I’m posting this as a way of keeping myself honest. It’s easier to stick with a diet when other people know I’m cheating.
I need to lose weight. I need to lose a lot of weight and that means I have to start watching what I eat. I’m not interested in fad diets because they’re generally not how you’d want to eat for the rest of your life. You go on a fad diet, you lose the weight and you get off the diet and return to your old eating habits and put all the weight you’ve lost back on. Better just to cultivate healthy eating habits that you can maintain for the rest of your life.
Losing weight really isn’t rocket science. It comes down to a basic equation. If calories consumed are less than calories burned you will lose weight because your body will have to burn fat or muscle to make up the difference. This is why you can even lose weight on the Twinkie Diet. Ultimately it is the principle that all diets rely on even as they make claims about adjusting your metabolism to burn more fat or whatever.
To reduce my caloric intake I am looking to reduce the amount of fat, starches, and sugars that I consume. Note that I said reduce, not eliminate. Many of us consume way more of these things than we need. To reduce fat ideally I’m looking to consume less than 20g a day but if I can keep it under 30g I’ll be happy. Additionally no food that I eat should get more than a third of its calories from fat. Fried foods are right out. To reduce starches I’m staying away from rice, potatoes, corn, and bread. Reducing sugar means staying away from sweets and sugary drinks.
One day of the week I am allowed to cheat. It’s easier to resist breaking your diet if you can tell yourself you can have whatever you’re craving in a few days rather than never again. In my case that day will be Saturday. On Saturdays I frequently have at least one meal with friends and this way they won’t have to accommodate the way I eat so we can have pizza or whatever people want to have. I’ll also make exceptions for traditional holiday meals like Thanksgiving dinner.
I’m also trying to accommodate the way I prefer to eat. I like food to be convenient. If it’s not a special occasion I don’t want to spend a lot of time on preparation and clean up. I have a bad habit of eating when I’m bored which I’ll have to watch out for. I also have a tendency to eat for pleasure which I’ll also have to keep in check as a lot of those kinds of foods contain a lot of fat, sugar, or both.
I won’t be weighing myself every day because that tends to be discouraging as you never lose weight as fast as you’d like to. Instead I will be concentrating on how my clothes fit.
And that, I believe, covers the basics of my Non-Diet Diet.