<p>Don’t forget…just because it is breakfast time doesn’t mean you have to restrict yourself to “breakfast” foods. I am personally a fan of spicy sausage in the am.</p>
<p>Thanks to you all for posting specific food choices! My life is so busy & stressful these days that I don’t want to have to think about my choices…I can take your ideas and form a shopping list!</p>
<p>I’ll try Fiber one English muffins, egg & egg white omlettes, smoothies with yogurt and fruit, Canadian Bacon…anything else???</p>
<p>I’m usually good for lunch and dinner choices. Always found breakfasts more challenging. Spicy sausage won’t cut it in this very mild, bland eating type of family! In fact, no sausages, period. But bacon and Canadian bacon, yes.</p>
<p>I’ve heard of steel cut oats, but never tried it. I think I have a box of it in my freezer from Trader Joe’s. Maybe I’ll finally open the box and try it out!</p>
<p>I’m going to try to cut out my one a day diet coke (again) and the occasional cookies and chocolate (;)!) and the bread at the restaurant table and make better choices in general. No more eggplant parm…loaded with cheese and sugar. Yikes, I can do this!!</p>
<p>For breakfast I sometimes have a half a bagel-thin, but I no longer toast them after an exciting toaster oven fire (it did get out hearts pumping). </p>
<p>I like my bagel thins best with cream cheese and smoked salmon. The smoked salmon is high in protein, but also high in sodium. I use half the recommended “serving”, which keeps cost down too.</p>
<p>I LOVE Smoked Salmon! In our family, we call it Lox! :D</p>
<p>Bagel Thins are a good idea if I want Carbs, then, but not every day. Maybe I can interchange eggs one day and Lox another day…</p>
<p>Were the bagel thins the cause of the toaster fire? I like my breads toasted too…</p>
<p>calories in/calories out. if you have a smart phone, get My Fitness Pal. it’s a godsend</p>
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<p>I no long believe in that. </p>
<p>Starting in June this year, I was very tight on food intakes but doing insanity - few calories in and many calories out. Drop only 8 lb in a month or so. </p>
<p>Had a grade 2 soleus muscle tear in July. Tried to run with injury up to 8 miles resulting pain that I could barely walk. My sport doc prohibited me from any leg related activities other than going to work. With all the extra time, I partied - ate buffets and all night beer drinking. In a month and a 1/2, I gained a total of 5 lbs. used to gain that much in 2 days when I was “on diet”.</p>
<p>The more I eat, the higher the rate of my metabolism, it appears. A higher 24 hour base metabolism rate beats a good amount of exercise. </p>
<p>The doc gave me the green light to restart running this past Friday, one mile at a time. I am taking it very easy. But I am going to continue to eat more food - but the right kind of food. For me, high protein and low carb.</p>
<p>OP, you need to eat to get strength to lose weight. Simply cut down the intake will not work.</p>
<p>I agree with choosing a long term, healthy food plan that one could live with. I have become vegan to improve health and lose weight. But honestly, in the past when I had an occasion coming, like a wedding, and wanted to jump start some weight shed, I would do a 7 day Soup diet that the weight would just drop off. I know some gals who would do this 7 day diet once a month.
