Design your Diet
Design your own diet.
Dieting to lose weight usually meant one thing; cutting back. We know now that there is much more to it than that and that we can play around with 3 different parameters or restrictions to properly manage our eating, especially if we are emotional eaters.
PARAMETER 1 – What we Restrict
This is about what foods we are cutting out of our diet. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the quantity of food we eat, only the types of foods we don’t want to include anymore.
For example, if you go on a vegetarian diet, you are opting to cut out meat … AND all the fun to be had during BBQ season. If you do the Paleo diet then you are cutting out foods that didn’t exist in humanity’s past. And if you try the grapefruit diet then you are cutting out your sanity in its entirety.
Because we know that controlling insulin is the best and healthiest way to lose weight, the best type of food to cut out is without a doubt sugar, followed closely by processed carbs.
Restricting carbs is one useful and recommended tool to use when trying to design your optimal diet.
PARAMETER 2 – When we EAT
This is about the timing of our eating. Again it has nothing to do with how much or how little we eat. It has to do with the time(s) during the day that we do eat and the times we go without.
I’ve talked a lot about Intermittent Fasting (IF) in these posts because it’s a great way to manipulate your insulin so that metabolic changes occur that result in weight loss and improved health.
Skipping one or two meals per day will often do the trick. Doing so means that your eating window is only about 6 hours or less during a 24 hour day, leaving 18+ hours without food. That means 18 hours without the need for insulin which is exactly what you want.
Who knew all those years ago that we were wrong when we came down hard on those who skipped breakfast? Well, not us really, it was those other people.
PARAMETER 3 – How much we Restrict
Now we’re talking about quantity but fear not. It doesn’t mean eating like a bird and bracing yourself with all the willpower you’ve got to get through the day. It simply means how much food we restrict at certain times of the day or during a cycle.
For example you may decide to eat two small meals and one larger one at dinner, restricting the amount you eat during the day and digging in at night. Or you may try eating light for 3 days and then eating normally (or even a bit more) for the next three etc.
Cutting back on food is part of the weight loss formula to some extent but it doesn’t mean you can’t pig out every couple of days or have a cheat meal. Comfort and joy are necessary to diet successfully so when we talk about restricting the amount of food you eat it is in NO WAY what restricting food looked like in the past.
YOUR DESIGN
Creating your own diet will include the above 3 parameters but what it looks like is completely up to you, and what you think would work best.
I’d suggest ALWAYS using at least 1 of the parameters every single day, and preferably two. So if you were using just one you might decide to eat anything you want (carbs, fat, protein) but only at the end of the day. Or if you felt it would be too hard to skip meals then you might eat 3 meals a day that are low-carb.
If you were using 2 parameters per day you might skip breakfast and have lunch and dinner be low-carb, or, eat 3 meals per day that are low-carb and are smaller than usual etc. You get the drift.
As you can see there is a lot to play with which is to your advantage. It means you have many different ways of dieting and you can choose whatever style you want depending on what’s most comfortable.
SHAKE THINGS UP
To make your diet design even more interesting, you can have each day be different. One day you eat only dinner and the next you eat 3, low-carb meals etc. (now that’s really letting your hair down!) That way it never gets boring and if you feel it would be too hard to fast until dinner you can simply switch it up.
You now have the diet blueprint. It’s time to design.
…
THE EATING LOVE GUIDE (FREE)
The Eating Love Guide has helped many people regain control of their eating patterns, resulting not only in weight loss but also better health and improved self-esteem. To read it online, click here.
SUBMIT A POST!
To post your cheat meal, click here. To share your tips, wisdom and/or emotional journey, click here.
