I need to lose 50-75 pounds. which diet should I use...been drinking diet cokes and diet beer for 30+ years and aint lost shit lol

Start on Atkins to lose the first 25 then switch to paleo and start exercising.

this work for you?  and how long did it take on atkins?

Lost 30 pounds in about 4 months. I was doing an hour of cardio 5 days a week for the last 2 months.

I was a huge lardass back then, about 70 pounds ago. These days I do paleo and crossfit

Good advice.
Atkins works well, but is not enjoyable for long term. Plus you gain weight back quick with just a few carbs.

No beer on either.

Eat real foods.



Exercise more.



Boom! Weight loss.



I eat pretty good, just too much and not enough exercise...so weight stays stagnant.



Any time I've lost weight has been keeping carbs below 100g, though.



Track them. It's tough to do...but 100g or less will equal weight loss.

Carb to protein ratio (1.4g to 1g respectively) and exercise is what I'd do. More easy to sustain, don't have to deny yourself, etc.



You'll be on a low-carb diet, make no mistake, but it's a fuck of a lot more fun and gets you to the same place.

It is good advice.  I would recommend cutting out as many processed foods as possible though while on Atkins.  Paleo isn't difficult though, if you want to jump right in I recommend Mark Sasson's 21 day transformation.  He outlines a diet and exercise program that if followed properly can see you losing 30 pounds in the 21 days with minimal work.  
 

On Atkins you will definitely see a lot of weight loss. However, the Atkins diet excludes fruits and some vegetables - you are missing a lot of nutrients. It's not a sustainable diet for two reasons: (1) You're missing a lot of stuff your body wants to operate on (2) It's a very limiting diet. The combination of those two causes people to do Atkins for a while, see weight loss, and then revert back to a shitty diet and gain more weight than was lost. Also a lot of people get the keto flu - for the first few days of ketosis a lot of people feel sick. That never happened with me but a lot of my friends experienced it.

Set a goal for the Atkins phase then switch to Paleo. It allows a lot more food, although you need to restrict certain types of foods if you want to continue weight loss (mostly squashes, sweet potatoes, and starchy vegetables). Read recipes on nom nom paleo and get ideas for the sort of foods you want to make.

Each week I typically make up a batch of paleo banana nut muffins, a big salad, deviled eggs, and prepare a pork loin, pork chops, ground beef, and chicken breasts. I make them in a sous vide machine (usually salt, pepper, and herb butter). For breakfast MWF I make bacon and eggs, TH I make a green smoothie (frozen banana, frozen peach slices, a big handful of kale or spinach, ice, blueberries, and hemp or chia seeds). Sometimes almond milk or coconut water. On the weekends I make whatever I feel like. If I'm going on an adventure (hiking, kayaking, caving) I'll make sweet potato hash with eggs and bacon. The extra carbs from the sweet potato give me extra energy that I'll need for the 3000-4000 calorie days.

Lunch is a salad with protein - usually fish or chicken. Dinner is protein (chicken, pork, or beef) and steamed vegetables.

Paleo has been my choice over the past five months.
































 

Tagging this because I've got a stubborn gut that won't go away.

Good stuff right there.



I'm 45 days into changing my eating/exercise habits.  Hearing that I've given myself Type 2 Diabetes was a real wake-up call.



Main things are counting carbs, eliminating processed food and trying to go 'single-item' whenever possible (chicken breast instead of packaged General Tso's Chicken, fresh veggies instead of canned veggie medleys, etc.)  Also, trying hard to slash sodium intake, and really cutting down on fat.  My BMR is 1850kCal (measured before I started exercising at all,) and so I'm targeting around 1800 calories with 30-minutes of cardio every day.  I know I need to exercise more than that, and I will ease into that.  Being 55 and so out of shape, I can't do too much too fast.
On August 20th, I weighed 265.  I'm down to 248 today.  My goal is to get to 200, and take it from there.  So far my glucose numbers have come right into line (partly due to diet, and partly due to meds.)  Hopefully, I can get rid of the meds (Metformin and Glimeprimide) that they put me on 45 days ago.  I'm pretty sure I'll be able to lose the BP and cholesterol meds soon.  I've already noticed a significant drop in my BP numbers.  With the meds, I typically measure 135/80.  Lately I've been seeing numbers like 115/70.  I like that trend.





