Dietary Advice

[flipp525]

I follow a very strict diet that my trainer and nutritionist helped develop for me. Since my goal is to add as much lean muscle mass as possible, it's a diet that's very high in protein and lean meats. My caloric intake is also rather high. But the basic principles of a healthy diet are all there: eat many meals throughout the day; balance your eating with a good dose of exercise and cardiovascular activity, drink lots of fluids, etc.

Besides avocados, I'd also recommend oatmeal in the mornings and cottage cheese for lunch or dinner (you can sprinkle a bit of lemon pepper to add some zing). I'm not the best cook in the world, but I can make a mean omlette and it's something you have to try really hard to screw up. Just throw in whatever you want: tomatoes, turkey, olives, nuts anything. An egg-white omlette is most delicious. Pre-sliced salmon is also really good and easy to prepare. Add some low-fat cream cheese and sprinkle some chives on top, slap it all on a bagel and there's another easy breakfast.

Microwaveable meals are typically rather starchy and high in salt, so it's best to avoid anything like that if you're looking to get more healthy. Besides, when you prepare your own food, you know exactly what's going in it.

I'd also get a good multi-vitamin, Vitamin C and Vitamin E. I take a tablespoon of flax seed oil per day.

I have a very detailed spreadsheet with my diet (broken out by meal) if you're interested.

Lima beans?! Blech!



Edited By flipp525 on 1214506213

[Johnny Guitar]

My advice is probably null & void then. You don't like onions, peppers, avocado, or olives, and the occasional stir fry (like five minutes!) is too much cooking? Do lots of bread/cheese/cold cuts then ... pickles and tomatoes if you like those too. (A non-picky eater has the better shot at being a healthy eater...)

[OscarGuy]

Onions and peppers are out. I don't like the taste of them. Avocado has never appealed to me.

I eat regular Yoplait as I tried the lite and it had aspartame in it, so I stopped eating it (did I mention how much I detest aspartame?) and got the non-lite crap.

I do like sourdough bread, though. I also like traditional French baguette.

I also don't like the flavor of olives. So, that's probably going to throw out most of the similar fruits. I do like lima beans, but they require me to cook. And by cook I mean something I have to watch over. Thus, stir fry is probably a bad idea.

I used to walk almost every day, but I got busy and I stopped doing it. I tried to do it once recently and I took my dog out, which is what I used to do. Well, she's gotten too old and we hadn't even walked more than a block before her hip started bothering her and she started limping, so I carried her home and haven't been walking since.

[Johnny Guitar]

I love to "proselytize" about this kind of stuff. Exercise/water are vital, of course. Otherwise, I'd urge anyone strongly, don't even bother with "lite" or "diet" foods--they pretty much suck across the board, they're either unsatisfying (hence many people eat more to fill that craving) or loaded with sugar (to counter-act low fat) or transformed from food into chemical loafs. For instance, what kind of yogurt are you eating for breakfast? All that low-fat "lite" Yoplait junk is to be strictly passed over as far as I'm concerned.

The problem with the typical American diet isn't that it's too fatty or starchy or even too high in calories, per se, it's that it's full of processed, homogeneized-flavor shit. I am a strong advocate that, by far, the most important way to structure one's eating is to minimize empty calories and preservatives. If weight is an issue, reduce portion sizes & exercise more. But fatty meat or eggs or sourdough bread do much more good than harm. (Anything that human beings have been eating for many hundreds, or especially many thousands, of years, is probably a safe bet.)

In the grocery store, the general idea is to avoid all the isles in the center. Buy the fresh stuff around the edges--produce, breads/cheeses, meat & eggs & dairy (if you eat them). There is simply no better strategy for shopping in a supermarket.

A few good things to eat that are quick and easy: avocados--do you know how many nutrients are packed into one of these guys? Slice it in half, take out the pit, squeeze some lime juice and a tiny pinch of salt on it: a snack more delicious than anything you will ever find in a fast food chain; pita bread (or vegetables) and hummus; olives, nuts, seeds; granola (either bar form or cereal, just get it as natural and whole foodsy as you can); dried fruits (nothing sweetened).

