What are diet recommendations for someone who is obese?

This will depend on the individual person however, I find that what works with my clients is to firstly identify what types of foods they think they can change, and then help them to make healthier choices by getting them to come up with healthier alternatives.

The second thing is to reduce portion sizes. In today's society our portions have been blown out of proportion and we are paying the price with obesity on the rise. When sitting down to your dinner meal, half of your dinner plate should represent free vegetables (salad veggies or any type of cooked veggies except the starchy ones such as potato, corn, sweet potato, parsnip).

In regards to tasty foods that a slimming and healthy, log onto the Dietitians Association of Australias website and check out their recipes: http://daa.asn.au/for-the-public/smart-eating-for-you/

There's a couple of options that you may consider if your goal is to lose some weight. The best advice I can give you is to go visit your local Accredited Practising Dietitian (APD) who can tailor a specific plan just for you, and help with healthier meal alternatives: http://daa.asn.au/for-the-public/find-an-apd/

I hope this helps

Changing habits is hard work, and if you want to lose weight you have to make permanent lifestyle changes. Often you will need the support of a dietitian. You need to be responsible for yourself, but a dietitian can monitor you and show you how to achieve your goals in a sensible manner. I do not believe in fad diets for a quick fix, rather you have to adopt a sensible eating and exercise plan and make the effort to stay focused. Don’t give up as the benefits of gaining control of your eating will affect your whole life balance.You can buy my book off the internet which explains in detail ‘normal’ eating and exercise patterns “The 10 Commandments for Losing Weight’. Remember it is a lifestyle not a diet as there is no short term fix it has to become a way of life. You have to be organised and structure you life and your eating. Portion control is crucial to losing weight. Learn to leave food on the plate as it stops compulsive eating. Never feel deprived as it encourages bingeing – rather keep portion small. Always sit down and eat on a plate. Eat slowly, that way you will feel satisfied before you have eaten too much. Enjoy your food and savour every mouthful. Move it! Exercise is an essential part of good health and losing weight. Balance your life is a fundamental step in regaining control over your eating.

This is a very broad question as there are many factors to take into account.  General recommendations include reducing overall energy intake, swapping high fat (especially saturated fat), high sugar choices for choices which are rich in micronutrients and minerals, reducing intake of beverages which contain kilojoules (for example  sugar sweetened drinks) and swapping for water.
Currently, my favourite three tips are to include legumes and lentils, remembering to treat yourself and to slow down how quickly you eat.
Research shows that increasing intake of legumes and lentils (such as kidney beans, chickpeas, fava beans and red or yellow lentils) can promote weight loss, and assist with keeping it off. Check out the Grain and Legumes Nutrition Council website for some great ideas on how to use them: www.glnc.org.au .  Depriving yourself entirely of your favourite foods is likely to result in unsustainable food changes, again, making it difficult to keep excess weight off. Eat slowly and enjoy your food, pay attention to what you are eating; if all your senses are used in the process of eating, you will more satisfied from eating less, which can then result in weight reduction.  

This is a very good question. I think it is interesting that you have raised the point that you are someone that does not eat a lot. Strangely enough, I have found that some patients that do struggle with their weight are actually not eating enough. It might sound counterproductive, but often, they might be missing some important nutrients from their diet. Ultimately I am a big advocate for not cutting food groups out completely, but having them in moderation. We need a good amount of our vitamins and minerals to be able to function and to lose weight. Eating the fruit, vegetables, proteins, whole grains, and dairy are all important to have.

To get to the cornerstone of the question, you mentioned about the recommendations for obesity. Basically to lose weight, it comes down to having a caloric deficit. In other words you need to be working off more calories than what you are putting into your body. That is ultimately the recommendation to lose weight and to actually come to calculating exactly how many calories or kilojoules that you require; I would highly recommend seeing an Accredited Practicing Dietitian for that; it varies on your activity level, age, and gender.

With that being said, there are 3 main points that I will touch on. I think portion sizes would be the main one. I think a lot of clients that I see who are obese do struggle with their portion sizes. It might be that they do not eat a lot during the day but then they have quite a large meal at night. Unfortunately, this is the way of life with work requirements it is quite common for people to eat this way. Unfortunately, over time by having a large load at night, can lead to greater insulin production which can lead to extra fat storage. In terms of portion sizes, I would just look at trying to eat regularly during the day; having a good breakfast and lunch, and still having a good evenly distributed dinner, but nothing too over-the-top.

