Well, just looking at the diets posted up, I'm wondering how long you guys can stand putting yourself through all that torture. There's a lot of nutrients that's missing out by cutting out so much vegetables. There may be complications later on or even feeling pain. The other thing about vegetables is that if you select the right ones, you wouldn't put on any weight at all. And it would provide you the missing nutrients.

Taking pills could help but it would require a lot of discipline. I remember trying Atkins and because I couldn't obtain the pills, I bought enough tablets to make up for one of their nutrition tablets. It was a lot of pills, I think seriously something like 10 different types. I cut out carbo completely but found the muscles becoming more stiff and I suffered from cramps. Had to take calcium tablets just to deal with it. Not to mention hunger pangs.

I also showed an Australian friend who used to be an amateur body builder and is now in the Australian amateur american football league in Perth. He said that the diets that you guys are using are for short-term and mostly just before competitions to beef up muscles. But that in the long run, you're damaging your bodies.

I eat all types of fruits but usually either for breakfast when i have yogurt ( I mix them together). Or dinner dessert.

I do them in many ways though.
-Frozen Grapes in Soda water. You can use energy drinks if you like it that way.
-Blended apples with ices and some soda water.
-Cutting half apple + half orange to make into small fruit salad
-Poaching (frying with water, no oil) apples. Came out extremely sweet with no sugar. Recommend only half apple.
-Watermelon cut up or I juice them and then ice them into cubes (nice snack later).

I try not to go more than 2 cups of chopped fruit per day. Although, sometimes, I put the apple or orange juice into cooking just to give it a bit of taste.

Edit : reason I don't exceed 2 cups of chopped fruit is so that I don't eat too much sugar. Sugar is the same reason I'm careful with drinking low-fat milk. Sometimes, they taste so sweet because of the sweetener in there (some manufacturers do that). The secret to HL tasting like ice-cream is the vanilla essence and I think some sweetener. Have to compare labels with other milk brands but you can use vanilla essence to season your yogurt a little bit. A few drops will do.

Most seasonings do not contact any fat so it's safe to take. Again, I'm not a body builder. I'm just someone who started on hopefully a final lifestyle change in diet to lose weight, to enjoy it and not feel like I'm starving for some of my favourite foods.

---

Added on March 20, 2009, 1:23 amHmm...one thing that I do like to do and maybe should be ok for u guys. I made a sandwich using wholemeal bread (preferably with 100% wholemeal flour, some bakeries mix in white flour), cottage cheese spread and lettuce. If rajin, I cut some raw capsicum and add it in because they are always sweet. Tomatos sometimes sour so cannot tahan.

Actually, with bodybuilding, I have no clue as I've not read up much except for a few posts that are on this thread. And I realised that a lot of the simplified diet posted is just a person hating vegetables and fruits or they think that oats are vegetables. Oats are grains, not vegetables.

The other thing is that I notice there's a lot of young readers who are keen to get into body building which is fine but they seem to be taking more extreme measures than I did when I did my one and only successful weight loss (to date) back in Form 5. I ate mostly at home with all the necessary food, swam once a week for about an hour and lost 19 kg in 3 months (80 kg to 61 kg). That is through no change in my diet other than to avoid some fatty and fried food as well as limit going out to eat  but still ate the chicken rice on Saturdays for lunch which is fatty as hell. I gain back the weight because I didn't watch out and now have to start again since it was the only time it was really successful. I've tried about 10 different food diets and regimes (yes it felt like that) and 2-3 different slimming centers. Nothing beats exercise and eating properly.

I was also checking out some of the other posts in this Health and Fitness forum. Let's take your post :
http://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopi...post&p=24407317
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/eating_made_simple.htm
Actually, this is pretty good although a bit heavy on the bread side but if you can tahan ok. What he didn't mention that you have a variety of spices and condiments (sauces) that you can use to make it taste. As long as it's in moderation. Half a teaspoon of some of the more natural vinegar will be good enough e.g. balsamic vinegar, white wine vinger, red wine vinegar, brown rice vinegar. If you add a bit of vinegar into salad, it will break down some of the sugar content in veggies that you just might find an overnight vegetable salad to be sweeter the next day. There are also dried and fresh herbs (both western and Asian e.g. thai herbs) that is available.

