Is this ok to do?

LyndaBSS wrote: »

Eat the foods you love. Stay in a calorie deficit. Lose weight. ☺

^ This, of course, for weight loss.

For general health, greasy foods (i.e. saturated fats, trans fat, etc) aren't optimal, but you're not gonna get much of them on 1500 calories anyway. You may as well just eat what you love. If you saw some of the stuff I eat on my 1600 calorie diet, you would swoon. Here is my meal plan today:

Brunch: Philly cheesesteak (small one)
Snack # 1: Nature Valley Crispy Creamy peanut butter & chocolate wafer bar
Snack # 2: banana
Dinner: Chicken enchilada slobbered in cheese
Dessert: Another banana, and a piece of Dove Promises dark chocolate & almond

Needless to says, this is not exactly "salad with light dressing and a piece of baked chicken with a side of broccoli" LOL

Far as I know, the only situation where it matters at all how you divide up the cals, sodium, fat, etc., throughout the day is people with blood sugar issues. Certainly, it doesn't make any difference how your calories, sodium, and fat are distributed if you don't have blood sugar issues, as long as you are satisfied and not hungry.

I'm definitely from the school of "Dieting is hard enough without taking away the foods you love, so just eat what you love in measured, smaller quantities."

Your heart will get much healthier by the successful losing of a lot of weight than by anything else, so exclusively focusing on that and driving success in that one thing for a while is a good way to go. Later, all sorts of other variables can be looked at.

Understand your goal.
If you just want to lose weight, consume whatever you want as long as you stay at or below your established budget.
If you want to lose weight AND get physically fit, then you can get picky about which foods you should avoid & which ones to use as the centerpiece(s) of your program. Add exercise to tone, but not to compensate for a poor diet, which is almost impossible.

LyndaBSS wrote: »

Eat the foods you love. Stay in a calorie deficit. Lose weight. ☺

all of that!

NovusDies wrote: »

weight957 wrote: »

Thanks guys! I just imagine it's just not "heart heathly".

Losing weight is heart healthy all by itself.

I see many people falling into this "healthy" eating trap. I have fallen into it many times myself. We get this mindset that we have to lose weight and eat healthy but then if we can't sustain it we go back to previous habits. That is stupid... I was stupid. Losing weight makes us healthier so sustainability is more important than food choices. Once you get comfortable losing weight then start looking at making small changes over time to improve nutrition and even then it only has to be good enough.

Indeed. I keep saying this like a broken record to friends & family who are trying to lose weight, but people just don't want to hear it or won't accept the inherent simple truthiness of it. Losing a lot of weight over a long period of time is very challenging. Staying at a calorie deficit over many moons requires all sorts of changes in habits, attitude, mindset about making short-term sacrifices for long-term benefits, and a whole different kind of self-discipline than most obese people have readily available. To add anything on top of the substantial challenge of weight loss is almost looking for an excuse to fail. The obsession with "losing weight AND eating very healthy" is equivalent to saying "I want to train myself from scratch to win a decathlon AND get a Ph.D. at the same time." Maybe a few people can do it, but most will just get overwhelmed, and that's exactly what you see when people try to, all at once, eat at a severe calorie deficit, reduce carbs, only eat healthy fats, follow a keto diet, etc etc. When the truth is, just eating any kind of food at a consistent, day in and day out, calorie deficit is more than enough to nail down one huge, life changing and health-saving accomplishment.