Does food substitution work?

[Juggy]

Hi all,

So I fail at diets, and what I am reading lost of people do. I am trying a new tactic and wondered what you think. I have started to substitue fatty foods for low fat less than 4% fat etc. And remove some of the sugar from diet.

Its only very small changes like drink more water and sugar free squash and im only on day 6. Im not really thinking too hard about my food at the moment as I am 311lbs as this morning I am trying to walk in the mornings and be more active.

Is this the best way to start a change in life or should I be more worried about my food than my excercise?

Being so heavy after about a mile I start getting aching ankles but I now walk for 1 and 3/4 miles. I am aiming to move this to 5 miles by jan 1`next year I am hoping that the effort of the walking combined with my small changes in diet will make that 2lb a week difference.

I am deluding myself?

Thanks

Juggy

 

[mylee]

NO... I think you're on the right track. It may be slow, but small changes are easy to stick too. My friend lost his first 20 lbs by replacing soda for water. He was drinking almost 1000 cals a day.....not including what he was eating. Just that small daily change kicked off his weight loss. Walking is a good exercise, but if it hurts your ankles maybe you can try bike riding.

 

[KaraCooks]

I do think you're on the right track ... small changes can add up to big ones eventually.

FWIW, I don't believe in "diets". There are a couple of reasons:
1 - people get this mindset that on a diet they have to deprive themselves and be miserable or they're not doing it right
2 - people get a mindset that they can go "on" a diet and lose weight and then go "off" a diet and then are surprised when they gain weight back.
3 - most diets (the commercially available ones and the fad ones) are massively unhealthy or are based on ridiculous pseudo-science or both.
4 - most of the time when someone goes on a diet and slips up, they immediately feel they've failed and quit

What I do believe in is eating healthily. I think that eating real food as close to it's natural form as possible is important. I avoid processed and packaged foods as much as possible. I personally don't believe in "diet" foods at all - low calories, low fat, low carb - all that means is that one item has been replaced with another equally or more unhealthy one. The only exception to this is dairy products - because the process of making dairy low fat is a natural one; it just involves removing butterfat.

Just keep being aware of what you eat and keep an eye on quantity - because it is just as easy to eat too much healthy food.