My "diet"

Number one rule No Restrictions!

I have tried numerous diets, diet pills, weight loss trends, workout trends etc. But the number one thing I have found was that when I restrict myself from having something I usually break with time and lose all control. I then spend weeks trying to get back on track with what I can and can't have. So my number one rule is No Restrictions.

Here's what I'm talking about, the diets that give you a "cheat day" once a week. You are forced to stay on track with no carbs, sugars, or whatever your restricting from your diet, but are allowed one day out of the week to indulge in this restriction. The concept is that you are allowed this restriction because you earned it.

The thing I've learned the most is that food shouldn't be earned, food is a vital part of sustaining your life. There are good choices and there are bad choices, but there should never be restrictions to those choices.

I'm not saying that eating a candy bar for breakfast is the best choice, but some days it may be the only choice. You shouldn't feel bad because you have a screaming toddler, 6 year old asking for cheerios, a husband running late for work, the dog's whining to be let out, the dishwasher still needs to be loaded and you have yet to run a brush through your hair before the baby sitter gets there and you are on your way to work and all you have time to do is shove a chocolate bar in your mouth. It's a choice, at least it's food, it's fuel to get you to the next moment in your day.

So what's my diet if I have no restrictions? It's all about portion control. I'm not saying to weight and measure all of your meals.

Have you noticed that plate sizes have increased, along with the size of meals at restaurants (I will talk about this at a later post)? With the increase in plate size how do you know what's the best portion size?

I have found that my body has physical signs of knowing when I've had enough. One example is while eating you get to a point and suddenly you have to take a deep breath, this is a way of saying stop your full, before you become over full. When this happens I can usually take two or three more forkfuls before I hit the overload level.

I'm going to tell a slightly embarrassing story here so you can understand where I came from and where I am now.

When I was at my heaviest I used to be able to eat 10+ tacos in one sitting. The box you can order on the Taco Bell menu. Once I started paying attention to my body, listening to the physical signs of fullness I can reach about 3 tacos before I start to feel nauseous.

When I'm making my own dinner at home, with the large 16+ inch plate I find that leaving space between my food helps me a lot. For instance if I'm having carrots, chicken and mashed potatoes for dinner I form a Peace sign on my plate of some sort. Always insuring that my meat & veggies are larger than my carbs.

One last secret, don't worry about leaving food on your plate! Yes kids in Africa are going hungry, but it doesn't mean your a bad person for not finishing your meal. Besides they won't be able to eat what you left on your plate anyways. I know this sounds self conceded, but honestly just scrape it off into a self storage container & have it for lunch tomorrow.