The Starvation Diet

SheWolf I can't wait to try the almond milk smoothie is sounds really good. It is just the type of thing I like. Much thanks for posting it. At first I thought the recipe called for liver, I read it wrong. hehe

One thing about ripe bananas is the ripeness is actually bacteria and the longer a banana sits the less nutrients it has. I try to buy my bananas ripe already so they ripened on the vine rather than sitting on my fridge. I think that is better what are your thoughts on that?

I cannot stand the taste of artificial sweeteners and thankfully I don't have a sweet tooth at all. I require no candy, soda or ice cream. I don't sweeten my coffee or use cream.

Did I hear that video you linked me to wrong? I though the guy said table sugar was now a mix of sucrose and fructose.

Hmm I didn't know Kashi made anything other than cereals. I will definitely look for them and Amys brand and give them a try check out the ingredients. I have sworn off Banquet frozen dinners they taste like plastic. Something that is portioned can be helpful as long as I don't eat three of them in a sitting

My mom used to make home made dandelion wine and OMG that stuff was potent

Blueberries totally rock especially the wild ones from Maine. Maine is the blueberry capital of the world. But they are expensive or I would eat them, black berries and raspberries much more often. Fruit is generally the extent of my sweet tooth, I much prefer fruit over sugared sweets. My dad did not like sweets either so it must be hereditary. Freezing them is a great idea! Keeps them fresh longer too!

I never salt my food at the table, it bugs me to see people salt food before they even taste it. But I do salt foods while I am cooking. I can't stand to taste a live piece of undissolved salt on food it actually becomes inedible to me. I order Italian sandwiches dry with no oil, mayo or s and p. I guess I am a purest when it comes to food.

I would rather spend a little more for better food anyway.

Thanks again for your very informative post packed with a wealth of great diet tips!

Great point EhBeth! Yes I am aware of that there is a tiny bit of caffeine in decaf coffee. Some say it is not much different that regular coffee but I can taste a big difference. When I first started my caffeine diet many years ago (over 15 years ago). Decaf coffee tasted bland. And no chocolate either and I have never found decaf chocolate. Coffee and soda with caffeine tastes bad to me now. Like someone poured gas in them. I can detect caffeine in a drink immediately. And when I drink a drink and the caffeine is mostly removed my body makes a point of thanking me gratuitously. It is a kind of relief feeling to taste something that is free of caffeine.

I have a strange logic when it comes to caffeine. I loath these energy drinks I could rant ans swear about them for hours! I think the sale of them to minors is criminal. The colorful ads where they make them seem cool irks to to no end. "Red bull" says it all. Monster etc...

We can thank Bush for oking energy drinks for kids on his watch. I wish Obama would outlaw their unregulated sales or require ID to purchase them. And the tv ads should be tantamount to showing someone consuming alcoholic beverages in a commercial (Big no no). Kids don't need speed! It rips my heart out. Parents who feed their children sweet coffee drinks should be listed with the pedophiles online.

There is reason why the coffee bean has 250 antioxidants. The plant over a million years developed the antioxidants to keep it alive from its caffeine content. If the coffee bean did not have the antioxidants the plant itself would die. Coffee is higher in antioxidants that any fruit. So why does fruit have antioxidants also? Well because fructose is a poison too. Plants evolved these antioxidants to survive the fructose poisons within them. Wherever there is naturally occurring poisons you will find antioxidants along side

So if you remove most of the caffeine you can get the benefit s of these wonderful antioxidants and the tiny smidgen of caffeine becomes a non issue.

The antioxidants don't need to be used up to combat the caffeine introduced into the blood stream so they can be used to repair other parts of the body. Besides I love black unsweetened decaf coffee. I would never even dream of drinking a cup of caffeinated coffee. It is decaf or simply go without. I also don drink it every day only a couple cups maybe a couple times a week. All Starbucks decaf is decaffeinated with dry cleaning fluid. YIKES!

Also, "naturally decaffeinated" coffee is decaffeinated with water rather than dry cleaning fluid. I hear tiny residues of dry cleaning fluid remains in the coffee. Dry cleaning fluid will wreak havoc with the natural oils in our bodies.