<a href=“http://www.food.com/recipe/7-day-soup-diet-recipe-215370[/url]”>http://www.food.com/recipe/7-day-soup-diet-recipe-215370</a></p>
<p>Chiming in with the “whatever you can stick with” mantra.</p>
<p>After 10 years at the same state of wishing I was a little trimmer (I’m normal weight, but I feel like a sausage) and struggling mightily to lose while fixing my thyroid (I swear, you gain weight by thinking about food when your thyroid is messed up) I have lost almost 7.5 pounds over the past 6 months. Hey, at A Certain Age, 7 pounds is huge!!</p>
<p>I used My Fitness Pal – an iPad app – which I found to be very simple, easy, and quick to track my food. Made all the difference, and I have tried weight watchers, various diets, illness, anxiety, and a host of other things I couldn’t/didn’t stick to. Thinner tastes better than any food, and all my clothes fit, and I don’t hate myself every day. That’s pretty good, imho :)</p>
<p>Wow, I had no idea this thread would go this long!</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone for their wonderful ideas. Soup diet is also intriguing, but I’d have to eliminate the cayenne and chili…that might defeat the purpose if it helps to rev up my metabolism…but I printed it out anyway, thank you.</p>
<p>Right now, especially since life is so hectic, I will just become AWARE and make subtle changes. Better choices at restaurants, no bread at the restaurant table, no occasional cookie or chocolate (really, I can do without altogether) and less pastas and potatoes.</p>
<p>When I feel like I have more time to think, then I can try some of these 7 day or 17 day diets plans. I will buy bagel thins, more eggs and egg whites, Lox, yogurts, Canadian bacon, granolas, and hopefully some of these subtle changes will be enough to see some results in the next few months.</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone for your input & suggestions!</p>
<p>My wife was talking to Dr. Gundry just last week - cardiologist and author of “Diet Evolution” - about the latest research in diet, weight control, and cardiac health. He has a new, updated book coming out at the end of the year. He does a great job explaining the research, how it relates to certain genetic types, and the effects on health. He also covers things like diet soda.</p>
<p>My wife and I have been on the diet a little over a year and cut our triglycerides in half. I cut 15 points from my blood pressure and 50 off of my cholesterol. The best news: never hungry, huge portions, and easy to follow once you make the commitment to the shopping list and break the carb craving cycle. They have recipes in the book and a pretty active website.</p>
<p>Maybe better news for the OP: chocolate is encouraged (OK, only 83% dark and 1 oz. per day, but it’s still chocolate).</p>
<p>As a guy who grew up with an italian mama, I wasn’t giving up pasta entirely. We buy Fiber Gourmet pasta 40lbs at a time off of the internet, low carb pasta allowed by the diet. The texture is a bit “al dente” but that is the way I like it anyway.</p>
<p>There is so much talk about “getting our cholesterol down.” Most people just accept that a “high” total cholesterol level is bad. Probably because many in the medical profession continue to take that position.</p>
<p>When you look at people who have heart attacks, what you find is that about a third of these people have low cholesterol, another third or so have normal cholesterol, and another third have high cholesterol. So, it would seem that the total cholesterol number really has nothing to do with anything, really. Then we can look at the HDL, LDL, and triglycerides. Turns out that having a “high” LDL doesn’t tell us all that much about our cardiac risk. People who have more “fluffy” LDL particles are at lower risk than those with “small, dense” LDL particles. So a high LDL in and of itself absolutely does not mean a person is at high risk for cardiac disease. A VAP test can give a person information about their LDL particle size. LDL particle size is metabolically connected to the type of VLDL secreted by the liver, which is influenced by carbohydrate more than fat. Moreover, the correlations in dietary intake of carbohydrate and LDL particle size is very high, whereas fat is not correlated with particle size.</p>
<p>What people really ought to pay attention to, however, is their HDL and triglyceride numbers. This relationship is important. What seems to adversely affect HDL/triglyceride is not meat or fat or cholesterol in the diet. It is refined carbohydrates. People who either eat lots of refined or simple carbs or who don’t process them well often have high triglycerides. It appears that it is inflammation, not cholesterol, which is the culprit in heart disease. And inflammation is driven by overcomsumption of refined carbohydrates.</p>
