Day 4: Tweak Your Diet | 30-Day Weight Loss-athon
Here we are at Day 4 of the 30-Day Weight Loss-athon. Today we turn to that dreaded downfall of wannabe-weight-losers everywhere – the diet.
Read the steps first, then take 10 minutes to complete them.
We only have 10 minutes, so move fast, act quickly and stop over-thinking. Just throw yourself in. Ready?
What You Need:
- Blank stickers, or post-its, or paper and sticky tape
- A pen.
Step 1
Most people with weight to lose are eating more food than they need. Or more of certain types of food.
So our first step is to choose a couple of ways we’re going to eat a bit less for the rest of the month.
You don’t need a strict diet that makes you crazy and is ultimately counter-productive in order to eat less. There are many smarter, saner and more achievable ways to do it – ways that don’t require psychological self-abuse.
For instance, you could:
- Reduce your portions by, say 10%
- Reduce your portions by using smaller plates
- Switch to low-fat milk/dairy
- Halve or cut out the sugar in your tea and coffee
- Skip the syrup in your coffee
- Cut down on desserts – skip it, skip on alternate days, share dessert, halve dessert
- Drink fewer alcoholic beverages – alternate with water, dilute with ice, substitute with lime and soda
- Find something you eat most days but could do without, and stop eating it
- Stop putting butter on sandwiches
- Add less (or no) mayonnaise, gravy and sauces to your food
- Cut down on snacks – skip them, skip on alternate days, share snacks, halve snacks
- Use less fat when you cook
- Switch to lower-fat cooking methods like baking and roasting versus frying
- Use less butter or a lower fat spread.
For some people, just giving up alcohol or desserts could make a huge difference to your daily calorie intake – and your weight.
For others, several smaller changes – like switching to low-fat dairy, cutting down on sugar and reducing portion sizes by just 10% – could combine to pack quite a weight-loss punch.
You need to find actions that you can make for the long term – so don’t go too drastic. Better to aim low, have some success and then use that to bolster your efforts, than to aim too high and give up because it’s too great a sacrifice. Pace yourself – you will get there.
So choose a couple of tweaks to your diet that you can live with for a month – tweaks that won’t drive you or the people you live with crazy.
Step 2
Depending on the tweaks you’ve chosen, now take whatever action you need to take to cement these tweaks in place.
For example:
- Find smaller plates and put the larger ones away
- Put a ‘10% Less’ sign in your kitchen
- Go buy low-fat dairy products
- Put ‘Use less’ stickers on your sugar, oil, butter, alcohol or whatever
- Find smaller bowls for your snacks or desserts and put them in front of the bigger bowls
- Cut your treats in half or portion them into baggies.
Check in!
And you’re done!
Be sure to leave your comment below to check in and stay accountable. If you’re reading this by email or in a reader then please click here to leave your comment.
See you tomorrow!
Theses are great ideas. I previously have done some of these, but am going to attempt smaller bowls and plates. 🙂
I do great for breakfast and lunch, but by the time I get home from work I’m famished. I think that I actually need to add a sensibly snack for the late afternoon.
Chose the 10% less plus several other tweaks. Added my own NO SECONDS— I find when a dish is yummy – I am likely to take just “a little more” just cause it tastes good but I’m not hungry. Stickie notes go up Friday when we reach our home- still traveling.
I am going to stop eating most sweets. I will allow myself just two small squares of a certain candy bar that I love and a McDonald’s ice cream cone twice a week. I also put some notes on some of the other high calorie foods.
I also made notes on my dry erase board on the fridge to remind myself every time I open the door. I’m really bad about boredom grazing. I’m hoping my notes will help remind me not to.
No soda and change my morning coffee habit. Also start bringing you my lunch to work more often.
I am replacing my sweet cravings with low calorie pudding or yogurt and my salt cravings for dill pickles. They satisfy the craving but are the much better choice. And for those dreaded birthdays with cake cake cake, I am indulging but in a small slice instead of half the cake LOL 🙂
I already do a lot of these, & I’m not willing to give up my coffee creamer – I lost 50#s in the past WITH my creamer 🙂 – BUT I can use smaller plates & definitely smaller cereal bowl, less sugary treats & + more fruits! 10% less! Did some shopping last night & stocked up on some produce.
I put a note on my chalk board for myself that reads 1/2 I usually have large servings now I’m cutting them in half for example tonight I made spegetti and garlic bread and had 1 ladle scoop of spegetti instead of 2 and only one slice of garlic bread:-)
I usually drink a Pepsi a day; that is my coffee. I am going to try to stop drinking that as it is empty calories. Portion size is probably the biggest thing that I have to change.
Almost forgot to check in! The two immediate changes I am going to make are:
1) drink more water. I pretty much only drink soda, so I’m going to try to drink 8 ounces of water for each soda and 2) Eat fruit when I have the munchies instead of looking for “junk” food.
I think portion size is the key one for me here. So I think I shall be finding smaller plates to use at home, and not using my big bowls for pasta etc. That should make a decent difference!
I already only use skimmed milk, and don’t often use butter, but I shall still make a point of asking myself – “is this much really needed” just to remind myself to watch the portion sizes.
Get 5 servings of fruit and Veggies a day, not finishing off my kids food, no more eating at desk or while on laptop(mindless eating), healthier snacks, more consicous overall of what I’m puttng into my body rather than just eating it if it tastes good! I put a note on my laptop that I see as soon as I open it “NO Food Zone”.
Slowly cutting out the soda and cutting down the sugar in my tea and sweet tea. Need to control the portions too so those will be cut down, starting with tonight’s dinner. Also not on the list but what I need to stop doing is cut out going to places to get already made or fast food for convenience. Most of the other things, I already do although putting dessert in a smaller bowl would be a good idea even if I only have some every two days or more. 🙂
I, like so many, would never have thought to put sticky notes on food! I’ve put them on my mirror, at my desk, on my computer, on my door even, but never on the food itself. Love this too! (And on a geeky sidenote, I was totally giddy when you replied to my comment yesterday Michelle, ha ha!)
So, I will limit my sugar intake to one small thing (think an individual andes mint or something) daily, and I’m all done with the snacking. Can’t wait to see the difference this month is going to make!
I am going to skip every other dessert and use 10% less. Its a start.
I don’t drink soda, coffee or alcohol, and we already use non fat dairy and light margerine, so I guess the only thing for me to do is eat 10% less! I’ll make a sign and stick it on my fridge. That way it will stick with the boyfriend as well. 🙂
My measuring cup will become very tired. I may be eating a few more leftovers as I will stop eating when I get to the ahhh fullness.
Cutting down on treats to 2-3 times a week and making sure they are a small treat. Going to try cutting down on serving sizes.(That will give me something for lunch the next day.)
portion size is a problem, I put together 100 calorie snacks into zip-lok bags, plus I starting writing everything that I eat down, it makes me accountable.