FREE Customized Personal Weight Loss Eating Plan! (Not Spam or MLM)

Phirrgus wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

This is not spam, not selling anything, no outlinks, not a sparkly unicorn. It's also not the quick, easy miracle method you've dreamed of . . . but if you follow it, it will work.

For starters, log what you're eating right now.

First, tweak what you're eating to hit calorie goal. Review your food log every day or two. Notice foods that "cost" too many calories for the tastiness, nutrition or satiation they bring you. Gradually reduce or eliminate those, replacing them with foods you enjoy that better meet your goals.

If you feel weak, fatigued or have other negative health symptoms, gradually increase your calorie goal slightly to find a point where the problems subside.

After 4-6 weeks, adjust your calorie goal based on your actual results to achieve a sensible ongoing weight loss rate. (You'll want to do this every 10-15 pounds down, as you continue).

Next, work on your macros. Daily, strive to eat (just my opinion):

- At least 0.6-0.8g protein per pound of healthy goal weight (approximately equivalent to 0.8-1g per pound of lean body mass). More is fine, within reason.
- At least 0.35-0.45g fat per pound of healthy goal weight, as much of it as possible from healthy sources like olive oil, avocados, nuts, etc. More is fine, within reason.
- An absolute minimum of 5 servings of varied, colorful fruit and veggies. 10 is even better.

Use diary review in the same way to get there, and don't beat yourself up if you fall short sometimes. Stress, guilt, and self-recrimination burn no extra calories.

If a sub-par day happens, think briefly about why in case you can reduce future repeats, then let it go and get back on your healthy track.

If needed, experiment with timing of eating and what you eat (within nutritional goals) to find optimal satiation.

Let carbs fall where they may, unless there's a problem. If your energy seems low, increase carbs to see if that helps. If cravings or hunger persist, experiment with low carb, to see if that helps.

Once you're comfortably hitting calorie and nutritional goals, having good energy levels, and feeling satiated most of the time, work on optimizing practicality, social factors, and general happiness.

Throughout, fit in the occasional treat. Recognize that there are no "bad foods", just bad overall ways of eating.

Throughout, happily let yourself relax your goals occasionally, such as for true celebrations: Your birthday, major celebratory holidays, special family events.

That's a 100% customized, personal, workable, sustainable diet program.

Thanks for taking the time to type this up! I'm a returning user who got discouraged and left, and am determined to not make the same mistakes this time around, which means asking questions.
On this part:
Let carbs fall where they may, unless there's a problem. If your energy seems low, increase carbs to see if that helps. If cravings or hunger persist, experiment with low carb, to see if that helps.

Could someone please clarify "which carbs" are to be avoided? I've read about carbs, refined carbs, net carbs etc and there's some crazy and/or confusing sounding stuff out there.

Thanks folks!

I'll give you my take, with which others (I know) disagree. Absent a medical problem of some sort that complicates things, I see no reason to actively avoid carbs of any sort. Personally, because I prefer to get plenty of nutrition within my calorie budget, whenever I want/need to reduce something (any macro I'm over), I will probably look for things that give me a lot of the "over" macro, but not very much nutrition or pleasure (relatively speaking), and reduce, replace, or eliminate those things to get to a better balance.

I'm going to assume, since you're talking about avoiding some carbs, that you think carbs might be causing some appetite/craving problems, and want to reduce them. (If you're instead actually on the low energy/maybe eat more carbs side, speak up, and I'll talk about that in another post.)

First, if the problem is hunger/cravings/appetite, I'd say three things:

(1) Make sure you haven't simply over-restricted calories. Undereating - surprise! - increases appetite, hunger and cravings. Don't try to lose more than 1% of your body weight per week, and less than that can be a better idea when within 25 or so pounds of goal weight. If you've been at this for 4-6 weeks, look at your average weekly loss, and make sure you aren't losing faster than that. (Some people seem to be more sensitive to undereating; losing more slowly than 1% is always fine, if it's more sustainable. If you think you might be one of these people, try a slower loss-rate target for a couple of weeks, and see if that improves things.)

(2) If you're getting enough calories, make sure you're getting fairly decent nutrition. There's a reason I put that comment about carbs after all the bits about getting enough protein, fats, and veggies/fruits. (In fact, I recommended that you not even pay a huge lot of attention on the nutrition side until satiation/feeling full is dialed in. You're not going to get malnutrition in a couple of weeks, if you started out healthy. ). Regardless, usually, getting the right stuff in your diet is a bigger factor (and easier) than trying to identify and root out "bad" things. (Reminder: I don't believe in "bad" individual foods.)

(3) If you're in the first couple of weeks(ish) on a new eating approach, and are OK on #1 & #2 above, it might be worth hanging in there for a bit longer (sometimes there is an adjustment period, but a couple of weeks will often cover it).

