~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

That website is very unreliable. Only 100 grams of pasta are 350 calories, and 100 grams is already an oversize portion of pasta. The ideal one is of 70 grams. If you guys have decided to be a on a diet, I suggest you rice which has got a faster digesting time, it sates you equally and you can eat it also twice a day.

Anyway, the best way to lose a lot of weight is to only eat fruit + vegetables and vegetable proteins such as lentils (which are a good way to substitute starter meals like pasta or rice) for about 2/3 weeks, but I managed to do it for a month and a half because I was really overweight. But you must be healthy to do such a diet, if you have deficiencies you better do a more regular diet.

After this vegan and intense period, you can go back to eating rice and pasta (rice is better though), but be very careful not to mix carbohidrates and proteins during the same meal because that's the easiest way to gain weight and become fat again! Meat is not fattening but it's a pretty good way to increase your cancer illness exposure. So eat it if you like it, but be moderate (pork comes highly unrecommended because of its fats).

This way, I managed to lose about 80 pounds in only half year and I didn't even have to go to the gym or crap like that. I just used my feet and my bycicle, stopped using elevators and that's it!

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

Amanda

I don't think it's either-or, but both.

I agree that a balanced diet with correct portion sizes is the way to go.

However, for some people with serious weight issues, they may need to start with a crash diet of some sort to get the ball rolling.  This must only be the start though, and followed with the more sustainable balanced healthy eating approach on an ongoing basis.

Here's another theory to throw into the mix.  If you're doing enough exercise, then from a weight point of view you can eat what you like.  Seriously - if you're running 10km a day (and I mean running, not walking or slow jogging) or working out aeribically in the gym for an hour every day, you can eat that donut for breakfast, chocolate bar for lunch and ice cream for dessert.  You won't gain weight.  And guess what?  In my experience, the more you exercise, the less you crave crap food.  When you're going on a long run, you're thinking about a huge glass of water - not coke or a milkshake.  If you're consistently exercising hard, when you get up in the morning you'll be craving oats or raw muesli - not bowls of sugar that are passed off as breakfast cereals.  The human body wants to work - it wants the highs from hard exercise, and it wants the right fuel to do the job.  It's a great machine - all just a matter of using that engine and then listening to the sounds from under the bonnet...

True, however most people don't understand the "both" concept because they see the "fast effective!" results of the fad diets and would rather keep doing the bad diet route rather than ease up into a regular healthy diet. So I just don't endorse those methods at all. And as far as people needing a "crash diet" to get the ball rolling, it is probably good to note that such a thing should only be done under the supervision of a person's doctor.

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

Personally I like the cold turkey approach to rapidly losing weight.  Not off all food, but for anything that could even be construed as junk food.

If I have a running event coming up, for the 3-4 weeks leading up to it, there's no chocolate, no candy of any form, no fast food, no soft drinks etc.  It's just oats, fish, veges, fruit etc.  The kilos just fall off.

There's no fad or trick to this approach - it's eating balanced, but cold turkey on all bad stuff.  I guess returning to normal is keeping the same regime, but OCCASSIONALLY dipping a toe back in the bad foods pool.

I was with a girl on the weekend who was on a points system.  She had a mini encyclopedia of all foods and drinks and how many points there were.  So here we are out with friends, and there's a huge range of foods and reciped there where you simply couldn't calculate the points, and she was in a real tizzy trying to work it out.  So I said keep it simple.  See the cake there - don't eat it...in fact - don't eat any of the desserts.  See the salad - no, not the one drowned in mayonnaise and highlighted with bacon pieces - the real salad.  Yeah - eat that.  And a piece of lean beef.  It's not bloody hard!!         @:-0

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

I have been doing a similar diet too, but in the end when I learned the "basic rules" to what and how is correct to eat, I got bored and slowly I was going crazy. You can't live just signing every calorie that you eat! There are so much doctors out there with so many different methods... Well, sometimes you just run into the wrong one, the one who uses a method that can't suit you.

Concerning the crash diet, I don't know what to say. I know some people won't agree with me, but when you're obese you have to do something effective very quickly before you find yourself buried under ground. My doctor had nothing to protest when I showed him the book where I found that diet, that practically is a vegan + fruttarian + dissociative diet. Now I'm eating normally and I did a little exercise to tone up all the skin that was hanging after the big slim, my weight now is just fine, so I don't see anything to condemn in this method.

The rule of eating small portions of everything could be okay for someone who has to lose just some weight. But when you're obese, you need to steel yourself and find the good will to proceed in your purpose, that must be a real challenge... because if you start telling yourself crap like "eat everything but in small doses", well, I can guarantee it doesn't work longer than a week. When you eat like a pig, you just have to cut every crap, you have to demolish everything you were used to and rebuild!

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

Really? Because wow, I'm clinically obese and I've managed to lose quite a bit of weight so far following a normal balanced diet of recommended portions and combinations of food. I've basically just eaten my way to being 30 pounds lighter by following the food pyramid. And I plan to continue in such a fashion to lose the remaining weight until I hit my target goal. Granted I'm only losing about 2lbs a week average, but that's how quickly the human body should lose weight. Sudden weight loss is as damaging (if not more damaging) as being obese to begin with. It should never ever be endorsed except in severe cases, and typically those folks are given surgery options to reduce their weight quickly. And they perform the rapid weight loss under the constant supervision of a doctor. I'm happy your method worked for you, but I think to recommend it to anyone else while condemning traditional methods is a bad idea.

Like I said...it's society's need to have results NOW NOW NOW that has driven these ridiculously unhealthy fad diets. It took a while to get fat...and in most cases it will take twice as long to get unfat. If people cannot accept that, then they shouldn't have stuffed their faces in the first place (Disclaimer: yes, I realize that there are people who are genetically disposed to heavier weights and body sizes, and that not all overweight folks got that way from overeating. So don't get all nutty on me there). And if they stuffed their faces, got fat, and now want to lament their size, I have no sympathy because they had the ability to control it before it got that far. I make no excuses for how I am. I knew I was gaining weight and instead of turning around and heading back the way I came, I just kept going because it was the easier thing to do. And now I'm paying the price by fighting the long hard road back. I think it's irresponsible to endorse eating habits that remove large parts of your diet simply because you don't want to take the time getting healthy the proper way. Cutting carbs and proteins is just ludicrous. That's fuel for your body, no matter how you slice it.

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

I repeat, everyone has to find their own diet and they shall be supported by a doctor. And everyone has a different state of mind in front of the idea of 'losing weight'.

If I gave the impression of one that gives advice on how you should lose weight, I must apologize. It was a reaction to that website, that seems to tell a lot of lies or they are just misinformed.

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

for whom????????

We are a 4 people family including 2 children (girls, 8 and 10 ys old), for a normal dinner when we eat pasta we take a 1/2 kg pack of pasta... and it's gone! We look healthy if that was your next question ;-)
 

Bobi 1 Kenobi

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