Dieting basics that a five year old can understand

log your diet into myfitnesspal. eat 3-500 calories under your tdee (the 2,200 calories a day) and wait while the weight falls off. don't eyeball or guesstimate portions, we are terrible at that as a species. buy an electronic kitchen scales. surgically attach it to your hip.

//edit waaaaiiit. i misread. if the 2200 calories is what you should be eating TO lose the weight then eat the 2200 calories, dont subtract the 3-500. that'd be totes cray cray //

as you wait, educate yourself about the basics of nutrition and apply the knowledge you've gained as weeks turn into months.


it's just like learning anything else. you're not going to be fluent in french after your first week of a language course but the more practiced you get and the more you immerse yourself the quicker you'll pick things up until it just feels natural.


around 50g protein is a minimum for an adult male so aim for between that and 100g, protein is quite filling although it can be expensive. if you're not focusing on building muscle you don't need to go terribly high.
get about .4 X bodyweight in lb's of fat (so if you're 13 stone. that's 13x14=182 lb's. x .4 = 73g of fat a day), you may need to adjust up or maybe even adjust down over the weeks as you figure out what works best for you. some good fats can be found in eggs,bacon, oily fish, nuts/seeds, olive oil/coconut oil/butter (butter! not margarine).. although i think olive oil is generally best left unheated or at least only cooked on a low heat.
the rest of your calories comes from carbs. storebought bread isn't the devil, it's just not terribly filling and it has ****ing godawful nutrition. potatoes are great, just don't deep fry them, they're very filling too. brown/white rice doesn't make a god damn difference, eat whichever you prefer. eat as many vegetables as you can, frozen is fine, don't bother with organic. eat lots of fruit, just be mindful of the calories. beans are excellent. i like pinto beans, 1.89 for a bag in tesco, cook em up, tupperware em in the fridge. good source of energy, protein and fibre.


'eat ingredients, not things made from ingredients' is a nice little catchphrase. it's probably bollocks but it's a nice idea.

if you are concerned with nutrition and your diet you can enter a daily average into cronometer.com and it will point out any glaring nutritional deficiencies.


tldr. focus on calories if you are trying to lose weight. don't trip yourself up with details. you'll learn as you go along. here's some confusing details anyway.

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

I think you need to try and understand a bit more about nutrition as well rather than just following some guidelines blindly because they're good.

I think everyone should, in any case. It just makes a lot of this much easier to understand the what and the why. I know it has for me.

yeah but it's like math in school. you learn the theorems just by doing and doing and doing and doing and then after a while it clicks and you're all "oh.. right.. that's why we do it this way"

if you set out trying to learn the theory behind it at first you'll just make your head melt and get nowhere.


if you like sticking to guidelines OP then check out paleo. it's 99% horse**** but it does focus on "real" foods and there are blogs upon blogs of recipe ideas and shopping lists for you to follow until you've found your footing.