Ask HN: Most sustainable diet long term?

I am on a weight loss journey and lately i see a lot of diet trends happening like intermittent fasting, keto, carnivore etc. I tried some of those but found that nothing restrictive like that would work for me long term. What i mean by that is that i cannot be healthy for me to avoid fruit if i am doing the keto diet or just eat meat and nothing else.

I am trying to be more healthy and changing what i eat is part of that so i am wondering what has worked for you guys? Exercise is also important but i've been told that i cannot do weightlifting since i have neck hernia.

I think maybe intermittent fastening is okay, eating more mediterrain stuff... but for instance just eat twice from 12 to 8pm and then don't eat anything till the next day :-)

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

The canonical advice, as someone already wrote is: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

I'd add:

- Eat mostly what your grand-grandparents would identify as food (e.g. no preprocessed stuff, no chips, etc).

- Don't eat constantly. Leave 14+ hours that you don't much (if you sleep 8 hours that's just 6-wake hours off of food).

- Don't eat refined sugars, wheat, etc. Whole grain is OK.

- Mediterranean diet has been proven good time and again. Go for more greens, fruit, olive oil, fish, legumes, scarce meat etc.

- Don't overdo it in any direction (too much protein, too much fat, too many carbs, etc).

- Don't tax your stomach with too much complicated meals to digest. Keep it simple but balanced.

- Drink enough water (not too much - 2 lt per day is fine, can do less if you eat fruits and watery food - tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelon, soups, etc)

Basically that. Easier said than done of course...

>Exercise is also important but i've been told that i cannot do weightlifting since i have neck hernia.

Maybe you can still lift small one-hand weights? Check with a doctor.

I suggest downloading MyFitnessPal and just learning what different amounts of food look like calorie wise, then you can eat whatever you want as long as it's within your caloric goals.