It's Working For Me
Most people know what they should and shouldn't eat to stay healthy. More fruit and veg, less fat, less red meat more fish and so on. But of course if it were easy to eat right most people would, yet they don't. Simply laying out a menu of nutritious food that meets a calorie target for your diet isn't enough. You have to stick with that diet for the LONG term and once you reach your ideal weight you have to maintain a diet that keeps you there. In the end you are only going to stick to a diet if you enjoy eating it and it is no real hardship. If it is a constant daily struggle to eat the diet you have selected then you will by fighting an uphill battle from the start. So the true secret to successful weight control is finding stuff that you like to eat and developing a set of habits that don't let you eat too much of it.
Of course eating less then your body needs when you are losing weight means you are going to feel hungry and you are going to miss some of those tasty treats that load on the calories. The trick is to balance out those aspects however you can so that you can stay on plan. It seems to me that I've been lucky so far in that it hasn't been as hard as I expected to create that balance. I'm not sure if this is typical or not. But here are the reasons why I think its worked.
- Eating every 3 hours plays a huge part in not feeling hungry. I'm sure of this because if I miss one of my schedule snacks then I notice it with real hunger pangs.
- Recording EVERYTHING I eat in my journal and being a bit anal about counting calories has helped in a big way. I can't just sneak an ice cream and pretend it didn't happen. Because I know I'll have to enter it in my journal and I know it will blow the days budget. The thougt of that negative aspect makes it easy to resist. Keeping the journal has created a downside to cheating.
- I generally like what I've been eating, sandwiches and salads were part of my diet before, I just ate more of them and loaded them with extra fat (for example a Subway 12" tuna sandwich with cheese for lunch).
- Seeing results make it easier, success is great motivator.
- I have never been a big sugar fan so I haven't had to fight a sugar addiction. If you like sugar all I can suggest is those artificial sweeteners and I think there is a lot of BS surrounding Aspartame that you should ignore.
In the end I'm a reasonably self controller guy and as food still lacks the ability to jump of the table and ram itself down your throat (some types of sushi notwithstanding) it is simply a matter of choosing what to eat and what not to eat.