Avoid foods with long ingredient lists. Optimally, you'd get most of your food from the fresh produce section, but even dried beans have an ingredients list. Don't keep junk food around the house.
I don't really bother with portion control, since a sane diet with calorie logging automatically regulates the amount of food you eat. But you can google rules of thumb for portion control if you're curious.
I have the palate of a kid so I drink a fruit and vegetable smoothie every day. My parents insist that spinach cause gout so I'm compromising by using cucumbers. Berries, which can have some sour ones mixed in, end up tasting sweet when blended.
Average walking speed is between 2.0 and 3.0 miles per hour, but instead of setting the speed higher and having to run, adjust the incline. And don't trust the treadmill's estimate of calories burned.
Make it a habit to drink some water when you're hungry. Sometimes, your brain confuses thirst for hunger. Don't drink soda or juice. And try to limit alcohol or cut it out from your diet if you can.
I like to do resistance training and walking. Specifically progressive calisthenics, which you can google. Heavy negatives help too. There's also isometrics, although you have to repeat an exercise at different angles to get the full benefit and don't give results as quickly as isotonic exercise.
100% whole wheat is the best, 100% whole grain is good too. Look for that when you buy pasta or bread.
It's recommended that you get a food scale and weigh everything you eat. But I made do with calculating calories from the nutrition facts (calories per serving * number of servings in the package / how many times I'm eating this until I finish the package). And googling how many calories in a chicken breast, in an avocado, and so on.
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