The Top 12 Diet Tips

All sounds excellent. If only it were possible to be so disciplined. Particularly the portion control and get active parts.

I've been trying to make activity a habit rather than a discipline. It worked well last summer when I started walking, I didn't really like it until I was doing it consistently, then I didn't feel like it was a complete day without it. This year I'm going to run more, we have a park with very nice paths, so it'd be safer than running on the shoulder of the road (no sidewalks for the first mile).

Difficult ones for me are eating breakfast, and not skipping meals. Both are kinda the same thing because if I'm going to skip a meal, it's usually breakfast, heh.

Wow-I love that "believe in yourself" is on there! All of the above tips are only really possible if you believe you can do it!

I agree with Fitness Wannabee-I wish it were so simple as controlling portions! If I could do that I wouldn't be overweight at all!

Don't worry about eating breakfast, that's just one of those things people repeat endlessly with no real basis. I haven't eaten breakfast in 20 years with no ill effects.

Eat real food and don't snack.

JB, it really isn't so much about skipping breakfast. Its about keeping the time between meals regular and short. For most people breakfast and their last meal (dinner) are the furthest apart.

If you are weight training (or loosing weight or both), waiting too long between meals confuses your body into thinking its going to starve and then the body begins "powersaving mode". I believe the average "starvation response" is 12 hours or so where there are observable changes in body chemistry that preps the body for "powersavings. Obviously if actual starvation continues, the body will further conserve itself to survive as long as possible until food comes along. To save energy, one of the first things to get the boot (reused as energy for the rest of the body) is muscle tissue (protein) since they use up the most energy when in use. If starvation continues, eventually the tissue of organs of least importance, get "eaten" until too many critical systems have been cannibalized that you eventually die.

So skipping ANY meal, if you are weight training especially, is detrimental to your progress or slows you down. Its not the end of the world to skip meals, but, at least in my case, it does have an affect if it continues on a regular basis. I've read a few literature that basically agrees with this concept.

PT, I do weight train. I am 187 cm tall, weigh 81kg at 8% bodyfat, squat 175kg and deadlift 205kg. All this 'starvation response' and 'cannibalization of muscles' stuff is bodybuilder guff.

None of us is ever going to approach starvation, we live with a constant surfeit. Our feelings of hunger are psychologically derived from habitual meal times. I go over 12 hours between meals everyday, as I usually have my meals at around 12 and around 9. I fairly frequently get by with one meal a day, although I usually have some fruit at some point in the day.

Everytime I look at a weight training magazine or forum the people eating 5 times a day to prevent their muscles cannibalizing themselves are also usually moaning about their 25% bf and planning crash diets. Which is the point, as all the 'tips' are just another marketing field to get you into their products.

The top diet tips are actually very simple:

1. Eat real food
2. Don't eat too much
3. Make the above a habit.

Exercise is great for body composition, but unless you do physical labor or are a competitive athlete you are unlikely to exercise yourself thin.

People have trouble dieting for the same reason they have trouble quitting smoking - it's hard to change habits so they don't really try, and they try to blame external factors.

Wow jb, that’s really turning it on its head! I have been so confused about all the info that's out there and so have been trying to mix it all up and find out what works for me. I've struggled with obesity for most of my adult life and have never been able to shift more than a dozen pounds, which come right back if I relax whatever program I'm on. What's a person to do?

I pretty much agree with jb on this! I do believe in a balance of aerobic activity and strength training. I'm weighing in with 10%/ 20 BMI. I've been a contrarian for many years and so far it has worked for me. Most everyone I know who has regained the fitness they have sought, did it by eating healthier and being active. Almost all the people I have ever met who talk about this system or that system for losing weight, need to lose weight. In my experience, in most areas of life, if you want to learn to do something well, learn from someone who is successful at doing it.

Some other tips:
1) Laugh.
2) Get fresh air.
3) Find something positive each day.
4) Focus on something other than food and dieting and your body.

Ever wonder why there are people who whine and complain on those fitness forums probably still have a 25% bmi? Its because even though they took the advice that its ok to eat 5 meals a day, they probably didn't take the REST of the advice to make sure they have a calorie deficit, eat the right foods, and have a regular workout of some sort and, like Jb, pointed out in #3 on his list, make it a habit.

All these dieting advice, whether its eat 5 meals a day or cross train or portion control, should actually be looked at as nothing but tools. You use the right tools to do a job and switch tools if they aren't working.

We all know there are still things that are generally accepted as good guidelines to go by that are better then others. The only really sure fire way to find out if they really work for an individual, is to TRY THEM and MEASURE the results.

Like Dr. J said, if you want to live a healthy lifestyle, all you have to do is look at those who are doing it and emulate what they are doing. Of course, like all systems and processes, they can be improved and in some cases have to be modified for certain individuals. If you want to lose weight and have a physique like a body builder, you don't follow the dieting advice of a sumo wrestler...

Word!

I have only one tip: eat less calories than you burn. That's it. I did that and lost 30 lb in 4 months. No magic tips, no healthy lifestyle, no workout. Why make complicated something that is really simple?

DrWeightLoss said:
Why make complicated something that is really simple?[...]

It's amazing how easy it is to stay healthy and look good. And i know people out there who find it imposible to make thos esmall changes to better themselves and there health.