So, over the last year or so, I gained like 40 pounds due to complications relating to the fact that my breathing problems were not letting me sleep. Now that my sleeping problems are resolved and I feel human again, I am trying to lose that 40 pounds. My sleep specialist says that if I am sleeping regularly, I shouldn't have a ton of issues doing it, but I also don't want to just wait for it to randomly happen in the way that he thinks it should if I'm sleeping.

So. what are the best diets that you guys have done/seen? What kind of foods would you recommend?

Ive not done it, but ive seen multiple cases where people have cut out pretty much 100% of all added sugar from their diet and they have lost hundreds of pounds

If i were you, if you drink a lot of sugary/high in calorie drinks cut those out, drink water, coffee/tea you can add all sorts of fruits to the water to give it different tastes, also cut out fast food/fried foods

Or you can ask your doctor about going on Phentermine, its a prescription weight loss drug but it does have some cardiac side effects

cutting dairy out of your diet helps; not only with breathing (milk adds to congestion) but with weight as well.

I went 3 months without anything milk-based (as per dr's orders) and lost 10+ Lbs. It's an adjustment going without certain foods (trust me, I totally get it), but if you commit to abstaining your health improves and the weight stays off...

Go vegan. I lost 10 pounds in one month, and I was only 135 to start with. It is a very effortless way to lose weight. (If you like fruits and veggies that is lol) Look up high carb low fat plant based diet. Also look up youtuber highcarbhannah. She really inspired me. She lost I believe 60 pounds on this lifestyle.

I've also seen people lose lots of weight on keto, though it's not healthy in the long run. That is high fat low carb. That's what I recommended my morbidly obese brother do bc he likes meat and would never go vegan. He doesn't care about himself anymore so he hasn't tried it or anything to lose weight and get healthy unfortunately. Anyway good luck, hope you find something that works for you! C:

Dude. Dieting is bad!

I was 285 pounds and this year I lost 20 pounds :) I think the secret to weight loss is not staying idle.

I wonder if we have Phentermine in Canada. I wouldn't be able to take it because I have a heart condition.

Now that i have no idea, and i suppose it depends on what kinda of heart condition but i know it can cause an increase in blood pressure, increased heart rate/makes you feel like your heart is racing

I was put on it when i developed high blood pressure due to being overweight, helped me drop a good 30-35 lbs in 2 months, was able to come off the blood pressure meds and i havent gained the weight back either.

That's great! I gained a pound because I've been drinking Ensure since I had dental surgery.

I have bicuspid aortic valve condition.

Ah yeah, i couldnt tell you anything regarding that, im not that good haha! I wouldnt worry about a pound, hell i can be 5 lbs heavier at night than what i was in the morning, you can also check out the app myfitnesspal it helped me a lot as well

I would meal prep.

Meal prepping makes it easier to grab dishes instead of having a potential moment of weakness when opening the fridge. I meal prep all of my meals on Sunday throughout the week to not only monitor my meals, but to make it easy for a busy work week. Body building websites have a lot of information for relatively easy meal prep dishes that are tasty and nutritious.

- Some things that are good to cut out:

-Added sugars Juice drinks are fine as long as they don't have added sugar and you don't drink more than 1 cup a day. It's better to get more of your fruit intake from whole fruits.

-Anything artificial Mainstream processed foods are loaded with these. Once you stop eating artificial, processed food, you'll never want to go back. I tried Oreos a few months ago and it tasted like cardboard.

-Fried food This is a given as it's loaded with fat. Fats are okay, but not in large quantities.

-White starch (baked potatoes are okay) Particularly of the bleached kind. Bleached white rice and pasta have no nutritional value. While they have added nutrients, they're only added because they were stripped away to begin with.

There's a misconception that all fats are bad. Some things like grassfed butter, olive oil, and coconut oil are all good in moderation. I also recommend whole fat products, like whole fat yogurt. Really, the key to losing weight is moderation, like shrinking portion sizes. Also, learning how to cook in your own style is important. You want to make food you want to eat.

There's also ways to make healthy food not bland. Herbs and spices are your best friend. Soups and curries are also amazing at bringing flavors together and making vegetables easier to eat. And, beans are amazing. My favorite is lentils, and they go great with brown rice.

I would also recommend organic animal products if you choose to not go vegan or to not cut dairy.

Once in a while, you can cheat. Denying foods altogether can make any diet harder. Just make sure you don't cheat frequently. ;)

If you need any recipe advice, I have some I could give.

I'm not a fan of cutting out entire food types / groups when it comes to revamping your diet. It's all about moderation. You can totally have a few slices of pizza for lunch - just have a lighter dinner. Salads are healthy, but only if you're not drowning them in dressing. Beware hidden calories like that.

Exercise also helps a lot. It's also good to keep in mind that if you're exercising, you may not necessarily see a huge amount of weight loss - a pound of muscle takes up much less space than a pound of fat, so it's possible to stay the same weight or even gain weight while losing inches. A lot of people get discouraged over not losing weight when they first start working out so they just stop before they see any other results.

I've already cut sugar, fast food and anything fried out of my diet, as well as anything with artificial sweetners, because I know that can make things worse instead of better. I don't know about prescription weight loss stuff, though. I feel like being careful about foods and exercise is probably healthier.

