Hey Stuckey, welcome to the forum
I'm glad you're taking action on your weight, congratulations.
I'd love to pimp your diet once you've reached the required post numbers as stated in the rules / policy for this.
I'm itching to jump in and help, but it wouldn't be fair to those who have been working on their 100 posts for the past few months.
I'll leave you with this though:
Milk has no place in the human diet. This is true on many levels and for many reasons. I've spoken about this a lot on both my blogs so I won't rehash it here. You can read about taking the
No Dairy Test and make your own decision.
People continue to live while eating dairy products, however, they never achieve peak health. Dairy limits the bodies ability to absorb nutrition because it creates a lining of mucous all through the digestive tract. If we're not absorbing the nutrition of our foods, we will never reach peak health. Health is way more important than weight loss. Have a read of that link and make your own decision. That's all.
I was vegetarian for 12 years and vegan for two of it. I got enormous results when I added animal protein back into my diet. As for percentages of carbs, proteins and fats, I think it really depends on your body type. Some can handle higher carbs, others cannot. It also depends on your health and insulin sensitivity. My suggestion would be to stick with the BFL program, do it for as long as you're getting results, say 6 months or a year even using their ratios. I admire and respect Bill P.
As for whey, I did the whey test myself.. 1 year on, one year off, 2 years on, 1 year off, and then back on again because I was inundated with information both for and against it. I tested it myself, on myself. I proved to myself that I am happier and get better results when I'm eating whey. I fully understand that whey is a derivative of dairy, I really do.
I did find that different whey proteins did affect me differently though. There are good and bad quality whey proteins. I noticed that my skin was affected when I ate a lower quality whey, so I stuck with Optimum Nutrition whey.
right now, I am currently off whey again opting for whole foods rather than the protein substitute. My focus right now is on getting some health challenges in check and whey just does not play a role in that and for as long as I've been eating meat and happy with it, I'm currently exploring vegetarianism again, lowering my animal protein number and increasing my vegetable protein numbers. I'm doing this for health reasons. Being vegetarian is easy ans sustainable, but of course, not for everyone. I'm not suggesting becoming vegetarian, I'm just letting you know where my thinking is going.
I'm happy to recommend a good quality whey protein, but not in place of food. Ask anyone serious about removing fat from their body and they will tell you that food is much more thermogenic than a shake. I'm well aware of the BFL program and I too would tell you to stick to one program and follow it through, adding more whole foods like vegetables and meats that are not processed. Choose whole meats like chicken breast (which require cooking) over packaged deli meats.
Darlene suggest increasing more leafy greens ie: Get more things like: kale, spinach, collard greens, swiss chard. I also agree. Now, the next question is that this might be totally new to you and confusing. That's something you personally have to make a choice on. Are you able to do it and sustain it?
the first thing is education on the food, how to cook it and consume it. That's where the whole food recipes come in, that Darlene and I make. These are meals that she and I both eat. Consider making one meal a week with these new foods using the recipes posted on the blog (the come out on Saturdays and you can find older ones using the Tag Cloud under Recipes). Buy only a little Kale at a time and make one or two recipes with it, see if it works for you. It tastes fine btw, it's just a new name. I had not eaten Kale until I met Darlene and now it's a staple of my diet. It's a staple because when she told me about it, I researched it to find out more about it. It's very very nutritious, at the top of the nutrition density scale in fact so I went through this thought process:
1. it's a weird name - yes it is. Never eaten it, barely knew it exsisted
2. tried some - Darlene cooked it - tasted fine
3. read about it and found out how nutritious it was
4. it was easily available at a store 1 block from where I live
5. easy to cook by steaming, so that ruled out complicated meals or meal planning, no reason NOT to eat it
6. made it a staple of my diet, eating it 2 or 3 times a week.
I went from knowing nothing about it to consuming it regularly
Geesh, I'm on a roll here.. enough for this post
