Chances are that you or someone you know has been on some kind of diet. The Cabbage Soup Diet, The Zone, Atkins, Blood-Type, Keto, Paleo, the list is endless. Each one promises losing weight to be a breeze.
Are they lying? Not necessarily.
The diet industry is worth billions of dollars and for good reason. People, women especially, are obsessed with dieting. Unfortunately, most of them give up after the first month.
Diets work in the short term but they are not sustainable. You probably know this already, so why torture yourself with yet another promise of a quick fix that will only end with extra weight gain?
There’s no such thing as a quick-fix in the dieting world. If you want a quickie, grab your husband or partner and enjoy it in the boudoir but do not get it confused with losing weight – although you may burn some calories while you’re at it.
Losing weight should be a simple equation. Calories in vs calories out.
Most of the time it is that simple but we’re not all created equal. We come in different shapes and sizes. For some it’s easy to drop ten kilograms, for others it’s torture. That’s why one way will not work for everyone.
So what is the secret to losing weight for good and keeping it off?
Lifestyle re-design.
A three-month Atkins diet will help you shed the pounds but they’ll come back on as soon as you go back to your usual eating habits. The same goes for Keto, Blood-Type and Zone diets or any diet on the market unless you’re willing to commit for life.
The secret to losing weight and keeping it off is to change the way you eat permanently.
Don’t panic. It doesn’t mean giving up all the weird and wonderful things you love to eat. Far from it. With lifestyle design you can eat what you want just not everything you want.
Yes, that means you can have your cake and eat it too.
Think about how food makes you feel. Is it happy? Sad? Frustrated? Guilty? Ravenous?
I love food. It’s fair to say that I think about food quite often and I never deprive my tastebuds.
Cake for breakfast. Sure it’s happened. I just make sure I finish the day off with a salad.
Cheese and crackers with wine for dinner? You betcha. It happens on more Friday nights than I care to admit. But you know what, that means it’s a light breakfast and lunch for me.
Or sometimes I try to do intermittent fasting. I have my last meal at 7pm and then won’t eat again until at least 10am the following day. I’ve been so busy that I’ve gone most of the day , forgetting to eat but that doesn’t give me an excuse to splurge, after a fast it’s better to top up on healthy food and save the naughty for another day.
The key is to listen to your body. It knows best.
That’s easy to say for someone who’s already slim. So what does someone who needs to lose 5, 10 or 50 kilograms do?
Start small and see amazing results.
Here’s an example of someone with a questionable nutrition plan. Yes, I’m over exaggerating here but that’s ok.
The Nasty Diet
Breakfast – bacon and eggs or coco pops
Snack – packet of crisps, chocolate bar
Lunch – mince pie, pepsi
Snack – iced coffee
Dinner – spaghetti bolognese extra large
Dessert – three scoops of ice cream
Now, for someone with these eating habits going on a diet will be a certain way to fail. You can’t go from 0 to 100 overnight. It takes time, dedication and adaptation. But from small things, big things grow.
Here are some changes that this person could implement over the coming weeks and months to transform their eating habits from piss poor to healthy.
The Transformation
Week 1
Swap the breakfast for avocado on toast with 2 scrambled eggs or some oats with fruit and nuts. The rest stays the same.
Week 2
Continue with week 1 changes. Then change the snacks from the crisps and chocolate bar to a piece of fruit with nut butter or a piece of fruit and rice crackers.
Week 3
Continue with week 1 & 2 changes. Then transform the lunch to a chicken salad sandwich. The pepsi can stay but if they want to go the extra mile, change it to water.
Week 4
Continue with week 1-3 changes. The afternoon snack could be changed to a greek yoghurt with trail mix.
Week 5
Continue with week 1-4 changes. The dinner isn’t bad, who doesn’t love spaghetti bolognaise but it can be made healthier by adding chopped veggies (broccoli, carrots, zucchini, capsicum, kale, etc) and using lean mince and a smaller amount of cheese. Other options could be grilled fish with salad or steamed vegetables.
Week 6
Continue with week 1-5 changes. Dessert isn’t a necessity every day. Limited it to 2-3 times per week and reducing it to 1 scoop of ice cream instead of 3.
As you can see, it’s taken 6 weeks to overhaul the diet. There were no drastic changes over night. Just new habits being developed every single week.
Focusing on just one meal each week and building on it, takes the pressure off to be perfect. By the way, there’s no such thing as perfect.
Food is meant to be enjoyed. While social media and television is filled with women showing off their six packs and toned butts whilst fitting into a size two dress, that is not the norm, nor is it sustainable unless it’s part of your job or hobby. If you’re reading this, I doubt that you’re willing to sacrifice your Friday night wine with the girls just so you can have washboard abs.
Aim for good enough and you will see the unnecessary weight come off. Slowly you will feel better in your skin. Your sleep will improve and you’ll have more energy to run after the kids.
Now once you’re diet is overhauled you can indulge from time to time. Don’t deprive yourself of the things you love just have them in moderation.
Love your food and it will love you back!
What’s one thing you can do today to eat better every day?
