I'm looking to go fully 'healthy' and ideally want to start eating things that are good for me, or at least 'not bad'.

Obviously the image that instantly comes to mind is rabbit food, and boring stuff.

Does anybody know of any good set plans to get me started? Ideally that feature fun and exciting stuff to eat, but healthy at the same time?

I don't have a massive budget either, as I'm currently saving for various things, so has to be affordable too

Get the Slimming World magazine (available in newsagents) - there are lots of lovely ideas in it.

In general, I'd cut down quite firmly on carbohydrates - potatoes, bread, pasta and rice.
Halve your intake of those things, and the weight will just fall off.

The things I eat the most!!

Sounds like a challenge - What do you eat alternatively?

I'll give the magazine a go!!

p.s Only need to lose about a stone to get to my ideal weight. Biggest concerns is my overall health, as I've been pretty bad throughout my 20's.

Alternatively just eat lots of vegetables and don't cut down overly on fat. Fat gives food taste and satisifes hunger.

I'd make a leek bake or cauliflower cheese or something as a side rather than piling on potatoes, bread etc.

As Welsh Lad said, simple carbs are the number one target if you want to lose. That is your potatoes, rice, bread, pasta, sugar (including alcohol) and anything with flour in it really. Control those and your portion size and you will probably find you that you don't need to worry about much else.

As a side, I usually do microwave steamed veggies, I keep a variety in the freezer and it only takes a few minutes to cook.

Update - The carb free diet has worked a treat. Started the day after posting this thread (a week and half ago) and have lost half a stone already...

My daily diet now consists of -

Breakfast - Bowl of muesli, and a piece of fruit

Lunch - Small portion of tinned mackerel and more fruit

Dinner - 2 x Fresh chicken breast, or pork, or salmon with steamed veg

Drinks - Sugar free flavoured water (sparkling or still)

Snacks - Fruit, or bio yoghurt with nuts


It was hard at first, but have become quite fond of this diet and have started to really enjoy it!!

Next question - once you hit the ideal weight, how do you go about maintaining it? Do you introduce some carbs again, or just leave them out? My worst fear is putting it all on again if I allow myself too many treats....

Why have you completely cut out an entire food group? I don't see anyone in this thread telling you to completely cut out carbs? You shouldn't ever completely cut out whole food groups as you need carbs, in moderation, otherwise you have the problem that you now have in the BIB.

You've not lost weight due to going carb free. You've lost because you've cut out one food group, hence cutting calories.

I lost 2 stone in a couple of months last year on low carb and i weigh less now so i'm very happy with it. No diet works for everyone but low carb works for a lot and recent studies show it to have some great effects on health too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSeSTq-N4U4

The key word in low carb is 'low' - meaning you still do eat a little carbs. The OP has completely cut out the entire food group.

No he hasn't. The Meusli, fruit, veg, nuts and probably the yoghurt too all contain carbs and would easily be double or treble the 20 grams of carbs a day you'd get on the first 14 days of the Atkins Diet.

But he said in his post he was on a 'carb free' diet. He also asked advice on how to re-introduce carbs to his diet. I'm talking bread, pasta, rice, potatoes etc. that are considered 'bad' carbs, but you still benefit from a small amount. And you still consume a small amount on a 'low carb' diet. OP is on a 'carb free' diet..

He can say its carb free if he wants but its not. As i said veg,fruit,nuts and especially meusli all contain carbs and after thinking about it and looking a couple of things up my guess is he's on or near 100 grams of carbs a day.

The OP is incorrect in saying he has switched to a carb free diet.

The eating plan he described contains muesli and fruit for breakfast (all carbs), fruit with lunch, and then yoghurt as a snack.

These are all mainly carbohydrate but have benefits in their contents of vitamins and fibre etc.

It looks to me like a typical medium to low-carb diet.
In fact it is more like a low-fat diet. I would add more fats to it, for flavour and to sate appetite

Yup! The OP needs to get more clued up on food and nutrition, especially if he thinks muesli is carb free. There is far too much fruit in his diet which is a lot of sugar, albeit in natural form (fructose). He would be better off switching for more veg, especially the green leafy type.