Here's a tip of the water glass to all of us who are taking charge of our health, and learning along the way from folks like you who have been doing this a while.  Younger guys, PLEASE learn what it takes to lose weight, get more fit, and avoid diabetes.  I waited too long, and thought it would never happen to me.  It has, and today I'm doing things I should have done 20 years ago.
 

60-70 lbs lost here over the past 14-16 months or so...Jan of 2013 was my highest weigh in of 260.  I stopped weighing myself at that point but am sure I exceeded that weight.  Current weight is 189, probably 15-20% body fat.

No special diet involved...not unless you call changing your eating habits a diet...

basically I went from eating crap food several times a week (pizza, take chinese/mexican, etc...cereals and sammiches) to eating more veggies, lean meats, yogurt, fruits and some nuts.  Also, absolutely no fucking booze either.  


Oh yeah..I exercised...a ton.  An hour day, 4-5 days a week of mostly cardio with some weight training thrown in.

check out myfitnesspal.com also to keep track of your caloric intake/expendeature.  Key thing to remember is that simple carbs (in the form of cereals, chips, breads, etc) are bad and will make you fat.

Sorry, but I need to correct you.  Starches found in cereals, breads, rice, etc. are complex carbs.  Simple carbs are sucrose (table sugar) fructose (found in fruit,) dextrose, etc.  And there's no essential difference in them.  The ALL break down into glucose in the body.  The difference is in how long it takes the body to break them down.  Simple sugars elicit a spike in insulin production, whereas the complex carbs like starches take longer, and the insulin release is more moderated - which is good.
There is misinformation about things like brown rice vs. white rice, wheat bread vs. white bread as well.
White rice and white bread use highly processed flour that is stripped of nutrients and fiber.  Brown and wild rice, and multi-grain and wheat breads are typically higher in fiber and contain more of the essential nutrient.  But they all (carbs) break down in the body in the exact same way, and turn into the exact same thing - glucose.





For all practical purposes, a carb is a carb is a carb is a carb...
 

thanks everybody. gotta do more research...have lost probably 2000 lbs on diets over the years and always gained it back. yes 1 ton of weight lost and gained. currently 5:11 and 270-275lbs...51 yo and really wanna  lose weight...guess gonna have to give up on my  coors light and get busy  thanks again and more advice is welcome...have a sedentary job...(crane operator) and I need to get more active

I'm back on Atkins. 15lbs to lose so I'm a little less sloppy. Should take a couple weeks. It's easy.

If your interested in Atkins, than just google ketosis...its what Atkins is based off of.

I don't know much about paleo, but don't climb on board the atkins failboat. I'll just leave it at that.

Do some reading on "clean eating." I used to think it was a bunch of hippie crap, but MrsGrunt (NPC Bikini Competitor) proved me wrong on that one. Shit works.

Discipline, diet, discipline, workout, discipline, diet, repeat. In that order. 90% of the battle is in the kitchen.

My advice:

1) Diet
start counting calories. Its the very best diet because you begin to see how much you actually need. As suggested already, Atkin's to paleo will work, but count calories while you do it. There is also an old diet called the velocity diet. It works. I lost 40 pounds in 3 weeks after I got done with college football. Then switched over to a diet that was paleo'ish.

2) Exercise
Exercise is also key. start exercising every day. Do something every single day. Rain or shine.

3) Motivation
When you are discouraged, remember that it took years to put the weight on and it will take years to take it off and keep it off. When you want to cheat on your diet remember all the hard work that you have done. Remember that it is for nothing if you go back to a poor diet or miss a day of working out. Set goals and meet them. I suggest you re-title your thread into a workout thread, and post here every day, exactly what you ate, and how much you exercise.

The whole "NO BEER" think really wears on me. Its the hardest part of any diet for me. Im just getting back into walking after breaking my leg and I realized I gained 5lb, which isnt the end of the world for most people but when the size of my broken leg is half what my other leg is, that means I probably lost 10lb of muscle in that leg and gained 15lb of fat.

