I'm looking for a diet plan.

[leesrt]

I'm going to be honest, at the expense of many flaming me, most of the technical tracking of everything you eat and do is not necessary.

The key to losing weight is input vs. output. In the middle of that is how your resting body burns calories.

I lost 40lbs a couple years back but I've been into fitness and competitive sports for most of my life. 20 years military and 7 years LE as well.

To lose the weight you need to focus on losing. If you combine losing and gaining (muscle) you will get discouraged because it's hard to see results. The key to losing is eating healthy food in smaller quantities more often and drinking water (no soft drinks). You want to eat 5 times a day minimum. Your diet should include 1grm of protein per pound of body weight.

You don't have to go all ham on a diet but cut out key groups that cause the most trouble. For me it was soft drinks and bread. You'll be amazed how easy it is to lose weight when you stop eating wheat based products.

Once you lose your goal of weight you need to change over to weight lifting. Focus more on the protein and water intake and load your protein supplement before and after workouts. Find a routine that works for you and stick with it, track it, and monitor your progress at each level of weights. Your goal should be about 4 sets of 10 reps per exercise. There's plenty of information on how to group body parts and space them between rest periods.

The bottom line is once you lose the weight and see your progress you can start putting it back on correctly. You'll find over time that the increased muscle burns more calories at rest. In turn you can eat a more normal (non weight loss) diet and not gain weight.

I was 240lbls on a 6'1" frame. I was shaped like an egg because I hold my weight on my hips. I dropped my weight to 195lbs in less then a year. I then started an aggressive muscle building regime that had me working out 2 days on 1 day off, repeat. My workouts were roughly 1 hour but when I go to the gym I put my headset on and zone out. I'm there to inflict pain on my body, not socialize. If I went the normal social route my workout would have been closer to 2 hours.
No I'm back up to 215lbs but with muscle. I'm not a body builder but it's not hard to notice I spend time in a gym.

Oh, and about water. Don't waste time measuring your water intake. Your body has a built in level reading you can use any time. If your pee is any darker than a clear slightly yellow color your dehydrated. Drink more water. I find that if I drink a full glass of water with every meal (5) I stay well hydrated. I also drink a lot at the gym so that adds to it as well.

[Ironman8]

I'm going to be honest, at the expense of many flaming me, most of the technical tracking of everything you eat and do is not necessary.

.......

So why would you track your workouts but not track your nutrition?
Do you also take a road trip and not check a map or track your progress to make sure you don't miss a turn?

If tracking is absolutely not something that he wants to do, then that's fine. But as with just about anything, when you're trying to get somewhere, you'll be better served knowing where you're coming from or where you are right now. It's hard to "fine tune" without a reference point. That's not to say that you can't eventually get there, just that having a reference point may help to speed things along.

I don't think anyone should track nutritional intake for the rest of their lives. But there are a couple of reasons that I would recommend to do it and those are A) To gain a base of understanding of calories and macros in the typical foods you eat. B) if there is a specific goal that you are working toward (aesthetic or performance based) that needs a higher degree of precision.

Last thing, to an extent, there aren't any absolutes when it comes to nutrition and exercise. There are a lot of absolutes out there (especially regarding nutrition) being disseminated, but most just aren't fully supported by science and research...at best some have a slight correlation with a study, but that doesn't necessarily mean causation. This is what you call "bro science".

At the end of the day, compliance and consistency is what makes any plan work. Whether that plan is sustainable will dictate how long you keep those results.

[travistheone]

Fruit, veggies and plenty of water.

I'm working on the more water than food plan, I need to lose much weight in a short time.

Whole grain, low fat milk, no grease, small portions no UN natural sugars.

This is great diet advice from 1985.

2017 science and results would indicate that any "grain" be it whole or "white" will not aid weight loss in addition to the numerous deleterious effects.

The entire premise of low-fat milk (or anything else) has been nearly completed recognized as false. The fat in foods is NOT what creates body fat, in fact the opposite is true. If you consume little to no sugars (in ANY form, fruit to corn-syrup) and consume a hearty amount of healthy fats (including dairy fat found in whole milk or HWC) your body will burn the fat as energy.

If you want to loose a bunch of weight in a short time, cut out ALL sugars including fruits and grains/breads/etc... Attempt to get your energy from healthy fats and proteins.

There is a bevy of material on this subject, if you are interested I am sure you will do your own research. If you are not interested I am sure you won't read anything I reference.

[travistheone]

I'm going to be honest, at the expense of many flaming me, most of the technical tracking of everything you eat and do is not necessary.

The key to losing weight is input vs. output. In the middle of that is how your resting body burns calories.

I lost 40lbs a couple years back but I've been into fitness and competitive sports for most of my life. 20 years military and 7 years LE as well.

To lose the weight you need to focus on losing. If you combine losing and gaining (muscle) you will get discouraged because it's hard to see results. The key to losing is eating healthy food in smaller quantities more often and drinking water (no soft drinks). You want to eat 5 times a day minimum. Your diet should include 1grm of protein per pound of body weight.

You don't have to go all ham on a diet but cut out key groups that cause the most trouble. For me it was soft drinks and bread. You'll be amazed how easy it is to lose weight when you stop eating wheat based products.

Once you lose your goal of weight you need to change over to weight lifting. Focus more on the protein and water intake and load your protein supplement before and after workouts. Find a routine that works for you and stick with it, track it, and monitor your progress at each level of weights. Your goal should be about 4 sets of 10 reps per exercise. There's plenty of information on how to group body parts and space them between rest periods.

The bottom line is once you lose the weight and see your progress you can start putting it back on correctly. You'll find over time that the increased muscle burns more calories at rest. In turn you can eat a more normal (non weight loss) diet and not gain weight.