Even if you don't like cooking, a stir fry is usually a pretty easy way to get some good flavor and healthy food onto your plate. Grocery stores often sell, for a few bucks, wrapped packages of stir fry ingredients, too, if the convenience of not buying whole peppers, onions, etc. and cutting them yourself is worth it to you.

[OscarGuy]

Well, in my neck of the world, it's hard to have "good" weather. It's humid as hell outside which makes 79 degrees feel like 90+...

You know, I've always found those pizza bites really nasty. I don't know what it is, but they don't taste anything like pizza and they leave a horrid aftertaste...much the way that aspartame does.

Right now, my breakfast consists of yogurt.

[Big Magilla]

Bread is the worst. Try eating the meat with a sliced tomato or pickle.

I lost a lot of weight when I was diagnosed with Diabetes 2 and have kept most of it off.

Here's what I do now:

Breakfast - I drink cranberry jucie (cran-raspberry, mostly) instead of orange juice. I have coffee and oatmeal (not my favorite food, but it's good for you) sometimes plain, sometimes with raisins. When I get bored with that I'll make blueberry pancakes with light syrup - I don't use sugar free products, they taste bland at best, disgusting at worst.

Lunch - micorwaved pizza bites, a microwaved Angus burger or lucheon meat with tomato or pickle, occasionally potato salad for a treat with diet soda or water.

Dinner - Fish or chicken generally, small baked potato (microwaved) and salad with diet soda or water.

Desserts - fruit or fruit popsicle. Stay away form cakes, pies, ice cream excpet for special occasions.

As Sabin says, drink plenty of water. It flushes out your system and makes you feel full so you don;t crave as much food.

Exercise is important. If nothing else, go for a walk. If the weather's bad, walk around the house or dance to music.

[OscarGuy]

My sandwiches are meat (turkey or chicken) plus cheese and mustard (non-fat mustard seems an oxy-moron since there's virtually nothing fattening in it to begin with).

I find a lot of food other people like disgusting. And really, I couldn't enumerate if I wanted to...

[Sabin]

I don't know where you live or how hot it is right now. Having moved to Studio City, CA we're coming down off a recent heat wave which allows for little jogging time. I've been jogging (admittedly in terrible form) for ninety minutes a day for a couple months now and I've watched weight melt off me. I'm the best I've been since high school. All you have to do is drink two or three glasses of water and go for a jog. I don't know what your work schedule is but I'm sure you have time to at the very least run a couple blocks and then back. It'll A) jump-start your metabolism for the day and start burning calories already in your system due to the consumption of water, and B) make you feel great.

The problem with sandwich food products is that essentially you're eating both carbs and I can only image proteins as well from whatever meat you're using along with the bread. They are both broken down in different increments and can result in an increase in fat. Unless you stick to a regiment of a plain chicken sandwich with no form of mayo but a little non-fat mustard and a lot of vegetables in and around the sandwich and you maintain that regiment, it's not a great idea.

What foods do you find "disgusting"? I used to be a very picky eater myself. If you are a picky eater who likes a steady routine of foods like microwave crap, fast food, and sandwiches, I'd honestly recommend drinking a lot of water throughout the day and jogging in the morning.



Edited By Sabin on 1214498316

[OscarGuy]

After my recent sickness, I realize how much weight I've put on and how much that is inconveniencing my intestinal structure. So, my biggest problem is that I hate cooking. If it can't be slapped together (like a sandwich), bought out or micorwaved, I don't like to do it.

I'm a fan of flavor, but don't like anything too spicy or disgusting (varies on item). I also cannot eat anything with aspartame. It's just such a disgusting sweetener and I can taste it a mile away.

Anyway, for those of you diet conscious people out there, are there some quick and easy deitary suggestions you might make. Good fast food to eat? Microwavable meals that aren't horribly bad for me? Things that I can just slap together in sandwich form quickly and easily?

I lost two pounds while I was sick, which is good, but I want to try and keep it off if at all possible. I'm just now down to 201.4 pounds and I want to start falling below 200 again...while I would love to be my high school weight of 175 again, I don't see it happening, but every little bit helps.