Dieting and Liking Food

I Like Food

I like burgers, tacos, and chinese food. I like cookies, ice cream, and cake. When it comes to losing weight, I prefer to not be limited to what I can eat. I will admit that I only vaguely know about stuff like the Atkin's Diet, the Southbeach Diet, the Special K diet (ok, that one's easy). But I do know that those diets call for banning certain kinds of foods.

That's just not something I want to do. For one thing, I like food. For another, it makes it harder to go out with other people. I prefer the flexibility of being able to eat the types of food that I want, as long as I control the quantity of the food that I eat. The way I lost my weight last time, and the way I plan on losing it this time is the simple calculation of:

Calories In - Calories Burned = Change in Weight

As long as I burn more calories than I take in, aided by going to the gym, then I will be able to make my target without limiting my ability to eat the foods that I like.


More on Dieting

Another big reason why I want to avoid fad diets... diets are good for losing weight, but it takes a lifestyle change to keep the weight off. By monitoring the food that I like to eat on a day to day basis, once I am at my target weight, it will only take a slight adjustment in how much I eat and/or exercise to maintain that weight. If I chose to follow a specific diet, that was strict on what kinds of foods that I ate, and then decided to return to the real world of food afterwards, there is a larger adjustment that needs to be made.

However, I am curious to see what some of those books say. I'm sure there is plenty of useful information in those regardless of how I view the overall method.