I have been yo yo dieting most of my life and when i hit my 29th birthday i was starting to feel very low. A friend of mine introduced me to an eating plan 15 weeks ago and i just knew that it would last a couple of days, well i am pleased to say that after 15 weeks i have lost 2 and a half stone, this is not starving myself, or taken any pills or potions, i found that not mixing proteins and carbohydrates has worked for me, it may seem a little complicated and i have to say for the first week i was pulling my hair out but i stuck with it and i am now seeing the results. I used to have to plan my eating day to day and i would suggest you do this for the first 6 weeks so you and your body gets used to the change. How i do the plan is if i decide that i am going to just have a carbohydrate day then you have got to continue for the rest of the day otherwise it will not work so for example if you were going out for a meal and you know that you will be eating meat then you have to limit your potatoes to around 128grams, but you can have as much meat as you like as long as the skin/fat is removed and not fried. If you decide to have a carbohydrate day this means that you can eat as much pasta/rice/qourn/lentils/vegatables.. This does sound boring but i eat mostly carbohydrates and so feast plenty on quorn meat which i am sure i would not suceed without this, believe or not i have the quorn chicken in batter or garlic breadcrumbs or the cajun style chicken, how fatty does this sound? this means that i can have as many potatoes as i like and of course vegatables and salad. I could go further into this and start talking about sins, this is basically hidden foods in your eating plan such as fats, so if you want to go and have a bar of chocolate then do it, i allow myself up to 10 sins a day, if anybody is interested in having a chat i can explain more to you and give you a rough guide as to what types of foods are sins etc....Have a go at this and you may be surprised...I was..

Hey there! I picked up Fit for Life today in the bookstore. As you may already know this is a food combining diet. I'm really excited to be starting it and glad to hear some good things about it. I would love to chat if you have msn.

What is the proper way to eat beans, nuts, coconut, soya milk and other foods that are high in both protien and carb? Can I mix coconut milk in with a fruit smoothy in the morning? If I were to drink a glass of chocolate soya milk should I drink it before a carb meal or a protein meal? Fit for Life doesn't talk much about the proper way to combine these foods. I hope you can help me out, Babygirl!

Google "Hay Diet" and you can find some good info on food combining. Also, half.com has books for cheap. There's also Suzanne Somers' plan "Somersizing".

Suzanne Somers' plan in a nutshell:

1. Eliminate all Funky Foods (four groups of them including avocados, nuts, olives, seeds, potatoes, sugar, white flour, carrots, bananas, soy, low-fat or whole milk, beer, cocoa, caffeinated teas and soda, coffee, wine)
2. Eat Fruit alone, on an empty stomach; twenty minutes before a Carbos meal (starches); one hour before a Protein/Fats meal (no starches); two hours after your last meal.
3. Eat Pro(tein)/Fats with Veggies (low starch kind)
4. Eat Carbos (starches) with Veggies.
5. Keep Pro/Fats separate from Carbos.
6. Wait three hours between meals if switching from a Pro/Fats meal to a Carbos meal, or vice versa.
7. Do not skip meals. Eat at least three meals a day, and eat until you feel satisfied and comfortably full.

I'm trying out a new diet I read about in First magazine last week (March 8 edition). It's called The BioChemical Machine by Eleonara De Lennart, and basically, it's food combining. I've ordered the book but in the meantime, I'm following the guidelines in the magazine. So far I've lost 4 lb but those are recently gained pounds so I'm not jumping up and down just yet. The basic principles of this plan are that you can eat any food as long as it's eaten in the right combination. There's a list of foods that can be eaten any time, all day, every day and you can eat your fill of cream, fresh milk products, whey. Anytime fruits include avocados, blueberries and olives. Veggies include most of the low carb veggies but also include green peas, parsnips, turnips and uncooked spinach and tomatoes. (It's quite a long list so I won't duplicate it). You can eat until satisfied Brazil nuts and almonds and coconut. Also butter, ketchup, mayo and various oils.
Other foods that can be eaten any time and in any combination BUT IN MODERATION, include hard cheese, cream cheese, soy products, cured, smoked and dried meats and fish, all dried beans, peans, lentils and cashews, hazelnuts, macadamiia nuts, pecans, pistachios and walnuts. This list gives a lot of options.
The next list is called the Alkaline Carbs list and it includes the whole grain products and starchy veggies as well as dried fruits. You can eat any amount of these foods in combination with the first list but you have to eat them at least 3 hours away from foods on the next list which is the Acidic foods list which includes all protein (other than the cured/smoked/dried listed above), fruits like apples, apricots, oranges, etc and cooked spinach, tomatoes and processed tomato products. The author recommends starting the day with the acidic food list and ending with the alkaline food list, enjoying the neutral foods at any time. The main theory is that when alkaline carbs are eaten with acidic proteins, the digestive enzymes amylase and pepsin are both present in the stomach so they cancel each other out and digestion slows. The result is that fat is deposited, toxins accumulate and fatigueg sets in while cravings develop. When alkaline carbs and acidic proteins are eaten separately, Amylase and Pepsin are free to do their work separately with the result that fat is broken down, toxins are flushed, energy is released and appetite is suppressed.
As I said, I've only been trying this woe out for the past 5 days but so far it seems to be as advertised. I'm not used to eating so many high carb foods because I've been on Atkins for quite a while (without success) and I notice that my blood glucose is doing its old rise to sky high and then crash bit (I'm Type 2 diabetic) so I've had to remember to divide my meals up into about 6 per day, keeping the principles of this new woe in mind. Otherwise, I get the shakes and then eat too much.

Hi, Had never heard of the Hay diet. so searched it and sounds interesting so going to give it a try. i tryed susan sommers one once and liked it. i just work several plans together using different things of each one and helps me. i got to thinking and theres alot of sense to mixing the foods. so good luck to all of you. I love exercise and have not been doing it for 3 weeks now with this cold i have. its hanging on so much. i am hoping this week i can get out and walking again. it helps me so much. well good luck. LaDean