Eating for Good Health and Weight Loss
with the
Sensible Eating for Life Plan
(SEL Plan)
Our goal should be to establish healthy, sensible eating habits as a
lifelong way of eating, so I call my personal plan the
Sensible Eating for Life Plan (the SEL Plan).
These diet and recipe pages are all about eating
for good health and for lifelong weight management.
This is my personal
diet plan, using the following basic guidelines.
● Eat lots of
fruits and veggies (and eat them
raw as much as possible)
● Eat whole grains
(brown rice, wild rice, Kasha (buckwheat),
oats, quinoa, whole wheat,
barley, spelt)
● If you have digestive
problems, do not eat grains with gluten
(wheat, rye, barley)
● Do not eat refined and
overly processed grains (such as
white flour and white rice)
● Do not eat refined
sugars (white sugar, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, etc.)
● Eat fats in
healthy whole foods
(olives, avocados, nuts, etc., and reduce
or eliminate oils and spreads made with oils)
● Eliminate animal fats or better
yet, eliminate all animal foods
● Do not eat trans fats (hydrogenated oils/partially hydrogenated
oils)
● Eat 25 to
35 grams of fiber (or more) per day
Some diet plans have different stages or phases
while others do not. Choose whatever suits your lifestyle and your goals. To
make it easier for those who prefer to use a phased plan, you will find
three phases here on this site.
(1) The beginning phase,
which will help to eliminate cravings and also result in more initial
weight loss. This phase should last from two to four weeks.
(2) The slower weight loss phase, which is
followed until you reach your goal weight. You can skip the beginning
phase and start here if you prefer and if you do not have a problem with
cravings.
(3) The maintenance phase, which should be
followed for the rest of your life. This is mostly a continuation of
Phase 2, with the addition of a few more foods to be eaten in moderation.
For details, see Phase 1,
Phase 2, and
Phase 3 foods to eat and foods to
avoid lists.
The word “diet” is
described in The American Heritage College Dictionary as “The
usual food and drink of a person or animal.”
However, most people have a negative association with the word
"diet"—they think diet, and they think hunger and deprivation. However,
what we eat every day is our diet, whether good or bad, and
our diets directly affect our health and well
being.
We can eat a diet of foods for good health and we
can eat a diet designed for weight loss.
There are also many "special" diets. There are diets for allergies, for heart health, for diabetes, even
diets that claim to be good for preventing cancer. There are nonfat
diets, low fat
diets, low carb diets, good carb diets, low glycemic index diets,
no-sugar diets, no-grain diets, and a no-flour no-sugar diet. There are antiaging diets, mood diets, detox diets, diets to
conquer emotional eating, pH diets, raw food diets, body type diets, blood type diets,
metabolic typing diets, and food-combining diets..... the list
could go on.
There is probably no one diet that is
suitable for every person. We need to be well informed so that we can
make the choices that we think are best for us as the individuals that
we are.
But no matter what plan you follow, you will find information and recipes
here that will help you along the way.
I've listed a variety of books on my
Amazon Links
page as some examples of what is
available in the area of diet and health.
About these diet pages
These diet pages were originally about the South Beach Diet. I changed
this for two reasons: (1) copyright and trademark laws and (2)
disagreements that I have with the diet.
Short review of the South Beach Diet
Dr. Agatston is not the first, and won't be the last, to create a diet
based on the glycemic index and good carbs. There are hundreds of diet plans, and many of them advocate the same, or very similar, way of eating as Dr. Agatston, and they did so before him (see my
Amazon Links
page
for a few examples).
The “one-size-fits-all” SBD doesn't contain any new or ground-breaking
dietary information. It
is not the end-all of all diets. In fact, I think that it is not the best
diet.
My opinion is that no one knows everything about dieting and
health, including Dr. Agatston and all the other diet and health
book authors. There is always new research and new studies, and
recommendations are always changing. There are many opinions about what
is good and not good for our health. We should learn as much as possible
and make up our own minds about what we think is best for us as
individuals.
