Diets

Sparkpeople.com It's a great site. YOu put in your weight and height info and set your goals. If the goal you set is unsafe (too much in too little an amount of time), the site alerts you. It asks how many times a week you want to exercise and it tells you how many calories per day and how much exercise you have to do (how many calories you need to burn) on the days you exercise. THEN, there are sections to input what you eat everyday and what exercises you do. Even things like shoveling snow or raking leaves can be put in and it tells you how much you've burned. The food database is huge, I've only encountered 2 or 3 things that I had to put the nutritional information in for (pre-packaged stuff). So you can easily track what you're eating and what you're burning. There are also message boards so you can get support from other people trying to lose weight, groups so you can interact with people who have similar interests or live in your area (maybe find a walking buddy or something) and recipes for good food that's lower in fat and calories. This way, you choose what you eat. You don't have ot eat some programs prepackaged food.

Instead of looking at diets you should look at a lifestyle change because if you just go on a diet and you reach your ideal weight you will end up gaining all the weight and more back. I would start by keeping a record of everything you eat when and why. When I do this I find that because I don't want to put something in the diet journal I end up not eating it. Eat more fresh fruits and vegetables. Cut out most sodas and drink more water. Eat more whole grained food because they will fill you up faster and stay with you longer. Stop eating premade foods and processed foods. Eat like a king in the morning (big breakfast, like a prince at noon (smaller meal) and a pauper at night. Fruit and nothing after 5:00 If you eat at night it isn't used up and goes to fat.

I am also working on this issue. I am really against dieting though. I have studied nutrition and weight loss and I have to say, diets can be dangerous. First there is a nutrition factor and then there is what happens when you quit dieting and start eating normal again. There is also the urge to splurge. The desire to eat the stuff that's "off limits". I think your best bet is to cut back, eat smaller portions more often. Snack a lot, though keep it healthy. Cut back on things that are unhealthy. And start exercising more then what you do now. These two combined should help. Not loosing enough? Exercise more... Any diet that you try, be careful with the nutritious value of it. Being picky will make it harder as well.