I have no idea if this is the place to post this, but here goes:

A woman at work lost 30 lbs by just ommitting flour and sugar from her diet. According to her, that's all she did. She didn't count anything, just cut those two things out.

This sounds fanastic. I could do the sugar thing ( and I should do the sugar thing), but the flour thing? She also doesn't eat potatoes, rice, or corn. I want to lose weight,and this seems like it really works, but I just can't imagine never having bread, rice or pasta again, ,since I love those things... is it helpful to cut down on the amount of carbs one eats ( speaking of flour here) or do you have to cut it all out to work.I know that fruits and vegetables have carbs, too, but when I want a sandwich, it's gotta have bread...

What to do? I know that any time of life style change I pick is going to have places where I decide not to eat certain things, but I just can't do not having bread ever again.

My question: It seems like eating less breads/flours/ect. causes a rather noted weight loss...can this be achieved through othher eating plans?
I'm trying to find a strategy to garner results, but it's gotta be something i can do. I did WW back in the day, but I found that now I'm kind of burned out on it, or I would do it "wrong" and not balance my foods out.

Any help/kick in the butt/wehaver I'll take.

I got up early to walk ( it's about 9 ish now, but it was already 87 degrees out and now it's going to thunderstorm..then it'll be really hot!

Your coworker is basically cutting carbs. the diet you should choose is the one that you will follow. There are literally hundreds of diets to choose from, counting calories allows you to eat just about anything as long as you do not go over your calorie allotment.Others are Atkins, Stillman, South Beach, FatSmashers and many more. I personally am on Atkins, but have done others in the past.3FC have reviewed a lot of diets , you might want to check those out.Good Luck.

Another related idea as to the cutting of white things (bread,pasta,sugar,potatoes and rice) is the idea that all white refined products cause a dramatic spike in your blood sugar levels. If you google glycemic food index.....it will give you an idea about which carb type foods digest and absorb at slower levels to avoid this high sugar spike. Some diet plans allow you to avoid carbs for a limited phase 1 time period, and then start to incorporate some of the starchy carbs slowly back in. Whole wheat, whole grain foods are not overly processed and therefore give you the advantage of higher fibre which aids in digestion/elimination. It is worth your while to read up more on these subjects. You won't know until you try to see if you can go without your fave sandwich. Good luck.

I had read in a magazine about the "nothing white diet". It included giving up sugar, flour, salt, white bread, white rice, white pasta and potatoes. I tried this for a short while and wasn't disciplined enough with it. Later, I started Atkins and learned that this is basically about the same thing. I do have bread, but whole wheat, low-carb bread. I do eat Oats at least twice a week. I have way more fruit than recommended on Atkins. I don't eat corn. I eat plenty of yogurt and cheese, but don't drink milk. I avoid processed foods as the salt causes me to retain fluids and gain. I eat plenty of green veggies and salads. I basically had to tweak Atkins to fit my lifestyle. The extra fruit hasn't hurt a thing. Fruit didn't make me fat to start with. I use lean protein and limit the amount of fat that I take in. I don't normally count calories, but have added them up at times just to check . I find that I get 1400-1500 calories a day. I think many times that people have to tweak their chosen plan to make it work for them. For me it was totally a matter of finding what works best for each individual. Now that I am on maintenance, I plan to incorporate wild rice and whole wheat pasta to my menu. I have already added baked yams and love them. Good luck in finding what works best for you.

My doctor suggested the nothing white idea to me as well. I have switched from white rice to brown and regular pasta to 100% whole wheat. I've always eaten wheat bread, but now I make sure it is 100% whole wheat bread. I have cut way, way back on potatoes, but imagine that from time to time we'll still have them (but I haven't for at least 3 or 4 months now). Corn is something I can't give up, although we eat it in moderation. No corn on the cob for a while (DS just got braces), but I do add it to my southwest chicken salad--but only a cup and the salad is enough for four dinner servings and sometimes two lunches of leftovers. I'm going to try the 100% whole wheat tortillas this week. We'll see how the family goes for that!

As far as carbs from fruit and vegetables go, I know that Atkins frowns on them, but in my point of view, these are very healthy foods and we should eat a lot of them everyday. So when I look at my total carbs for the day, and they seem to be high, I look over my food choices--if most of the carbs come from fresh fruit and veggies, I am happy.

allinell, I am the exact same way. I don't worry if my carbs were from fruits and veggies. These are healthy foods, and they didn't hurt my weight loss. It might have made it a little slower, but that is OK. I wasn't necessarily in a race. I wanted a plan that I could stick with for life.

Yup, I agree here...tweek, tweek, tweek! Experiment, find what's right for you. A big reason they say "no whites" is they are basically void of a lot of nutrients, the "empty calories" we hear so much about. Go for the "whole foods". I'm not currently eating certain things but will be adding these back in.

Trader Joes has the greatest precooked wild rice (which isn't actually rice but a grass native to North America). All they use is water and it comes in a vaccum package. It would be to much time to cook it on my own but this works!

Whole Foods carries a frozen brown rice. Again, to much time for me to cook, but frozen and only made with water, yippie!

The company Food for Life makes sprouted, whole grain breads with no flour, gluten or sugar as well as tortillas, bagels, english muffins and now I found pasta.

My sweetener of choice is Stevia Plus. It has nothing artificial and makes no rise in blood sugars and also includes many of those "friendly bacteria" they are always saying we need.

You kind of sound like where I am now. I have been trying to so the atkins diet with some tweaks here and there and decided there are just somethings I don't want to give up. I decided on Low GI because it allows for a certain amount of carbs, just the type has to be changed. I do portion control according to the Sonoma plan....crazy mix, but it has me down a pound..

A lot of us use a crazy mix of dieting ideas. It's our personalized plan!
I started by counting calories using fitday.com. As I went along I realised how many calories (without much nutrition) I was having that drove my numbers up. Careful carbs and careful fats has worked for me.