How to Lose Weight with the Food Pyramid

Many people are looking to lose weight, and are ready and eager to jump on the latest fad diet. Rather than making a temporary change, learn how to lose weight by following the guidelines of the food pyramid. It takes a little planning, but is much easier than trying to keep track of calories! Not only can you succeed at weight loss with this plan, but you'll be eating a healthy diet, too.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• computer with internet connection

1. Talk with your doctor about weight loss and learn if there are any special restrictions you need to consider. Be sure to adapt the following steps to meet any circumstances you and your doctor discuss.

2. Go to MyPyramid Plan (link below) and enter in your age, sex, height, and physical activity. Although it is optional, it is important to enter your height, as your energy needs will vary based on height. Click submit. (Since you didn't enter your weight, you might get a page saying that you are at an unhealthy weight. If that happens, just click on the link on the right that tells you what you should eat to have a healthy weight).

3. Record how many ounces or cups of each food group you should have to be at a healthy weight. For each of these, multiply by 7 so you know how much of each you should eat in a week.

4. Make a list of various foods you like to eat, including your favorite recipes. It's okay to include unhealthy items, since depriving yourself of favorite things will just tempt you to give up the diet. Just be sure to have several healthy options. If you need more recipes, use the Recipe Finder link below, and be sure to select Cooking Light and/or Health as the publications to make sure you choose healthy recipes.

5. For each food item or recipe, write down how many of each food group it contains. For example, a cup of milk is 1 milk serving and 0 servings of all the other food groups. A pasta recipe with 2 oz pasta and 1/2 c chopped tomatoes would be 2 grain servings, 0.5 cups of fruit, and 0 servings of everything else.

6. From the above list, select recipes and food items for the week. You can select each item more than once. Come up with a combination such that the number of servings in each category equals the numbers you calculated in step 3. Be sure that 75-90% of what you select are healthy items, like whole grains, lean meats, non-starchy vegetables, etc. This is what you'll eat for the week.

7. From this, you can either plan out which items you'll eat on each day, or mentally keep track of what you've eaten and try to get the right number of each group every day. I recommend planning, as you could end up at the last day of the week and not have enough to eat, but pick whichever method fits your style.

8. Create a new weekly plan a few days in advance every week, so that you'll be ready and know what you can eat when the next week starts.

9. Feel free to add a small amount of sweets to your meals -- no more than half a Snicker's bar a day (or the equivalent). Alternatively, save up the treats to have something special once a week, if that suits your personality better.

Tips & Warnings

• For best results, add an exercise regime to improve your health and have faster weight loss.
• Monitor your progress regularly, but not too frequently. You could weigh yourself once a week on the same day and at roughly the same time. You could also take waist and/or hip measurements once a month. Keep track, but don't obsess.
• It is possible that you need more calories than the food pyramid suggests, especially if your weight is significantly above a healthy weight or if you've misjudged your activity level. If you end the day feeling like you are starving (not just a little hungry), add a food group or two to each day to see if that helps. For example, for the whole week, you could add 1 cup vegetables (1/2 c X 2), 1 cup fruit (1/2 c X 2), 1 oz meat (0.5 oz X 2), and 1 oz grains, which gives 7 extra servings every week.
• Check out the rest of the MyPyramid website to find more information on healthy eating and portion sizes.
• Don't skip step 1! If you have a medical condition that hinders weight loss, you'll want your doctor's help for that. Also, if you have a medical condition that affects your diet or ability to exercise safely, you'll need your doctor's help to come up with a solution.

Resources

• Direct link to MyPyramid Plan
• Home Page of MyPyramid Website
• Enhanced Recipe Finder from Cookinglight.com webpage link
• How to Troubleshoot Weight Loss Problems
• How to Get into an Exercise Habit

[amylaine]

on 7/3/2008 great article