What I should Eat to lose Weight

Now here comes the most important question: What diet should I be on to lose weight?

Don't trust the fad diets how there people. There's a reason they're called fad diets, because they're fads. They don't work long term and you can't live on it the rest of your life.

Here is a diet I went on when I was losing weight: Lots of lean protein and lots of fiber. Both protein and fiber help fill your stomach and keep you filling full longer. Protein also helps build lean muscle, and muscle burns fat. Why? Remember in a previous post I told you your RMR depends on your weight among other factors? If you have more muscle, your body burns more calories to sustain the muscle. The burned calories add up to more fat loss. Here is a list of lean proteins you can eat:
Chicken
Turkey
Lean Beef (loin or round)
Fish (any kind of fish will do)
Seafood such as shrimp, crab, lobster
Beans, peas, and lentils for the vegetarians
Egg whites
Low-fat Dairy (which included skim milk and cottage cheese for me)

Foods with Fiber:
Vegetables! Have all the vegetables you want! They are very very low in calories and have lots of fiber to fill you up. Plus fiber helps your digestion by cleaning your system out. Fiber is also a natural fat blocker, it slows down digestion of fat and carbohydrates. I recommend dark, green leafy vegetables:
Broccoli and spinach are the best because they are packed with vitamins and minerals which you will need since you are on a reduced calorie diet.

During my weight loss I ate a salad packed with spinach and broccoli everyday for lunch. It filled me up without hurting my calorie allowance for the day that much.

What about Carbohydrates and Fruit?

Carbohydrates are something you want to stay away from if you want to burn fat on this diet. Why? Carbohydrates are the body's main source of energy. Our liver stores unused carbs as glycogen. When we exercise, our body burns glycogen and carbs. However, after 30 minutes of exercise, your body uses up its glycogen stores and starts using fat as a fuel source. That is how you lose weight, by having your body burn fat. By eating limited amounts of carbs, you are forcing your body to start using fat as a fuel source. Your body is in a state of ketosis. If you must eat carbs, have only one serving of carbs a day. One serving of carbs has about 200 calories.

The second thing about carbohydrates you should know about: Try not to eat carbs near bedtime. Why? Any unused carbs in your body get stored as fat when you sleep. Your body tries to be very efficient, that's why it stores it as fat...just in case you go into starvation mode. It doesn't want anything to go to waste. The best time to eat carbs is to eat any carbs you plan on eating by lunchtime. Past lunchtime, avoid the carbs.

The third thing about carbohydrates you should know about: There are good ones and bad ones. 'Good carbs', sometimes labeled 'Slow carbs' are scientifically known as complex carbohydrates. The 'Bad carbs', the ones you should avoid, are sometimes labeled 'Fast carbs', or scientifically known as simple carbohydrates. If you decide to eat carbohydrates, eat the good carbs. Why? Complex carbohydrates take longer to break down in your body. That means your "engine" stays on longer and you burn more calories. Also, this means you have more sustained energy because your body doesn't digest all the carbs at once. Bad carbs are digested really quickly. They give you a spike of energy, followed by a crash. Ever heard of a sugar rush and sugar crash? This is where the term comes from. Sugar from candy is a fast carb. It's a simple sugar that gets digested quickly. When you eat simple carbs, you actually can get more hungry because it gets digested so quickly

What foods are good carbs, and what foods are bad carbs? Basically anything that is "white" is bad carbs. White bread, white rice, any "enriched" foods as it says on the label. The food has been processed so much that all the nutrients have been taken out. The "enriched" part is just chemicals that have been added for flavor. These chemicals are bad for your body.

Foods that are good carbs are darker foods. These have not been processed as much and contain fiber and nutrients. Wheat bread, whole grain bread, buckwheat pasta, brown rice, wild rice are among the good carbs.

On my next post, I'll show you what exercises I did to burn fat.