Honestly, it was all personal research.

How I started: fat (318 lbs), high blood pressure (unmedicated : 166-176), high-side of normal cholesterol (180+), high-side of normal liver enzymes (ALT=46).

I said to myself, what are natural foods that are high in mass, low in calories, and address BP and cholesterol?

Over 9 months, that slowly turned into my current diet. And now I’m 235, unmedicated BP is 146, cholestoral is 130, ALT is 24. Hopefully, within another year, I’ll be able to transition of losartan (BP meds)

Like 5 months ago, I was researching more and more things to incorporate into my diet, and I learned that I basically adopted what’s known as a “liver shrinking diet” that’s prescribed ahead of bariatric surgery.

Half my meals come from a Keto food company prepped at the cost of $13/, which is on par with a fast food meal. I try to get their salmon and veggie or shrimp and veggie meals. They’re delivered to my door already cooked, I pop them in the oven for 10 minutes, eat, and recycle the plastic trays.

The other half of my meals (chicken and veggie) comes from Sams Club deli, again, already cooked, something like $15 for 5 filets.

I eat sliced tomatos with salt and pepper, lathered in olive oil, use bread to clean off the olive oil, and banana, and these are also from Sams.

If you refrain from bread, you might have better results, but I love olive oil+bread too much to refrain from it lol.

I take supplements (fish oil and cranberry concentrate) religiously, which are supposed to help with cholesterol/BP.

I think what’s important to stress, is that merely switching what foods you eat is may not be enough. You still need to be in a caloric deficit. Now my diet is easy to be in a caloric deficit without as many hunger pains because you eat voluminous, calorically light foods, but the thing you need to focus on is ultimately calories. And for that, I use this:

https://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html

This calculator comes in clutch, because you’ll have to scale down your calories as you lose weight. That’s where fasting can help you out.

Other tips and tricks:

the reason I get veggies at sams is because some things like fruits and tomatos will have consistent sizes, and it’s easier to calorie count (I’m sure cosco is the same way, I just haven’t shopped there).

For calorie counting fruit, I have a dry erase board where I keep all the calories /100g, and I use a kitchen scale and excel on my phone to track calories on a daily/weekly basis (I unfortunately don’t transcribe onto my computer).

Drink lots of water. On a bad day, I drink 4 liters. On a good day, 7 and I I work at home in a/c.

Ultimately, if you find something that works for you, adopt it and don’t mind other people. Most people say you shouldn’t eat big meals before you go to bed, but I hate going to bed hungry, so I eat most of my meals right before bed. I’m still losing weight, I’m still healthier than I was a year ago, and that’s all that matters.

That’s why I said “half way between keto and mediterrean” and defined mediterrean as having moderate meat consumption and high in carbs (veggies, fruit, bread).

Implying a blend of the too diets.

Also, mediterrean doesn’t have a homogenous definition. My family is Moroccan, which is a mediterrean culture. They eat a lot of poultry and fish.

My diet now is exactly as my dads side of the family (Moroccan) normally eats.

Yeah. I was overweight as a chil and as a teenager. Then hormones kicked in and i got skinny getting into my 20s. Thats pretty normal, isnt it? Also, being overweight is pretty subjective, since only accounts BMI. Im quite fit rn and my BMI is about to get into the overweight range, eventhough im very healthy.

You’re actually completely right. Lots of different countries on the med with sometimes radically different cuisines despite similar ingredients. when I say mediterrean, I literally mean “Moroccan”.

Typical breakfast in my Moroccan grandmothers house for individuals not on a diet:

Breakfast: bread with butter and olive oil

Lunch: salad with tomatos and sardines.

Dinner: a huge bowl of couscous (a grain), with carrots, Zucchini, potato’s, lamb/beef/Chicken, bread, followed by a huge plate of fruit (oranges, bananas, melons).

How I adapted this to my diet:

Breakfast: fruit, usually bananas, but sometimes strawberries, raspberries, blackberries.

Lunch: chicken filet, with tomatos and other veggies (when available), olive oil, and American style sliced wheat loaf bread

Dinner: salmon and veggies

Snack before bed: tomatos, olive oil, bread.

My diet isn’t an exact mirror as what my grandmother makes because I’m in America with American ingredients and hate cooking (salmon vs sardines, American bread vs Moroccan bread, American bread vs cous cous), but in terms of the kinds of foods I’m eating (lean meats, veggies, fruit, grains, olive oil), it’s virtually the same thing.

It does show YoY. It has Dec’21 as the starting point and Dec’22 as the ending point. You’re free to calculate percentages on your own, though.