For anyone who is interested, I recently lost a little over 40 pounds. I went from an unhealthy (high blood pressure and stuff) 240 to just under 200. What I did to lose the weight I consider to be a lifestyle change and not a diet. I have done the diet thing in the past and it never really worked for me. I would lose weight and then ain it back again. So I finally decided it needed to be a lifestyle change. I began by fundamentally looking at what food I was eating and what drinks I was drinking. I then began to replace the unhealthy things I was eating with what I call the healthier alternatives.

One of the first things I did was to cut out all the white starches such as potatoes, breads and pastas. I replaced them with whole wheat. I especially love the whole wheat pitas and tortillas. Although, you have to be careful with some types of whole wheat products. Although they say they are whole wheat, many of them still contain undesirable ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup. I now by the pitas and tortillas at an organic food store and thankfully they only have natural ingredients. They are great for making sandwiches and quesadillas and sandwich wraps. They are very versatile. I have also used whole wheat pastas which have great flavor and can be used in any of the traditional italian dishes. As for the potatoes, I will eat sweet potatoes instead.

I also looked at the fat content of some of the foods I was eating. I tried to find the low fat or no fat alternatives especially with cheese, and other dairy products like sour cream.

The other thing I gave up was red meat. I pretty much just eat chicken or turkey. Now you don;t necessarily have to give up red meat, but always look for the lowest fat percentage possible. That goes for the turkey and chicken as well. I love turkey burgers and I actually make my own turkey meat balls. Just had those for dinner tonight. They are quite tasty.

Another part of this which was difficult, but necessary in my opinion, was to give up the sugar. I really beleive that Sugar is one of the worst things out there. The human diet, until recently, had very low amounts of Sugar in it. Today, it seems that there are very few products that don't contain sugar. So I gave up all the cookies, chocolate, ice cream, all of it. Except on rare occasions. I realized that if I gave it up for really long time periods and then cheated, I would go way overboard. I was told about a good dessert by my sister-in-law. You have a small cup of redi-whip with cinnamon on top. You can even by the reduced fat kind. The good thing about the cinammon is that it helps to regulate blood Sugar levels in the body. Thought that was kind of neat.

The last part for me was what I was drinking. Now I was never much for soda, but I was hooked on the cranberry-apple juice. Man that has a lot of sugar in it. So I gave up all drinks, for water. Its water all the time, except for an occasional unsweetened iced tea.

While the above concerns how I changed my eating habits, I also combined this with exercise. I currently run/walk at least five times a week and weight train three times a week.

But all of this is a constant work in progress. I am constantly trying to improve on what I eat. Now I am on an all organic kick with an increase in raw vegetables.

Just to give you an idea on how long this took, I started this lifestyle change in July of 2004 and had lost the 40 pounds by December. I have maintained this weight loss since then.

Hope this helps someone. If you have any questions, let me know.

BTW, I am a firm believer that each of us has to find what works for us. What works for some may not work for others. That's another reason I don't like the idea of diets.