I have an oral surgery coming up that's going to require me to be on a liquid diet for around two weeks (possibly more). Early on it'll have to be pretty strict -- nothing with even small bits of food or anything "gritty" like a smoothie. Later on I'll have a bit more leeway, but I will still have to keep to stuff that doesn't really require chewing until everything's fully healed.

I'm mostly looking for opinions on stuff like meal replacement shakes -- ideally ones that are tasty, satisfying, and without a lot of sugar (if anything like that even exists?).

I'm also interested in any tips/tricks people have if they've been through something similar. I'm hoping to make the best of the (hopefully no more than) two weeks that I can.

I'm trying to change some nasty habits at the moment. My year's theme is self control, and beating addictions is a large part of it.

The symptoms I've been trying to fight off since last year: Snacking often, eating portions too large, eating past hunger/always finishing my plate even if I feel full, craving greasy fast food, craving sweets/sugar.

Progress is mixed. I'm trying a lot of things; I've reintroduced a 20:4 IF routine (my body is naturally somewhere around 16:8 - I never have breakfast) but I've had a lot of trouble obeying it for more than a few days.

I'm realizing, today, that one thing I have not really been looking at is the cravings. This HN thread is what clicked for me. I know that on a "healthier" diet, I crave very different things.

I'm looking at options on what I can introduce (gradually) to start getting my gut used to different classes of foods. I don't intend to switch to being vegan/vegetarian, I'm just looking to stop craving fat, salt, and sugar.
Or rather, not necessarily crave, but "if I see it I want it" kind of thing. I want to be able to look at a packet of crisps and think "blergh" by default, even if I'm hungry.

What advice I am looking for: Suggestions on snack replacements, juices, various tasty meals etc; things I can actually go for from day 1. I am not looking to do any large swaps. I am also not looking for extra effort; right now, a 99 percent of my meals are either store-bought, microwaved, or restaurant/takeout. I don't cook because I don't enjoy it nor usually have the time.

Example: I've decided to introduce ginger shots to my diet, see if it'll help. I'm also going to try having carrots on-hand more often as I really like those.

Note 1: I am considering giving Hello Fresh a shot next month, since I've never actually tried it, but I'm lukewarm on what'll happen.

Note 2: Allergic to bell pepper; dislike eggplant, celery, zucchini.

I know it's a big deal right now, but I don't know much about it.

I sort of stumbled into it by accident because I don't feel safe eating at work right now, so most days I don't have any food until I get home around 4:00 to 4:30 PM. I'm also usually wrapping up my evening and in bed by 9:00 PM, so I end up with a roughly five hour window in which to eat. Last weekend I tried to follow it even though I was home and found it surprisingly easy to just not eat until that time, even though it was safe for me to do so and food was available.

I was already calorie counting prior to this, but I noticed the shift to not eating at work accelerated my weight loss a little bit. It's also way easier to come in under my calorie count when I don't eat for most of the day.

Because it seems like this is working (though granted, I'm in the very early stages), and because I don't really have a choice in the matter given that I can't safely eat at work anyway, I'm interested in learning about the do's and don't's of intermittent fasting. As a beginner to this, what should I know? I am mostly interested in just making sure I'm not doing any damage to myself or creating any potential problems that I don't realize, so safety is my primary concern. Weight loss is a secondary focus, though less essential because I feel like I've got that down with calorie counting. Any insights or resources you know of would be appreciated.

My husband and I have cut back on meat consumption significantly in recent months, and I'm tossing around the idea of trying to do a full vegetarian diet for the month of March as a trial run for potentially going vegetarian full-time.

I've searched around and there's a lot of conflicting information out there on the topic of vegetarianism, as well as the reality that a significant amount of nutritional information online is sketchy at best. I know we have lots of vegetarian/vegan users here, and I'm wondering if there's any significant need-to-know health concerns or things that need to be addressed. Do I need to supplement any particular nutrients? Do I need to measure my protein intake? Any other must-know information or do's/don't's I should be aware of?

Have you ever really looked at what you eat? If you have, you may notice one common ingredient present in everything from vegan sauces to certain ketogenic foods. Taking those specific diets into consideration, the widely accepted figure for keto is <100 grams, and similar in the vegan sphere as well(Often times you'll see a quoted 30 grams, but the kicker always comes in the comments where someone says fruit based sugars don't count towards this. They do, very much so, count towards it). This is far, far, far too much sugar for any one human to be taking in a day. The FDA has no recommended figure for their DV scale of food labels, but other groups certainly do. The World Health Organisation recommends no more than 5% of daily calories be from sugar of all types. This is equivalent to 25 grams for a 2000 calorie diet. The American Heart Association recommends the same figures.

Now, you may be asking yourself, why would the AHA bother themselves with sugar? Certainly that's more for a diabetes association to study than a heart disease one? Well, it's because sugar is heavily linked to heart disease. From the source:

participants who took in 25% or more of their daily calories as sugar were more than twice as likely to die from heart disease as those whose diets included less than 10% added sugar

So, not only are you at risk for heart disease, but there are new studies that suggest alzheimer's is nothing more than a 3rd form of diabetes.

I'm not hoping for much in posting this, except that someone somewhere looks at their diet and resists the stranglehold sugar has on our present society.

For the last three years at university I've been eating like crap, but luckily my metabilism is relatively high so it hasn't really become much of an issue. Despite this, I still want to make a complete change and try and live a much more healthier life as I'm not going to be this age forever. I already cycle a lot, but I know exercise is one part of the equation and so I want to try a complete overhaul of my diet as well. I've heard and read a few things about the keto diet but was wondering if any other users have already tried. If so, did it work effectively? How hard was it to shift your eating habits and change up what you normally eat? I'm pretty confident I could manage it I would just like to see if anyone already has some experience with the diet and whether they would recommend it or not.

Hey everyone. I keep a pretty rigorous watch on my calories and I am a vegetarian, so a lot of my meals consist of just vegetables. I am mostly healthy, but I have the hardest time kicking my only real vice: soda. I love it, and I may even be addicted. I gave it up last year for lent, but after my 40 days I immediately started drinking it again. I'm trying to cut back my sugar intake, and I keep finding ways to rationalize drinking it. Anyone out there with tips on how I can kick it for good?

So I'm a teen and am starting a new school next year. I get a 12 week break so would really like to try and get in shape, mainly to boost self confidence. What types of exercise / diet would people recommend?

I don't think I'd ever get skinny but I'd I could swap out some fat for muscle that would be fantastic!