Way OT, but if you're trying to lose a few pounds, I just read the secret.
 

I've always thought the naturally lean were different from the rest of us. Of course discipline counts, but (for instance) my brother and I have similar exercise and diet habits--but I'm 6'4" and struggle to stay below 240, while he's 6'7" and generally weighs about 225.
He's toast now, though. In the doctor's office yesterday, I was leafing through a 3-year-old magazine and found a story headed "10 Tips To Get Slender by Summer." My favorites (you may want to take notes):
--Eat smaller portions (no, you think?).
--Try diet soda. A 32-ounce fountain soft drink can have nearly 400 calories.
--Avoid fatty meats such as sausage.
And--wait for it:
---Instead of indulging in a gooey dessert, reach for a crisp apple or other fruit.
No thanks are necessary. Just send me your old size 40 pants....

Fruit is good for dessert, especially if it has brown sugar streusel on the top and is baked in a flaky crust.

... and even better with a big dollop of whipped cream with a few drops of vanilla essence in it. Oh, and a small side of ice cream, too.

At least you got to read the advice for free rather than having to pay the doctor for it.

That's it Velo Dog. Smaller portions - fine. No sweet soda drinks - OK. No sausage - I can live with that. No gooey desserts - I'm having you banned.

I'll save ya, berner! My wife is diabetic and makes sugar free pies that actually taste like they have sugar in them. My favorite is her sugar free sugar cream pie. (Cognitive dissonance strikes immediately), or her sugar free apple pie (other than the natural sugars in the apples).

Tom - I use to cook "diet" foods many years ago, my final creation was a sugar & fat free chocolate cheese cake. You don't want to know all the substitutions I made but I suspect it would have been classified as a toxic chemical waste dump. My wife banned me from cooking such things after that and now it's all natural cooking.

Wait! where do the cookies come in. I don't like your diet one bit.:p

I will just assume Beer is on the diet. Correct?

For the ice cream lovers (like me :rolleyes:) I recommend Stonyfield After Dark Chocolate Frozen Yogurt. Tastes better than the premium brands of chocolate ice cream but only 100 calories. Regular chocolate ice cream has 200-300 calories or more.
Weight loss here I come. :)

Just to correct wrong headed thinking, good beer comes under the heading of recovery drink, essential to good performance and maintaining a positive frame of mind and is consequently exempt from dietary restrictions.

Now ice cream should be a special category. I love frozen yogurt but Gray's Store here has a flavor of home made ice cream called Heavy Belgian Chocolate which should only be used by habitual users of chocolate. To gain maximal arterial clogging effect, It should be injected directly into the blood stream.

Sounds like the same kind of guy who mainlines coffee.

That's just so not right!

Sounds like what the "experts" thought 3 years ago. Lots of that has been overcome by later peer reviewed research. One example is use of "diet drinks". Now we know that the chemicals used in diet drinks has a significantly adverse effect on the body.

The more we learn the more we recognize that the Good Old Diet is the best. If you are going to eat sugar, eat sugar, not some substitute. If you don't want to eat sugar then work to satisfy your palate with something that satisfies. As Tom said there are lots of ways to make things taste good without having to load up with sugar.

Bottom line: There is no magic bullet, pill, exercise, etc for overweight and associated disease. What there is is a wholesome lifestyle that is a lifelong endeavor. Getting there and staying there is tough because you are fighting a food industry that wants to convince you that just because something doesn't contain dangerous bacteria it is healthy. Further, that The Criteria for good food is Cheap and Quick.

Side note: I was stopping for my free latte at out local hospital's cafeteria. On the menu board was something labled: "Why Bother". I asked what in the world that was. I was told it was Decaffinated, Fat Free milk, Sugar substitute; in other words Why Bother?.

Avoid fatty meats to lose weight? Wrong - eating fat doesn't make us fat.

Pizza ok? Oh plez tell me pizza is ok.If not i dont want to hear it. Had some good Mexican food last nite at the famous Loma Linda,talk about carbo loading.

Eat 8 oz of healthy food every 3 hours, drink 64 oz of water every 24 (more if needed) and exercise regularly...

I am 6'-2" at 210#...I don't exercise as much as I would like, but I don't gain any weight either.

Aaron :)

Animal fat has some association with weight gain.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17426332

+100

I think "Why Bother?" is what David Letterman said after his bi-pass surgery when he was told he can drink decaf but not regular coffee. He told this story on his show, adding "Why Bother?"

I really like the way you think.

This strand is so entertaining! Hey, here's my contribution.....I'm 64, 210 pounds. I ride 140-160 miles weekly. I consume a complete battery of nutrients from a sports nutrition store (DHEA, Q10, powdered multi, protein shakes, block aminos, etc.). I just got tired trying to figure out what to eat so I jumped on supplements. My food consumption has naturally decreased including overdosing on chocolate chip cookies! Every night I cover a gob of peanut butter with choc chip cookie morsels and plop down, watch some tv and enjoy it with no guilt. Yeah I want to weigh 190 but I'm not going to let it dominate my thoughts like it used to. With my milage I think I'll get there in a few more months anyway. The other thing I've noticed is that, as my weight drops and condition improves, my body naturally desires more wholesome foods and my "sweet tooth" lessens.
Boy, 190 lbs sure would be nice in the mountains though.....ever picked up a 20 pound dumbell and thought, "this is how much weight I unnecessarily lug around"? It'll happen. Raydog

I was out with my kid and a bunch of her friends after gymnastics a couple of months ago. It was really a fascinating observation - the fat kids drink soda, and lots of it, and the skinny kids don't; they drink water. At age nine, my kid orders off the kid's menu and looks for grilled, not fried, chicken. The less-than-trim kids order off the adult menu - and they clean the plate. It all starts early, my friends, it all starts early.

I was ready to sign up till we got to the part about no sausage.

smile,
Jeff