Diet for Over Weight

Written by Diet Bites

Need to go on a diet plan but you're unsure of just where you need to start in order to produce true weight loss - as well as permanent?

You need a plan - and we can provide exactly that! Look no further than the healthy menu below which you can use as a pattern. We build our diets and the menus therein on the healthy American Food Pyramid - and you should too if you're wanting a permanent solution for your overweight issues.

We've included a snapshot of the pyramid so you can easily view the minimum serving recommendations. Generally, the more that you weigh, the more servings are required to support the nutritional needs of your body.

To personalize and create other menus for your weight loss plan which is built on the pyramid, simply look at the foods within the following menus and replace the foods below with other selections from the food group.

For example, if the menu contains carrots - then you can replace these with squash, okra, mushrooms, potatoes, corn, green beans and so forth. If it contains a lean protein such as pan-roasted chicken then you can substitute that for grilled chicken, grilled steak, baked fish, scrambled eggs and so forth. Replace proteins for proteins and so forth based on the five basic food groups.

The basic lunch or dinner plate will resemble any of the following examples:

Protein Group: 3 ounces of pan-roasted chicken seasoned with cracked black pepper and lemon pepper.
Vegetable Group: 1 small baked potato seasoned with chives, salt, black pepper and reduced fat margarine.
Grain Group: 2 slices of whole grain bread topped with whole oats and honey.
Dairy Group: 1 cup of low fat or skim milk.
Fruit Group: 1 cup of watermelon

Now let's view another menu and see how we can replace the above choices as instructed in our opening section of this article:

3 ounces of baked salmon, served with a wedge of lemon
1 cup of green beans, 1/2 cup of beets
2 baked hushpuppies
1/2 cup of low fat cottage cheese
1 baked peach sprinkled with a spoon of brown sugar and ground cinnamon

Note how we added two vegetable selections to the menu? You can certainly do such.

And on that note, let's view the official American Food Pyramid as promised:

Look at the Bread, Cereal, Rice & Pasta Group (Grains). The minimum serving recommendation is six servings and at least 1/2 of these should come from whole grain selections. The vegetable food group requires a minimum of three servings; amid breakfast - there isn't a lot of room for this food group as it's just not very appetizing early in the morning. Why runny eggs are, who knows - but they certainly are for most individuals.

Therefore, you'll need to work with certain food groups, ensuring that you're inputting at least - the minimal recommendations onto your meal plates. Let's do one more diet menu as an example and we'll start with the protein group as we did above and end with the fruit group.

3 ounces of extra lean hamburger meat prepared as a patty (you'll need 4 ounces of raw meat to make 3 ounces of cooked)
lettuce leaves, sliced onion and pickles
1 small whole grain hamburger bun
1 slice of reduced fat cheese as well as 1 cup of skim milk as the beverage
slices of tomato and a couple of thin slices of avocado (both are fruit group members)

We'll also add the following to the fruit group selections: 1 slice of angel food or sponge cake topped with 1/2 cup of sliced strawberries that have been mixed with a bit of whipped light topping; place the strawberry mixture on top of the cake before serving.

Opt for mustard as the spread; top the beef with the cheese slice; add the fresh vegetables, tomato and avocado. This is a great way to prepare a very healthy cheeseburger.

This menu shows how desserts as well as favorite foods can be both fun and healthy choices. Remember, fat is allowed into the daily diet - as it's included in the official American Food Pyramid - just in minimal amounts - as in sparingly.

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