Hence why I was asking for advice in the first place

Ok, a couple of people have gone abit nuts over the 'carb free' comment - I meant free from 'bad' carbs, like the ones I was advised to ditch. There are small amounts of carbs in the other things I'm eating.

Nobody has given the advice I have asked for yet? Which is, once I reach my ideal weight (in another 2 weeks or so) what is the best way to maintain it???

Oh, and Mr Grey - 3 pieces of fruit a day is far too much? Disagree with that - ever heard of five a day? 3 pieces of fruit, plus two veg at dinner = 5 a day.

Calm yourself down fizzle - why are you stressing out?

Whatever I've done is working, as I'm losing the weight I wanted to shift, and feel 5 times better than I did a couple of weeks ago, when I was still eating rubbish, and lots of sugary drinks!

It's working for now, but what about when you want to reintroduce them to your diet? You've said yourself about this twice now. If you'd continued to consume some small amounts of 'bad' carbs like bread, pasta etc (but switched to wholemeal) you wouldn't now have this issue of having to reintroduce them to your diet. What you've done is a good way to lose a bit of weight quickly, but would never work in the long run if you still want those foods in your diet. You shouldn't have completely cut them out if you wanted to maintain this weightloss. Like I say, it's a good way to lose a bit of weight quickly for say a holiday or something, but I'm guessing you want to keep the weight off in the long run?
Everything in moderation.

The 5 a day comes from the food pyramid which you've already admitted you disagree with by cutting off the base which is made of refined starch products. If the base is wrong then the rest is up for question too and plenty of studies now show that eating less fat lowers hdl cholesterol so that bit's out of date too.

Why are you feeling the need to attack? I came for friendly advice. My diet/nutrition knowledge is not amazing, hence the reason I started this thread - didn't really get much at all in regards to what to eat, so had a look around elsewhere and was advised to do a similar diet to the one I'm on, which has worked fine.

I'm dubious of re-introducing bread, pasta, abit of chocolate, etc... incase my hard work gets ruined - but you seem to be saying that if I was still eating pasta, and bread, in small doses, I wouldn't be losing weight very quickly, but would have a steadier balance - cool. Well I already have, soooo what I'm asking is will the weight go back on if I swap my fish at lunch for a sandwich again? Or swap a piece of fruit for a bar of chocolate?

Also, to anybody who knows, is my diet safe on a full time basis? As I said, I'm quite enjoying it now, so would have no problem with eating that full time. There's carbs, protein, fruit, veg, and lots of water in it, so I'm guessing it's ok...?

All sounding a bit complex now. Just like 'working out' routines, it seems that everybody has a differing opinion on what's right and wrong.

Not really getting the advice I asked for in this thread - just people being rude (probably fatties who are jealous because they haven't got the will power to stick to their diets ) so I think I'll look elsewhere - cheers.

I haven't been rude. I was trying to help but if you don't believe me then feel free to look up the things i've said.

Here's a couple of short videos to start with

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8WA5wcaHp4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNYlIcXynwE

You were, but then you started popping off because I retaliated to somebodies comment about eating too much fruit (5 a day) - you then said that I clearly don't agree with the food pyramid or whatever....

Too much negativity in this thread. I'm quite proud of myself for having the strength to stick to a diet, and achieve what I wanted - which was to feel healthier, and lose a bit of weight, which is what I've done. I'm happy as larry with the results, so not sure what these guys are flapping about.

Just about to watch your links...

The food pyramid(the same thing your 5 a day comes from) has 6-11 servings bread, pasta, rice and cereal. You've cut out 3 out of the 4 so you obviously don't agree with it and i don't see how its rude for me to point that out.

If you've had results on that then good and i wish you well with it but i suspect it will stall because the less you've got to lose, the harder it normally is. My recommendation would be to up veg when you're at the weight you want or to replace the fruit with veg if you stall but i wouldn't put back the refined starch because its a lot easier to put wieight back on than keep it off when your body's used to less carbs.

Alright, fair enough. I'm shit at all this, but nobody has given any sound advice, apart from Welsh Lad who told me what to cut out. Nobody is answering my actual questions, but are fairly quick to have a pop at the diet I'm doing - which works. I just want to know if it's safe full time? and if not, why?

I've got that fat head documentary on the download as we speak.