Six Simple Rules....and a Menu Plan.

The Duh! Diet can be reduced to five simple rules and three simple meal plans.

The Duh! Rules.

1. First, do no harm. That is: eat things that are good for you rather than bad. In food terms, this translates into: drink water and water-filled foods.
2. Fill up on less calorie-dense foods: fruits and vegetables. This is the first rule made more concrete. Fruits and vegetables are good for you, damn good. It's hard to believe they aren't. They're packed with nutrients and very little calories.
3. Get a good amount of low-fat or good-fat protein: low-fat dairy, chicken, lower-fat beef, fish. This speaks for itself. Your body needs protein, and it's especially important if you're eating less--to spare muscle from being lost.
4. Limit your fat intake. Read labels. Choose foods with less fat. Some nuts with healthy oils--walnuts, almonds, peanuts--are probably an exception. But in general, less fat means fewer calories.
5. Heavily limit or avoid altogether heavily processed foods. Yes, this means candy, cake, white flour, etc. It's not that 'carbs' are bad. It's just that the refining process removes so much nutritional value and concentrates the calories into these foods. A single slice of bread may have over 150 calories, whereas a lovely apple might have only 110--plus lots of fiber and water to fill you up.
   
6. Integrate filling and healthful whole grains and legumes (yes, beans) very moderately as you find out how many you can eat.
   

That's it! It's that simple.

What does it mean in terms of everday eating?

The Duh! Diet Menu Plan.

Eat three meals and three snacks: breakfast, lunch and dinner, snacks in between, plus a third as dessert.

Every meal and every snack begins with a glass of room-temperature water. Just drink it right down. Your body needs it. It will fill you up.

Each snack consists of: one piece of fruit and one serving of low-fat protein: some low-fat yogurt (with as little sugar as possible), a nonfat latte, some low-fat cottage cheese, even just an ounce of cheese (higher in fat, but it's a very small quantity.)

For lunch and dinner, eat:

a softball-sized serving of vegetables,
a tennis ball-sized serving of protein,
a pingpong ball-sized serving of whole grains,
1 teaspoon of fat.

That's it. It couldn't be simpler. Cooking the vegetables with no fat, you can probably add another serving, too, and still not add too many calories.

Breakfast is a little different.

For breakfast eat:

a tennis ball-sized serving of whole grains,
one to two servings of protein--e.g., a glass of nonfat milk,
an egg, 1/2 c. low-fat cottage cheese, etc.
optionally: 1 teaspon of oil to cook the eggs or butter the grains.

That's it. I eat a small boal of oatmeal and a non-fat latte, plus a hard-boiled egg.

This comes out to about 1400-1800 calories per day--great for weight loss but perfectly adequate for nutrition.

Assumptions.

This all assumes you are fairly sedentary or want to lose weight quickly.

If you are more active--if you stand or walk all day at work--you can add a piece of fruit at breakfast and add another portion of protein.

You can also add more whole grains and legumes. For instance, five low-fat Triscuits added to a snack adds only about 100 calories.

Simplicity.

It isn't complicated. It's worked for me.

I'm still counting calories to make sure I stay within reasonable limits. But then I cook a lot of meals at home and so can weigh and choose everything. Eating on the go, it's better to have a game plan.

I eat 1400 calories when I'm sedentary. But when I exercise, I can eat 2400 to 2500 calories. And days between exercising, I stick to 1800 to 2000 calories.

This amounts to adding some extra oil--I generally don't cook with it at all and so avoid those calories which I can then use for more fruits and vegetables.

Plus I add in some grains--such as fresh-baked, fat-free whole grain corn muffins--or splurge on a bit more cheese and even a few pieces of candy.

Favorite treat? A Fudgsicle has about 70 calories. You can't beat it.

--E. R. O'Neill