Water decaf does not taste as good as decaf from dry cleaning fluid but that is the price we pay to stay healthy. It is getting harder to find the naturally decafed coffee these days.

Nice poetic way of putting it! Funny you should say that I go into the fruits and vegetable sections of the supermarket and now I have become a color searcher. Especially lettuce. it is usually so white and few nutrients as it is. Smaller fruits generally have more nutrients versus the larger fruit. Like green pepper I will buy smaller ones rather than the big ones. I am just learning not to buy sweetened juices, again, they are more expensive but worth the money.

I have not been able to buy sprouts lately they have been missing from the store shelves for months and months. Is that the same where you all live? I love onion sprouts! yum! And I substitute hummus for mayo and sometimes cheese on lunch meat sandwiches. I love hummus but was not introduced to it until my early thirties. I would make it myself but grinding chick peas is not easy and the sesame tahini usually goes bad before I use it up so i just buy it made up.

Like peanut butter has a shelf life of only a month before a bacteria grows in the oils that can cause heart disease. Also peanut butter has a fungus that the manufacturers have not found a way to rid the butter of yet. I LOVE peanut butter but I eat it in small amounts and I keep it in the fridge to retard the oil from becoming spoiled.

I am usually too ashamed to admit when I have a hamburger meal but when it is practically the only thing I eat all day it can be ok because the fats and proteins in beef can really stave of hunger for a long time. In those instances my body does not complain. I have had two hamburger meals this week. I can't seem to avoid them sometimes. If I mix a hamburger meal with a soda I walk out of the restaurant feeling totally sick so soda is out of the question. I usually order a cup of ice water with a burger or have lowfat milk. (never a milk shake)

I would like to reverse a few things that I said here a few posts back. I ran into a long time friend of mine yesterday. I was shocked he had lost around 100 lbs. He also could eat anything he wanted and not gain a single ounce. His secret? Running... he runs. I go to the gym and do the elliptical thing but only a couple times a week usually. He gave me a tip on how to become a runner. He knows more about diet, sugars and everything I realized I knew nothing and I just shut up began to listen to him.

He told me the way to gradually work your body into getting used to running was run for about four minutes then walk. Then, when you are ready to run again, run for another four minutes... He said eventually the time between walking and running becomes less and less.

This guy was a fat chubby person and my friends used to make fun of him much to my own disapproval. Now he has a washboard stomach and is about to run a marathon tied to a state competition.

He says he has to stock up on carbs before a run and even though he can eat what he likes he still counts every calorie and watches ever nutrient he eats.

I was under the impression that exercise and weight lifting was not very effective compared to diet but now I know that is false.

I will be introducing running into my daily schedule soon.

Well I did my first run tonight. Four minutes then walk, right, try two minutes then walk. I am out of shape. Well I ran and walked and so on for an hour and a half. It is a cool evening temperature wise tonight and I felt really refreshed afterward. I couldn't seem to get up to running four minutes straight but I figure maybe on my next run. Towards the end my muscles got tight and I had to stop and stretch them, I will stretch before I go out next time too. I think I have found exactly what I need to get this weight off me. To think I was the one who inspired my friend to work out and lose weight and now he is inspiring me. People can be really special sometimes.

Google Couch to 5K for a good, solid running program that works.

Awesome thanks!

Yes this workout is just what I needed. I had this feeling like I overdid it after my run yesterday. Walking back to my apartment once I decided I was done my run I felt almost crippled though I felt really good too.

I was up late but slept about 6 hours. I got up today walked out to get something to eat today got back to my place and SLEPT FOUR HOURS!

I still feel great but I know I need a day off from running although I am motivated to run tonight. It is just too darned hot outside to run I am hoping it is cool outside tonight like it was last night thought I am seriously debating if I should run until tomorrow. I am figuring give it another day. I want to run but my body is telling me REST!

This vitamin D deficiency is still a huge issue in my life. I have been sent to a specialist a woman who is going to administer a bone density test. I am scared about that I hope they are not going to take a biopsy of my bones but if so I guess it is necessary. Has anyone had a bone density test? I should Google it.

My back hurts a bit more today than it usually does but I still feel over all great after my run last night.

