Food While Dieting.....

Not a direct answer, but just something to consider... try to avoid depriving yourself, but work on portion control. I lost a bunch of weight and still ate pizza and cake here and there. I just loaded up on water and fruit and veggies. Instead of eating half a pizza, I would fill up on the good stuff, and then savor ONE piece of the bad stuff. I felt less deprived and I still was eating well., It is all about caloric intake, not just what you eat.

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My husband and I each lost about 30 pounds last year doing the following things:

1. NO eating after dinner - only water and sugar-free gum were allowed
2. NO second helpings
3. Dessert was only twice a week and was usually fresh fruit with a little yogurt
4. You MUST excersise. I did just 30 mins on the treadmill each weekday; he did various vidoes, like Jillian Michael's 30 day shred
5. We only drank water - no juice, soda or milk....just water
6. If we felt hungry outside of a regular meal time we'd have a big glass of water first; if we were still actually hungry, then we'd have a piece of cheese or fruit.

Some of the foods that became our 'go to' meals were lettuce wraps (chicken, veggies and steam-fried noodles wrapped in lettuce), taco salad (basically everything you'd put in a taco, including the taco, chopped and tossed together), turkey wraps, inside-out chicken pot pie (cook up the veggies and add a can of cream of chicken soup, then pile onto a biscuit), chef's salad (lettuce, tomato, cucumber, avacado, onion, carrot, hardboiled egg, ham, swiss cheese).

We also made sure that if we were having something like spaghetti or pizza (because we do have 3 children) we'd have a BIG bowl of salad and a glass of water first so that we weren't as hungry for the other stuff. My husband went from eating 3/4 of a large pizza to about 3 slices by eating a huge salad first.

Best of luck to you. It really has to be a life-style change to be permanent. That's why a lot of people who do Atkins end up gaining it back - because it's so hard to maintain over a lifetime :)

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make cheap vegitarian sushi at home (brown rice, carrot, avacado, cucumber) Sometime I even make spicey tuna with canned tuna. Not bad

summer rolls. (get the rice skins in the asian section of the grocery store, though in the mid west, that may be a hard item to come by) I julian cabage, carrot, a spear of asparagus and make a fabulous dipping peanut sauce)

half the cheese pizza on the BBQ (buy premade dough at Trader Joes) and add veggies instead of meat

panini with hummus, grilled pepper and mushroom, basil, tomato, and maybe cheese.

magngo corn and bean salad (great quick no cook summer food). I open a can of pinto beans, corn, fresh mango and tomato and dress with a little vinigar, sugar, oil, cummin dressing. Serve it up with toast or corn chips.

healthy mexican (skip the meat and use beans, limmit the cheese and sour cream, and season with hot sauce and lime juice. Fish tacos is one of our favorite! shredded cabbage makes it! We also do burritos, or taco salads.

bowl of brown rice and lentils with tomato, lettuce, cheese and lime on top.

Soups (look up African peanut soup, its fabulous)!
Steamed artichoke. I love to eat one with baked white fish and rice or slalad.

veggie burger and home made oven sweat potoato fries

stir fry!

When I find I don't loose weight with diet and exersise, I keep a food journal and go the extra step to measure and count out callories. When I really moniter my calories thats what really works. But its no joke, it takes reall effort to keep an honest food journal. If you can't be bothered to count, I think Leslie's rules are right on! I have 4 friends and family that did fabulous with HCG. Too extreme for me though.

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Cut out processed foods, get off of the sugar, move more and fill up on LOTS of fruits and veggies!

ETA: And drink LOTS of water!

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There is a website called halfmysize.com that has a ton of good recipes. Easy tasty stuff that you can make with stuff most people keep in the pantry, no crazy expensive ingredients. Most of the recipes include Weight Watchers points as well, although I believe they are still on the old system. Also Hungry Girl has good stuff. There's a website, weekly newsletters/recipes and cookbooks.
I've had a lot of success with Weight Watchers, if you'd consider going that route. Good luck!! :-)

i have a cookbook that I bought used for like $20. It is 1000 low fat salt sugar recipes. It is wonderful for ideas. I use this more than any of my other books. Look on Amazon I would highly recommend it.

Cooking Light magazine posts many of their recipes on their website. They go well beyond boring foods like chicken and salad. And every recipe from that magazine we've tried has been a winner.

My big tip learned through Weight Watchers is not to deprive yourself. If you severely limit what you're eating, you're doomed to failure. Have little bits of favorite "cheat" foods, but work them in to your healthy diet.

Don't do anything radical, like cut out entire food groups. Just aim for moderation and preparation methods that are healthier.

My 2 bits of advice (besides running, running melts the pounds off!!) is 1) Drink a ton of water and 2) Keep a food diary. Drink water whenever you can - if you put a straw in it you'll drink a lot more. Drink a full glass of water before eating anything! As far as the food diary - write down everything single thing you put in your mouth, even that one chicken nugget from your kid's plate. When I did this I found myself not wanting to get the diary out to write down dumb little things like that, so I just didn't eat them. It kept me from eating mindlessly while preparing/cleaning up meals, etc. Might work for you too! Oh, and my husband joined weightwatchers recently (just online - he doesn't go to meetings or anything) He has to record everything he eats. He has lost 20 pounds and looks great! Good luck to you :)

Check out this website. It is a low carb website and I have made several of the recipes. They are pretty good. http://www.genaw.com/lowcarb/

I try to keep my wheat and dairy low (sensitive to it), but otherwise I don't really limit myself except to stick to organic, NON-PROCESSED foods. For that reason I won't buy the frozen meals, even though they're convenient for counting calories or points (if you're on Weight Watchers).

I'm also trying to avoid saccharin, and other artificial junk.

Stick with healthier fats (I love avocado/guacamole).

I also count calories, and skip carbs after about 7 pm.

Lightly salted rice cakes with either a thin layer of peanut or almond butter and a little drizzle of honey are a great breakfast or snack. For an inexpensive and super healthy meal you can boil 2 bags of brown rice, in a seperate pot cook up a package of groung turkey and drain. Add 1 can of beans to the turkey and add the rice. To moisten the mixture add some chicken or vegetable broth (be generous with the broth) and season with salt,pepper,cumin,onion and garlic. We like our spicy, xo you can add chili pepper or hot sauce too!! Enjoy