The Best Diet Tip EVER

You are definitelly completely right!!!!

@ Joel Marion:

No offence Joel, but you clearly don’t have kids. It’s funny how childless people have all the answers. Seriously though, if your reason for wanting change is important enough to you, ‘flip the switch’. Don’t eat the wrong things. Don’t let that be an option. Saying ‘oh, but I NEEEEEED chocolate’ is admitting weakness and defeat. I refuse to be defeated.

The reality for most people is that this is a dramatic change that they have to make in their lives and often family members sabotage it by not allowing it to happen. I have gone through my client fridges and cupboards and am amazed with the temptations they have to face everytime they look in them.

Great tip….but…..how to prevent from giving in to those temptations when you are shopping? That is the mongo question!!!

Debbie I do the same thing!!! You feel like something warm and comforting or maybe chocolate or maybe fruit and before long theres 1000 calories worth of things you could have eaten without really eating anything you wanted… ugh! @ debbies21:

@ Bianca:

I have a few tips:

TIP 1: regarding shopping, see how good you feel when your trolley contains only nutritious, healthy food and the trolleys around you are brimming with junk. Hold your head high and enjoy the feeling. Look at the bodies of the people whose trolleys are filled with sugary drinks, cakes, chips etc and know that you are doing the absolute right thing. Think about how the food in your trolley will nourish your body, and think about what the junk will do for those other people.

TIP 2: As Kathleen mentioned below, you have to make the switch to ‘I don’t eat that anymore’. One you KNOW that, temptation isn’t a problem. The way I was able to do this was by research. It’s one thing to know something is bad for you, it’s another to understand the things that go on in your body when you eat crap. Google diabetes, insulin, blood sugar, glycation, methylation, inflammation – get your info from as many sources as possible and don’t believe everything you read, especially is someone is trying to sell something!

TIP 3: Don’t say goodbye forever. Deciding that you will never taste cake again is a huge and unpleasant step to take. I got around this by deciding that it’s fine to indulge (not binge!) on special occasions. I particularly didn’t want to be ‘the person with special dietary needs’ at dinner parties, celebrations etc. Knowing that it’s not gone forever makes it easy to keep on track day to day.

This is so simple and so true! After a 60lb weight loss, I had family and friends in town for the holidays and stocked up on snacks and things that I don’t keep in my home anymore. As a result I ate it too, and gained back 10 lbs. Back on track now, but really ticked at myself that I have to recover this ground. Fortunately, my trainer is making me pay penance in burpees and sumo squat presses, so I REALLY don’t want to do this again :).

My problem is not what I keep in my house or buy when I’m “out and about”, it’s the garbage people bring to work and put in common spaces. I may be able to ignore the donut or whatever the first or second time I see it, but after a stressful day as a kindergarten teacher, it becomes irresistible. I wish my colleagues were more concerned about healthy eating.

lol, you need to live in an house with kids, wish i could get rid of all the biscuits and snacks but all the family say no. will power is the only way!!!!

@ Karl:
Thanks!

I’m still not where I should be, which I why I read Joel’s stuff. :-) I know what I need to do to get to the next level. It’s hard to be motivated, though, when the changes have already been so dramatic. I mean, I used to weigh 250 pounds, and now I’m at 165, so the difference is huge and I feel pretty darn good. I’m female and over 40, so I need to do much more strength work to get down further. My body fat is still probably in the 20s, but I haven’t had it measured lately. I don’t want to think about what it was before. :-)

Anyone who gives into cravings has a very weak mind. Before sticking anything into your mouth ask yourself ” will this benefit me?” and if not just don’t eat it! Besides, after you eat that piece of delicious chocolate cake do you really ever feel satisfied?

I find if you are really weak and have no determination to lose weight that’s what you have to do is to hide from food, cause it scares you.
You are developing a negative attitude towards food!

I prefer to practise getting stronger in the mind and leave the food around and condition myself with control sometimes I win sometimes I lose but my mind is getting stronger… all food is good and should be eaten if you like it its the amount that is the problem … I feel this is a more positive response to food.
Raymond

I somewhat agree with you, but i wouldn’t say all food should be eaten, not because it will make you fat because when it comes down to the science its not the type of food you eat that will make you fat but the caloric intake, but because some food just isn’t healthy.@ Raymond – ZenMyFitness:

OK, now that is an impressive example you are setting there Joel from someone who is the cheat day maniac:) I am really inspired by this simple standard! I can see how that would really make the dif. Also, got to say that I’ve burned off 3 pounds in 5 days doing the Lose 8 pounds with the 30 second tip your linked for us below. That is only from doing the one free tip that is!

very good advice. I will have to try that.

I totally agree with this tip!! I try to follow this advice whenever I can. However, my husband is famous for asking if I have anything to snack on. There are times when I wished I had bought something just to shut him up! But, he has been losing weight, which I know he appreciates in the long run. Here in Minnesota it has recently been 20 below zero for a real temp, no windchill included so once we are home, we don’t leave especially for junk food! And shivering on a continual basis helps burn calories. So another great diet tip would be to come live in Minnesota with us. Good luck to all.

