As a stop-gap, we’ve been eating fast-food salads, most often from Wendy’s. It’s easy and quick (a Wendy’s is close to our house), relatively cheap ($10 for both of us) and we get a decent tasting meal that really isn’t so bad for you, even though I’m sure the organic/whole foods folks will turn up their noses.

I’ve lost over 20 pounds in a few months, and I’m pretty satisfied with it. But what I will say to everyone is — the most important food you can eat when you’re trying to lose weight is the food that will allow you to lose weight while not driving you back to your old eating habits. Because for most people (not counting specific health conditions) losing weight is probably more important to their health long term than the benefits provided by any specific dietary style (atkins/organic/whole grain/macrobiotic/etc).

…I’m 6′. In college I was @235lbs. Lifted all the time, never ran, ate nothing but fried frat food, and had the 37 inch waist to show for it. About six months before I graduated, I realized that, as a former high school athlete, I wasn’t very happy with who I was physically. I began studying nutrition plans in depth, applied the principles I (and science) agreed with, and-within a year-dropped to @175lbs. (29 inch waist!) while gaining strength in the weight room.

Most of the nutritional plan (don’t call it a diet–diets are temporary) comes from Bill Phillips’ “Body For Life”. I do my own weightlifting routines and more cardio than he recommends (I care about being able to run fast, not just looking cut), but the nutritional advice is spot on–and ridiculously simple. Cut most saturated fat from your diet–unsaturated fats are fine in moderation. Eat six times a day–one palm sized portion of lean protein and one fist sized portion of low glycemic index carbs. Throw veggies in at least twice a day. Tailor your eating times to your goals; if you just want to shed weight, don’t eat for an hour after cardio. If you want to build muscle, make sure you eat directly after a workout.

It seems time consuming, but it’s not. I work about 50-60 hours a week and I still have time. I drink a protein shake after my morning lift and run, eat four pre-prepared meals throughout the workday, and cook dinner when I get home. The pre-prepared meals are simple: I cook twice a week (usually on Sundays and Wednesdays)–four different recipies (usually casseroles/salads for wraps/burgers) with three portions each. Takes an hour and a half, max. For some great recipies, either get the Body For Life cookbook, or–and this is better, since it’s free–go to their website. They’ve got literally thousands of user submitted, approved recipies. The women at work are incredulous that I’m not married, as I always come in with fantastic-smelling home cooked meals (sorry if that was a bit sexist there, but…) I eat healthier and cheaper than pre-cooked, pre-portioned meals, and without sacrificing much convenience, to boot. It’s not too hard to teach yourself portion sizes–just look at your hand. Also, pre-fab dinners tend to be quite high in sodium, which can lead to water retention and hypertension.

I know I sound like I’m shilling for them (BFL), but I’m not. It works, the food tastes great, it’s easy, and the best part is–you can definitely maintain the lifestyle without sacrificing much of anything. Now if I could just stay away from the beer…

Quick and easy to make. Easy to do healthy as well. And depending upon the ingredients, smoothies can give you a little pick me up to prepare a quick, light meal. Or to pull those pre-packaged foods from the fridge.

You can’t believe how much that shocks her patients.

But, then, she can use that to help them figure out how much meat (frozen chicken breasts, often) to put on the plate, and then encourage them to fill the rest of their plates with vegetables.

After a few months of doing that, people find it easier and easier to figure out how much food they should eat when they’re making food from scratch. Plus, she can help them learn a new healthy recipe every week or two, instead of feeling trapped and uncertain because the only things they know how to cook are high-fat.

Food has such emotional power that anything that helps the transition towards health is a good thing.

You’re right; Organic food will not, in and of itself, make you healthy, as evidenced by the avaialability of organic sugar, donuts, cakes, pies, cookies and cheesecakes. Personally, I think Organic tastes better, but that’s just me. But take “The O word” out for a mintue and look at just the concept of prepareing your own fresh food. Cooking can be a very rewarding experience. But, cooking your own food give you the ability to make dishes to your taste and gives you more vareity than whatever type of frozen dinner the store has. Also, it’s easier to sustain a lifestyle where you know how to feed yourself as opposed to getting a meal our of a cardboard box all the time.

