Dec
07
The Non-Diet Diet
Posted under Fitness
I caught part of the Today program this morning where they had two guests on their talking about a new diet. One of the guests was the author of the book Intuitive Eating. The other guest was a man who claimed to have lost 50 or 60 pounds using the method.
The diet involved having on hand cookies, cakes, milk shakes, ice cream, pies, potato chips and just about everything you would think a dieter should not eat. In a nutshell, the idea of the diet was you can have all these tasty treats on hand so you are not feeling like you are depriving yourself of them. Since you can have them anytime you want, you will not crave them. Since you aren’t “craving”, there is less of a tendency to “pig out” compared to one you would only get them occasionally.
I have been practising a similar method for several years. I allow myself a piece of chocolate, scoop of ice cream or cookie on a daily basis. But here’s the twist. I listen to my body. I cannot eat dessert items during the day because they make me feel tired and lethargic. That’s why I have them in moderation after dinner and not in excess. If I ate too much of it I would feel sick and get indigestion.
If you can make the mental change, I believe it will work but I would not bet my waistline on it if I was 100 pounds overweight. The reason is because to lose a lot of weight, you have to throw in exercise, smaller portions of everything and the likely change your mental self talk. When I was 50 pounds overweight (new married guy syndrome) 10 years ago or so, I couldn’t rely on a technique like this - because I had already been practising the method since I was 18 years old. Instead, I had to do the exercise. I had to do the self talk. I had to cut out as much of the sweets as I could. If I could skip a cookie at night I would reward myself with a non alcoholic beer - the real stuff would have been working against me.
I think the key to this method is paying attention to what is going on with your body as you eat junk food. Much like knowing your limit when drinking alcohol, you can know your limit while eating sweets or non-health food.
Related: Burn the Fat Feed The Muscle
Technorati Tags: goals, fitness, health
Also See:
Comments
As a wellness, fitness, health, and behavior coach, I can tell you that this diet is bull. It doesn’t work with the science of how food (”fuel”) is used in the body, which is precisely what overeating and improper eating is all about.