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!
I’m a weight watcher girl so a lot of these I already do but the 10% post it might help. I remember reading awhile back about leaving just a little something on your plate, as a member of the clean plate club I would love to discontinue that membership starting today.
I already buy foods with “light” , “reduced fat” or “low-fat” on them. I can’t drink skim milk but I do drink 1%. I have already stopped drinking anything with calories in it. If I want to snack, I pick up an orange or banana instead of chips…but what I can’t seem to get away from is the sweet stuff! I definitely need to cut back on sweets, chocolate especially. I have tried to replace my chocolate with fudge pops that are 60 calories. I will also try harder on portion control. Those seem to be my biggest problem areas.
OK for Day 4. Been eating less lately, partly because I’ve been sick and don’t have much of an appetite – but hope I’m on a bit of a roll. Actually turned down a treat I was offered today: homemade Oreo cookie ball with cream cheese as an ingredient. I know I would have liked it! Had ONE chocolate chip for a treat last night.
I have been using smaller plates and trying to focus on purchasing low-fat items. I am going to try to watch a few other things on this list in the future. I generally only cook with olive oil NEVER have dessert after meals (unfortunately that doesn’t stop me from snacking later). I siimply need to find a way to stop the mindless snacking.
My three things:
1. I will not eat after 8 pm.
2. Drink 64 – 100 ounces of water a day (hunger is usually dehydration for my body).
3. No lattes this month – only americanos for my special treats.
I’m eating reasonably well most of the time. I lost a lot of weight previously by only eating 1200 calories a day and eating healthy and unprocessed foods. My biggest problem is the snacking when stressed so I am focussing on not doing that. I also have just started doing gluten free so I am hoping that will keep me from diving for the biscuits and cakes. I need to pay more attention to portion sizes too as that may have krept up a little lately. Thanks for the reminder and I have taken it on board.
This was an easy one for me. I joined Calorie Count in January and have been counting calories ever since. I already am using smaller plates/portions, drinking more water, less alcohol, less sugar and salt, less dessert. These conscious daily choices have already helped me lose 13 pounds this year so far. Portion control was my biggest thing, I think I’m dong well with it. You can do it too! 😀
I’ve started tracking my food intake and exercise using MyFitnessPal app. Reducing portion sizes is a vital tweak for me (the palm/fist guide really helps). I also plan to give some of my great-aunt’s eating habits that kept her slim a try: take smaller bites, savor each morsel, chew thoroughly, and put utensils down between bites.
I have already switched to eating an apple or a carrot whenever I get a sugar craving, but I am starting to slip a bit, so I will give myself permission to eat one sweet treat per week and limit it to that. Also, for the sweet treat I will limit it to one return visit to the cookie bag, or desert dish etc… Instead of sneaking 5 or 6 “small” portions.
Late again…LOL…sorry. I took sugar out of my coffee all together and started using a dash of 1% milk instead of creamer. Still yummy and more CAFFEINE. Whoo Hoo!
I commit to eating fruit for snacks, only having 1 slice of bread for breakfast instead of 2, and preparing lunch at home
what a wise way to change a few non painful things you are putting this into small bite size portions thank you.
I consciously ate today. Instead of going for the chocolate in the snack box because I was feeling hungry, I slowly ate some beautiful large red globe grapes. They satisfied my desire for an afternoon pick me up and stopped the hunger pangs, too.
I read this challenge late last night. So instead of writing things down quickly, I decided to make mental notes of what I do/don’t eat, drink, etc. What I realized is, that a lot of my issues are because I’m not eating enough. I find myself missing lunch because I “too busy.” Dinner, is really screwy because 2-3 nights a week I’m working so most of the time it’s peanut butter and jelly sandwiches… I need to have my sticky notes ENCOURAGING me to stop and take care of myself like I take care of my family. Of course, this is all with moderation. I know that I can’t gorge myself, but let’s eat!
Put the smaller plates on top of the larger ones. Putting snacks in small bowl instead of eating out of the container!
Checking in late because internet was down. But I am back and playing catch up before the holiday. I can do this. Sticky notes. Easy way to a good change!
I have been reducing my portion, reducing the servings of my dessert and find that even with a smaller piece of cake, I feel satisfied:). When I look at the calories of the food I want to eat, I check if it’s worth eating it or not. Example: I love KFC but when I saw that it was 350 calories for just a small chicken breast, I decided it was not worth eating it. I chose something healthier:) I have also switched to dessert plates instead of dinner plates, switch from 2% to 1% milk. I eat Thinsations Oreo 100 calories treats and feeling satisfied:) I avoid oil in baking, I replace with unsweetened apple sauce. To finish, I really enjoy doing this 30 day Weight Loss-a-thon with all of you:)
Oops, for the post for this one. Have stopped using sugar, don’t eat much bread anymore, but there are some things I can cut. I have just started with smaller portions and healthy snacks instead. I will begin to eat more fruit and vegetables instead of meat and potatoes. I like to portion my stuff ahead of time, so I don’t just start and forget to stop till it’s gone.
For me, it’s about not going back for seconds. I eat and drink low fat, low (or no) sugar, and have eliminated artificial sweetners from my diet. I need to exercise more as well. Great incentive here!
All I drink is water, so there is no coffee, tea, added sugar, soda, or alcoholic beverages to cut back. I use low-fat dairy products (1% milk and reduced-fat cheese). We use very little fat in cooking. I don’t put mayo or butter on my sandwiches. If anything, a little mustard. We’ve been eating off salad plates for years. About the only time we use dinner plates is Thanksgiving! Snacks are generally fruits and nuts (almonds). It sounds like I practically have this thing down, but I clearly don’t. From the suggestions, what I have left to work with is cutting portions or giving up desserts. I’m sure it’s an emotional thing, but I’m not good at feeling hungry. I get really cranky. And my previous experiment of cutting all desserts from my diet for an entire month yielded a big fat nothing in the weight loss arena. But I know I have to do SOMETHING, so I’m going to try a combo of limiting dessert foods (cookies, brownies, cake, pie, ice cream, etc.) to maybe twice a week (I think right now I’m probably at every other day) and cutting portion sizes a bit. And eating slower to allow my brain time to register when I’m full.