You’re also right about HFCS. It’s simply sugar. But, too much sugar is bad for you. It raises your blood sugar, and eating too much can lead to diabeties.

And perhaps a better term is “over-processesed.” I wash and cook my food as well. But, I try to avoid food that has had lots of chemicals and perservaties added. Again, I notice a taste difference; most of these foods probably don’t taste as good as the box they came in. By cooking, I can make a dish exactally as I like it.

The problem with point number three is that more harm can be done with a bad weightloss plan than by just staying fat.

The other thing everybody just “knows” is the danger of high fructose corn syrup. It mimics fats, or hormones, or something or other, right? Wrong. There is ZERO research to show that HFCS has any detrimental health effects. Sorry Andrew Barrilla, but there just isn’t. You can go right ahead and avoid products containing HFCS if that makes you feel better. Don’t walk under ladders either and watch out for black cats!

And “processed food”. Terrible, bad, horrible. But what the hell is processed food? Washing is a process — I prefer mine to be washed. Cooking is a process too, and I like most things cooked. Have you ever seen a good definition of what “processed” means? I haven’t.

2. It is better to see the author realize his mistake and apologize.

3. For those who may not have been reading all week, this is a “beginner’s guide” to weight loss. Last week was cooking stuff. I’m sure Joel will have a week for “Healthy Eating” in the future. For now, the goal is to kick start us “fat fucks” (Joel’s words) into an improvement in our waistlines.

4. It is good to see so much traffic and comments.

So at the very least you need to be thinking about how to transition after you quit the TV dinners. Cooking is not the big, complicated, time-comsuming thing you make it out to be, but it does take a few months of practice until you get efficient at it. If you insist that you are too busy and stressed out to worry about food and cooking and the like, you are too busy to be thin, my friend. Welcome to the yo-yo.

Both.

But one step at a time, and the former is much, much easier after the latter.

Well I have to agree with Grady, basically, are you shooting for better health, or lower weight? There are plenty of ways to lose weight, but they aren’t all healthy.

It’s not a question of perfection vs. imperfection, but rather having the right goal to start with.

Yes, I have.

As I posted above, I prepare as much as I can over the weekend, which saves me a lot of time during the week. And frankly, how hard is it to broil a steak and steam some green beans?

And as far as learning to cook and shop for specific foods:

If you want your weight loss to be permanent, you have to treat is as a lifestyle, which means it has to be something you can maintain. I don’t know anyone who can “live” on frozen, pre-packaged foods long term.

In adulthood, learning to shop for and prepare foods is (should) be a fundamental life-skill in my opinion. But, if you missed out on learning this, just take it slow. Learn one or two healthy meals, how to shop for them, how to prepare them. Once you get those down, build from there.

No one expects you to be Gordan Ramsey out of the chute, but if you never start you’ll never get there.

I apologize if my comments came off sounding like a know-it-all and a smart ass. I sincerely meant to add worthwhile content to your series by adding my knowledge, but I hear the same wrong things over and over and it just drives me a little crazy sometimes. I spend too much time at Metafilter, probably. Nonetheless, I shouldn’t have spoke out so strongly, nor took as many not-as-clever-as-I-thought digs in the process. I hope you’ll forgive me and allow me to contribute in the future. My intentions are good, even if I can’t stop the inner bastard sometimes. To see what I mean, look at my history at Ask Metafilter here: http://www.metafilter.com/user/22919

The one point I’d like to get across here is that weight loss isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Forget weight. It’s one small measurement among many that go into determining health and attractiveness, and it’s not worth ruining your health to get there.

Now, that said, maybe it’s smarter to lose weight by completely eliminating packaged foods, fast food, and maybe even restaurant food, from your diet, then reducing calories by cutting portions. This is also difficult, but the difficulty comes from scheduling the time to prepare food. Has anyone done this successfully?

I dunno why the anger at this Grady person. Maybe he’s otherwise a sanctimonious idiot. But he’s got a point, definitely.

Personally I wolf down a few cups of chicken a day, eat some vegetables, a microwave-baked potato. It’s convenient and a lot easier than TV dinners, which, like it or not, have all sorts of crap in them that you don’t want in your body.