Hmmm...here's some suggestions to jazz it up a bit :

Meal 1
2 eggs - poached them with cut coriander and some pepper, scramble eggs with a little bit of onions to make it sweet, steam it with some slices of mushrooms or peas to make the japanese egg dish,
1 Bowl of Oatmeal -honestly, I prefer the muesli mix where the dried fruits are included e.g. cranberries, raisins, are included. Mix it with some low-fat milk or soya milk. can also put in fresh fruits, my favourite is some sliced bananas
1 Apple - Can chopped it and put it into the oatmeal. it will sweeten it.

Meal 2

Cottage Cheese - Hmm...if you guys are in KL, you might want to try out the other types of natural cheese like parmesan, mozarrella, cream cheese, feta, ricchota. I'm not sure what is the calorie count but can be an alternative if you're looking for variety. They're known as natural cheese so calorie count would be smaller than process cheese. Read labels though.
1 Yogurt mixed with 1 cup of walnuts - Can try other nuts but I would prefer to blend it so that the nuts break up. Can try different types of nuts. Hmm...maybe add in a few drops of vanilla essence to make it taste like ice-cream. Some honey may help - honey isn't high in sugar content.

Meal 3

Tuna Salad on Whole Wheat - The salad can be some chopped cucumbers (small, remove the center seeds if you don't like that bit) + corn + slice lettuce (very thin). Whole Wheat is a wheat biscruit but think you can use bread or non-fattening naan bread. Pita bread is also a nice option.

Meal 4

Turkey on Whole Wheat - Very hard to find turkey. Can try chicken. Either boil it with some herbs/veggies to give it flavour or roast an entire chicken and use the cooked meat for the sandwich.
1 Medium Salad - I can think of 2 cups of salad which is easy. Or 2 cups of cooked veggies like spinach, chai sim, baby kailan, cangkuk manis, etc. The trick to stir-fry veggie is chopped garlic to get rid of the veggie smell.

Meal 5

Fruit Salad (grapes, cantaloupe, kiwi, watermelon) -local fruit is fine. Hmm...except maybe mangosteen and durian and other fatty types I think.
1 Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich - toast a sandwich with a light spread of butter? very very light but enough for it to melt on the bread? Then sprinkle some nuts over it + fruit. Or just plain peanut butter. The jelly can be high in sugar so be careful.

Meal 6

Salmon - Expensive and bit too rich in flavour for me. Also, eat too much is like feeling it's just too fatty. Local fish is nice too. Boil or steam or baked (wrap in foil and stick in oven). To remove fishy smell, use ginger, garlic or lemon grass.
Asparagus - Very expensive and unless you know how to look for the young ones, it's not worth getting it because the old ones are too fibrous. Just eat some other green veggie : cook or raw. I prefer cook and limit my raw veggie intake. Stomach cramps - tak biasa.
1 Sweet Potato - Good choice. Boil and cut into cubes or mash it. Can add in low-fat milk for the mash.

It's a lot of preparation time but I do get some "mild/heavy" workout from moving around and chopping. It's not for everyone but after getting used to it, I've cut down my cooking time for preparing a quick breakfast, lunch and dinner dessert to 1 hour without cooking equipment e.g. food processor. Sometimes, I still use a blender for mixing yogurt and making some fruit juices but very rare.

Weekends I plan for larger meals that take a longer time to cook. So I don't always exercise heavily during the weekend. Thinking seriously of buying a pair of sneakers just for the long hours in the kitchen so feet aching. Weekday preparations - I try to limit it to easy foods that take about 30 min to prepare for a meal.

---

Added on March 20, 2009, 6:55 pmEh, since u're a pro basketball player, how come you're asking for tips here? Doesn't the Malaysian Sports Council have someone looking at nutrition for sports athletes?