The way it is for me.

What is the right diet and weight management plan?

The true answer is what ever works for me. 

What is the right weight that I should be?

The correct answer is the weight I can manage to hold, and be healthy. It does not have to be by some chart or calculator, it just needs to be a weight that my body is happy with. It will be the weight that my lab work is the best it can be, I will have the best blood pressure I can have, and it will be due to the fact I am eating as healthy as possible and still be happy with what I am eating. 

I am finding and finally understanding that our bodies have their happy weight or set point weight range that it will stay within as long as you eat as healthy as you can. That does not mean to me I have to give up on all sweets, and fast foods, or all processed foods. It means keeping them under control by keeping them with in a limit. Now I am going to add that I am healthy and am not diabetic or any other disease. I do have issues with my blood pressure at times, and I now know it is due to stress and too much salt. I have it under control at this time by controlling how much salt I take in, and managing my stress levels. So if you have a disease that causes you to have to eat a certain way I say that if you want to be healthy then you will have to learn to eat to control or defeat the disease. 

I do believe in eating real food most of the time, that means to me at least 80% of the time all of the time, and whenever possible at least 90% of the time. That may sound confusing so here it is if I am traveling and on the road I eat 80% real healthy food. If I am home I make sure I eat real and healthy 90% of the time. And to be honest if I am out on the road for more than a week eating at 80% then I will return home and for a week I will eat at 100% real healthy foods. I also find that if I am traveling I can go longer between meals due to being busy driving, or doing other things so that works in with my fasting times and helps offset the bad eating. At home with my wife it is harder for me to fast the way I would like to due to her requirements for eating due to her very small stomach, but I still say no to a lot of eating she asks me to do with her. 

So here is my beliefs and you can take it or leave it. Weight management is not about the scale, it is about being healthy with good medical lab results. Which really means the best they can be for me? I am also finding that I can make my health worse, and my lab work worse by forcing my body to be and stay below the weight it wants to be at. It is also true for my blood pressure I was forcing my weight below what my body wanted and my blood pressure was higher than now. A lot of that is due to the stress I was placing on myself due to trying to stay within a calorie range. I still log what I eat but I do not count calories. I am going from habit now and it is working for me. I still do portion control and size limits for what I eat. I do not eat seconds, and I am eating only 2 meals a day with a snack of nuts. My wife believes in a wide verity of food, and I am someone that could eat the same things over and over most of the time. My wife is a believer in pasta and breads I am not so much into pasta and breads. I do love a good salad and can and do a whole meal out of a green leafy salad. My bread of choice is something I know is not that healthy but I do love homemade cornbread and I have it once a month at most.

To survive the weight management game I have to have a healthy mix of eating healthy real foods and my health allows me to have a less healthy mix of the foods I love but know I cannot eat all to time, but I have to allow myself to have it every now and then.  The main thing that destroys a good eating plan is boredom and eating foods I cannot stand. I repeat the main thing that destroys a good eating plan is boredom and eating food I cannot stand. The next thing is being overly hungry day after day. We can only force our bodies to do things it does not like for so long and it will force us to do what it wants by the use of our hormones. I have seen it happen to me over and over again.