Weight Loss Recipes

Successful and sustained weight loss requires all three of the following:

1. Reduction in total calorie (fuel) intake: eating less, reducing size of portions, avoiding snacks.
2. Reducing calorie density (richness): not buying or eating foods over 30% calories from fat (the upper left corner of any nutritional fact label), such as "junk" foods, "fast" foods, sweets and so forth.
3. Increasing calorie expenditure (exercise): walking, bicycling, sports, swimming, treadmill, elliptical trainer...

The problem is that human physiology is fantastic for surviving starvation. This is great if the food runs out, but not so great if food is abundant.

I get a lot of questions about healthy food choices and specifically suggestions or recipes, so here are some useful links to healthy recipes that range from simple to complex, basic to elegant:

New York Times: Recipes for Health
Recipe Source: Diabetic Recipes
All Recipes: Healthy Cooking Recipes
Epicurious: Healthy Food Recipes

Bon appetit!

How much should I weigh?

Well, that depends! A good weight is one that is healthy for you, and where you feel good and are happy with your fitness and appearance.

Ideal body weight is an arbitrary concept, and largely a construct of life insurers more than doctors.

The body mass index you hear about (BMI) is an attempt to use easily available information to factor in your height and not just your weight.

The calculation is:

Weight (pounds)/Height X Height (inches), then times 703.

"Normal" is 18.5- 25
"Overweight" is 25-30.
Underweight is less than 18.5
Obese is 35-40
Morbidly Obese is over 40.

Thing is, this is also somewhat arbitrary. The idea here is an index using height and weight only, since this information can be gotten easily from medical records or even drivers' licenses. It does not include important factors such as muscle mass, body fat content or exercise tolerance.

This article neatly summarizes findings of two years ago that show that the "Overweight" category is actually the healthiest, in terms of lower rates of cancers, heart attacks and strokes.
The Underweights and Obese categories have about equally bad health outcomes. The Obese from certain cancers and heart disease, and the Underweight especially from trauma and infections (or at least poor recovery from them). See this article, too.

Basically, being slightly "overweight" by modern standards may be based more on modern standards of physical appearance than on actual health and well-being. The number on the scale is probably less important within the middle range of body weights than your fitness and activity level.