Hey, I'm new here. My name's Marissa. I sure hope this is the best place for this post. Let me begin by saying I've been fairly overweight most of my life. Even as a child I was pretty big. It depressed me a lot when I was in Junior High and High School, I lost a ton of weight shortly after (had a pretty strenuous job, almost no money to buy food and walked EVERYWHERE). My lightest since I've been over 18 has probably been around 250. I looked a lot thinner than that and was wearing a 16/18, but the scale never lies. Since then I've moved around a lot and my diet has suffered. I've gained a lot of weight back. Maybe more than I weighed before, I don't own a scale anymore to be honest.

But I digress, let me get to the point of all of this.

I'm pretty happy with my body just now. I don't really want to change it deep down inside. I see pretty pictures of models on the cover of Vogue and popstars on TV, but I'm pretty content never looking like them and happy to just be me. I don't have any loss of mobility, when I go to the Doctor, they always say my blood pressure and blahblah levels are great. I eat lots of vegetables and fruits pretty naturally (it's the hippie in me, I swear). I could probably go with more physical activity and I should probably eat more regularly. Plus I'll be the first to admit, I really love a brownie every now and again. But I'm not really too bothered with changing my overall shape. I don't really WANT to diet. I do, however, want to improve on my health as much as I can. I want a cleaner experience in general, y'know?

So I guess what I'm asking, is there a such thing as an anti-diet? Something where I don't have to count calories. Maybe just some monthly meal plans I can tweak slightly so I can help my budget and try and eat as healthfully as possible. I really want to make sure I'm getting every vitamin and nutrient my body needs. Plus, something in the form of exercise that I can just do in the morning before work or something. Or even a sort of light physical break I can do before bed. I'm not worried about losing inches or pounds or restricting my calories, I just want to make slight changes.

So, yeah, anyone know anything like that or have any suggestions?
My apologies if I've placed this in the wrong subforum or if the answers to my questions are somewhere really obvious.

Thanks!

I recommend you start by journaling what you are eating. Pick a site like Spark People, Fitday or the Daily Plate, and keep track of what you eat.

These sites will also keep track of your nutrient intake and you can decide where you need more vitamins or minerals, or whatnot.

It may also be helpful to see what you are eating each day and allow you to select one thing to make more healthful or skip altogether. Or you can choose not to. It is of course up to you. But I find it helpful to know from day to day what I have put into my body.

Sure. There are a lot of clean eating type thoughts out there-- being on a diet is not always about losing weight. A lot of people choose to live a whole foods, or real food diet to eleminate chemicles, some people go organic. Many follow a life extension-type diet. There are all sorts of ideologies and thoughts on what is the "best" type diet for people to eat. Some eat raw, some eat vegan. Cutting out bad things in you diet may cause weight loss, but it in not always the case. I don't know how cheaply this can be done. Inevitably healthier food is also more expensive, and usually people tend to eat less of it.

I just wanted to say: Dieting is also a preventative-- it helps lower or lessen the future prospent of health issues as well. Being the correct size is not about looking like a starlet, it is about health. A person should only be 10 pounds or so overweight maximum. I'm assuming you are not 6 feet tall, so 250 is probably damaging you physically , even if you don't know it. I'm sure most people are here because fat has led to health problems as much as "they want to look good." The detrement that fat has on organs and your entire body is culmative and can lead to chronic disease, so maybe re-think the weight loss thing.

Hi Marissa!

You didn't give your age or height, but I am guessing you are pretty young? As you get older, those health numbers are likely to change. You sound so, so much like me a few months ago - before I tore up my ankle with a weight related fall. (That was my eye-opener that maybe my weight really was a problem.) I was in a good place confidence-wise and liked myself (still am ). THAT'S FABULOUS! In my opinion, that's a good chunk of the battle!

But, this doesn't have to be about appearance. Sure, if you lose weight, it will change, but the reasons to eat well and exercise even without weight loss are HUGE!

I am a subscriber to clean eating and mindful eating. I do count calories, but it's not my primary focus. Eating foods with the right nutrition are good for your body and will make you feel better almost right away. Fitday or sparkpeople are a good place to log your food to track your nutrition also. Find new foods that you like, experiment. Eating healthy doesn't mean eating foods you don't like. Just the opposite - natural foods have so much more flavor!

Exercise is good for you. Find something you enjoy (or don't hate) and do it!

Let weight loss be the side effect of living a healthy life. To me, that's the un-diet.

I think it would probably be a mistake to start counting calories if you are not trying to lose weight. But there are lots of plans that are all about *what* you eat and making it healthy. Southbeach, wholefoods (not a plan), Paleo/Primal, and so on. Some are pretty common sense, some involve quite a bit more change (if you believe in their ideas). I think it's great to be able improve one's diet without having to restrict calories. "The Slow Down Diet" (Marc David) is a nice book in that regard. Despite the word diet in the title, it does not prescribe any diet. It's about the quality of what we eat and how we eat it (relaxation and pleasure).

Well I've lost 160 lbs without counting calories but I did change the foods I was eating and eating healthier foods along with modifying portions. Initially, I used "South Beach Diet" as a guideline.

I think the "hippie" in you would love whole foods. I have a little hippie hiding inside of me too.

I love making my own foods rather than eating processed crap. I like to know what's in my food. It bothers me that I haven't figured out how to make my own yogurt yet. I think just cutting processed foods out of the diet may be extremely helpful.

I'm a bit like you in that I always ate lots of fruits/veggies and a generally healthy diet, and yet the pounds packed on. That's so frustrating! Our bodies just do not tolerate food the way some others do.

So you don't want to GO ON a "diet", you just want to improve upon YOUR diet. By diet, the true sense of the word, the foods in which you eat. Well maybe it's semantics here, but that's what many of HAVE done.

Well of course you don't HAVE TO count calories, that is up to you. But if it's overall health you're looking for and improving your health like you mentioned, maintaining a healthy weight, IMO is, one of the healthiest things we can do for ourselves. I know for me personally and again, we're all different, I can without a doubt overeat healthy foods and therefore I wouldn't be maintaining a healthy weight. You can always decide later down the road just how far you want to take this.

Superfoods RX by Stephen Pratt would be something for you to look into.

And I agree with BeachBreeze, just because your *numbers* are good now, just because you've got no aches and pain right now, doesn't mean that you won't further down the road. Unfortunately we don't value our health until we lose it . I truly believe taking steps to prevent disease BEFORE it happens is the way to go. And again, one of the best ways to avoid many debilitating and deadly diseases is to eat well and maintain a healthy weight.