If every Monday is "start-a-new-diet day" in your life, something made it impossible for you to stick to last week’s diet. One of the reasons could be that you felt deprived of your favourite foods.
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Fortunately, there are ways of making life a little easier for yourself - and remember the slower you lose weight, the longer it stays off, according to experts in the field.
Here are a few tips:
Don't call it a diet. This smacks of deprivation and being unable to eat the things you crave. See a dietician and slowly start following a new eating plan that you can actually stick to.
Eat breakfast. This will prevent you from starving at 11 a.m. and eating a chocolate doughnut from the office canteen.
Drink lots of water. It will cleanse your system and make you feel fuller.
Eat at regular intervals. Don’t wait until you're starving, because then you are more likely to overeat.
Eat slowly as it takes 20 minutes for the signals from a full stomach to reach the brain.
Eat lots of fruit and vegetables. Apart from being really healthy, fruit will also prevent your blood-sugar levels from falling.
If you really crave something, have it – in moderation. If you're craving chocolate cake and you suppress it for five days, you're more likely to eat half a cake on Friday if you don’t have a small slice on Monday. Just make sure you're not just hungry.
Don’t let your diet put an end to your social life. If you're invited to dinner, don’t tell the hostess what she can and can’t cook. Just eat whatever there is in moderation. Or else, eat at home beforehand and just taste everything. When going to a restaurant, get a salad, or share something with another person. Don’t make your diet everybody else’s problem. You might not get invited again.
Don’t snack while doing other things like watching TV or cooking.
"Low-kilojoule" doesn't have to mean "tasteless". Experiment with condiments and spices to make your food less bland.
Plan to have mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks of fruit or rice cakes or low-energy bars. Make sure that you have these readily available.
Remember that your kilojoule requirements increase when you're premenstrual, but then, so does your metabolism, so don’t punish yourself too much.
Limit your alcohol intake, as it stimulates your appetite.
Learn to reward yourself with things other than food, such as a new book, a movie or a nice magazine.
Don’t obsess about food and what you should and shouldn’t eat. Say to yourself that if you really want something, you can have it, so you won’t think of food all the time. There is nothing more boring than someone who can speak about nothing else than the diet they’re on. Except perhaps someone talking about their dreams.
Don’t give up on your new eating plan, because you ate something about which you feel guilty. What is really important is what happens the majority of the time, so if you stuck to your eating plan from Monday to Saturday, don’t abandon all efforts, because you ate chocolate mousse at Sunday lunch.
Brush your teeth often. When your mouth feels fresh, you're less likely to be tempted to snack.
Accept that there may be a psychological reason why you have a tendency to overeat. Go and see a counsellor.
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