I could see that. I know that dairy has a lot of mucus in it, and it can cause issues with breathing, which I learned the hard way since I have reactive airway syndrome, and its never good to consume dairy if you have a sore throat because it makes it worse. I know the major benefit of milk is vitamin d (provided you drink vitamin d milk, of course) and calcium, but I think that vitamins and calcium supplements might work just as well?

I wish I had more time for being active. I work at a desk job, and am literally stuck at my desk without the ability to move around much for 10 hours a day, and when I get home from work, I basically have to eat dinner and go to bed, so my only time for actual activity is the weekend, and I definitely do stay active, because sitting still sucks.

I could see that being really helpful. That way I can just grab something to take with me to work for lunch too, which eliminates the temptation to just saw screw it and order delivery on my lunch break. I think that there are slow cooker meals that you can prep in advance too, which doubles the convenience factor. I'll have to look into that.

I don't think I could go vegan. I was a vegetarian for like three years, and the entire time was a struggle because I could never eat anything that anyone else cooked, and I had a hard time finding something other than salad to eat if friends wanted to go out somewhere. Animal byproducts are hiding in the weirdest places. I also think it would be hard to be on a vegan diet if my husband wasn't, because it would basically double the amount of meal prep.

I'm already not doing sweets, starches, or fried foods. I'm working on removing artificial things, but that's kind of a process, because most stuff has something artificial. I know what you mean about processed foods, though. I gave up on Kraft Singles a long time ago, and I don't know how anyone can tell me they actually taste like cheese. Do you happen to have any particularly good soup recipes?

I'm doing the whole portion control thing, and I have a calorie tracking app on my phone, which I put everything that I eat into. Salad dressing is sneaky, because it seems like it doesn't have a lot of calories in it, but as it turns out they expect you to use way less than someone typically would. Low fat/fat free dressing is also probably the worst tasting thing I've ever had, so I kind of just avoid that whole mess. I am trying to work in time for exercising, but I'm at work a significant portion of my time, and going to the gym is unappealing because of how boring it is.

In other news, my husband talked me into this diet plan that he's really fond of that so far I am hating, which is why I'm trying to find something else. Basically, he just wants to eat nothing but turkey burger (turkey is a lean meat) and steamer vegetables. So far that is working out just as blandly as it sounds.

Trust me, i dont blame you being weary about weight loss drugs, i thought the same thing, i didnt think it was going to do jack crap, but it did help and i didnt have any bad side effects, just dry mouth (which hey, i need to drink more water anyways lol) and when i took it before going to work (i work at a hospital, so im running around doing crazy things) i would get really hot, like be sweating which i dont hardly ever sweat

Turkey burgers dont have to be bland, omg i LOVE turkey burgers!!! If i were you i would look on pinterest for some recipes, you can add in all sorts of herbs and spices and they dont have calories in them (at least not like enough to matter you know?) you could do spicey ones and chop up peppers and onions and saute them with some cheese mmmm

I should meal prep, but lately, I hate reheated left overs :/

I'm diabetic and shouldn't be eating sugar or fried foods, but I do anyway.

I'm also looking into loosing more weight. It's going to be hard this winter because I don't like to walk in the cold.

I get it. I've been vegetarian since I was in my early teens, and that's been easy bc I hate meat, but going vegan is so hard. I love cheese to much. -_- I do eat vegan at home bc I can control what I'm putting into my food and like the same meals over and over, but when I'm at a restaurant I revert to eating vegetarian. It's too hard to track every ingredient in something, so I don't bother lol. And I know what you mean about your husband...my soon to be ex husband and I were constantly at odds over food. He knew I was vegetarian from the beginning but seemed shocked when I wouldn't cook meat for him.

Lol, well, I'm apparently doing turkey burger wrong. :P I'll have to check pintrest.

I totally get you on the leftovers thing. There are very few things that I actually want to eat leftovers of, but I just kind of look into the fridge, see something that has to be reheated and I'm like "....." It just never tastes as good the second time.

I have an ex that was a vegetarian at the same time that I was doing it, but he randomly decided to go vegan and then flipped out over the fact that I still wanted to keep milk and cheese in the house because I wanted to still be able to have dairy. That was a fun situation.

Yes! Let me know if they get any more tastier lol

Will do. xD I never thought of looking at pintrest, lol. I always thought it was mostly craft stuff. Hopefully dinner gets less bland going forward. Bland food is definitely not my favorite.

Thats where i go to get all my recipes at, i love pinterest for food things!!

Look up keto/low carb diets; specifically the keto reddit. I've lost over 80 pounds on it. You have to do research, though. Honestly, cutting out sugar and lowering your carbs is going to help you dramatically. Read labels. I eat about 25g (and lower) carbs since I'm strictly keto, but my sister (who just went low carb) cut her carbs to about 70 and she still lost weight.

And honestly the MOST important thing I would recommend to pretty much everyone trying to lose weight is ditch all bread products/anything with wheat in it.

On keto you eat fats, meats, low carb vegetables, nuts, dairy. You just don't eat garbage processed food, and you don't eat starchy vegetables like potatoes. You have to make sure you get your electrolytes, too (magnesium, sodium, potassium) or you'll feel like garbage.

This diet has been the best for me because I can still eat delicious food & I don't feel deprived at all, unlike when I was eating a low fat diet for over a year where I was constantly hungry and barely lost any weight.