How do I start a diet/Healthy eating routine...

[DigitalCancer]

So...I'm 27 and weigh in at 210lbs currently (very depressing as I'm usually around 170-180 max). I'm not BIG, but I'm not a comfortable body type either. I have a spare donut (not a tire) so I don't pooch out a whole lot, but enough that I don't want to wear any tight shirts (mediums hug me a little much so I usually for a large)

I think my main problem has been my wife want to eat out a LOT and I know that I don't help, I say no, she whines, I give in.....we're spending $400-500/month eating out easily. We don't go to too many expensive places, its dinners with her family and then through-out the week we're both tired (and terrible at grocery shopping apparently) and so we end up going out to eat. I used to eat out maybe once a week and it just seems its gotten way out of hand for both of us.

I want to eat more healthy/feel better, and get out of this 200+lbs crap (unless its muscle).

Anyway, to the point....I'm thinking about starting a p90x workout routine, maybe buy a treadmill in a few months or so after we get moved again (we've had tons of snow and it's freezing here, IN, so I can't run outside just yet). My main problem is figuring out what to eat.

My job is IT (help desk analyst) and my wife is a teacher so we both need something that'll be easy/quick to pack for work.
I'm just looking for some ideas of what we should eat (some good combinations of foods). So what should we eat (breakfast/snack/lunch/dinner)...we're going grocery shopping this weekend so, all input will be greatly appreciated! ^_^

 

[ichy]

Lentil soup has become a lunch staple of mine. Cheap, easy to make, healthy. You can make it in huge amounts and freeze it in individual serving sized tupperware.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Just ask for a take out box at a restaurant, or if you're already eating a take out simply save some for dinner or lunch next day. That alone should help you. Oh, and read the sticky, it has all the answers you need.

 

[BassBomb]

Get some cardio in, and weight lifting

Stop drinking soft drinks (easy pounds lost), stop eating cookies, chips, etc as most IT guys love.

And most of all, stop eating out so much. You and your wife can learn how to cook together and it can be far more enjoyable than eating out. Learn to cook healthy and you get a double win there. If you cook enough you'll have leftovers for work the next day always as well.

 

[prism]

Do anything and everything you can to get your wife onboard and supportive of your efforts. Having a friend, let alone your significant other, hold you accountable and "sponsor" you will do wonders to keep you on track.

 

[Woosta]

Stick with natural foods. The more ingredients it took to make something, the less healthy it is.

1. Get your fruits in: bananas, oranges, apples, blueberries. Don't forget about dried fruits like apricots. Avoid fake fruit snacks.
2. Drink hormone-free milk, water, real tea, or 100% juice drinks. Avoid lower than 99% juice drinks, soda, coffee. I would recommend not drinking Gatorade/Powerade and instead drink pure Coconut water, which is like nature's Gatorade.
3. Avoid sodium-rich foods which is pretty much any "frozen" meal. Avoid stuff like hot pockets, just avoid microwave meals in general. Avoid premade sandwiches from Subway, Quiznos, 7-11, etc as they usually pack TONS of sodium.
4. Eat raw, unsalted nuts/sunflower seeds. High in protein, very little to no sodium and very, very healthy and will give you energy.
5. Veggies, veggies, veggies - eat those salads but avoid adding sauces to salads, just sprinkle some olive oil. Carrots, sweet potatoes, broccoli, spinach, kale, asparagus, cucumbers.. mmm
6. Avoid foods high in sugar.
7. Get your complex carbs from stuff like red potatoes.
8. Avoid white rice, vanilla pasta, white bread. Eat whole grain bread, 50%+ grain pasta, brown rice.
9. Avoid junk food but not entirely.. if you eat mostly healthy have one "cheat" day but don't start eating unhealthily consistently.
10. Avoid egg yolks - get egg whites in liquid form.. much less cholesterol.

 

[eits]

don't exercise. just diet. after a few weeks of just dieting, then start exercising. starting off doing diet and exercise = fail.

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

Stick with natural foods. The more ingredients it took to make something, the less healthy it is.

