If you want to eat healthier without a huge change to your diet, instead of pizza with processed meat 4 times a week, switch to vegetarian pizza 4 times a week. Then replace the fast food with a bean or tofu and vegetable dish, and eat whatever you already eat for your 3x a week semi healthy dinner. Oatmeal is great. Instead of cookies and candy eat fruit.

Maybe both, but definitely the former.

Weight and height?

Most of the **** you eat can be consumed on a vegan/veggie diet, so a switch to vegan/veggie may or may not be inherently healthier. For example, knowing how you define a "semi-healthy" dinner to be would be helpful because it's most likely absolute garbage, so modifications can be made first that will be easier.

Also, for oatmeal, are you talking about those shitty Quaker maple & brown sugar oatmeal packs or plain oats? If the ingredients label reads anything other than: 100% whole grain rolled oats, 100% steel cut oats, or something along those lines, then it's dogshit.

Anything by Brenda Davis will have the info without the sanctimonious douchebag undertones.

Thanks for the response:

1) 6'1" 195 lbs. Heaviest ive ever been, which I know isnt much as I have a fast metabolism, but that doesnt mean im healthy.
2) " Semi Healthy Dinner" is usually something like a crock pot meal (Carrots Beans Chicken and some sort of sauce) Or (BBQ Chicken in the crockpot) (Some sort of seasoned chicken with beans)
3) Definitely eating the packaged quaker oats stuff. Thanks for the heads up ill look for whole grain oats or steel cut oats only.

Vegeterian Pizza is interesting, I never thought about that. How does it taste? What kind of ingredients do you put in your pizza?

I dont think id like the hippy white person type of food.

I dont like much italian food other than Pizza , even though im Italian.
Ive never eaten fish and dont plan on starting.
I like american food (Burgers, pizza, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches)
I like mexican foods (Tacos , anything with cheese etc.)
I like southwest / latin american type food that has a lot of spices

Any dish you prepare that you would recommend based on the above? Thanks

I don't use a recipe, but I make taco/burrito filling that's similar to this https://www.skinnytaste.com/black-bean-tacos/

I make a really simple dish that's southwest/latin american adjacent. Saute some chopped onion (I use lots but 1 onion is probably okay) and garlic, throw in a can of tomatoes, a can of black beans, some frozen corn, and season with cumin, paprika, cayenne, salt and pepper to taste. Serve with rice or quinoa, and/or sweet potato.

If you have a chili recipe, just substitute the ground beef with red kidney beans.

Black bean burgers, when done correctly, are insanely good.

Vegetarian could work for you but it's an extreme change and I think more difficult for your goal than switching to keto or low carb diet. You need to give up both meat and sugar. At the moment you should pick one and sugar should be a higher priority for you. Giving up sugar take a bit of time and can be super frustrating. I doubt going vegetarian is a good short term goal for you.
I know Kevin Smith almost died and went full vegan to correct that but without the life threatening situation it's super hard.

Your answer is more likely meal prep of healthy meals to avoid fast food. And once you can maintain your new diet for months go vegetarian or vegan if that's a real envy.

Keto is far more extreme than just cutting out meat and doing an ovo-lacto vegetarian diet, and it's ridiculous to cut out an actual macronutrient. Carbs converted into glycogen hold 3g of water per gram stored, hence the immediate weight loss. Save the water loss strategies for bodybuilder contest prep or fighters making weight.

It's not a miracle diet. It's fairly easier to control food intake while not feeling hungry. Better satiety overall. Not snacking on fast carbs.
Keto is on the extreme side but with really good potential.
Anyway as I said before cutting fast food seems like the real solution.
Vegan pizza over real pizza won't make a huge difference if any. Some chicken with some lentils is more likely to be effective.

Yes, keto is not a miracle diet; it's a donk diet. Yes, eliminating simple carbs will reduce rapid insulin spikes, which will reduce hunger pangs and potential overeating, but so will replacing simple carbs with complex carbs.

What's the "really good potential" to keto, especially for a guy 6' 1" 195lbs with high cholesterol?

Dropping sugar is great for ldl and tryglicerides which are more likely the problem than cholesterol itself.
And again for him keto is probably overkill. And going vegetarian would end up with him eating some shitty food like potato chips that are vegetarian options.

to anyone looking to switch their diet, particularly limpditka

mushrooms, peppers and zucchini are good pizza toppings.
the new generation pea protein meat substitutes like beyond and impossible are quite tasty and a good way to easily transition from a burger to a plant based diet.
almonds are your friend. plenty of flavored versions if those taste boring.
substitute beans instead of meat in tacos or similar foods.

Agreed on the table sugar. I'm not saying he should or shouldn't go veggie, but ovo-lacto is very easy - much easier than ditching crack sugars. If he starts pounding potato chips instead, then he's just being super lazy.

Then there is this: trashy ovo-lacto veggie foods that are easy to switch to that are overall a bit healthier than their meat counterparts and definitely healthier than pounding potato chips.

Vegan, but definitely not Land O Lakes approved:




Lemon chia muffins with lemon glaze.

can someone recommend good vegan cheese?

so far I've tried-
violife: too funky
chao: also funky
miyokos: weird bad
daiya: really bad

a lot of vegan meat products get really close to meat taste but I can't find a vegan cheese that is of the same caliber

The best I've found is to make your own by blending cashews, nutritional yeast, spices and water

Voracious just mentioned Follow Your Heart brand in the egg thread, I recommend it as well.

That cashew and nutritional yeast "cheese" doesn't taste or act much like cheese, but it sure is delicious!

I find brand is less reliable than individual cheeses.

The Violife Mature Sharp Cheddar block is very very good and one of the few "can eat from the package" cheeses. So is the smoked gouda from FYH above.

The best shredded cheddar I've found is actually Aldi, and it was a limited time find and I don't know who they are knocking off, unfortunately. (Most of their products are name brands under another packaging.)

Daiya is inedible except when their shredded mozzarella is melted at high heat on a pizza, and then it's really quite nice if used sparingly.

Follow Your Heart shredded parmesan is good, but NOT the horrible dry dust that they sell in a canister. You want the one in the tub that holds about 5 ounces. Their provolone is okay on a sandwich with other flavors. I made a very satisfying cheese sandwich with mustard, onion, pickles, a little mayo, ketchup, and tomato.

Chao regular is fair. I want to try the tomato cayenne variety, but it is always sold out.

Tofutti has a very decent cream cheese, if you're into that at all. It's better if you whip in some garlic and herbs and make an herbed cream cheese, but it also makes a good cheesecake.

Tofutti cheese cake is great. It was a big thing in my circle 20 years ago god damn I'm old

Oh yeah, forgot to say Tofutti cream cheese as well, that's another +1 from me. It tastes odd on its own, but it's amazing on a bagel or sandwiches.

Oh, also, stay FAR away from Go Veggie cheeses. They are uniformly terrible AND some of them still have milk derivatives in them. LOL Go Veggie.

If you go vegan, you just need to give up on anything resembling the taste of cheese; no matter what some dude wearing sandals and a hemp purse tells you. The best you can do is mash up some cashews in a food processor, but that works best if you haven't had cheese in months and you really like cashews.

BTW, VR, I'd eat those muffins in post #4616 if you held on the jizzy looking stuff on top.

Good to know, I thought that you didn't do sugar at all, but in that case you're definitely welcome to a muffin or several. The glaze was kind of not good anyway. It made the muffins a little overly sweet, in my opinion. I don't get the point of making a lovely tart lemony muffin and then sweetening it to death.