My nutricionista had set me up on a diet that emphasized the different food groups, with the proper size servings for each. My weight loss was satisfactory for the first month, but slowed down during the second month. I was also uncomfortable because I didn't understand her system, which involved five meals a day.
I researched diets on the Web, and the experts there said there was no advantage to eating more meals. It is true that you can find support for almost any kind of crazy diet you can name on the Web, but I picked the ones who seemed to be the most scientific, who had done studies testing their theories. One thing they agreed on: calories were important, and you had to keep track of them. This made sense to my engineering mind, that likes to calculate things.
I found a neat site on the Web by the US Department of Agriculture, the USDA National Nutrient Database, that gives the nutritional value for anything you can imagine. For example, a small banana, 6-7 inches long, is 90 calories, and a extra-small has 72 calories. This is handy because bananas don't come with labels on them. Almost everything else does.
I started making a small index card for each meal, listing everything I ate, and the calories it had. I then entered this info on a large grid, using one line for each meal. This also allowed me to insure that I was getting a balanced diet, with something from each food group.
After floundering around for awhile, I determined my basal metabolism was about 1500 calories a day. I had to stay below this to lose weight.
And what do you know? It works!
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