Copyright (c) 2009 Stephen Smith

The perfect diet for weight loss outlines exactly how you should structure your daily food intake in order to maximise your weight loss efforts.

Over the years there have been many different recommendations regarding what people should eat in order to lose weight and improve their health. Unfortunately, the recommendations are often conflicting, which leaves people confused about the best approach to take.

The Perfect Diet has been designed based on the most up-to-date scientific research. Best of all, its design is purely objective. There hasn’t been any lobbying by food groups or ’sponsored’ research to influence its structure (as may be the case with other food recommendations).

This eating format has been used successfully for many years by professionals in the health and fitness industry in order to assist people with their weight loss efforts. In this article we will cover the recommendations and the reasoning behind them.

Low Density Carbohydrates (fibrous vegetables): These are the type of foods you should emphasise most in your diet if you want to lose weight. You can virtually have an unlimited amount of them. They are nutrient-rich, calorie-sparse foods. They are classified as a carbohydrate but contain very little of it. They mainly contain fibre, water, phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals.

You should have at least 4-6 serves a day of these foods.

Examples include: broccoli, cauliflower, carrot, tomato, lettuce, green beans, spinach, cucumber, squash etc.

Lean Protein: If you took all the water out of your body over half of your dry weight would be protein. It is a component of all cells and as the name suggest (from Greek prôteios – of the first quality) is of primary importance in the body.

By having a serve of protein with every meal you provide your body with a constant supply of amino acids which has many vital functions in the body including, supporting the immune system, making enzymes, and constructing body tissue.

If you don’t supply your body with high quality protein every 2-3 hours during the day then your body will go into a catabolic state and your metabolism will slow down, limiting your weight loss efforts.

You should have 5-6 serves a day of these foods.

Examples include: fish, chicken breast, lean steak, eggs, protein/meal replacement powders, soy-based products, legumes, nuts/seeds, etc.

Medium-density carbohydrates (fruits, starchy vegetables, dairy products): These foods have more carbs per serve than the low-density carbohydrates. Therefore, their ability to increase blood sugar is greater. Since they increase blood sugar, insulin will also get secreted, which means the body will be more likely to store body fat.

Accordingly, only 2-3 serves a day are suggested in the Perfect Diet. In saying this though, these are natural foods and do provide the body with a wide range of essential nutrients.

Examples include: potatoes, pumpkin, corn, bananas, peas, grapes, milk, apples, yoghurt, oranges, etc.

High-Density Carbs: These foods are concentrated sources of carbohydrate and tend to be refined grain-based foods like, bread, pasta, cereals, and rice. Government lobbying by food producers in the last century had these foods being recommended in higher quantities than natures own fruits and vegetables!

While they do contain some nutrients, they are loaded with carbs and can have a dramatic impact on your blood sugar levels. As a result, only 1-2 serves a day are recommended.

Examples include: pasta, bread, cereal, sugar, honey, fruit juice, rice, jam, etc.

Fats and Oils: These foods are the most energy dense, which means they have the potential to significantly add to your overall calorie intake. Therefore you must carefully control your intake of these foods. However, they do contain the fat-soluble vitamins, A, D, E and K, so they must be included in your daily food intake.

Only 1-2 serves a day of these foods is recommended.

Examples include: oils, avocado, almonds, cashews, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, peanut butter etc.

Extras: These foods are not an essential part of the Perfect Diet but they do fulfil our desire to consume good-tasting foods. Since your goal is to lose weight, only allow yourself to consume these foods once a week, on your ‘Treat Day’. Have one or two meals on your treat day where these foods are included.

Examples include: take away foods, chocolate, cakes, biscuits, lollies, alcohol etc.

If you are considering losing weight and would also like to gain the benefits of feeling good, having more energy and improving your body’s functioning then follow the Perfect Diet for 30 days. You will be amazed with the results!

Watch the video related to diet nutrition weight loss

As I mentioned, I am in no way an expert or a nutritionist. All the things I told you were from a lot of time reading about all this stuff. Feel free to disagree with me!

Help answer the question about diet nutrition weight loss

P90X and diet Weight Loss Plan? A little Extreme But need feedback?
Background: I am 17 years old,5 feet 9 inches, a male. I weigh 244 pounds. I am basically obese, but at the same time you can consider me as being much more athletic than a different person of my size (I can lift weights, at one point benching 250 pounds (from 130 to 250 in a year before I quit); run fast but not too much stamina, although when i jog/pace i can run 5 miles). My framework, I guess you can say that I'm big and have a lot of girth (width).

Goal: Is to get anywhere between 150 and 170 without compromising muscle, or in other words, shape the muscle that I already may have and ASAP (before summer – 3-4 months)

Diet: My plan for at least 90 days is to follow an interesting article I found (although no scholarly or endorsed if you want to call it, article still seems promising. It says an average person following this diet alone would lose approximately 20 kgs (44 pounds)) which kind of rotates meals and the nutrition a person may take in: For example,
Day 1: Protein Day
Day 2: Starch Day
Day 3: Carbohydrate Day
Day 4: Fruit Day
Day 5: Water Day
Breakfast fruit everyday except Day 5, Lunch and supper are the same and concentrate on what they require for that particular day.
For better details,
http://www.dietforum.com/N-90Days-Diet.htm

OR, I can decide to eat Smart Start Cereal with 2% milk 3-5 times a day (my friend has done the smart start breakfast and ran 6 miles a day, he lost 70 pounds in a month and a half but regained all the weight back in 2 years). My plan is to to switch to a healthy eating lifestyle even when I lose all the weight so I'm not sure if I should starve myself like him.

Exercise plan: I have a program called P90X. It's a very rigorous exercise program which lasts for 90 days and involves differentiation and changes its exercise focus everyday so one doesn't get used to it and keeps on building their body at a fast rate. I'm sure there may be skeptics but there is not a single review (that I found) in which a person tries the program and says its bad (I've tried it myself for a couple of days, and it really is intense)
This is NOT fake, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXkCBYEWm8k
P90X is a very good program and a very very rigorous program as well and I plan on using that for its 90 day program. The guy in the video seems to a on a similar note as me when he started, but I weigh approximately 20 pounds more than him

Also, I plan on running 1-2 mile(s) along with the program anywhere between 7-13 minutes per mile depending on whether I jog or run.

1 pound=3500 calories
My plan is to eat between 1200-1500 calories MAX everyday and when working out everyday, I expect to burn 4000 calories a day (includes calories burned without exercise, like digesting or sleeping). So my calorie deficit should be 2500 calories everyday, so in 90 days or 3 months time I should be around 170-175 pounds.

Here are some of the websites I used:
http://www.dietforum.com/N-90Days-Diet.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXkCBYEWm8k

http://www.caloriesperhour.com/index_loss.php

http://calorieneedscalculator.com/index.html

http://www.beachbody.com/product/fitness_programs/p90x.do?code=P90XDOTCOM

Feedback is greatly appreciated! This is very important for me! Thanks a lot in advance, and I hope to get some good feedback.
=)
I forgot to add along with the diet.

I plan on drinking a whole lot of water. Approximately 2-3 liters a day

Also, I'm thinking about taking V8 equal to 3 servings of vegetables
And, as a natural cleanser, fresh pineapple and cilantro juice from a blender

Thanks!

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