What is the best diet?

Answer 1

On Yahoo!Answers I find certain questions being asked repeatedly which is simply a reflection of new people participating. A couple of common question amounts to "How do I lose weight," or more specifically, "How do I lose abdominal fat?" I have gotten very positive responses from my answers when I paused to reply (and now beginning to get "It works!" emails that are very gratifying. I like helping people)... so have recently decided to put a good solid answer on my Yahoo!360 Blog (September 10) that I can point people to. These are my thoughts as a physician and athlete.

Don't target losing more than about 2 lbs per week. If you try to lose faster, your body will go into "starvation mode" and get very stingy about burning calories while at the same time very efficient about storing any calories that you do provide. And it will make you feel awful.

There is no site specific way of losing fat... the old myth about working your abs to burn belly fat isn't true. To get rid of love handles, you need to lose overall fat. That happens with exercise and watching your diet. More on that below.

The most effective way to lose fat is aerobic exercise in the "moderate" fat-burning range, ideally first thing in the morning before you eat. When you wake your body is ready to burn fat and your levels of growth hormone are highest at that time. Later in the day it can take up to 30 minutes just to put your body into a fat-burning mode.

Another overlooked way to burn fat is by lifting weights. Skeletal muscle has very high caloric needs... almost twice that of adipose (fat) tissue. Put on a little muscle and you will burn calories all day even at rest. Be aware that skeletal muscle weighs more, so with this approach you may see your weight increasing while your body fat is melting away. Not realizing this often stresses folks who think they should be losing weight as a measure of fitness. Forget the scale, look in the mirror and you will be happy.

To lose a pound of fat, you need to eliminate about 3500 calories. You can do this by burning more with exercise or by modifying your diet to reduce intake. If you do a Google search on say, "swimming calories" you will quickly find a website with tables of calories burned for a given exercise. You can use such lists to estimate how many calories you are burning up with your routine.

For diet, keep a diary for a couple of weeks counting calories, grams of protein, and grams of fat intake. It is easy with online sources of nutritional information (type the name of the food and calories into the Google search engine) and packaging labels. That will let you quickly figure out where the fat is coming from in your diet.

Fat gives you 9 calories per gram. So take the number of grams of fat, multiply by 9, then calculate what percentage the fat calories are of your total daily calories. Restricting the calories from fat to about 20% of your total intake is ideal for a maintenance diet... that isn't overly restrictive. Of note, you need some fat in your diet. For instance, the body uses fat to produce hormones. Once you have a picture of how to modify your diet, you can drop the diary and just go back to it occasionally if you are wanting to tweek things further.

There is a subset of questions that goes further and asks about "How to get a six-pack?" The answer is the same. Six-packs are 20% abdominal exercise and 80% diet. There is one caveat... abdominal muscles will form in the position that you work them, so be certain to pull them tightly toward your spine while doing crunches, etc. Also, during most lifting, the "core is active" which means that you should be stabilizing with contracted abs then too. Fail to do this and the abs will form, but bulging outward and the result is not attractive.

If you are trying to build muscle as a way to lose fat, then you may need to increase total calories and specifically your protein intake. I target about 0.8 g of protein per pound of body weight each day when actively building. That is far more protein than most people need in their diets.


Aloha

Answer 2

To lose weight, a person has to reduce the calorie intake by some amount by modifying their diet. A diet without sufficient nutrients will only increase the appetite of the person trying to lose weight. Since most people combine a diet with an exercise plan, additional nutrients are required for the growth of muscles required to increase the metabolic rate required for long term weight loss. More information on a weight loss diet and exercises available at http://tinyurl.com/jax5h

Answer 3

The best diet includes whole grains, protein, fruits, lots of veggies, and 64 oz of water a day...must include excercise as well! :)
The diets on the market today are all missing something, they all have their own gimic. If you eat right, burning more calories than you consume, watch your portions, and excercise you have found the best diet for losing weight.

Answer 4

There is no "best" diet. If people would understand: what causes you to gain weight? Eating the wrong foods. How do you lose weight? Eat the right foods, don't eat the bad ones. Why do you need a diet to tell you this? Come on, you KNOW what to eat and what not to eat, you know what is bad for you and what isn't. No one can lose weight for you, only you can do it.

Answer 5

I am a weight-loss coach, and I have found this program to be the best out there. It is all natural, safe and very effective. I have lost over 20 lbs and 12.5 inches since I started. Go to this website. Fill out the contact page. Someone will get back with you to set up a personalized plan just right for you.

Answer 6

No diet is best......it is a way of life, a lifestyle......you need to decide what kinds of foods you are going to consume. Personally I stay clear of as much processed and or manufactured foods as possible, I eat organic foods and will starve rather than be forced to eat the chemicals that are put in our food and water (drink) source.
My quote: 'I prefer to smoke my chemicals rather than eat them.'
Good Luck.

Answer 7

weight watchers, it's a lifestyle not a diet. you can live with it for the rest of your life and eat what you want, and learn to do it in moderation and you do it with normal food and you do not have to buy special meals

Answer 8

It's not cliche when I say "TrimSpa". I relentlessly looked for something that especially curved my appetite. And Trimspa definitely does just that. Lots of water drinking and excercise used with it and atleast one healthy meal or the Kelloggs Special K diet works for me.

Answer 9

I have been on Jenny Craig since March and lost 32 lbs. The food is pretty good and there's a decent variety. no counting calories or points, etc. All their food is pre-packaged or frozen. You just need to buy fresh salads, fruit, milk and yogurt.

Answer 10

have u heard about sun gazing so when u start sun gazing after 9 months u quit eating as long u live check this sungazing.com