As a rule of thumb I say try and have half of your meals to be vegetables or salad, that way you can fill up and have a lot of fibre without having a large caloric amount from the meal. Always have a source of lean of protein at your meal. Protein helps keep you full as long as it is a lean source, also, having carbohydrates during, but in moderation and sticking to low-glycemic index carbohydrates, as well.

The second point would be to have breakfast everyday. I do see a lot of clients, and unfortunately, they tend to neglect breakfast. They just wake up and are in a rush to get to work, and they are just filling up on coffee and maybe a few biscuits to get them through the morning. Unfortunately, this is really the worst thing you can do. Think of it as you are starting off the day, you need to break the fast and you need some fuel in the tank. If you do not have any fuel in the tank, your body actually stores more and your metabolism is slowed down during the day, and you are more likely to have cravings and choose the wrong foods. I think making that time to have a good, high-fibre breakfast is really important.

Thirdly; eating healthy snacks during the day and trying to eat regularly as well is vital. I will go through some nice options in a second. Healthy snacks help with metabolism, they to curb hunger pains later on in the day, so be eating regularly you prevent overeating. You also get your vitamins and minerals from a variety of food groups, so it is an opportunity to have these foods in your diet, as well.

I would briefly like to mention that other factors like stress management. Over time, if your body is in a stressed state, it is difficult to lose weight, as well. Sleeping is important, as well, for your general functioning. Water intake, and of course, you cannot forget exercise. I have obviously just touched mainly on the diet side of things, but just remember to look at your health in a holistic way, there are other factors.

Lastly, you asked about tasty food options that are slimming and healthy. Firstly, I think everyone has different taste requirements, so it is quite hard to pinpoint what is a tasty food option for someone that is healthy. I think to look at meals that you do enjoy, and then look at modifying them to make them healthier. In terms of modifying a meal, there are 2 ways: You can replace an ingredient with a healthy ingredient, or you can reduce an amount of a certain ingredient. For an example, if you like a decent sized bowl of spaghetti bolognaise for dinner. A way in which you can modify this would to be just to make sure the mince is the leanest. You could reduce the amount of spaghetti to half of what you normally would have. You could add a few vegetables, such as onion, spinach, tomato and carrot into the spaghetti. A good idea is to have a nice salad on the side, which will complete your meal. This is just an example of a tasty meal that is still very healthy, but just modified, in terms of the quantity and quality of it.

Some other ideas for tasty food options or some tasty snacks that are a little bit better than other ones. Dark chocolate has antioxidants and it lower in saturated fats than your normal milk chocolate; that is a good option in moderation. There are a few products out there that are better than others; there is Peter’s Light and Creamy Ice Cream Slice and Skinny Cow Ice Cream portions. I would recommend checking the nutritional information panel for the lower sugar and fat content. Nestles has quite a good diet dessert options, as well. Diet jelly is good also. These are just examples of food that people do like to enjoy, but these are healthier options.

Just to sum up, I think it is definitely achievable to be able to lose weight and still enjoy your food. It just comes down to portion control, looking at each single meal and where you can improve.

Although this isn't specific diet advice - I thought you might be interested in considering eating processes as I think they might have an effect on the kind of foods you eat…

There is a really great book by Dr Rick Kausman called If not dieting then what. It is all about developing a healthy relationship with food and eating.

I thought his might be helpful to you - because even though you don't consider yourself someone to eat heaps and heaps, you said that you think your choices might not be the greatest and that they might contribute to your weight.

The non-dieting approach can help us to get (back) in tune with our bodies and to kind of be guided by what our body needs. You can learn skills like working out what you really feel like eating…and the idea is that your body will crave foods that are actually good for you and needed by you at that time.

For many of us, we are quite of touch with those signals that our body sends - I think it is very easy to become out of touch in our society - you know there is just so much stuff out there about food and so much of it isn't great for our bodies and our waistline etc.

Anyway, it is not a quick fix - it takes a lot of retraining the brain I think. But I have found is book really useful personally & professionally.

I hope this might help you at least a little.