I am going to do these 'starting out' posts all week this week and then starting next week they will become a Monday feature. That way, if you are like me, you will have a little nudge to help you back into your work week.
Today - the word diet, why diets DON'T work and how to not have 'just one more'.
Diet - If you look up the word in the dictionary (and I did) you will find a plethora of meanings. The one that is proper simply means - what you eat. The one that has become most accepted - what you eat for a limited time to fit into that rockin' dress. Also known as DIET or Did I Eat That?
With DIET you find a way to fit grapefruit in every meal or starve yourself with 1000 calories a day or learn to love changing your pants (see Alli) or, ah heck, Google DIET, you'll get the gist. We have all been down this road, a friend says it works for them or "doesn't X celebrity look great? She used _______." We want it, we crave it - THE ONE THAT WORKS - THE DIET. The way we have dome to look at the word DIET is that it means temporary, someday we can go back to the 3 martini lunch and the 15 Oreo dessert.
Shockingly, I am about to burst your bubble - no one eating plan works for everyone and no change in eating habits will take off weight permanently without lifelong effort and (don't kill the messenger) exercise.
So Tip #2 is - go back to the real meaning of diet - what you eat and then enhance it with the qualifier 'and how much of it you consume'.
There is nothing evil about the average overweight person's natural diet. In fact, they will tell you they eat chicken and vegetables and rarely eat potato chips... well, yea, maybe a few cookies, but they have cut down on pop, mostly diet now and juice... and, in fact they didn't have a beer Saturday night at the bar, they just ate a few pretzels, all right a bowl, but aren't they fat free?
Most people know what they should eat or more to the point, shouldn't eat. The mass number of people out there who claim to be blatantly ignorant when it comes to food groups are, I'll say it, liars. ANYONE who has ever gone to grade school knows the food groups. What people honestly don't know anymore is HOW MUCH to eat. We have lost our barrings on what a portion is and/or looks like.
Before I started this, I was in the later group. Yep, I knew what to eat, in fact I frequently tell people - overweight people know better than anyone. (That's because we have been at this a while and have read all the books.) How much of it to eat? I wasn't so good at that. I had a very skewed idea of what a portion of pasta was or what 3 ounces of meat looked like.
I'm an American darn it, we do things big. At least that's what we have been fed by the restaurant industry. FYI- The average sit down 'fast food' meal - chicken Alfredo for example - is at least 3! servings. I can't number the times I finished the whole "serving" at a restaurant and wondered why I felt sick, it was "just one portion". For a Chicago Bear lineman? (Maybe, but for me, not so much. Of course I ended up bigger than some linemen, so I don't suppose that's a coincidence.)
So - after all that ranting - know what you are putting in your body and measure it to get it there. I still measure some calorie laden items like cereal and pasta, I am simply bad at eye balling them. But with vegetables (except beans) I have given that up - I'm not sure you can eat too many vegetables.
And that goes to my next tip - #3 - how to not have one more - walk away. Unless you are gorging yourself at the veggie tray (sans dip), leave the space you are facing your demon in. You don't lose anything by walking away from food. It doesn't think you are weak, it doesn't lose respect for you, IT doesn't feel anything, but you will if you stay too long - you'll feel discouraged, unhappy and like you have failed. Those feelings can lead you back down the path of, "well, I blew it, guess this latest attempt is over".
What if you can't just walk away? Give the offending food to someone else; put it somewhere very public so people will see you eating it, it may possibly deter you; don't bring it in the house/to work in the first place; throw it away.
That last one is all important - be prepared to pitch it in the garbage. And if you think you will be tempted to fish it back out - because nearly half of the overweight people I know have done that - take it out of its package and make sure it lands on something gross in the can. If that doesn't work - bag up the garbage and take it out. I dare you to be the schmuck digging for the Twinkies in your nightie on the front steps. (No, the neighbors would never talk about that.)
I have never been tempted to do that last one, but I have at least three friends that have considered it and one acquaintance who did it. She had to seek counseling, because when you begin dumpster diving your food fix and you aren't living on the street, you have much bigger issues than a simple blog could ever help you with.
Yours in health, Kate
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