Summary: We've already been given a great guide recently on weight lifting. Well, I have something I can contribute too. The easiest, healthiest, and fastest guide to weight loss. Sorry for the length, but I have a lot to say.

As a short background on me, I have health problems that I need medications for. These meds have serious side effects, among them significant weight gain. Because of this, I had to become an expert to lose weight. In 2013, I lost 80 pounds in 10 months, dropping from 268 to 188. And although everyone fashions themselves a nutrition/wellness expert, I think I know more than most. Nearly all my weight loss came from eating perfectly.

Alkalinity

Central to the science of wellness is the concept of alkalinity. Dr. Robert Young's pH Miracle provides much of what you would need to learn the details, but in essence what you're aiming to accomplish is:

1) improving the alkalinity of your body (making it less acidic)

2) the removal of toxins from your system

Some foods have an acidic effect, others an alkalizing effect on your body. However, your blood must maintain a 7.4 pH balance or your organs will fail. So with the homeostatic nature of your body, your body will remove minerals and nutrients from your organs/muscles/tissues to offset an excess of acidic food in your body. However, if you eat properly, you can store an excess of minerals + nutrients in your system and achieve health you haven't experienced before.

Toxins are easy enough to understand. Anything from yeast infections to athlete's foot to warts are unwanted things on/in our bodies. They all produce various negative effects on us and eating a certain way can get rid of them. Taking your body's focus away from digesting nasty toxic food and more onto self-healing goes a long way.

The "Diet"

I hate the word diet, but there is no better word for "deliberate food selection" so we'll have it at that. Diet implies a restriction of calories, a poor experience, and in general a highly restrictive hurdle to overcome. What I recommend is none of those, save for the restrictions.

I will go in order of calories consumed because it helps to conceptualize better:

1) Healthy Fats, 70-80% of calories: these are the most important for fat loss. Consuming grass fed butter (Kerrygold or irish/european butter good options), coconut oil, avocados, and bacon (from the healthiest grown pigs you can find) will be your best bets. Coconut oil is a great anti-fungal, avocados are loaded with nutrients, and grass fed butter has a fair amount of good things for you.

2) Protein, 20% of calories: I hate to use a macro-nutrient "protein" for this category but it should be mostly meat. Aggressive weight lifters will perhaps encourage a higher percentage than 20, but don't go above 30%. You probably don't need it. You guys know how to eat meat/what meats to eat, but I'll give you my 2 cents. Grass fed beef (never ground meat), omega 3-dense fish (tuna preferably not in a can, salmon, halibut), and pasture raised/uncaged chickens or goat. Avoid crustaceans, bottom feeding fish, and traditionally American raised animals. Don't overcook your meat - the rarer the better (I eat raw beef if from the right cow/farmer).

3) "Carbs", 10% of calories: This isn't really carbs as you know them. This is vegetables, and that's it. Leafy greens are a must (top are kale, dandelion greens, swiss chard, rapini, mustard greens, and arugula). As for diversity, focus on getting tomatoes, bell peppers, radishes, beets, broccoli, and eggplant. None of these are calorie dense and you should eat as much of them as you can.

Putting it Into Practice

Timing is huge. All your fats should be consumed by, say, 4 PM. Load up in the morning. The way I get half of my fats is Bulletproof Coffee - a simple method of putting grass fed butter and coconut oil in my coffee every morning. The Bulletproof beans are the best coffee I've ever had, but any coffee can work. With it I will have bacon on the side. That's breakfast.

Lunch is an avocado with a salad. Simple, effective.

Dinner is mostly vegetables, sometimes a salad thrown in, but perhaps a prepared veggie dish. This is also when I eat the bulk of my meat. Fish, beef, goat, or eggs.

If I get hungry late night I eat as much as I want, it just has to be vegetables. Carrots aren't satisfying, but a large salad is. Find what works for you.

The Anti-Diet: What to Avoid

Sugar is your enemy. You are addicted to it, even if you think you aren't. No bread, grains of any kind, potatoes, fruit, alcohol, or processed food (anything coming in a box). Go one day without sugar or sugar equivalents and you will feel it. It provides no nutritional benefit, and unless you're a professional athlete, there's little reason to be consuming it. Replace your gatorade with water + mineral salts. Same thing, cheaper, no sugar.

Although I mentioned it already, avoid alcohol. At all costs. Don't think I need to go into detail here, but yes even one beer is a small nuke on your system. Cigarettes equally so.

Mushrooms throw off a fair amount of fungal spores + other nasty side effects. While yes they have macro nutrients, they are not good for you. Avoid anything with mushrooms in the dish. Cooking doesn't help.

Outside of grass fed butter, dairy is a no-no. It is what a cow produces to get its offspring to grow quickly. Some of that might be helpful to humans, but there are a lot of unwanted things in there. Plus grass fed milk is hard to come by. Better to avoid. Human milk is far healthier but that's gross by societal standards so just avoid dairy.

Avoid restricting yourself to being hungry. Eating like this, you can eat as much as you want. I'll say it again, eat as much as you want.

Any mass-produced crops should be avoided. Soy, corn, wheat comprise something like 75% of calories in the US. None of them are good for you.

Nuts and seeds aren't good for you either. Yes they have protein, but they are also not good for you. Put simply, a plant doesn't want you chewing up its seeds and in many cases there are various toxins to prevent animals from doing so. A few exceptions, such as flax seed oil apply, but in general no peanuts/cashews/etc. Brazil nuts and macadamia's aren't bad but they're also expensive.

Some Final Notes

Although it says 10% of calories from vegetables, on a volume basis they should be half of your total food consumption, maybe more. I even go so far as to walk around with a tomato or a bell pepper if I'm going somewhere.

I'm a believer in exercise but I think proper eating > proper exercise. It takes far less time to see the results you want and also makes you somewhat of an interesting person for knowing how to eat like this. I started back on this regimen 3 days ago and I've already lost 6 pounds. It's not hard. I plan on losing another 70 pounds, won't take long.

Cooking food removes nutrients. The less you cook it, the better. Meat, when sourced properly, can be eaten (nearly) raw without any significant problems. Been doing it for awhile, and actually think it tastes better.

Learn to cook. Don't use recipes, ever. It's better to learn trial-and-error, you'll be a far better cook AND thinker in the long run. Plus you can impress people more that way. Show some initiative.

Juicing vegetables is even healthier than eating them, because you can pack 5 salads into one meal. Get a masticating vegetable juicer if you're interested (Omega does a nice job) and start juicing once/day. You will see immediate benefits.

For most produce, "organic" is not worth the money. If you're wealthy, buy organic, but otherwise don't bother. The only thing I might get organic (or the equivalent) is my meat. That's far more important to be grown properly than your produce.

Salt is important. You won't get enough in the diet I've described here. You need to be pretty liberal with it: put mineral salt in your water, himalayan/kosher/sea salt in your food.

Hydration is equally important. Drink a lot of water, avoid any drinks but water. Sugar in water is like a soda, even if it's orange juice.

Go to the farmer's market. It's cheaper, better produce, and you can ask the farmer directly about their wares. Not only is it good on the wallet and quality, but it's fun and good for mental health. Get out and do something a little different, you'll thank me later.

Lastly, don't have "cheat days". You're not having a "zero" day, but a "negative" day, which can offset 3-4 days of healthy eating because of the alkalinity thing I discuss above. It's far easier to make your body acidic than alkaline.

Best of luck. Please critique me or share your experiences. Thanks all. PM for questions.