Sooooo confused!!

Ok, so I have been reading on healthy ways to lose weight, and every book says something different! Some say NO animal products whatsoever, others say nothing processed, some say nuts are good, others say nuts are bad. WHAT THE HECK???? Can someone please help me with a book or idea that is balanced and logical? Thanks!!!

You can spend all the money in the world on people's books of what is right. I dont understand why you would do that when you have a free site like MFP that works just fine.

Count calories, eat at a defecit, work out. If only I found a book small enough to write that in..I'd make millions!!

You can spend all the money in the world on people's books of what is right. I dont understand why you would do that when you have a free site like MFP that works just fine.

Count calories, eat at a defecit, work out. If only I found a book small enough to write that in..I'd make millions!!
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^^^^^ this. There are all these fads and advice and it boils down to eating your alotted amount of calories and working out.

We all know how to eat healthy. That is a no brainier. Just eat as healthy as you can while keeping your sanity.

For weight loss all that matters is calories.

Anyway I found what worked for me was separating out the two things:

Eat less to lose weight
Exercise to maintain or build lean body mass

I found just ignoring all the complicated stuff everyone throws at us is the key. Day in and day out focus on two things. Eat less, move more, stay within calorie budget (either weekly or daily). You can eat low one day and high the next, whatever you want. Well, it did work for me. I am the fittest, leanest, strongest, and most muscular I've ever been in my life at age 51 and I'm healthy and don't get sick and have long endurance.

If you have a lot of body fat reserves you would be surprised at how little you can eat (unless you have emotional eating issues or disorders). The leaner you get the less your body has to draw from and then you have to taper up your calories. There is no such thing as starvation mode for women over 12% body fat or men over 6% body fat. I am a living breathing example of that. I went from obese to now under 12% BF and I've maintained for one year and built muscle the whole time. You don't BUILD muscle in starvation mode, so I proved that theory wrong. And I do have the material backed with scientific evidence for that statement as well.

I think the idea is that we have to eat as naturally as possible. (Cutting processed foods can only be beneficial to one's health.) Unless you have some allergy, or have an ethical reason not to...a person should probably eat as balanced a diet as possible. What the others have said here rings true. Find your body's caloric needs for the day...cut a percentage...log log log and exercise. :flowerforyou:

People write books to make money. I stopped buying diet books ages ago. In fact I just donated my last one to the public library.

Eat right, exercise...and a fit in a treat when you can. That's pretty much it.

Find what works for you. Move more eat less seems to work really well for most people. I found I can not have pasta. Two reasons one I am addicted to it and could eat it all day, two it makes my weight jump like immediately for like 3 days. I replaced it with a veggie. I have a hard time with sugar too. This is all stuff you and your body have to figure out. The books are about fad diets. Don't fad, do what fits in your life. Calorie deficit plus a work out will help get you where you need to be. Too much Bro science out there, and yes it gets confusing.
PS not yet at goal I am on a plateau and trying to learn with my body what will break said plateau!

I know, right!

The best way to start losing weight is to work with your current diet and eating habits. Try logging for a while and work on staying within your calorie and exercise goals only for the first 3-4 weeks.

Any plan that is too drastic of a change or too extreme for your lifestyle is going to fail you. That is why MFP is so awesome, it is totally customizable.

After you are used to logging for a while, you'll begin to see places where you can make small changes in your diet and exercise plan to get better results.

Everyone does this differently. The one thing that seems to work for all people is the eating of fresh foods over packaged or restaurant foods. So try to eat fresh whenever possible.

Also, exercise will help you lose weight faster, but many people still lose weight without exercising at all. So that is up to you, as well.

Lots of great advice! I certainly believe it is an individualized thing. Many times in the past I have tried to lose weight by simply cutting calories... that did not work for me. I would end up starving and "falling off the wagon". This time I am finally becoming successful! I have been "changing my lifestyle" since December 2011....I have only lost 26 pounds since then, but this is the first time ever I don't feel like I'm on a diet.... and I owe alot of that success to MFP. The main things that have helped me are #1: ATTITUDE: I decided that no matter if I lost only 1 pound a month, I would not give up... because I understood that sometime I would mess up and that is ok as long as I picked myself RIGHT back up! #2: I have found for ME that cutting out white bread, white rice, white pasta, most processed food, most sweets and almost completely eliminating fast food... has over time REDUCED my appetite!! ...#3: MY FITNESS PAL... the support of the community, the wealth of the information on here, the ease of recording everything and being able to see what my best friend is eating and how much she is exercising helps immensely for motivation and ideas on how to change things up:)
Quick weight loss never worked for me because it did not give me the time to learn about myself and to discover what I truly needed to change and I continue to learn everyday. That's not to say quick weight loss doesn't work, my husband lost 60 pounds quickly and has kept it off over the last 3 years...because he ended up completely changing his eating habits.
I guess the whole point is .... never give up! I used to think of it as "struggling" to lose weight.... now I see it as continually trying to improve myself, my health and my well being.

Don't give up....you can do it! If you don't see results soon, you might want to see a nutritionist (and/or your MD to rule out hypothyroidism) and keep up with your log so u can show it to him/her:)

Save the book money and spend it on a consult with a dietician

Do what you think will work for you. It doesn't have to be anything drastic. It just has to be something healthy and doable for you.