You can eat anything you want, just don't exceed your calorie limit and you will lose weight.
1) Find your maintenance calories and then cut by 300-500. this will make you lose approximately 1lbs per week.
2) If you exercise you can eat at maintenance because the calories you burn during the exercise will put your body into caloric deficit.
The latter option is obviously better due to health benefits.
You can also combine the two above for even bigger weight loss but if you eat too less, and exercise too much you will lose muscle mass,
Everything Ring said here is legit, Panda. I'll help you with no. 1 though. Use this website (
http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm). There are three methods out there, or formulas (really complicated ones) to know how much your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) is. The ones online calculate it for you. You can also just go on google and type "BMR Calculator".
You also burn cals when the body digests so that's your BMR x 10% to get those calories.
So for me, according to the Harris-Benedict, at 195 lbs my BMR is approx. 1960.85 my total calories needed to maintain my weight is 2,353 a day. If I count my cals and only eat 1,800 a day that's 553 cals burned. Multiply 553 by 7 days = 3,871 cals, which equals 1 pound. (1 pound is 3,500 calories.) And that's with no exercise. If you include exercise, which you should since it helps your metabolism, you'll feel better and lose weight faster.
It's about more calories out than in. Eating healthy is good too, better quality of vitamins and health but, yeah, you still have to count it.
It's more about a lifestyle change. You spread your meals through out the day and there's less craving; plus, it helps with digestion and slightly stimulates your metabolism if you do that. Oh... And don't worry about napping after eating either. You won't burn less calories or gain weight doing that. That is a myth from "bro-science" as long as you don't over eat.
I've been doing this. It's slow but, meh... Better in the long run. You could always do the P90X and build muscle and all that. I think it's better, but personally I'm too lazy. Good luck, Panda.
