by psyck0 » Mon Jun 14, 2010 6:22 am UTC
Copy pasta from the thread above (now below, I suppose) yours, which I read first.
Search function.
There is no working weight-loss product. There is no shortcut. The only "trick" is to eat less and get at least moderate exercise- nothing extreme in either of them. Eat food you have cooked yourself and avoid prepackaged meals. Eat out no more than twice a week, including lunch. Pack yourself a health lunch and some snacks, if you need them. Don't drink pop or juice- dropping those alone has helped many people lose 10-20 lbs. If you're a big drinker, moderate your alcohol intake. The only things you should be drinking are milk and water. Eat complex carbohydrates in moderate quantities- oatmeal, yams, peas and carrots, whole grain bread (although many commercial "whole grain" breads are practically packaged lies) and limit your starch intake (potatoes). Have 3 pieces of fruit a day and consume at least 1 cup of leafy green vegetables, including lettuce, spinach, broccoli and asparagus, with both lunch and dinner.
A reasonable meal plan is something like this:
Breakfast: 2 eggs, 1 piece of toast or half cup oatmeal, milk, piece of fruit
Snack (optional): half cup nuts or yoghurt, something without much carbs/sugars (plain yoghurt with a bit of fruit in it is much better than flavoured yoghurt- that stuff is FULL of sugar)
Lunch: sandwhich, leftovers, etc. Get your veggies in with this meal, and a piece of fruit.
Snack (you should eat this one). Same as before, with a piece of fruit.
Dinner: Nothing too heavy in carbs- avoid pastas, burgers (buns are awful) and the like most nights. Include your veggies! Dessert no more than twice a week, and no bingeing on it when you have it!
Since you are at XKCD, I will do you the honour of assuming you are an intelligent and well educated young adult like most of us here. You likely know, then, that there is no shortcut to academic success- only hard work. The same is true of health and fitness. If there were an easy way, no one would be obese, but you can plainly see that the meal plan I have described is not overly restrictive, especially if you can avoid buying foods which tempt you in the first place. I am having a very difficult time sticking to my plan while temporarily back at home because my mother persists in buying cookies and chocolate-covered almonds, which I managed to avoid entirely for the preceding 8 months by simply not purchasing. The biggest change for most people is to drop juice and pop (arguably the most important improvement you can make), and then to reduce carb consumption to more moderate levels.
Exercise should be whatever you enjoy doing and can be as simple as walking your dog (or your partner!). It is not necessary for weight-loss, but it will improve your health. For myself, I have taken up powerlifting and find that I greatly enjoy lifting 400 lbs off the ground and grunting a lot.
Important edit: I just really noticed the word "permanently". It is even more true that no product or trick will make you lose weight permanently (except perhaps a stomach stapling operation). Permanent weight loss is really a lifestyle change; try to think of it as such. You are not trying to lose 20 lbs for the rest of your life, you are trying to change the way you live and become a healthier individual. In doing so, you will lose the weight, but that is not the primary aim. This mindset makes it easier to see and understand the necessity of following your meal plan, whatever you make it out to be, and will help you stick to it once you have reached your weight-loss goals, rather than abandoning it and simply regaining all the weight you lost, as people do when they regard the program as a temporary diet.
