Actually cut out the pasta. That stuff isn't that good for you. Fruits, Veggies, Nuts, and a nice tall glass of milk. Eh... most diets suck anyway. The only way to really lose weight is toss/give away all the junk food in your house and only have food that's good/decent for you around. Then. Eat when you're hungry. Ignore meal times. Just eat when you're hungry and drink a lot. You'll be surprised how much less you eat when you actually listen to your body instead of sticking with your habit of eating three meals a day. This works best if you work on eating slowly I might add. It's worked for me and several of my emaciated friends, so good luck

//shadows

That sucks! I know the feeling all too well. I'd put on a few (ok, more than a few, close to 20 ) extra pounds since college, and decided to get rid of them last year. I hated dieting!!

I failed miserably (due to feeling hungry all the time) at several diets. I looked into Atkins, but hated the idea of all that cholesterol. So, I swapped out a lot of the cholesterol for monounsaturated fats and protein, and gave it a try. It worked great for me, and I dumped the weight in two months (and have kept it off).

If you are a meat-eater, a low-carb approach might be worth looking into, and it sure does solve the appetite problem. (did for me anyway)

As for your triple-bypass special, technically that's fine on a low-carb diet as long as you don't eat the bun. (fast-food buns are full of junk anyway, not to mention having about half the calories of the entire burger

). When I was on the diet and traveling, I'd order the burger without the bun (many places will do a lettuce wrap) and then wrap that in a low-carb burrito wrap.

Another helpful thing is to get rid of ALL snack foods in your house. Convenience foods and diets don't mix.

Drinking lots of ice water with a meal helped a lot, too.

The best thing I found was to take up hobbies that are active. That way exercise is fun.

Whatever you try, good luck to you. It's rough, as I know all too well.

Yeah, diets tend to suck. If you want to lose weight and keep it off you need to change your eating habits permenantly, otherwise you'll just diet the weight off and then it'll go back on when you go back to eating the same. Which means you need to find something that will work for you long term. If you really enjoy eating meat then following an eating plan that's low in meat won't work for you. Maybe you could try and vary the meat you eat, for instance, don't have just red meat, include some chicken and fish, and I think how you cook them is important, baking grilling or broiling...they should be the only methods you use really Like C James said, if you go down that route and reduce your carb intake then that should make a difference.

I find eating routinely works best for me, cos otherwise I don't notice til I'm really hungry and I'm tempted to binge then, but everyone's different so eating at random times might work for you, just don't be tempted to eat less cos that makes it harder to lose weight, you needs to eat lots of good food (unfortunately boring vegetables )

Heh, enough of my rambling...good luck with it!

Commiserations James, dieting seems awful.

My soulmate was told four months ago he has type 2 diabetes, and as he refuses to take insulin - because once you start you can never stop, he has had to diet...

He follows Atkins, and the weight has fallen off, and quickly. People either think Atkins is crackpot or swear by it, and there is apparently lots of evidence both ways ... but I can say it has worked for him.

He cannot eat anything with carbs, chocolate , but he can eat meat - lotsa meat, and cheese. Milk is out, but double cream is ok - weird.

Today I got given a HUGE bowl of strawberries and half a pint of cream and was nearly sick. which is odd because you'd think you'd put on weight by the truckload with cream.

Luckily I've never had to diet - touch wood. I follow the 'when you're hungry eat, and then stop' regime.

Camy

(unfortunately boring vegetables )

Benny's making fun of my vegetables!!!

Good advice though. I'm fortunate in that I really don't care for meat that much. I can go days quite by accident without eating any meat or fish at all(which is actually bad because then I have to drink protein drinks or something). For example right now I haven't had any in about a day and a half and I wouldn't have even realized if we weren't talking about it. I do really LOVE fish and seafood though!! I also crave chicken every now and then. I only eat red meat about 3 or 4 times a month, and I don't eat pork at all. I'm a big vegetable person! Fruit's great too. I also really like nuts of all types. Don't go thinking I have a really healthy diet though; I think my chocoholism is legendary around this site . I also have a HUGE weakness for potatoes in any form I can get them (especially cheese fries with ranch!!!)

The best advice I can give you is drink only water and other calorie/caffeine/carbonated free beverages. The evidence goes back and forth on milk, fruit juices, and tea so stick with those if you really like them, but I definitely recommend laying off all sodas. I lost several pounds without doing anything else, not only that but I had way more energy, and I liked the way my mouth tasted much more (I've always been kinda OCD about having fresh breath and I used to ALWAYS carry ments or gum, but after I started drinking ONLY water and water with ANYTHING I ate, I found I no longer felt the need to have the ments).

Anyway good luck! I wish you the very best

Kevin

Dr. Nickolas is writing you a prescrpition....Eat three bowls of grit's with any topping you want a day. Also, have at least one plate of scattered potatoes with onions and cheese and a pound of shrimp a day

Don't forget to wash it all down with some sweet tea

The problem with diets is that most people don't understand what a diet is.

the usual food and drink consumed by an organism (person or animal) a Diet.

In the modern sense of the word we take it to mean foods we can or can't eat. And we say we're on the atkin's diet or the south beach diet. Really all you have to do is decide to eat healthy and continue to do so. Not do so long enough to lose weight for summer or before the class renunion, all the time. Whatever method you find that works for you, should be something you stick to thereafter. haha I went off on a tangent.

Yeah I hate diets too.

As recovering chubby guy, I can weigh in here.

First, expect losing weight to take a while; you didn't put it on in 10lbs per week, so expecting miracle results isn't realistic. Given that fact, I've found that I didn't do well losing weight until I found better eating habits that I could stick with easily. Eating all meat or no carbs or nothing but cucumbers wasn't sustainable for me. Maybe some of those things will help you lose weight in the short term, but will you do that your whole life? What happens when you get to your target weight? Wendy's again?

So the first thing is to learn how to eat healthy, and that means doing a bit of research, like learning how many calories and how many grams of fat and how much fiber or protein is good, if you want to lose weight. You need to know how to look at food labels and know what that stuff means. Do you want it to be completely simplified? Well, it sounds cheesy but one of the easiest ways is to join a group like Weight Watchers. They boil it all down into stupid simple math that anyone can follow so you don't have to think about it too much. I know a lot of people that have had sustainable success that way. But there are other ways.

The second big things it to get active. It's basic biology and physics; you need to put in fewer calories and burn more through activity to lose weight. I didn't get anywhere until I found an activity that I enjoyed enough that it wasn't a chore for me. In my case, cycling. For you, it might be something entirely different.

The last thing is you should know how your body reacts and adapts. I went from 205lbs down to 160, where I've been for two years. I don't have to pay nearly as much attention as I did when I was trying to lose weight because your body adapts to slight increases and drops in calorie and fat intake, so once you get to where you want to be, you can just stay within generally good eating guidlines and be fine. I try to eat a wide variety - veggies and fruits mostly, lean meats like chicken and fish a lot, but also beef sometimes. I avoid fried foods and soda because they were easy for me to cut out. I eat REAL FOOD all the time - including carbs, since I need them for cycling. You don't have to suffer if you choose well and stay active. Plus the excercise makes you have a lot more energy too - a nice perk.

Fight the good fight, man. It's not always easy but it's possible to do it without cutting out everything you love to eat.

Sorry for the mile-long post.

-Dez

P.S. - try to eat as much fresh stuff and as little packaged foods as possible. They cram all kinds of chemicals and sugars and fats in there...that shit all adds up.

I think it ws Art Buchwald who said the word "diet" came from the verb "to die."

I agree with Dez regarding exercise, as I was never able to control my weight till I took up cycling then later, running.

Good luck!

-Tim