Believe it or not, the laws of the Universe apply to diets: if you eat more calories than you need, the extra weight is added to your body. Our bodies are very efficient in transforming food into simple carbohydrates, protein and fat, and storing any left overs.
In order to lose weight you must eat less calories than you need to maintain your weight. To loose a pound of fat this reduction in calories is 4000. For a typical person, that means not eating anything for about two days.
If you eat an extra 100 calories a day for a year (beyond what your body needs to maintain a steady weight), you should expect to gain about 9 pounds. That is just about one slice of bread too much every day.
Here is my weight reduction diet:
Get an accurate scale.
First find a healthy, balanced diet that will just maintain your current weight. By healthy, I mean lots of veggies,
whole grain carbohydrates (no potatos or even whole wheat bread), 25-30 % fat max. Only use Extra Virgin Olive Oil as your pure oil source, as other foods like meat and nuts will have saturated fats.
Second, once your weight is stablized on a healthy diet, reduce your calories by 100-200 per day, max.
The more you exercise, the more you can eat.
Your weight will fluctuate based on things like how much extra water you body is holding. Lots of diets work by getting you to shed this water, resulting in quick weight loss. This is not the kind of weight you want to loose. Check your weight daily, but maintain an average over a 1-2 week period.
Your balanced diet can also be averaged over a two week period. Don’t obsess on maintaining your diet at every meal, or every day. Don’t worry about going to a party or a restaraunt and not following your diet.
Avoid:
saturated fat. Beef fat in every form is believed to be as harmful as cigarette smoking (but there is no second-hand fat problem).
finely divided carbohydrates. Potatos, bread, pasta. These break down into pure glucose within minutes causing damage to your glucose/insulin system. Even sugar is better than bread: it breaks down into glucose and fructose.
fast food.
simple diets. Everyone has a diet, just know what yours is. Pay attention to what you eat.
Bottom Line:
Restricted caloric intake is the only way to loose weight. There are few fat people in China.
The memphismud diet could be working because you are paying attention to what you are eating 4/7ths of the time. That is a good start, more than I do. Even doing this one day a week is a good start, because this is always the first step to any diet.
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