I've been kind of avoiding posting on this topic because I don't want to get into the specifics of what you're eating (or not eating). I suspect you are loading up on calories at the end of the day so you are far from starvation mode, but spiking and troughing blood sugar (from not eating breakfast, etc.) is not a good thing. Generally, people who eat breakfast tend to lose more weight. Of course, a healthy breakfast -- not a Denny's Grand Slam or anything like that.

A caloric deficit will cause you to lose weight, but up to a point. It's not exactly like a bank -- when you have too much of a deficit, your body stops losing and instead conserves what it can. Of course people who truly starve inevitably become bony but -- that should not be anyone's goal in life, to resemble a Concentration Camp survivor.

That having been said, my main suggestions to you (hope you don't mind the unsolicited words) are to try not to overdo it to extremes in any direction. E. g. not overdo the exercise or the dieting. I think that when you do so, you open yourself up psychologically for an extreme 180. That is, if you are abstemious in the extreme, you can set yourself up psychologically to crave cheating and binging in the extreme. Food can get a mystique which it shouldn't have.

I have been on many diets in my life. This is the one that seems to be working. I eat my minimum daily requirements of all main nutrients (protein, carbs, fats, calcium, iron, vitamins, fiber and whatnot), drink copious amounts of water (11 8-oz glasses/day at least), intake between about 1600 and 1800 calories/day, strength train every day, do resistance bands every day, and try to get in more cardio 1 - 5 times/week, depending upon schedule. I don't eat red meat or pork, avoid junk food and fried foods (except for a Monday cheat night, and even then it's only 4 oz of skinless fried chicken -- hardly a binge worthy of the name), mainly stay away from caffeine and salt and rarely drink alcohol. I cook much of the time, a good 18 or more meals/week (out of 21) are eaten at home.

I have lost a good 170 lbs. since January of 2008 and, yes, a good quarter or so of that comes from having taken alli but we're still talking about over 100 off due to the above regimen. It's not difficult and I can live with it. I rarely feel deprived or like I'm missing out on life. I go out regularly and do not have major issues with it.

And I am wearing clothes from 15 years ago because they fit again. Best of luck to you -- this stuff ain't easy.

My diet is in disaster mode.... Although I am very ripped muscular my diet is still, a fat thing. where my body is making fat of everything....

I am anxious to try this. Thanks for the great post!

HAHA....Amen. Love it. Brutal, while beneficial.

Ya it does work no kidding.

I am revamping my diet... YES, I am still struggling with my weight.

I am off the starvation diet because it is too brutal. I don't think it is good for the body to starve it even part of a day to lose weight. I am finding that just MUCH smaller portions religiously is a better way to go. It does not slow the metabolism and keeps the bodies engines still burning fuel steadily. If you get the full feeling you definitely ate too much. It is much easier eating much smaller portions than starving all day and something that is maintainable over the long haul.

Eventually your stomach shrinks from eating smaller portions and having a steady intake of small meals provides a steady energy flow so exercise is more inviting a routine.

The starvation diet is exactly that too brutal and not maintainable over the amount of time necessary to lose a substantial amount of weight. By substantial I mean thirty or forty lbs. Also once the weight is off you can't continue to starve yourself indefinitely so having the habit of a few smaller meals a day being already in place helps maintain the weight after the desired lbs are taken off.

Gonna go with this and I will check back here to give results if any. The starvation diet does work to take lbs off but so does cutting off a leg.

Have you tried Jenny Craig or Weight Watcher's? I don't know much about diets because weight has never been a problem in my life. I don't know how true the testimonies are for Jenny Craig or Weight Watcher's. I was just curious if you had tried them and if you had any results?

I am sure they would work if it involves small portions a few times a day.

Is there a reason you haven't tried them? I imagine it can be rather costly. I do hope you find a diet that works for you Rex.

Yes cost seems to be an element and also I like to cook my own food. It is a ritual I have grown accustomed to. I used to be a short order cook and feed a whole county every night years ago and I will never cook again on a mass scale like that but I do like to cook for myself and occasionally for guests.

I sometimes cook a huge pot of something and end up eating the whole thing. Well it is either get used to being overweight and climbing steadily or stop eating so much in a sitting. I can consume two huge plates of spaghetti and still snack afterward. Well that is going to change from now on. This small portion limit should help I think.

I will be praying for your success.