Hello again, thanks for your...

Question
Hello again, thanks for your help, I have started my diet this morning, I am going to go with a fruit/vegtable diet with regular walks/runs with my dog and sit ups/light weight lifting, I was wondering if I keep my calorie intake to about 900 per day with regular exercise id lose weight better?

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Followup To
Question -
Hi, I am about 20 pounds over weight for my age/height and I'd like to loss the extra weight, now going to a gym isnt psosible I can't afford it nor can I afford home exercise equitment, I was wondering how many calories should be in my daily diet while I'm dieting? also I do sit up/stumick crunches for a few minutes several times daily and go for a walk every evening the walk is ussaly at lest 20 minutes long as I walk with my dog then go to the stores near by and walk around for a bit before returning. I am also intrested in possible fasting every now and then for two/three days as I've heard of people doing this... I was wondering thou how long can someone go with just a bowl of ceral in the morning? and just water all day? as that would be my one meal of choice and water is my perfered bevrage anyways. Would fasting on and off throught the month along with a low cal diet and the exercise I'm getting now reduce my weight at all? I'd like to lose all 20 extra pounds. also what does a good diet consist of? what can I and can I not eat? please let me know if you can help me thanks in advance.
Answer -
Here is a copy of the diet that I recommend for everyone:

Our bodies were essentially designed to eat vegetables and fruit and complex carbs.  If you look at our tooth structure and the length of our intestines, they were designed for vegetables/fruit/complex carbohydrates much more than they were designed for meat.  A low fat diet can prevent 15-20% of all cancers.  Notice, not all of them....so you have to die from something.

Remember, in the 50 years of the Framingham study that looked at risk factors form heart disease, none of the 6,000 subjects who had cholesterol less than 150 had a heart attack!

I try to explain the diet part by following 2 simple rules:
1.  Eliminate animal fat.  Because of this rule, it turns you into a "vegetarian".  Oh well.  There are some things to learn about this like making sure you still get essential amino acids.  Soy protein has all eight essetial amino acids.  Rice and beans have the major 3 amino acids (tryptophan, methionine, lysine).  If you eat breakfast cereal with a dab of nonfat yogurt, you get the essential amino acids.   In general "whole grains" plus legumes (any bean) will give you the essentials.  Your body only needs 14 grams of essential fats a day to survive and you can easily get this from vegetables.  I also take a B12 vitamin to ensure I get enough B12.  I use soy milk on my cereal (and sometimes drind 4 oz extra).

Remember 1 gram of fat is 9 calories. One gram of protein or carbs is 4 calories.  That is part of the reason you don't need to worry how much you eat in this lifestyle.  You eat when your hungry.  But as explained in rule number 2, you don't get hungry the same way you are now!

2.  Eliminate simple carbohydrates.  What does that mean?

First, eliminate simple sugars like cake, candy, cookies, pop (regular), juice, etc.  In other words if it tastes sweet, avoid it.  I follow this rule 98% of the time.  I will have a rare jelly bean or ice cream/cake at a birthday party, but in very limited quantities and never more than once a week.  This rule is very important to stop the carb cravings you talk about.

Second, eliminate processed grains.  These are things with white flour/white rice, etc.  When they process the grain, they take out the fiber and bran which slows the absorbption of the carbs.  Subsequently, just like with simple sugars, you raise you blood sugar level quickly.  This makes insulin rise, but it will frequently overshoot.  

This causes two problems:   1. It turns on your lipoprotein lipase and causes you to turn your sugar to fat. 2. It causes your sugar to go back down low and drive you to crave more carbs and thus the cycle begins all over again.  After two weeks of this low fat/no simple carb diet, those cravings will go away.  You still get hungry..in fact I "graze" a lot.  I eat pretty much all day, but follow the rules.  

What are complex carbs?  Whole grains....whole wheat, brown rice, corn, rye, etc.  If you buy bread make sure it is 100% whole grain.  Many "wheat" breads in the store still have white flour in it.  If ingredients say "enriched flour" it likely is white flour.

This is not hard to follow from the standpoint of hunger.  It is hard to follow from the standpoint that in our society, 80% of the foods (or more) that are presented to you in social situations are simple carbs and fat.

It takes discipline.  But I have come to think of those foods as poison since they make me feel lousy.

Benefits of this lifestyle:
1.  More energy
2.  Less anxiety/depression
3.  eliminates heart disease and type II diabetes
4.  lowers cancer risk (not eliminate)
5.  you will drift to your "ideal" body weight without focusing on losing weight.  It may take 6-12 months, but it will happen if you are strict on the rules.

Other components to the lifestyle besides what you eat:
1. exercise
2.  eliminate caffeine (I haven't completed this yet, but I am close)  This and all stimulants increase the activity of your nervous system and this has negative consequences for your heart.  Eliminating this also reduces anxiety.

3.  meditate/pray/relax your muscles.

Atkins had it 1/4 right.  By eliminating carbs, his diet eliminates simple carbs.  But you don't have to eliminate complex carbs...he's wrong there.  Also, fat itself in the diet is shown to cause damage to arteries and make you blood easier to clot regardless of cholesterol.  Remember Dr. Atkins had heart attack 2 years ago, but he said his diet didn't cause it!

Sorry for the long winded answer, but I think this is the key to obesity in  America.   We are loaded with simple carbs and fats and we wonder why we can't lose weight.   Remember, the average Chinese person is near ideal body weight.  The average American is obese.   The Average Chinese eats less than 15% fat diet.   The Average American gets 40-50% calories from fat.  The aveage Chinese eats 20% MORE calories per day than the average American, but they are not fat!


NOW, as for the exercise part... walking is fine if that is all you can handle, but don't do the same routine day in and day out. Spice it up a bit. You need to work yourself up... go faster and go longer. Add a minute of jogging in there every once in a while. Get a set of handheld dumbbells and do some arm curls and such with those.

I do not recommend a complete fast (nothing but water) due to the fact that it can deplete essential minerals that your body needs to function. If you are going to eat one meal per day, eat it mid-day so that you at least have enough fuel to get you through the rest of the afternoon. A low-calorie diet, to me, would be aroun 1200 calories per day, consisting mainly of fresh fruits and veggies. Follow the above diet plan that I gave you.

Weight loss is all about burning more calories than you consume. Good luck!

Answer
That would be OK for the short-term, but consider this... your brain needs 400 calories a day to function properly. And then you add the work of all of your other body systems, plus any work that you do throughout the day, and you end up with more a deficit than your body can handle. Maybe you could do alternating days of your 900 calories and the 1200 that I recommend.

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