<p>I’m not necessarily a huge fan of Dr. Oz, but this explanation on his web site was simple:</p>
<p><a href=“DoctorOz - YouTube”>DoctorOz - YouTube;
<p>“One Harvard study, published in the journal Circulation, showed that the people with the highest ratio of triglycerides to HDL had 16 times the risk of heart attack as those with the lowest ratio of triglycerides to HDL. In fact, the ratio of triglycerides to HDL was the strongest predictor of a heart attack, even more accurate than the LDL/HDL ratio.”</p>
<p>By the way, our bodies NEED cholesterol. People who have too low levels of cholesterol are at risk for a whole host of other problems.</p>
<p>I haven’t read this entire thread yet…but I have noticed if I eliminate ‘most’ carbs (for me, primarily the white flour stuff. Breads, crackers, etc.), I am much less hungry and have significantly fewer cravings. This has been VERY difficult for me, as I am a carb addict - but I am being more picky as to which ones I will eat. I hope that this eventually leads to more weight loss…I’ve lost about 10 pounds so far.</p>
<p>I think I feel better eating fewer carbs, also.</p>
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<p>If you actually consumed 8 lbs of your flesh in a month, then you were hitting about 2 lbs per week, which is 32oz/7 days, which is 4 1/2 to 5 oz per day of flesh loss. For a medium sized person (say 135-175) that is pretty darn good.</p>
<p>To get the steady weight loss to, say, 1/2 pound per day is very difficult for normal sized people. Not as much if you’re 200 + lbs. But losing weight is not a fun activity because there is no way to do it quickly. </p>
<p>Given the effect of the emptying/filling of alimentary canal, and the shift caused by hydration differences, most people are woefully poor at estimating what they’ve actually gained or lost. If one can get themselves into a calorie deficit that is sustainable in the intermediate term, you’ll lose weight. Otherwise you won’t.</p>
<p>This is why I think an accurate scale (to within 2 ounces or so) is critical. Most scales can’t do that. And if you don’t measure something accurately, I don’t see how you can possibly get control over it. That would be like never looking at your bank balances or looking over your checks. :)</p>
<p>^^I agree, Dadx, that weighing yourself is very important. However, I don’t need to buy my own scale. Unfortunately I am in Doctor’s offices frequently enough to weigh myself there. These past few days I’ve been to two separate Doctor’s offices and weighed exactly the same at both, down to the ounce. So I will just pop in to a Doctor’s office when I need to be weighed, maybe once every other week. They all know me and have no issue with me using their scale!</p>
<p>Well, I was a Costco, so I picked up a two pack of Smoked Salmon, a two pack of Canadian Bacon, some fresh turkey breast (whole, cooked), a large container of specialty lettuces and a bunch of eggs.</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone! I’m off on my quest to drop 10 pounds, hopefully 15 within the next few months! Wish me luck! ;)</p>
<p>That was the wrong stuff to buy instead of a scale. 
:)</p>
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<p>Cholesterol is manufactured in the liver. Dietary changes may influence how much of each type is made, though. Dietary cholesterol has little or no effect on blood cholesterol in most people, but a minority of people is significantly affected (for better or worse).</p>
<p>DH, lover of cheese, is borderline high. Since hearing that number about ten years ago he has followed a fairly strict Mediterranean diet and become a serious runner (Boston every year). No significant change.</p>
<p>Greenbutton, than you for MyFitnessPal. As a Type A who minored in nutrition back in the 70s it is just what I needed.:)</p>
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<p>Not even in the composition (HDL, LDL, VLDL)? Increased exercise is typically associated with higher HDL.</p>
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<p>But average people are often scared away from eating foods containing cholesterol with the notion that eating them will cause high serum cholesterol. That’s just not appropriate for the majority of human beings. People who have very high genetically based cholesterol (and we are talking unGodly high numbers in many cases) are a different conversation altogether, but advice given to the average Joe should reflect the reality for the average Joe. Look around and you will see bags of potato chips or boxes of cookies or candy labeled “Cholesterol free!”</p>
<p>People can also end up with too low cholesterol if they are taking statins. Those people are at risk for problems.</p>
<p>Honestly, UCB, I don’t remember the details. I generally eat the same things and am lucky enough to have “good numbers”.</p>