I was 240lbls on a 6'1" frame. I was shaped like an egg because I hold my weight on my hips. I dropped my weight to 195lbs in less then a year. I then started an aggressive muscle building regime that had me working out 2 days on 1 day off, repeat. My workouts were roughly 1 hour but when I go to the gym I put my headset on and zone out. I'm there to inflict pain on my body, not socialize. If I went the normal social route my workout would have been closer to 2 hours.
No I'm back up to 215lbs but with muscle. I'm not a body builder but it's not hard to notice I spend time in a gym.

Oh, and about water. Don't waste time measuring your water intake. Your body has a built in level reading you can use any time. If your pee is any darker than a clear slightly yellow color your dehydrated. Drink more water. I find that if I drink a full glass of water with every meal (5) I stay well hydrated. I also drink a lot at the gym so that adds to it as well.

I have a client at my gym who has spent 3-4 years eating an unmeasured "paleo/whole30" style diet. She got good results until she had about 10-15 stubborn LBs to go.

The ONLY thing that she changed was measuring her macros. She lost the remaining weight in short order. there are numerous other instances of this I have witnessed personally.

My opinions about this weighing/measuring are changing.

If you aren't having success on a "full plate" diet, measuring macros can certainly help.

[Ironman8]

I have a client at my gym who has spent 3-4 years eating an unmeasured "paleo/whole30" style diet. She got good results until she had about 10-15 stubborn LBs to go.

The ONLY thing that she changed was measuring her macros. She lost the remaining weight in short order. there are numerous other instances of this I have witnessed personally.

My opinions about this weighing/measuring are changing.

If you aren't having success on a "full plate" diet, measuring macros can certainly help.

Perfect example. And goes to show that it's not WHAT you eat, but HOW MUCH compared to your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure).

[leesrt]

Every person is going to be different but in general, when you approach people with all the measuring and counting and constant worrying about what your eating it turns a lot of people off. Even those who get on board with a full head of steam end up giving up because it's to much to keep up with. People have busy lives and adding the work of having to monitor all these factors, along with take the time to exercise, ands up wearing them out.

In the end, if you eat well balanced meals but break them down to smaller ones more often, and then add some healthy snacks in between, while supplementing with a protein mix, it adds just enough monitoring that most people can maintain.

Now if doing that, along with focused exercise/work outs, and you still don't see results then you're an unusual case and may need a more specialized routine.

Fact is, in most cases where I've heard people were doing the basics and still not seeing results, the reason was they were cheating or being a little untruthful about either their eating or exercise.

I will admit, when your already fit and are trying to really focus and breaking a plateau or reaching a new goal it may need a more specialized approach.

[WillBrink]

I'm going to be honest, at the expense of many flaming me, most of the technical tracking of everything you eat and do is not necessary.

Necessary perhaps not, helpful for fine tuning, yes. As time goes on, and one develops a sense of nutrition, what works for them, what keeps them sane, etc, they can loosen up on that to the point they don't track it. As with all things, more intel = the ability to make adjustments based on objective metrics vs subjective. When someone tells me they are trying to lose fat but it's not happening, I'll ask "how many calories are you eating, what's your macros, what's your TDEE?" If they can't answer that, then we have a logical place to start using objective info to make the changes needed for them to progress. If they are making solid progress with what they are doing and are generally happy with the results, I'll usually tell them to drive on, and maybe make suggestions as to how they can optimize their efforts. Many people do not see steady fat loss until they get those basic variables under control.

[Mr. Goodtimes]

To lose the weight you need to focus on losing. If you combine losing and gaining (muscle) you will get discouraged because it's hard to see results.

Fail. One of the best ways to lose weight is a well put together weight lifting program.

Once you lose your goal of weight you need to change over to weight lifting.

Double fail. See my response above.

Your goal should be about 4 sets of 10 reps

Triple fail. That's the third dumbest thing I've read all day, besides the terrible advice you perpetuated above. 4 sets of 10 at what? 70% of one rep max? 40%? 61%? How long does he do 4 set of 10 at a certain weight before he progresses? Programs like that demonstrate that the person writing them has absolutely "ZERO" functional knowledge of how the human body works, and how to put together an appropriate workout plan.


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[Averageman]

I had given up grain some time ago. I know grain is more than just bread, but as an example except for a very, very few low carb tortilla's I can't think of any grain I eat. All grains have been removed or replaced for the most part with quinoa.
I've quit measuring progress with the scale for the most part, I now measure my waist to check progress. The scale is being used now as a measurement/rule of thumb for tweaking my diet rather than my progress.
My caloric output at work isn't very intense. For the most part, I'm a desk bound SME/Tech for some Equipment. I do sometimes spend the entire day on my feet, but that is very rare. I do a lot of research, teaching and coordination. 90% of my output is at the gym.
My diet is pretty carefully monitored if anything I've reduced my intake too drastically and have begun to add a lot more water and quality carbohydrates and that has actually prompted a bit of a slight weight loss over the last several weeks. I added many more vegetables and much more water and again the quinoa.
I've added intensity to my lifting and cardio. few rest breaks between lifts and more of the Hiit as Will described earlier in this thread. I've also taken a "rest day" and have gone from 7 days a week to a strict 5 day a week lifting plan.
I am 5'10" and have always been rather muscular, at 208 I'm beginning to actually see my six pack come back.

[chuckman]

One of the best ways to lose weight is a well put together weight lifting program.

Yes, one form of exercise to be successful with losing and keeping off weight/fat; but not the only one.

Just as there a billion "diets" out there, there are a billion exercise plans with which one can be very successful; and in many you do not set foot in a gym.