Design your diet
7. Limits
To Eat-less you have to set some limits for yourself.
It is the only way.
Let’s say that you don’t fancy the usual restricted-food diets such as lots of rice & pasta, or eggs-and-cheese-with-everything, or just porridge. What if you can’t afford the special, Powdered-Slimmer-Packs? Or brand-name, Weight-Loss foods? Then you have to find another way.
To lose weight
it is NOT an option
just to carry on as you have been doing.
You will have to change something to make a difference.
Totally changing what you eat is what is usually called a ‘Diet’.
If you have tried them and failed,
you’ll know that they don’t work for you.
You probably can carry on eating the variety that you already enjoy if you eat less of it. To Eat less, you first have to know what you do eat. On the TV-slimming programmes people could cheat by hiding what they eat from the presenters, but if the person that you are reporting to is YOU, there is no point in cheating. You can’t cheat. You’ll know if you are. This is where you have to have a desire to reduce your size. It has to be genuine. It doesn’t have to be announced to anybody. It just has to be YOU that knows.
What do you eat that is making you fat?
You’ll know already
It isn’t a mystery to you. You may have a cupboard or a drawer full of Pringles, or chocolate biscuits or bags of sweets. You usually eat plenty of chips, or have the Full-English-Plus every breakfast. Take-aways are so much easier than slaving away in the kitchen, especially American fast food, quick delivery. Somehow you have to record what you do. You could write it down, but you could remember it if you really tried, instead of trying NOT to remember it, and - feeling slightly guilty, and - hoping that it will all just go away.
It will only go away if you make an effort.
For a week, don’t change anything, but keep on doing walks to Move-more. Remember what you eat and when you eat it. Record it somehow if you want to. It is only to help your memory.
Let's pretend. I hope that this is a lot more than you eat.
(I'll say more about breakfasts later)
Breakfast: 6 Weetabix with milk and sugar, 2 coffees, 4 slices of toast with butter and jam, 2 slices of toast with peanut butter.
We won’t look at the other meals yet, because everybody is different and you know what you do. The more you have, like this list, the easier it is to see where you could reduce it. You can easily see that eating 5 Weetabix instead of 6 won’t starve you, or losing 2 slices of toast from the 6, over 2 weeks won't be impossible.
If you already have less than this – Good! I wouldn’t expect you to only have one coffee and one dry toast. It is making any change from whatever you have that counts. If you set the limit of losing that 1 Weetabix during the first week, you should be able to adjust to that over time. Will you be starving? When you have adjusted, you can pick the next target. Can I reduce either the jam? - or the peanut butter? Probably the jam, because I can still have some jam even when I eventually get down to two slices.
Whatever you choose, you must be able to sustain it
It must not be hard.
You are not moving over onto something extreme like, only 2 boiled eggs and a stick of celery for the whole day until tea time, that you wouldn’t normally do anyway. Or. Starving for three days in seven. Such a change is too great and you will miss what you do 'by habit'. You are just modifying your old habit – very slowly.
Weight. During the week when you make no change you can weigh yourself and write it down somewhere with the date.
After this do NOT weigh again
It takes time for any changes to show.
Weighing every day or every week just reminds you that you are doing something unusual. The expectation at weighing-in time, the elation or the disappointment will affect your mood and your attitude. It will keep reinforcing an unusual circumstance. You are not doing anything special or different, because what you are eating now is what you will probably continue to eat going forwards. You are not on a Diet by losing one Weetabix or a slice of toast.
Come-on, be brave!
Choose something to change.
If you have any aim, it is that you will not get any heavier.
One small step at a time and you CAN do it.
Give yourself a week at your 'new' diet.
Don’t read more until you’ve done it.
Walking. There are squirrels in the old graveyard.
I saw two, I think.
The walk is getting easier and I can go further.
My leg is definitely improving.
Remember The Time has Come which meant
making a proper, strong decision that you would not change?
It was in Introduction at the top of the page.
Find it if you have not read it.
I was rewriting some of the verses from
Lewis Caroll's poem, that relate to us.
Here is a second verse
The Walrus and the Carpenter
“But wait a bit,” the Oysters cried,
‑‑“Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
‑‑And all of us are fat!”
“No hurry!” said the Carpenter.
‑‑They thanked him much for that.
The Fat-folks and the Food.
‘But wait a bit,’ the tubbies cried,
Let’s have a little snack
For we are starving on this couch
And all of us are fat!
‘Not healthy!’ said the Consultant.
They disliked him much for that.
There will be more verses to come.
To Read more hover on Eat Less
at the top of the page Diet 8.