Calorie counting vs. weekly/monthly diet regimen?

[Anonymous]

Ok, so, I have tried both types of dieting:

1- Calorie counting: You can eat whatever you want as long as the total dietary intake is less than your daily calorie intake.

2- Weekly/Monthly diet regimen: You follow a diet (Atkins, South Beach, etc...) where certain foods are not allowed and others are allowed. You follow that diet for a certain period of time then change it.

Which one did you follow and gave you excellent results?

Which one do you recommend and why?

[stubbsy]

these diets are unsustainable unless you want to always feel hungry, so the best diet is, don't eat any take out or fast food, eat chicken as your main source of meat/protein, eat lots of veg, try and control portions, ie eat little but often, every 3-4 hours, drink lots of water, before and after food, limit sweets to one sweet a day or none at all, but on a Saturday, eat anything, but with same portion control, then revert back to chicken being your main source of food, allow pasta for one day a week, but only eat for your main meal, 65-70 grammes of pasta, as this is essential to keep energy levels up and help you digest the proteins, walk daily, the longer the better, and this diet will not have you hungry all the time, and the weight will flop off in weeks, not months, you can thank me when you next go out and buy your size tens lol, good luck,x

ps, don't forget to consume lots of water, this diet relies on hydration, x

[jimmyjkd]

couldn't give better advice myself. I also recommend bodybuilding.com, its got excellent on everything from exercise to dieting.

[WoIIie]

I created my own diet based on healthy low fat ingredients that tasted good. Combined with calorie control, this gave me the best results one could expect with exercise.

Lately I've been eating whatever I want with calorie control, and my weight fluctuates based on whether or not I worked out. Counting calories is huge but not as reliable as you think once you give yourself the green light to feast on whatever you want. Strict diets are also not very reliable because you have to sustain them or else they are useless.

Be honest with yourself. Human error is very reasonable to expect so adding and subtracting numbers won't do you as much good as making healthier choices outright. If you're serious, learn about the most healthy foods out there and make them the cornerstone of a custom diet you can stick with.