Posted: 7/30/2008 9:22:33 PM EDT
theres so many diets out there i dont know which to chose so my question is what diets work and which dont
|
|
Let me start with my pet peeve: So often I hear people say that "diet X" doesn't work, because when you stop the diet, the weight comes right back. What an asinine statement. If my lifestyle for years and years has made me fat, then I do jenny craig and lose 100lbs, then go back to my lifestyle and get fat again, how can I possibly blame jenny craig for my choosing a lifestyle that I already know makes me fat? Sorry for the rant, i just hear that a lot and hate it. Now then, which diet works? Simply, any diet that causes you to consume less calories than your body burns in a day. Keep in mid that dieting without doing something to preserve, and preferably build, muscle tissue can be harmful to your cause in the long term. Muscle is your friend, it burns calories, keeps you strong and less prone to injury, and able to play with your kids, etc. If you start with a metabolism that consumes 2000 calories/day, then lose a bunch of weight with dieting only, some percentage of your weight loss will me muscle tissue. So starting out, you could eat 2000 cals/day without gaining weight. Now, because of the loss of muscle tissue, if you eat 2000 calories/day you will gain weight, and if you aren't working out, that weight gain WILL be fat, leaving you fatter than when you started. Keep in mind that it is simple math, everybody has a base metabolic rate. This is the amount of calories that your body consumes just existing, not counting any exercise. If you eat more than your metabolic rate, the rest is stored as fat. Eat less, and the energy required to live comes from stored fat and muscle tissue. Doing strength training can preserve your muscle tissue, so that a much greater percentage of your weight loss come from fat. Depending on how you train and diet, you can gain muscle while losing fat. A lot of diets will work, I'm a fan of the 40-30-30 or maybe 50-25-25. That would be 40-50% of calories from carbs, 25-30% from protien, and 25-30 from fat. By far the easiest way I've found to keep track of things is with Dietpower. This awesome software starts by estimating your basal metabolic rate. Then you tell it how much you want to weight and when. Then every day it tells you how many calories to eat, and tracks by numbers percentage where you are at. The best part is that as you weight yourself and enter what you eat everyday, the software constantly re-calculates your metabolic rate and what you need to eat every day to meet your goal. I have no affiliation with dietpower, other than being an extremely satisfied customer. I have it loaded on a flash drive so I can use it anywhere I stumble on a computer. Best of luck to you. |
|
In my opinion, much of this will involve what works best for you and fits the best into your lifestyle. Much of the argument regarding exactly which diet is semantics. There are benefits and drawbacks of most any diet plan - these pros and cons must be weighed. This is where a little bit of research and understanding can go a long way. Yes, some plans may be better than others... *But* Is it truly a better diet plan if you cannot stick with it? When asking the question "which diet is the best?", you can expect a number of different answers. It will be up to you, however, to decide which one you'll be choosing. Throughout my weight loss efforts, I underwent a large amount of 'trial and error' before I achieved an equilibrium. I can rattle off a dozen things that I did, but does that mean it will, without question, work for you? No. I will offer up one tool that I am quite fond of, however. This is the dietary log - logging everything consumed throughout the day(everything, including all snacks, drinks, toppings/dressings, etc. If it goes in your mouth, it is recorded). I've found that this tool can help identify problems that need to be rectified. There are a variety of software programs that can be used to log dietary intake. I use paid software, but there are many free programs(such as FitDay) available. I simply record, on notebook paper, all items I eat as I consume them. At the end of the day, I enter all my data and review it. Not only can this help identify dietary problems, it can also prove to be a powerful form of self accountability. Will this tool help you? That is entirely up to you... It's just another option that you can look into. 
Working to maintain muscle mass is sound advice as the prime determinant of metabolic rate is an individual's lean mass. One thing I will add, however, is that the basal rate is simply what the body needs to stay alive. Any energy expended beyond that will require more energy to be consumed. I am certainly no expert, but my understanding was made out to be that roughly 2/3 of an average person's daily energy requirements come from the resting metabolic rate - some require more, some less; depending on activity levels. I'm sure some of our fellow members with more experience working with such information will chime in shortly. |
|
Here's what I do. 6 days a week, I eat healthy (2000 to 2500 cal). Plenty of veggies, protein, good carbs etc. 1 day a week, I eat whatever I want. On exercise, I lift heavy (see the Rippetoe threads) 2-3 times a week. I also do pretty intense cardio 2-4 times a week. On that, I have lost 43 pounds since Feb. YMMV |