The Easy Way To Lose Weight
I said it in my last post and I’ll say it again, “Food is not the enemy.”
So throw away your preconceptions about weight loss. Dieting doesn’t have to be torture.
The key to losing weight the easy way comes down to 3 words:
Indulge Your Weaknesses
Now if you’ve read my diet book — I Love to Cheat — you already know where I’m going with this. But if you’re new to my way of weight loss, hear me out.
I know it sounds crazy. Indulge your weaknesses?
But when I finally understood why this works, I understood why so many diets fail us. That’s right. The diets fail us.
Because they force us to follow rules that go against human nature.
It comes down to this. The more you can’t have something, the more you want it. Until you become absolutely obsessed. And blow your diet.
Think about it.
Suppose you follow a diet that forbids you to eat after 7PM. If your weakness is snacking at night, that’s like asking to fail.
And that’s probably when you will fail.
But it you eat a satisfying snack every night, it’ll be much easier to stay on your diet.
So by indulging your weakness, you actually overcome it.
You’re more likely to reach your target weight. And it’ll be easier for you.
When you think about it, there’s really no reason to stop eating at night. It’s just an artificial diet rule someone dreamed up.
And from what I’ve seen, it doesn’t work that well. Because most people can’t stick with it.
But everyone’s different. So you need to indulge your weaknesses, not someone else’s.
Here’s another common one. Chocolate.
If you can’t eat chocolate, how are you most likely to fail on your diet?
You got it. You aren’t going to cheat with celery and carrot sticks. You’re going straight for the chocolate.
But if you put a satisfying amount of chocolate in your diet, you’re more likely to stick with it. And lose the weight.
Plus you’ll learn how to deal with your diet weaknesses in a constructive way. Which means you’re less likely to regain the weight once you reach your goal.
So again, by indulging your weakness, you overcome it.
Does this mean you’ll never crave chocolate? Of course not. But you’ll have an easier time dealing with your cravings.
I like to use the analogy of working in a candy store.
If your boss tells you, “No candy,” you’re going to sneak candy at every opportunity.
But if he tells you to eat whatever you want, your obsession will go away.
After all, if you can have candy whenever you want it, what’s the urgency in eating it?
You’ll still like it. But you probably won’t eat as much.
Let’s face it. We all want what we can’t have. And the more you can’t have it, the more you want it.
If you’ve ever cheated on a low-carb diet, you know what I mean. Did you eat another steak or reach for the carbs?
So stop torturing yourself. Throw away the strict diet rules. They’re what make you fail. And that’s why those diets fail us.
Instead, learn how to indulge your weaknesses and lose weight the easy way.
Technorati Tags: cheating on diet, diet, dieting, lose weight, weight loss
January 26th, 2007 at 12:08 am
[…] And if you want to find out more about my way of losing weight, then read my next post, “The Easy Way To Lose Weight.” […]
January 26th, 2007 at 1:03 am
You know, this kind of makes sense.
Ice cream always messes up my diets. Will this really work with something like ice cream?
January 26th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Hi Rita,
Yes, it’ll work with ice cream or whatever causes you to fail with other diets. In fact, that’s the whole point.
If ice cream causes you problems when you try to lose weight, don’t fight it. Indulge your weakness.
Make sure you put ice cream in your diet in a satisfying amount. If that means every day, then do it every day. But I think most people find that they’ll want to try different foods after a while.
That’s why I use the analogy of a candy store. If you can’t have the candy, you get obsessed until you splurge. But if you can have candy, you’ll eat it at first, then level off.
In the past, when you had a problem with ice cream and dieting, wasn’t it because you wanted the ice cream and you couldn’t have it?
So make sure you put it in your diet and you’ve taken care of both problems–the ice cream and the weight loss.
January 26th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
I don’t understand. How can I eat ice cream all the time and still lose weight?
January 26th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Hi Rita,
I’m not saying you should eat ice cream all the time. I mean if you have a snack and you want ice cream, then that shouldn’t hurt your diet. And if it’ll keep you from abandoning your diet, so much the better.
A good portion is 1 scoop or 1/2 cup, which is about 150 calories. That’s not too hard to work into your daily menus if you’re eating enough calories.
If you’re only eating 1100 or 1200 calories a day, then you’re probably not eating enough to lose weight the easy way. I’ll post more on that in the future. And that’s why it can be hard to work in treats like ice cream.
So make sure you’re eating enough calories every day. You don’t want your body to go into starvation mode.
One last clarification: when I say every day, I don’t mean you’ll eat ice cream every day for the rest of your life. I just mean you should satisfy your craving, then move on.
We all go through periods where we eat a certain food or maybe even the same lunch every day for a few days or maybe a week just because we like it so much.
Then the repetition makes us sick of the very food we liked so much and we go on to other foods. I hope this clears things up.
January 27th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Cool idea. I never thought of it this way.
I;m going to try it. Thanks.
January 27th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
It’s funny you should mention the chocolate- and it reminds me of a follow-up post I need to do. South Beach actually allows a small amount of dark chocolate every day. I have it every other day and it is quite satisfying. That and I have my favorite oatmeal muffins (also South Beach approved) to satisfy my urge for something muffin-y. (my favorite treat!) So although I take a zero tolerance approach to “cheating” - I’m satisfied and not in danger of going off track. We’re probably not all that different in our approaches…
February 22nd, 2007 at 2:37 pm
[…] I posted about this in more detail in “The Easy Way To Lose Weight.” […]