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Weight Loss Exercise

The Basic Diet Plan Mistake


There is a real failure out there with the classic basic diet plan. With so much information available on diet and weight loss, I am still not sure why people fail to lose weight. Sure, everyone makes mistakes, but it is the magnitude of the mistake that will determine the success or failure of your weight loss plan.

For example, if you make the small ‘mistake’ of eating one burger a week, it won’t make any significant difference in your body weight. However, if you make the terrible diet mistake I am going to outline in this article, then you have no chance of ever becoming successful at fat loss.

If you’ve ever followed a basic diet plan, this would sound familiar. The process goes thus:

Basic Diet Plan

The Basic Diet Plan Mistake

Basic Diet Plan

1. You pick up a diet plan that is too strict for any average person

2. This diet plan basically deprives you of almost everything that you enjoy: chips, burgers, pastries, white bread, cakes, biscuits, milk, chocolate, soft drinks, etc. So you have no other option but to throw away all those things from your kitchen. You start following the diet program with all good intentions, and promise yourself that you would never quit it until you have lost weight successfully.

3. You lose a few pounds quite rapidly within the first few weeks. You seem to be happy with your progress when suddenly, one day you realize that you are no longer shedding pounds! You have hit a weight loss plateau.

4. You become frustrated with your diet plan and with its restrictions. You find it too hard to control your food cravings so you take a peek at your refrigerator and take one bite of your favorite junk food. You say to yourself ‘one bite won’t do much harm’.

5. Slowly however this binge-eating habit spirals out of your control until you find it quite impossible to stay on your diet. You then start shopping for all those junk foods that you had promised not to eat!

6. You get back to your normal lifestyle, start eating junk foods again as before, and gain back all the pounds you had lost! You are back to square one.

Why a Basic Diet Plan Does Not Work

It all started with just one wrong decision on your part: the decision to lose weight rapidly. That decision ultimately sabotaged your weight loss plan. In your quest for fast weight loss, you chose a diet plan that promised the moon but was in no way suitable for you! You tried to make huge changes in your lifestyle all too fast, and ended up achieving nothing.

In case you haven’t realized it already, the best way to lose weight is by making small changes in your lifestyle! That is because small changes are far more practicable and viable than larger ones.

Make lots of Small Changes Consistently

I have written lots of articles on the blog here that should help you to find these tips I even wrote one about how to lose weight quickly which would be a great place to start.


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General Weight Loss Tips

Dear April

My last entry accidentally got deleted. This has happened maybe twice since I started blogging four years ago and I think it happened when the server updated and it got lost. So I apologize for that, it wasn’t intentional, especially since it took me forever to write and now I have no interest in writing it again.

It’s April! I have so many plans and goals for this month that I’m very excited about. But first, I have some updates:

No Sugar. It’s been three months without sugar. I loosely say no sugar. I eat sugar in other forms such as fruit, natural sugars (I’ve added honey back in), and I will add sugar to a Vietnamese or Thai dish if it calls for it. It has been hard…some days harder than others. Right now I have cake and cookies in my house. I plan to give them away. It’s nice to not have them haunt me. I have sugar in the house, and I still bake. My treats are in the form of my glucosamine “candies”, Izze drinks, all natural fruit jam on toast/oatmeal/yogurt, and fruit smoothies. I’ve been hesitant to tell people I’m not eating sugar, in fact, if you don’t read this blog you probably don’t know.

I don’t want to be watched and I don’t want “sugar-free” to be confused with carb-free or have people think “oh she says no to ice cream, but yes to pizza! bah!” indeed so. This sugar-free thing is for cakes, cookies, ice cream…obvious sugar. It’s not a dietary guideline, it’s just me trying to get rid of something I have a hard time not overeating. I like rules.

No TV. I have to admit I’ve gone almost five weeks without my regular rotation of TV watching and will confess I’ve been watching Mad Men on DVD this past week (season four just came out). Not a ton, and not like before when I get obsessed and watch five in one sitting. But, considerably less. I’ve noticed that I don’t miss TV in the mindless sort of way of passing time or procrastinating- I can always find ways to fill my time with work. However- I’ve come to realize that watching an episode of a good show with Josh is a treat for a days worth of work. We both work from home and it’s a nice way to turn off from work and relax together.

Strength Training. Can I just say that I love strength training? I’ve been doing it off and on for almost five years now and it’s very rewarding. We picked it back up in January and I’m lifting weights that are 10-30 pounds heavier than I was then. We make notes during each session- can we increase the weight or stay the same. On February 3rd I could only do 80lbs. on the pull down machine (for arms, back and shoulders) and said I couldn’t do more.

Today I was able to pull down 120 lbs. That’s a 40 lb. increase in strength, meaning that I’m gaining muscle. This is the same for almost all of the machines I do. Did you know that for every pound of muscle you gain, your body burns 50 extra resting calories? Gaining 10 lbs. of muscle is 500 extra calories burned a day! I love that and I can tell that it is one reason that I’ve not gained any weight since January.

Insanity. This week marks the 12th week of Insanity! I’ve lost 12-15lbs (it’s goes up and down) so far. I just can’t believe we’ve stuck with it for so long. We are already in our second rotation. I will admit that the past couple of weeks have been harder, we’ve done at least three workouts a week instead of our usual six. So we are getting back on track with six workouts this week.

April plans and goals:

The next two months (and most of summer) are going to be pretty hectic. I really need to step up my organization and will need continued exercise and eating well if I’m going to stay on top of everything. Spring marks the beginning of  of jewelry shows and my freelance design business is growing so I can use all the energy I can get.

I’m stepping up my game this month. I’m dedicated to counting calories and keeping a food journal. My goal it to lose 10-12 pounds this month with continued exercise and food tracking. I have no interest (as usual) in doing this by eating “diet” food, my method is to eat less, control portions, eat from home as much as possible and enjoy the food I’m eating.

Continuing with 5 days of the Insanity Workout with one day of strength. We may add yoga and running back in if the spirits moves us. And speaking of us… Josh is wearing all of his jeans now. All of the jeans that just a month ago would too tight. I am still steadily wearing a size 24/22. I’d love to be in a 20/18 by mid to late summer.

What are your April goals?

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