Beer is my friend and my enemy.

Don't do a diet but a life style change. I went from 175 to 155 and i should be pushing 150 about now.
I feel great. People say I look great. i do low carb, stay away from process food and limit my take in of beer(hardest thing for me to do)
My blood work looks great, blood pressure lowered and I have a lot more energy.
I do walk at a fast pace a hour to 1.5 hour every day when not working.

I'd go with paleo/primal. I've done atkins years ago, and it worked pretty good until I fell off the wagon. Very low carbs at the start.

Primal/paleo becomes more of a lifestyle, and you have a wider range of carb intake options depending on your goals.

 

thanks again to everyone!    finally got a day off tomorrow and gonna check deeper into what change to my eating I need to make......will try to keep posted weekly as work allows.... I think cutting out beer in the evenings will probably help the most but damn...I love my beer after work

You've been drinking crap beer anyway.

Atkins doesn't allow alcohol and technically neither does Paleo, but after a while you can work some alcohol in. But it's going to be a once or twice a week thing and hard liquor to make non-sugary drinks. The NorCal margarita is a good starting point (3 oz good tequila, lime, club soda). But again, it's not a daily drink. Find something else you like to drink in the evenings. I like iced tea with lemon or lime juice with fresh mint or basil.

You can follow paleo 100% of the time, but sometimes it's OK to deviate. Not for days - for a single meal or a component of a meal. You just have to plan ahead to figure out what's worth doing. Once or twice a month I'll have some good sushi. The fish and veggies are paleo; the rice is not. But it's an occasional treat (and a healthy one at that) so a small amount of white rice doesn't really affect my body chemistry.

Today my parents came into town for a visit and we went to the National Mall in DC. I introduced them to the wonder that is food trucks and they got a Gyro and Falafel. Those are both foods that I like but they're not paleo and (to me) not worth breaking my diet. I found a truck that made salads with chicken and got one of those. Tonight we went to dinner to a nearby restaurant I like. They got wood fired pizzas while I got rainbow trout. And I had two glasses of Chimay Cinq Cents, one of my favorite beers. You pick your deviations. They're not frequent things, but every so often it doesn't really hurt anything to break the diet so long as it's a minor deviation. If I had had Falafel for lunch, in no way would I justify having two beers at dinner. And there's no way I could have a Big Mac for dinner. But if your diet is working for you, the occasional beer or potato or sandwich isn't going to ruin things. Although the next day your gut will probably remind you that you screwed up.

Eat lots of protein and good carbs (I mean a lot, no sugar), and just workout.  The fat will come off and you will gain muscle.

Modified paleo is best. NO SUGAR, NO DAIRY, NO GRAINS, NO REFINED CARBS, NO ALCOHOL (except tequila and vodka, straight up with some lime)

You will lose the 75lbs  in 4 months if you stick to it and work out a little bit every day.

Bread and milk make me fat

Don't go overboard on any diet you do.  Take it easy and start slow.  My advice is to work out and to not eat anything that wasn't a living thing at one point.

Or you could just try eating less and moving more.

No special diet is needed to lose weight. A caloric deficit is all you need.
Lifting heavy weights and eating under maintenance calories netted me 100 pounds loss in around 18 months

Paleo Zone diet...   Know your macros and block rations when you go in, and tweak as need be.   Once you lose the weight, go straight paleo if you choose, and zone once every few months for a week or so to make sure your macro ratios are still on.   The Zone will tell you how much and in what proportions to eat, and when to eat, the Paleo tells you what to eat.  And, you will need an exercise program if you go this route.  CrossFit tends to be heavily favored due to the addicting environment and intense but scalable exercise, but other fitness programs will work as well as long as it is intense enough and is stuck to.

This route allows you to burn fat and calories (thus weight loss) make sure you are getting enough protein for muscle building, and enough nutrients to keep things going and recover from the WODs.

Shush! That's not sufficiently weird and restrictive. There's no place for that here.



 

Maybe so, but if one intends to change one's eating