The question I have is about food.  I've read thread upon thread about eating high protien diets and cutting out carbs.  I understand that the priciple is if you get a higher protien diet and work out, you will build up more muscle mass and be able to burn more fuel and therefore loose more weight.  Now when I was big into backpacking (long ago when I was younger) I ate a high carb, lower protien diet.  I didn't gain weight.  In fact I had a hard time gaining any weight.  Now I attribute that to the actual process of backpacking (like any high level activity) that simply burned all I could stuff in.  I was ten years younger as well and that's a big difference too.

The USDA has the food pyramid that lists what types of food in daily quantities you should have.  Certainly it's not an exact thing, but it makes sense.  The top of the pyramid is things like sugars, and the bottom is like grains.  You follow the proportions of the pyramid in your eating, i.e. less sugar than grains.  Meats, etc, are near the top, above fruits and veggies, and well above the high carb pastas, grains, etc. So according to this I should be consuming less meat than veggies, and pasta.

OK, so far I get the idea.  Where I get confused is just why I should be eating all sorts of meats and protiens and ignoring the carbs like grains and pasta.  It's backwards from the pyramid.

Should I not simply just eat a smaller pyramid of food (not a pyramid like a mound of pasta[;)]) and increase my activity to burn more of it?  What's wrong with this approach?  I'm not interested in body building or anything, just being in good shape and staying uninjured at work (5-6 hours on a freight dock and 5-6 hours driving a tractor trailer).

I've already ditched junk food and vending machines, sodas and eating speghetti right before bed[:D] That dropped 15lbs right there.  I want to loose another 10-15.  I've begun workign out again, after a work injury gave me the excuse to get back out of shape.  Why not just eat less and workout more, but stay within the food pyramid guidelines?

Ross

Actually, doing that type of work you should have considered increasing your fat intake.  Carbs burn too fast and you end up starving the muscles while you're hiking.  



This the gist of the Hacker's Diet that posted [url=http://www.jobrelatedstuff.com/forums/topic.html?id=131602]here[/url].

That's it, Ross.  You can consider many of these fad diets to be just that:  fads.  May work for specific people under specific conditions, but they are generally not recommended for a person in solid physical shape who wants to avoid heart disease.  
Eat a balanced diet, and don't worry if you exceed that recommended dose of fruits and veggies.  The extra nutrition, fiber, and bulk won't kill you.  Often, I think that the pyramid's greatest value is in its ability to remind us to eat a sufficient amount of plants.
Balance.
Moderation.

(By the way, I don't think that the principle behind a high protein diet, or even the Atkins diet rests upon building >muscle mass and the ability to burn fuel.)