Another trick if you eat junk food such as chips is to not eat out of the bag and instead serve yourself a small portion in a bowl. This can be applied to any high calorie food or desserts if you include them in your diet.

But I will share some ‘food for thought’. Hopefully this will demystify and debunk a few things for you.

First and foremost, healthy and skinny don’t have anything to do with each other. More specifically, just because a diet makes you skinny, doesn’t mean it makes you healthy. If you’ve ever seen documentaries about starving people in Subsaharan Africa, this should be obvious to you. Yet sadly, to many, it’s not. How many of you want diet tips from an Ethopian? Aren’t they literally bone-skinny? Now you get my point.

“Low Fat” is low health, low grade and low information. Take a 16 ounce tub of plain mayonnaise. Put it beside a 16 ounce tub of low fat mayonnaise. In both cases you have 16 ounces. In the ‘regular’ mayonnaise a fair share of this 16 ounces is fat. In the case of the low fat mayonnaise, there is still 16 ounces without this fat. So what is making up the remainder of that 16 ounces. When you can satisfactorily answer that question, including what associated risks come with the substitute, only then should you the low fat option. In most cases this will never happen.

The fat under the skin of a chicken has high gelatin content. It is very similar to the fat under our skin that keeps our skin tight and elastic. Your skin is an organ. Like all organs it repairs and rejuvinates itself. Yet many people find their skin wrinkling and sagging over time. Other organs don’t do this. Why? Because low fat, skinless, white meat chicken, while maybe making you skinnier (see point 1) robs you of essential fats that serve a noble purpose to you. The image of the bone skinny Hollywood starlet with her face pumped full of botox should drive this point home to you. Eating the whole chicken is common in Asian cultures. When was the last time you saw and Asian person with wrinkles like Melanie Griffith? Sure every lots of wannabe experts are pitching the low fat skinless chicken breast. HERE. Just keep in mind that two Billion Asians without wrinkles are saying something totally different. Always get some perspective

Long story short, you need to know what you need to know before you give or take diet advice. If you are looking for a good source let me recommend Mark Sisson and his site Mark’s Daily Apple to those of you not aware of it. Mark does have a solid background in genetics, physiology, nutrition, and competitive athletics. You’ll find that he would agree with many of the tips here, but also lambaste some as well. Difference is he can back it up with facts, science and countless case studies that prove rather than suggest. You likely won’t even be able to find time to read it all. But the specific answers you seek are there.

Best of luck to you all. If you came here looking for advice, kudos for taking and active role in your health. Just be sure to seek out the facts and proof of results from those who are in it for the right reasons. And as the author notes, don’t sweat a little southern fried chicken once in a while. Mental health is a part of physical health, and that stuff is downright euphoric.

As the comments prove though, at the end of the day, whatever works best for you as an individual is the best diet plan you can follow.For starters, skipping breakfast may work for some people but if I do that, I’m practically chomping on my desk a half-hour after getting to the office.

Eating below your caloric maintenance level is more important then when you actually eat.

I would also be cautious of eating too much fruit. Not saying to cut it out altogether, but a quick snack of fruit can become 200 calories real fast. Substitute something like a bell pepper instead (~40 calories in a cup vs ~200 in a cup of sliced bananas).