John's diet

Screening showed that my blood cholesterol is a bit high, and the doctor got me an appointment to see the dietician; so here's a place for me to put cholesterol links, and comments about how much nicer food with lots of lard in it is than all this healthy stuff.

I'd also like to lose quite a bit of weight, and increase in strength and fitness by taking more exercise... My target weight is under 14st (=196lbs) (which I should aim to reach late in November), and my starting weight is 15st 10lbs (=220lbs).

However, I won't use aspartame!

Foods

Things to eat

Brown bread
Chicken (remove skin and fat) -- stock cubes are OK
Fibre (controls cholesterol)
Fruit
Lentils
Noodles
Pasta
Semi-skimmed milk
Yoghurt

Things to avoid that I used to eat regularly

Cheese (up to once a week OK)
Chocolate
Crisps (up to once a week OK)
Fish and chips (up to once a month OK)
Full-fat milk
Pastry, pies, pasties etc
Visible fat on pork, chicken etc -- remove this before eating

Further changes to make

More home cooking, more starch
can fill up on vegetables as well as pasta etc -- about same bulk of vegetables as of starches
Turkey mince, lean mince are good; also beans, soya, Quorn
Bananas make a good high-carbohydrate snack
Eat carbohydrate about half an hour before going to gym -- pasta etc -- and banana afterwards; avoid sugary drinks

Suggested daily diet

Small regular meals are best. Don't aim to lose more than 1 to 2 lbs per week.

Breakfast	One of High Fibre cereal e.g. wheat flakes Müsli without added sugar etc, and low on nuts Oats with semi-skimmed milk
Breakfast	Tea or coffee, with semi-skimmed milk
Mid-morning	Banana, apple or other fruit
Lunch	One of Brown roll with one of chicken tuna turkey and preferably without mayonnaise etc Noodles (flavoured but not with rich soup) Spaghetti (with slice of bread) Vegetable soup -- avoid creamy ones
Lunch	One of fruit low fat, diet yoghurt
Mid-afternoon	Fruit or yoghurt
Evening meal (30 mins before gym)	Bread and pasta salad rice salad
Evening snack (after gym)	Banana etc
Before bed	Home-cooked pasta, beans etc

Questions about the above diet

How about temporary faster diet to get weight down, as my weight seems stable on the present diet but isn't going down at all?
Is soya OK?

[Misc]

John C. G. Sturdy

Last modified: Sun Jun 10 22:26:30 GMT Daylight Time 2007