1. Get your fruits in: bananas, oranges, apples, blueberries. Don't forget about dried fruits like apricots. Avoid fake fruit snacks.
2. Drink hormone-free milk, water, real tea, or 100% juice drinks. Avoid lower than 99% juice drinks, soda, coffee. I would recommend not drinking Gatorade/Powerade and instead drink pure Coconut water, which is like nature's Gatorade.
3. Avoid sodium-rich foods which is pretty much any "frozen" meal. Avoid stuff like hot pockets, just avoid microwave meals in general. Avoid premade sandwiches from Subway, Quiznos, 7-11, etc as they usually pack TONS of sodium.
4. Eat raw, unsalted nuts/sunflower seeds. High in protein, very little to no sodium and very, very healthy and will give you energy.
5. Veggies, veggies, veggies - eat those salads but avoid adding sauces to salads, just sprinkle some olive oil. Carrots, sweet potatoes, broccoli, spinach, kale, asparagus, cucumbers.. mmm
6. Avoid foods high in sugar.
7. Get your complex carbs from stuff like red potatoes.
8. Avoid white rice, vanilla pasta, white bread. Eat whole grain bread, 50%+ grain pasta, brown rice.
9. Avoid junk food but not entirely.. if you eat mostly healthy have one "cheat" day but don't start eating unhealthily consistently.
10. Avoid egg yolks - get egg whites in liquid form.. much less cholesterol.

For the most part this.

But with the salad, olive oil+basalmic vinegar is a great dressing that is better than just about any typical dressing. It also doesn't take a ton of basalmic to give that flavor.

http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/spices-and-herbs/9744/2

 

[SZLiao214]

Start slow. Most people (me included) don't have the will power to fully change their diet and lifestyle all at once. Either start working out more or dieting then later on do both.

Pretty much the most important thing is to find a lifestyle that you are willing to follow.

I don't know how tall you are but you probably don't have 100 pounds to lose. Take your time, and make the change. Don't burn out.

 

[ElFenix]

change the order that you eat from your plate. eat your greens/veggies first. then eat meat (lean meat good, fried chicken nuggets bad). starches last. eat half or less of the starches, and do that last. this works particularly well if you're already a 1 thing at a time eater.


stop drinking so many calories. not only does it save calories, it saves money ($2.50 for a coke? seriously?)



as long as you're shopping from the fresh side of the grocery store and not buying all meat, it's hard to go wrong nutritionally. it's all those aisles of boxed dinners, prepped foods, etc., that are bad for you.

 

[dealmaster00]

don't do p90x...that is a piece of shit workout system that is a waste of your money. you can get better results by doing a beginners strength training program (check out starting strength or stronglifts 5x5). it's safe, recommended by professionals, and you will develop a base strength that can be applied to anything. follow the diet advice above, it's just as important. and get 8 hours of sleep every night. you need it for muscle recovery after a workout.

 

[Onita]

P90X has worked fine for many people. Its not a terrible program by any means.

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

change the order that you eat from your plate. eat your greens/veggies first. then eat meat (lean meat good, fried chicken nuggets bad). starches last. eat half or less of the starches, and do that last. this works particularly well if you're already a 1 thing at a time eater.


stop drinking so many calories. not only does it save calories, it saves money ($2.50 for a coke? seriously?)



as long as you're shopping from the fresh side of the grocery store and not buying all meat, it's hard to go wrong nutritionally. it's all those aisles of boxed dinners, prepped foods, etc., that are bad for you.

Also eat slowly. It takes your body 15 min+ to send the satiary signal to let your brain know it's full, so if you eat slower it helps to prevent you from over-eating.