Damn, yes I know! I don’t have junk food in my house at all usually, but just ate a piece of left over carrot cake that’s been calling to me for days. Why? No idea, but it was there, looking at me. :( I should have fed it to the birds! It’s def easier to resist what’s not there to tempt you, a no brainer really. Mind you, I have lost more than 2 stones over the last year AND kept it all off following your advice, so thanks a million.

Just to add to some of the older comments, I do have kids and I know what you mean. This was how I put my weight on originally as I was to some extent driven by what they wanted me to shop for and so grazed on this in the evenings. At the end of the day it is the parent that chooses what they put in their shopping trolley, not the kids, no matter how much they kick off, they don’t know better than us, because they’re just kids and they just want what they want and want it now! These days I don’t buy junk food, crisps, sweets or biscuits for them to eat at home and as a result they are slim, fit and healthy teenagers. But neither do I restrict their food types when we are out. If we are out then cakes, sweets and fast food etc are all ok to buy and eat because this only makes up a small percentage of their diet. This means that we all win. In fact my kids like it this way now and they have recognised that they feel well on good food. But they have to have experienced a dramatic cut in junk to be able to see the difference in how the food makes them feel. My daughter literally just came in the room as I was typing this and asked me to cook a “really healthy dinner tonight” because she’d eaten a lot of sugary junk yesterday on a trip to London with her friends and felt poisoned and sluggish. This self awareness has got to be good for their future health as well as mine. I wish I’d done this for them and me years ago.

Uhh, I just woke up on my cheat day with no cheat food in my home XD but the actual day started at midnight at a party with pizza and drinks so for the rest of the day I just made a little pancake and ate fruit and my usual healthy stuff. But this never happened to me before as I usually plan my cheat days as well, not only the diet days! :D

Well tell that to my husband I mean I try telling him not to buy junks it’s like I am talking to myself he doesn’t listen and he keeps on saying that they are kids let them live their life my two and a half year old son used to eat healthy food now that his dad introduced junk into his life he doesn’t want to eat anything except for chocolate, chips , ice-cream etc…. And Iam so angry and I can’t do a thing About it he keeps doing it behind my back and I don’t know what to do. And my husband himself is a non healthy eater and he stays so thin I don’t know why I guess it runs in his family anyways it’s really hard keeping away these type of food when your not the only one living in the house!!

Very true Joel!! But I have just one big problem… I never want to eat any junk. But I am damn addicted to nuts – walnuts, almonds and sunflower seeds. Whenever I’m hungry, all my mind can think of is nuts. These Nuts are driving me nuts!! :-) Do you know how I can get rid of this addiction? Pls. HELP.

That’s a great idea if you live alone.

My daughter is a very fit, healthy teen with an extremely petite figure. She loves her vegies and water is her beverage of choice (she refuses to drink sugary soft drinks) but she is a normal teenager. She wants chips and icecream too. I can’t punish her by not having these things in the house just because I need to lose weight. I just need to be more disaplined and keep my fat loss goal in my head. Its all about how much you want it.

Joel Marion wrote:
That is, another excuse.
I’ll be a Dad in two months, so I’ll let you know when we’re not buying junk for my daughter and she eats the same food we do.
I have plenty of friends who treat the nutrition of their kids the same way I described, so it’s really not that hard.
It amazes me that parents constantly give their kids junk as if that’s what they’re “supposed” to eat when they’re kids. Take some responsibility. The kids menu at most restaurants is a complete joke, too…not sure why hot dogs, grilled cheese, fried chicken fingers and pizza are what a child is “supposed” to grow up on…all the restaurants seem to think so.
-Joel

Joel, congrats on becoming a dad (soon). My kids eat (mostly) the same thing that I do. I don’t (in your words) ‘constantly feed them junk’. But there are things, not necessarily junk-food, that my wife and kids eat that I don’t. Potatoes or rice, for example. I don’t handle carbs particularly well, so I don’t eat many of them. But kids, especially my kids, are very active, so I don’t necessarily limit their food choices. I love fish, but my wife and kids can’t stand it. It’s not a matter of convincing them that it’s healthy and that they should eat it.

My wife also has a very fast metabolism and even after 3 kids she handles carbs quite well. The solution is simple, I’ll make some stir-fried chicken and veggies (for example) and rice. The wife and kids will eat the stir fry with rice, while I skip the rice entirely and eat more veggies. I wasn’t referring to candy and chocolate and all that other junk food in my original post.

The point I was getting at, is that you can’t force your choices on your significant other or your kids, no matter how supportive they are of your goals. The point I was making is that it is imperative NOT to use this as an excuse. I don’t whine about how I NEEEEEEEED potatoes or rice or chocolate (if it is there on that particular day). I take responsibility for MY choices.

Cheers and congrats again on becoming a dad.

Dmitri