Wednesday, May 7, 2014

30 Days To Start Your Diet…Step by Step...



Is This YOU on a Diet?  Read On, I have a better idea with NO CRYING Guarantee!

Are you planning to "Start Your Diet Tomorrow" ?  Do you have your latest diet ready to roll?  So…let me understand this. Tomorrow morning, you are going to peel open your eyes, slash your calories and fats in 1/2, give up foods you are accustomed to, start preparing ALL of your food while currently, you use restaurants and processed,  start measuring and weighing, scraping all sugar, butter, fatty foods, junk foods, fast foods, and all high calorie foods.   Have I got that right?  This all starts TOMORROW as you have just clipped a new diet out of a magazine or bought the newest craze bestseller!

That is a tall order.  The chances of you waking up tomorrow and living on cabbage soup for 7 days is highly unlikely.  So put down your calculator- you know, the one where you estimated losing about 30 pounds this month on your new diet!  Chuck the new best seller. Gather up all of your Diet Books and burn them in the yard!  We are not turning a new page, we are THROWING OUT THE BOOK!



If you start a severe diet  tomorrow, your body will become a SCREAMING infant crying incessantly for food!  You will be miserable every minute you are on it and probably will NOT adjust.  And if you manage to lose some weight, you will go off this diet that you hate, and gain it back.  The whole time you are dieting, you will feel like a ferocious dog on a leash lunging to break free to get to food. 

 What do mothers do with infants crying for food when it is time to start reeling that in?  They do it gradually.  They tighten up little by little until they can get the baby sleeping through the night.  They do not just cut the infant off…it is cruel and the baby will scream its little head off!  It is physically and emotionally unhealthy and any one that does it is considered, a child abuser.

So, why is a baby or a toddler's body need patience and time to adjust, but you believe YOU do not ? Have you ever seen a toddler that was being picky, throwing  the green beans on the floor and eating the french fries?  Did the parent look at the toddler and say, "That is it. You are cut off !  As of TOMORROW, no more french fries, Cherios or fruit juice. It is straight green beans for you buster.  Scream your head off, I don't care. You get nothing but green beans! Period! "   Chill out Mommy Dearest!

You see how ridiculous this sounds?  But that is exactly what you do to yourself when you try to toss your whole life away and start some drastic change tomorrow.  You need time. The same way parents ween children off of certain foods and on to others.  They do not start a NEW plan TOMORROW and achieve it by stomping their foot!

Here is the other way to do it. Decide that a diet will take 30 days to get on. Is that not fast enough you say?  How many years have you been over weight? How many times have you started your diet tomorrow?  How many times have you beaten yourself up for not succeeding and figured it was useless to try and binged?

Open a free account on line, currently I am using My Fat Secret. com.  The site will lead you right into the calculation of how many calories a person your height and weight and activity level needs to be to maintain or lose a pound a week.  I recommend, you set the dial to one of those settings. If you have severe food addiction, I suggest you set it to MAINTAIN- losing zero weight.  Now, you start logging and tracking.  You join the community in there- sync it to your I-Phone for free, and just weigh, measure, log & track.  You need a digital scale for ounces.  There are privacy settings to conceal your food diaries, weight and journals if desired.  The Settings button is under 'Tools' on the My Fat Secret page, once you register.

WEEK ONE:  Just log and track EVERYTHING.  NO recriminations, no beating yourself up. Review as you feel inspired to.  In week one, I think you will find the Maintenance calorie level will hit and miss.  Keep going, weigh, measure, enter data.  Nothing more, nothing less. Enter everything! NO wrong, we are just creating a habit.

WEEK TWO:  Keep on logging and tracking. Decide on the 7th day if you need to adjust calories downward.  I was NOT ready to in the beginning of Week Two.  During week 2, you will find, you have reduced your calories, portions and food choices…..you will probably hit your goal more often. Overages will be less frequent and smaller.  I do not care if you have a BINGE that lasts two days.  You have 30 days to start your diet…keep that in mind.  You still have 3 more weeks in your Beta Test!

WEEK THREE:  Evaluate how often you hit the goal.  You will see a big change in the food and types of food from Week One.  That is perfect.  Adjust calories down ONLY if you hit the entire week.  Now just keep logging and tracking for week three.  You will nip and tuck at the plan yourself.  I promise you, this works. NO beating yourself up if you have to enter a candy bar, or too large of a portion on a day. NO ONE can start a diet tomorrow and stay on it perfectly until all desired weight loss is achieved. No one.  Why do would you think you can?  It is ridiculous, Mommy Dearest! Just keep logging, tracking, tightening. Wow! You have 2 more weeks to start your diet….it is working!

WEEK FOUR:  Fantastic! We are starting week four…and look at that last week of tracking…I hit every day.  I am on a diet!  I did not even see it coming. I have a slow pace yes, but it is on pace!  Start week four.  Remember, you had 30 days to get into your stride.  Guess what, by week 4, you will see it! Week Four, you will be ON.  You will be on a diet.  But you still have seven days to knock out the bumps….same rules, if you go off, NO recriminations, no failure, nothing!  Enter the food and FORGET it.

WEEK 5:  You are on a diet.  If you have not done so already, it is time to move your total calorie allotment down.  Keep logging and tracking.  Expect a few false steps, maybe even a "hollow leg" eating day or two!    It will happen, so do NOT derail!  One day is not your whole life!   Just keep logging and tracking.

 What would it mean if you had a binge and ate a 1000 extra calories?   Which is NOTHING over one month.  Even doing it more than once.   I log and track after any breaches in my food.  I find I naturally eat less the next two or three days and level it up.

After 30 days, I was not only on a diet, I was 6 pounds down.  The old me would have sunk off a pier when the first 7 days were NOT perfect and "on the diet".  But as my only job was to log and track, there was NO wrong.  Week two, I improved the level of food intake, but not by much.  Week three, I was ON more than off.  I felt great, I was free from compulsive eating, I was a new person.  By the time I started week 4, the old eating patterns were a distant memory.  I could not imagine eating the portions I was in even week one.  It did not seem like ME at all!  Mission Accomplished.

Keep Repeating Week 5.  Tell me you are not in pure love!  You will love your food, you will break your compulsive eating, change all of the habits involving food OVER 30 Days. Concern yourself with your weight from month to month.  Weigh yourself as often as you want, but be concerned over the big picture. Not day to day.  Day to day, your weight will go up, down, sideways.  This is a fact of the human body, not FAT, but FACT.

You can and WILL be on a diet….Start NOW and be there in 30 days!  There are many articles on my blog as to how this is working for me.  What do you have to lose?  Try this.  Entering food is a necessity on any diet. You might as well build that habit now and worry about being ON a diet later.

2 comments:

  1. Oh my gosh, you are so funny! I am on my way to My Fat Secret to start my 30 days! Wish me luck Mrs. Ratfire. AnnieS.

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    1. I not only wish you luck, I just waived my sparkly wand your way! You can message me on My Fat Secret!

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