 

[Lalakai]

successful dieting takes some planning, some adjustments, self control................and lots of patience. you didn't put the weight on overnight, so don't expect to take it off any quicker. Don't look on it as a diet, but rather a life change. Like others already said, cut out the pop (diet pop included), cut down on the sweet/sugarie (sp?) snacks. You can get along just fine with 2000 calories a day, and that gives you alot of flexibility. Instead of eatting 3 main meals a day, try eatting 5 smaller meals. If you starve yourself, your body will go into shut-down mode and will actually burn less calories, so keep feeding the fire, but with better fuel. It's very easy to keep an apple/orange/banana with you, to snack on. Want something crunchy???? Buy a box of Rice Chex ceral and put some in a sandwich bag to snack on. Juices and tea can help deaden the urge for sweets, so always keeps some handy; those pre-packaged drink mixes come in handy http://www.walgreens.com/store/c/ari...639204-product and are very easy to carry.

Time is an issue??? So plan for it on the weekend. Make up large pots of soup, stew, meatloaf, things that you can keep in the fridge as left-overs; throw some in tupperware and you have your lunch. Boil up a dozen eggs and keep them for hardboiled eggs to snack on or put in the lunch box.

These changes will slowly start taking the weight off. Help your mind-set by not getting on the scales each day; check your weight every couple weeks, or check it by how the clothes are fitting or your back is feeling lol.

And yeah, some cravings you just can't stop. Give yourself one meal a week when you can eat what you want, and if you've done good throughout the week, then don't feel guilty. If you didn't do so good............well.....feel a bit guilty and don't really splurge.

once you start shedding the pounds, if you can combine a couple other changes with it, the process will speed up. Take a walk that is fast enough so that it's hard to hold a conversation with someone. Even 5 minutes a day of stretching and simple excercises is a good start and easy to build up to a 15-20 minute session; then try for 2 sessions a day. AND..................sleep right!!!! You ain't helping yourself by only getting 4-5 hours of sleep a night. Cut out that tv show and hit the bed so that you should be getting 7-8 hours of good sleep a night. Sorry for the long post, but hopefully you will be able to find a couple things here that you can start with, and build from there. Good luck.

 

[Pantlegz]

Stick with natural foods. The more ingredients it took to make something, the less healthy it is.

1. Get your fruits in: bananas, oranges, apples, blueberries. Don't forget about dried fruits like apricots. Avoid fake fruit snacks.

Fruit should be considered a snack it is high in sugar and carbs which most diets attempt to limit.

2. Drink hormone-free milk, water, real tea, or 100% juice drinks. Avoid lower than 99% juice drinks, soda, coffee. I would recommend not drinking Gatorade/Powerade and instead drink pure Coconut water, which is like nature's Gatorade.

There is nothing wrong with hormone's in milk from a weight loss stand point, from what I've read anyway. Fruit juice is as bad a soda, basically sugar water. Nothing wrong with coffee as long as you don't load it up with sugar and creamer. And coconut water is awesome

5. Veggies, veggies, veggies - eat those salads but avoid adding sauces to salads, just sprinkle some olive oil. Carrots, sweet potatoes, broccoli, spinach, kale, asparagus, cucumbers.. mmm

Dressing on salads isn't always bad, mine is about 10 calories/Tbsp and adds plenty of flavor. Also not all veggies are created equal, make sure you're getting all the vitamins you need.

9. Avoid junk food but not entirely.. if you eat mostly healthy have one "cheat" day but don't start eating unhealthily consistently.

Define junk food. Most of it I wont even eat on my cheat days. A good cheat day is one that you might eat a little more than normal or eat slightly less healthy foods, home cooked pizza from scratch for example. One can easily offset a week of good eating with a cheat day. Not even binging on sweets, but from stuff they might not realize is as bad as it is. For instance a medium blizzard from DQ has 700-1000 calories this itself is about 1/4 of my normally daily intake. Add that to not eating as healthy as you normally do and your cheat day made the rest of your diet almost pointless. I'm not saying don't ever eat anything sweet but make sure even on your cheat days you're keeping close track of your calories and make sure you don't go overboard.

10. Avoid egg yolks - get egg whites in liquid form.. much less cholesterol.

dietary cholesterol is rarely converted into blood cholesterol and the yolk has most of the nutrients in the egg. It will take a lot more egg whites to get you anywhere near the protein level of a whole egg.

 

[Lalakai]

DigitalCancer...................how is the diet going? good news or bad news?

