About two years ago, I was the heaviest I’ve ever been in my whole life. I tried many diet plans to try to lose weight but none of them helped. When I first started this weight loss diet plan, I weighed 238 lbs. The first 4-5 days were tough! I was always hungry since my stomach was stretched out and used to overeating. Day 6 is when it got easier for me. After my first 30 days of staying on this diet plan, I lost 10 lbs of pure fat (dropped from 39% body fat to 36% body fat).
At 228 lbs., I continued on the same nutrition plan for another 30 days. After the second round, I lost another 10 lbs and dropped from 36% body fat to 33.5%.
At 218 lbs., I continued once again on the same nutrition plan for another 30 days. This time, I hit my plateau and only lost 5 lbs, dropping from 33.5% body fat to 32%.
After those 90 days, my final weight was 213 lbs (25 lbs difference!). During the entire period, I did not change anything else about my daily routine at all. I purposely made sure that I continue to moderately exercise 3 times a week as I usually do to see how well the nutrition plan works (and it does work very well!).
Here’s the daily diet plan. The numbers next to each item in the “Daily Diet Plan” section is the number of servings of each item. You can look up the serving size in the “Serving Sizes and Example Foods” section.
Daily Diet Plan | Serving Sizes and Example Foods |
Breakfast
Mid-Morning Snack
Lunch
Mid-Afternoon Snack
Dinner
Treat Time
Throughout the Day
| 1 serving of meat/dairy
1 serving of starch
1 serving of fruit
1 serving of low starch vegetable
1 serving of fat
1 serving of dessert
|
Final Tips
Notice that the foods listed in the healthy daily diet plan above are mostly just ingredients and not meals. It is up to you to cook and spice the ingredients to your liking (given that you don’t significantly add any extra calories during the process). I believe that if I were to give you a set of diet meal plans, you’d get bored with it after a couple of repetitions (at which point your diet fails). Also, having enough drive to commit to a set meal plan is not the goal here. The goal is to teach your body to learn how to eat right, by making permanent changes to your lifestyle.
16 Comments
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This sounds like an easy program to follow – healthy too. I like that you have the three main meals plus snacks.
Thanks for visiting and the compliment!
Thanks for the article! Ur rt, better to give serving sizes rather than actual meal plans… I like ur thinkin’! ^_^
Thanks for visiting and for your kind words Crystal!
Hi!
What are the servings and example foods for the “snack” meal?
Very simple and helpful. Thanks!
Under the mid-afternoon snack and treat time, you list “1 Snack.” Can you elaborate on this? Is “1 Snack” the equivalent of 1 Fruit and 1 Meat/Dairy as listed in the mid-morning snack? This seems like it might be relevant to the mid-afternoon snack, but maybe not for the “Treat Time.”
Also, it seems that 8 cups of water would be an absolute minimum, especially if you are doing any exercise during the day. Is there a reason you chose 8 “cups” or are you simply giving that as a baseline? I tend to drink at least 8 glasses (which are often at least two cups each) or more a day. It’s hard to OD on water.
Great site, thanks for all your articles.
@Alex & @Dan
My mistake, I meant 1 Dessert instead of 1 Snack.
You’re right. I picked 8 cups of water as a baseline because most people have trouble just hitting that goal.
I too drink a lot more than 8 cups of water a day (~20 cups as an estimate) since I sweat A LOT. That being said, I believe there is such a thing as drinking too much water (which will overwork your organs). I tend to regularly check to see if my lips are dry and also do the thumb pressed to shins test to figure out if I’m lacking water or not.
Also, thanks for your kind words Dan!
Awesome
1serving meat/dairy…does that mean 1 of each, or either or?
Thanks sounds like a good plan
@DeDee
It should be 1 of either.
just looking to start eating better and hopefully tone up a little. Hope to keep find some like motivated people to help keep me motivated.
i hope this will be helpful as i am slightly overweight i hope this will really work coz i have tried many things in my life but i have gained not loss and i am going egypt so i am willing to look fit
@sasha
For people who want to lose weight, the most important thing is to eat less calories than you expend each day (basal metabolic rate). So there are many diet plans out there that tell you to do different things to try to stay UNDER your basal metabolic rate (BMR).
This diet plan on this page is easy for people who aren’t used to counting calories so they can kind of get an idea of what a “normal” amount of food looks like in a day. If you count the calories in this plan, it lands you at about 1500-2000 Calories depending on what foods you pick. Most people in the U.S. are used to eating way over 3000 Calories per day so eating something at the 1500-2000 range will definitely make them drop weight.
I was wondering of the lunch and dinner could be swapped since i’m more active in the day than in the late evening?
Hi and thanks for the great blogs you have! I wanted to know if I need any adjustments to above diet i I only have 10-15 pounds to loose? (i’m 5ft, 35yrs, 130lbs)… The reason Im asking is because I was lately doing a similar diet (free diet for life) and I actually gain fat in my middle part for the 2 weeks I did it…. Thanks a lot!
Just ordered P90X so I figured I might as well eat right too. Can you recommend more food and serving sizes? I can’t eat chicken and lettuce everyday. Also should I eat more in morning and less at night?