Keep in mind that doing a huge, dramatic "must eat totally healthy every minute" thing, one that's a complete radical dietary overhaul, is not what my post is recommending at all. If you liked the way you used to eat a week or two ago more than you like the way you eat now, then cravings are likely to result. Start by eating the way you have enjoyed in the past, but just adjusting quantities and proportions to feel more full on your lower calories, and maybe (if needed) get better nutrition. This is a gradual process!

Also, consider whether the cravings may be related to insufficient sleep, high stress, boredom, habit, under-hydration, or some other non-food factor. If the underlying problem is not food, food won't solve it.

Carb-triggered appetite/cravings is not a problem that I've struggled with in a big way, so what I'm about to say is based only a little on experience, but mostly on reading, both technical/research-y stuff, and other people's stories here. I hope others with relevant experience will comment.

If you want to see if carbs are increasing cravings/appetite, but don't want to go all the way to a formal low carb/keto protocol (which is technical), I would look first at cases where you're eating simple carbs outside a context where there are other nutrients to moderate how you metabolize them. Simple carbs are sugar-y things, generally, including sweet fruits (though many fruits have fiber that slows down how you metabolize them). More common sources of simple carbs for most people are things like sweetened breakfast cereals, candy, cookies, cake, cookie-like "granola bars", non-diet soda pop or similar beverages (sweetened tea, sports drinks), fruit juices/fruit drinks, fancy coffee drinks with sugar syrups, and possibly some of the more sweet but lower-fiber fruits. Frankly, most people will find it easier to meet a calorie goal if they can reduce major sources of added sugar like these kinds of things. They're not evil, but they're calorie-dense without being very nutrition-dense. So, look at your food diary for things that have a relatively high number in the carb column, but low numbers in protein/fats/fiber, and that you're eating without other foods at the same time that balance that out.

Beyond that, looking at meals/snacks that as a whole are carb-intense (not much protein, fat or fiber), and trying to make them more well-rounded (reduce the carb foods, add in some protein/fats/fibr) would be where I'd suggest going next.

If you have cravings for specific foods, there are two general routes that usually depending on both a person's general personality type, and on relationship with that specific food(s). In some cases, it's best to moderate the food. Moderation example: If you crave a Snickers bar, eat a Snickers mini, and fit it in your calorie goal. In some cases, if something is a trigger food for you personally, it can be best to avoid it completely for at least a while. Avoidance example: I have trouble moderating the old-school taco-flavor Doritos. For a long time, I didn't buy or eat any, because I would want them all, right away. More lately, I've been able to reintroduce them and moderate them - but that's a different thread.

Some people (I'm one) find that if they have cravings for sweets in general, making it a point to eat a good bit of whole fruit daily helps to undo those cravings. (I ate 3 servings daily for a while.) This doesn't help everyone, and there are lots of threads around here about handling generalized sweets cravings, so I won't go further down that path here.

Let me reinforce: IMO, there are no particular bad, scary carbs. It's all about what you find filling, tasty, not as likely to cause cravings, and what fills in the nutritional goals you personally have, while meeting your calorie goal. Lots of people eat some chocolate for a snack, or before bed, or save calories for a sweet dessert (potentially high carb) pretty much every day, or eat lots of fruit. That's all fine . . . as long as it works for the person doing it.

I personally believe everyone would be well-served by getting good well-balanced overall nutrition, where we're looking at most of their eating on most days, but to me that's more about making sure to put the right things into one's eating (protein, healthy fats, veggies & fruits for micronutrients and fiber), not about taking out any particular thing (like carbs).

Personally, I did reduce carbs as part of my calorie reduction, because I was eating more of certain "filler foods", like bread and pasta, that I like OK but that aren't something that's really important to me personally for enjoyment, nutrition, or feeling full. I know other people who really enjoy bread or pasta, and I'd suggest they make room for those enjoyable things in their eating, in reasonable portions, not cut them out "because carbs".

Other readers: Please keep in mind that I'm responding specifically to a question about which carbs to cut, in context of saying people struggling with appetite/cravings might try that. I see nothing wrong with eating carbs, don't think they universally cause cravings, don't think any particular carbs are evil/dangerous/poisonous/addictive, or anything of that sort.

It's just food, not a melodrama or morality play.

MEGG4018 wrote: »

Hi! Sorry if it took me a while to get back to you I'm trying to figure my way around the app and taking many wrong turns. Thanks so much for your advice. Could I add you as a friend?

Generally **, if someone sends me a friend request, I accept it. I'm not very active on the MFP friend feed, so am maybe not all that satisfying an MFP friend, though. I'm more inclined to chat in the forums.

** It's nice to have a message with the friend request, but there have been I couple of requests I declined because the message (and a look at the person's profile feed) made me pretty certain they were "one of *those* guys" (a randy creeper), and li'l ol' lady don't need that. That - inappropriate messages - is also the only reason I've ever deleted someone who was already an MFP friend, as far as I can recall.

Recent posts make me think it's a good time to bump this back to page 1 again . . . .