 

[Safeway]

Good call on the update request.

 

[DigitalCancer]

sorry for the late reply, I've been SUPER busy as of late. =/

Anyway, I have started my diet and so far, all is well. I'm not exercising as much as I want to (due to time) but I plan to start running now that it's finally warming up a bit.

So far, I've lost 4lbs, and I'm feeling much better (albeit, tired due to my new job responsibilities).

 

[darkxshade]

If you wanna get motivated, replace your cardio with long bouts of steady state sex with the wife.

 

[dakU7]

don't exercise. just diet. after a few weeks of just dieting, then start exercising. starting off doing diet and exercise = fail.

Care to explain why is this a fail?

 

[DigitalCancer]

If you wanna get motivated, replace your cardio with long bouts of steady state sex with the wife.

hmm...sounds good to me!! ^_^

 

[bryanl]

If you wanna get motivated, replace your cardio with long bouts of steady state sex with the wife.

Won't he have to wait his turn? <- generic insult, not meant to be taken personally.

 

[OptimumSlinky]

Eating out is killer. I gained nearly 40 pounds my last two years of college as a result of going out to restaurants all the of the time. Cutting that out is absolutely essential. Soft drinks, ice teas, and all that jazz are killer too. I limit myself to one 12 ounce serving at lunch per day, and drink nothing but water the rest of the time.

P90X will work if you follow it to the letter, but 75% of the success of that program is derived from the diet aspect. With that in mind, you can basically start any strength program (StrongLifts, Starting Strength) and see similar results if you treat diet with equal importance. Not bashing P90X, but there are cheaper ways to see results.

Cardio is over-rated for weight loss. First, clean up your diet and stop eating out. Second, start strength training. You'll amaze yourself with the results.

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

I have a friend (who is on these forums sometimes, McFatty) who asked me a few months back to help him lose weight and get healthier. He's asked before, but this time he actually changed stuff and is down ~40 lbs in about 3-4 months IIRC. First thing we did was teach him better eating. We went up to Whole Foods every weekend for a month and shopped together, after talking to him about the basics. I showed him the stuff to gravitate towards with fresh veggies being first and foremost and should be incorporated into every meal in some form or another (although not the same veggies everytime so 1 you don't get bored and 2 you get a balance of various nutrients).

Add in fresh fruit like apples and banannas which are easy to carry and snack on, although don't over do this stuff because it will spike blood sugars. Cut back on the meat and dairy. Use lean cuts of meat (turkey and other lean cuts of meat) and hard cheeses over soft (I've seen research that says harder cheeses aren't as "bad" as softer cheeses).

For snack type stuff greek yogurt and granola with dried fruit is one of my favs. Granola bars are good, but you have to be careful with these as many are loaded with sugars and HFCS (which I try to avoid). Change up peanut butter for almond butter, use coconut milk in place of regular milk where possible (smoothes come to mind), get raw nuts like walnuts, sprouted seeds are good, and various oils (olive cold pressed, hemp, etc). Use honey, agave nectar, or maple syrup (real stuff not the imitation/HFCS version) as a sweetener instead of sugar. Remove all pop, or as much as you can, and replace with water or unsweetened tea. Smoothe type stuff is great as well, but depending on how you make it they can be very sugary (i.e. lots of fruit used). Green smoothes are better than all fruit ones and provide a more lasting source of energy.

Really it's a lot of trial and error and what works for you, but IMO this is a good foundation to start a healthier diet upon. By far the largest thing is trial and error for you and your body.

 

[killster1]

So whats wrong with sodium? i eat ALOT of it.. been eating tons of fish, and shredded wheat for breakfast everyday, lots carrots apples and bananas. Lost 40 pounds.. Running helps alot since after i do 10 miles i dont eat junk food. If your wife wants to eat out tell her fine but dont eat much, my girl likes to eat out all the time but i dont. Im wondering what i can do about the sodium intake and how much it matters.

Im about 6'3 and 209 pounds right now Lift weights every other day and run 10-15 miles a day but started squats and now legs are sore for days hehehe.

Thanks for thread