Links to
Diet book reviews including five
reviews of the South Beach Diet.
Details on my disagreements with the South Beach Diet are on this page:
How my
personal diet plan is different from the SBD plan.
See the
Controversies
About Foods page for some of
the pros and cons about some specific foods. I encourage everyone to do
their own research and learn as much as possible about diet and health
in order to make informed decisions.
What do you think of the new
line of
Kraft prepared SBD-approved foods?
A page
about diet and protein. Is protein necessary? How much do
we need? Where do vegetarians get their protein? Can we eat too much
protein? Charts showing protein amounts in plant foods.
A page about
low carb products
Helpful links to other sites
regarding diet and health
About
this Web Site
I started
this frog-themed Web site in August of 2001, as a hobby. After we started the South Beach Diet in August of 2003, I
decided to share some of my collection of recipes on this site. One thing
leads to another...
I hope that
this site is helpful to you, and that it will bring you some amount of
pleasure as well. Be sure to visit the "frog" side of this site from time
to time, as I have many things to add there as I can find the time.
About
the Music
The music
playing on this page is “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.” This is a zippy, happy,
uplifting, and delightful little tune. I’ve had quite a few comments about
the music—almost all of them positive. But I’ve heard from a very few who find it
annoying (mostly from people who are at work and don’t want their
coworkers to know what they’re doing) so they write me asking how to turn
it off. Since the music is not controlled through a player on this Web site,
but plays through the user’s default player on their own computer, the solution for those who don’t
want to hear it is to turn it off using any one of several ways:
1. Hit
the Escape key.
2. Turn down the volume knob on the speakers.
3. Mute
the volume in the sound settings in your system tray.
4. Press the "no
sound" button on your keyboard, if you have one.
On the other hand, some have said they
would like the music on every page. Knowing I can’t please everyone, I do the
best I can and hope that you enjoy my site and find it useful. I
won’t put the music on every page, but I’ve made a page with the words and
music, and if you want to sing along, go here:
Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.
You’ll
surely feel good after singing this tune!
Here's an inspiring comment sent to me in e-mail by an elderly gentleman:
“I just had to write and tell you how much I enjoy
“Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.”
I go into your site just to hear the music... but then I check out the
recipes, which are so helpful. I must tell you that I am 80 years old
and
on the South Beach Diet to lose weight. When I put on your music, I get
up and do a little jig until I am huffing... have been doing this for a
week and can jig a little longer each time. Thank you for a little fun!”
About the Recipes
Most of the
recipes here are easy and simple, with ingredients that are readily available,
with a few exceptions. I will include recipes from various sources as well
as some of my own creations.
I've noticed that some of you have been copying
recipes from this site and posting them on forums or other Web sites. This is fine, but if
you do this, I'd appreciate it
if you would post this site as your source for the recipes. Even better, instead of
copying and pasting the recipes, just copy and paste this link:
www.mizfrogspad.com/diet.htm so that others can come here and find
recipes they like, and also because some of the recipes change as I
experiment and learn. Thank
you.
I have not yet tried all the recipes that are
posted here, so please let me know if you see any mistakes that I need
to correct or have suggestions for improving any of them.
Printing the recipes
Some people have given me feedback that the
right margin is cropped when they try to print the recipe pages from the
Web site. There are several options to overcome this, but the two best
ways are:
(1) Select (highlight
by clicking and dragging) the recipes you want to print, and in the
File/Print menu, under the Page Range options, click on Selection. This
way, only what you have selected will print. You will avoid printing the
left column and other things on the Web page, leaving plenty of space for
the recipes to print without cutting off anything on the right margin.
(2) Copy and paste the recipes into a word
processing document, and format the margins and page breaks as desired. If
you use Microsoft Word, you can select Paste Special/Unformatted Text.
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