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!
another great exercise. I’m going to aim for:
after dinner chocolate alternating nights instead of every night.
coffee 3 times a week max.
stop snacking on weekends (unless it’s fruit).
Yay! This is a great idea!
I am keeping a food journal. I am measuring out my creamer for my coffee. I am alternating drinking water. The journal, in particular, is a new habit I started this need year.
Posted signs in my kitchen, in my fridge at work, and even my purse that read “Do you really need that?” Hoping that will make me think twice about mindless eating, and the food choices I make.
I have already implemented most of these things…my biggest issue is butter. Can’t stand to cook with the fake stuff. I’ll just have to cut it in half…and not bake all the yummy things I see on Pinterest! 😉
I’ve made most of the above changes in the past several years, but the scale keeps moving up and up and up. Even went to dessert only once a week, but that didn’t help. OK, Nancy…I’m going to have to try your deal, I think. Write it down, and going with more Japanese meals…
I was brought up in the age of “clean your plate” It has always been hard for me to leave food on my plate, no matter how full I am. Using smaller portions and leaving just that last bite to begin with and knowing it’s okay is helping me move in easier portion control as well.
Hi all, I have started reading day 1/2/3/4 but have not started anything. So I have to say no more excuses. Motivation is what I need. I know it is one day at a time for me. I have tried everything. but keep on failing. What I need to do is start my 10 minutes a day. Just get started and catch up to day 4. Can I say to my mind and thoughts. This is my life and I deserve to be happy and healthy. Not Fat and Flabby.
When I was thin, I used to eat tiny bits of anything I wanted all day long. Now that I have a family, I eat three meals, but I still want those yummy foods I used to eat. Not sure how to fix that. For now, I think I’ll just try the 10% less idea. On top of that my family was planning to switch to a whole foods lifestyle this month anyway, so I’m hoping that will help too.
I’ve given up alcohol completely (at least during the challenge, drink tons of water and read the calorie and sugar content on juices. I was easily drinking 520 calories of lemonade in an afternoon. Every thing is measured now so I have a much better idea of what a portion truly looks like.
I haven’t had any pop since starting day 1 sticking to only 2 coffees a day and water / crystal light And eating chicken and fish brown rice and salads mmm
2 things I’m trying to add from today’s challenge: replacing my regular-sized dinner plate with a lunch-sized plate and packaging snack-size portions of healthier options to improve journaling and to help avoid the ‘must-eat-now’ pitfalls.
*using sugar-free creamer in my coffee.
*picking healthier snacks (fruit, etc.)
*reducing portions by using small plates.
My biggest challenge will be switching in water for my greatest weakness: Cherry Coke. Its my pick-me-up at work. However if I keep to an exercise plan I shouldn’t need a pick-me-up :-).
I gave up some big things, but I know me and little changes I waver on. But by going Paleo during this challenge I have told everyone, so I feel like my friends and family are keeping me accountable. My biggest tweaks: No grains of any kind, and no dairy.
How I plan to tweak my diet: drink tea instead of soda for caffeine, portion snacks instead of eating straight from the box/bag, eat a bigger & healthy breakfast to prevent extra snacking in the evening from hunger, incorporate proteins into snacks to keep blood sugar more even, use small plates for meals.
I’ve been working on reducing portion sizes. The sticky notes are a great idea! Writing down everything I eat is key for me, although I do get tired of obsessing over everything that goes in my mouth.
I don’t take sugar in my coffee but am prone to the odd can of coke (not diet or zero) and am trying to remeber to add a glass of water with each meal, have recently discovered my favourite alcoholic drink tastes great with lime & soda so that’s an occasional treat, I can definately cut down on portion sizes, I already use low fat dairy and lean meats, although my diet is mainly red meat so I can add some fish on a weekly basis (just not the battered kind) ;).
instead of eating a few pieces of pizza, on pizza night I eat a salad and only 1 slice. I was just full enough and I didn’t feel like I had to double my workout for today. I am so thankful for all of this support and ideas, I just started a workout routine two weeks ago and I am hitting that 3 week slump not wanting to do the videos so seriously THANK YOU! It could not come at a better time 🙂
I forgot to say that one of my biggest challenge is reducing the amount of milk I drink from 4 cups to 2 cups:(. I love milk cause I don’t drink coffee, tea, herbal teas, pop ( once in a blue moon) or alcohol. It doesn’t leave me with much choice but water, juice and milk. I am giving it a go though and pushing forward:)