Food Plan vs. Diet

What we eat today we become tomorrow so if you want to be a gooey chocolate chip cookie,eat one today. This is where we decide what is the best food plan for you. Notice I did not use the word diet. A diet says we are doing this until we get to size we desire then go back to eating in the old pattern that got us there in the first place. A food plan is something that is with you for the rest of your life.

A food plan allows for all the things you love in moderation and a diet takes everything away that you love. So what makes sense for the long term? Take door number one the food plan!

The next step is to decide how many calories is going to get you to your goal weight. This is based on the amount of weight you are now. Everyone has been lead to believe that a 1200 calorie diet would make you thin. Well if you weigh over 180 pounds that will only slow down your metabolism! Then your body starts to make fat out of everything you eat and you lose muscle instead of fat.

Heavier people are heavy because they do not eat ENOUGH! You heard me right. If you are over 180 pounds and want to weight between 125-135 pounds, then eat more!! Start with a 1500 calorie diet that has a lot of vegetables and meat or protein and a few carbohydrates which include low density fruit. A typical diet would look like this:

Before Breakfast

1 Cup of hot water with a teaspoon of lemon juice

Breakfast

two eggs or egg substitute scrambled with 1/2 cup of green vegetables like frozen spinach,green peppers, broccoli, or another of your choice

pan sprayed with a vegetable oil.

1 slice of toasted 60 calorie bread sprayed with I Can't Believe It's Not Butter butter spray

1 cup of decaf coffee or tea sweetner if needed

or

1 tablespoon of peanut butter

1 60 calorie English muffin toasted

1 stalk of celery (to put the peanut butter on)

Mid-Morning Snack

a small apple and a low fat mozzarella cheese stick

or

1/4 cup almonds and a small apple

or

1/2 cup of strawberries and the low-fat mozzarella cheese stick

Lunch

3 ozs. of white meat turkey

1 1/2 cups of salad with 2 tablespoons of a lite dressing (on the side for dipping)

2 Kavli type crackers

or

1/2 cup of lowfat cottage cheese with 1/4 cup of drained pineapple chucks and splash of cinnamon to taste and a packet of sweetner

2 Kavli type crackers

1/2 cup of green salad and 1 tablespoon of lite dressing on the side

Afternoon Snack (between 3-4PM)

This is a real difficult time for dieters and the magic time to get through until dinner is 3-4 PM.

1 cup of sugar free jello any flavor

1 low fat mozzarello cheese stick

Dinner

6 ozs. broiled lean poltry

1 cup of green beans or 1 cup of green salad

2/3 cup of brown rice

Snack before 8 PM

1 cup of sugar free jello

Add eight to ten glasses of water during the day and you have a plan that will move fat. There are a lot of diets out there to chose from but this is a basic diet for people who need to start at 1500 calories and then move down to 1200 calories. Weight Watchers works this way as well.

They use a point system which effective for people on the move which works well as long as you do the maintance.

A diabetic diet is another good choice for a starting diet. It has a lot of fruits and vegetables plus a lot of good protein in a three meal and two to three snacks which keeps the metabolism burning.

On L.A.Weight Loss and the other diet programs they sell you a protein bar that has other nutrients in them. They were very helpful and tasted good too. These were great snacks and easy to carry. If you want to carry a protein bar for a snack instead of the suggested snacks that is a great choice as well.

For most people it is better to look at different food plans and then choose the one that is the most comfortable for you. Two that are comfortable for me and have the choices I can live on and be satified with are Weight Watchers which I mentioned earlier and South Beach. I have friends who are Atkins eaters and they do very well on this program. There are so many to select from that it is a personal choice. Just remember you are making a life choice not a temporary decision.