain it all back and then some - at least that has been my experience (after 50 years of dieting).
Lately I've been going crazy with citrus - I live in Florida so that's easy - and my friend has the most wonderful tangerine tree - I probably have eaten half of them off the tree -
I moved to Florida five years ago, and I discovered REAL grapefruit juice, from fruit right off the tree - absolutely marvelous. Well, then I read on the cholesterol medicine that you couldn't eat grapefruit while taking it - so I followed their reasoning and cut out the medicine - why cut out one of the Creator's marvelous, healthy, healing foods for some of man's medicine. Well, that grapefruit, fiber, and supplements that targeted cholesterol, worked - my cholesterol came down 100 points from a high of 305!
I assume it is still low; I don't know officially, I do not go to doctors anymore - I used to but it's bad news to get in the hands of the doctors; as my dad used to say, they're still "practicing" - they never let you go but just keep prescribing medicine after medicine after medicine.
If anyone would like to correspond, please do!
Goodbye for now.
Sharon
|
Hello Smarwar!
