OK, as someone who has recently lost close to 2 stone in weight after the doctor told me I had to, I thought I'd share my plan for how I made this happen:
- Stop Eating so much shit
More specifically:
- Fill up at breakfast. I'm having porridge every day, or some cereals and fruit and maybe some toast.
- Cut right down on the sugar and fat.
- Get a bit of exercise (but really, that's like 30 minutes walk most days)
- Don't go hungry, but snack on healthy things or have something to drink.
I'd really love to be able to expand this into a diet programme with books and packets of expensive things for sale, especially as it works, but honestly, that's about it. And the last one is my best advice: there is nothing else to do with feelings of hunger but to eat or drink. Just don't eat shit.
And you don't need "diet" foods. They're just small portions of garbage (diet drinks seem to be pretty much OK, although I have no ideas what the chemicals inside them are doing).
There are a few neat tricks that I found, too. Like:-
- Use healthy flavourings. So, mustard instead of pickle in a ham sandwich. Replace the creamy salad sauce with a light vinaigrette. Use spices or garlic to flavour foods (which are like no calories).
- If someone offers you cake, have a tiny piece. It's not like you taste it after the first mouthful anyway. Same with chocolate and sweets - I'll grab 3 or 4 of the kids ones occassionally and leave it at that. After the initial pang of desire is gone, I'm OK.
- Buy tastier natural products. So, I'm buying gourmet coffee that tastes great, which means I don't feel like adding sugar.
- Have healthy stuff around to snack on and eat if you feel like it. If I'm working late and get that "must eat" feeling, I just grab a carrot, some fruit or some raisins. We've got a little popcorn maker and popcorn with nothing on it is healthy. You can throw some cinammon on it and it's still healthy. Or salt as long as you don't have too much.
And I'm not being entirely good. There's a Swiss cafe at Zurich airport and I figured I had to have something traditional while I was there, so had some bratwurst with rosti and gravy. Which was lovely, but that'll be my bad meal for the week. Oh, and I don't need some "points tracking" bullshit either. You know full well if you've eaten the unhealthy stuff, and you can do it occassionally. If your weight isn't going down, you need to make it more occassional. Job done.
And while you can calorie count, or sugar/fat count, and while you probably should eat grapefruit because it's better than oranges, the numbers are academic. Fruit is better for you than cake. Grilled fish is better for you than kebabs. There's probably some stuff in the middle, but there's a lot of stuff that's a no-brainer about eat/don't eat.
See, I think most diet programmes are just for people kidding themselves. It's like people who buy a musical instrument, or A Brief History of Time. They think the action of buying is enough. And the more elaborate you make it, the more the diet seems worthwhile.
3 comments:
TS, a refinement of your diet, which I use is to "Breakfast like a king, lunch like a lord and sup like a pauper", basically to get all your eating done as early as possible during the day.
"I think most diet programmes are just for people kidding themselves."
I agree. Know what you are eating, know roughly how much you need to eat, weigh yourself regularly and that's it. People who kid themselves have no chance.
For the last two years of her teaching career before retiring, Mrs Lola put on a bit of weight. Stress. Effort. Shitty government meddling etc. etc. I thought she was just as lovely as ever, of course. On retirement the first thing she did was sign up for Slimming World. She proceeded to lose 4 stone a about 18 months ish. She is now a slim thing back to the same weight as when we were married she tells me.
The thing is the Slimming World (od in Lolaland speak - Fat Club) diet if very simple and is in many ways what TS has done for himself. Don't eat bad stuff. Eat fruit. Cut down on fats. e.g. butter, and booze. Exercise.
I have zero sympathy for the vast majority of the whingeing fatties I see.
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