The Science of Dietary Design:

There Is Only One True Foundation for Diets: Reduce caloric intake to reduce weight.

Despite their promises to the contrary, the majority of diets rely on the same basic principle: eating fewer calories. Incorporating peanut butter into each meal helps keep the calorie count down on the peanut butter diet. The Cabbage Soup diet consists of eating as much cabbage soup as you want, but how much can you consume before you get sick and stop eating it? Consuming fewer calories than your body needs is the central tenet of several popular weight loss plans, including the Atkins Diet, the South Beach Diet, and Weight Watchers. Some people on the Atkins diet eat two pounds of cheese and a pound of bacon daily and are surprised when their weight loss stops working.

At the moment, I end each day with a tiny slice of chocolate cake and a quarter pint of Haagen Daz.

Any cuisine you like can be the basis for a healthy diet plan. Cheesecake fan? What about the Cheesecake Diet, consisting of three highly low-calorie meals and a tiny slice of cheesecake once daily? Fan of potato wedges? The French Fry Diet is as follows: In The French Fries Diet, you eat three highly low-calorie meals daily, plus a side of fries. The diet’s primary emphasis is that food can be anything the creator desires, as long as it’s consumed in moderation and in amounts that add up to between 1200 and 1600 calories daily. It stands to reason that reducing caloric intake will lead to more rapid beginning weight loss. Do you remember when Oprah used liquid protein fasts to help her drop a dress size? Once widely practiced, the popularity of liquid protein fasts quickly declined after a few reported deaths.

The diet industry is multibillion-dollar because people want to believe the lies of the diet purveyors so severely that they will try anything. If diets like The Zone, the Perricone Prescription, Life Choice (the anti-Atkins diet), the Negative Calorie Diet, etc., actually worked, wouldn’t the rate of obesity decrease instead of increase?

Create Your Meal Plan

Choosing foods you enjoy, figuring out how many calories would be fair for your body size and designed body weight, and then getting started is a more sensible approach, although it’s frequently met with ridicule. The common refrain is, “2,000 calories a day? Like a balloon, I’m about to burst! Not at all. While this diet may cause weight loss, it will be slower than some of the more extreme ones you’ve tried.

How do you expect to lose weight if you consume 2,000 calories each day? Keep it in mind. Believe it or not, the average adult woman consumes around 3,500 calories daily. Carol, our representative female, typically finishes a McDonald’s meal for lunch, a Starbucks Latte on the way to work every day, four cups of coffee with cream during the day, two donuts at breaks, and takeout chicken for supper. She had ice cream and half a package of Oreos as a dessert since she “treats” herself to them. Okay, let’s try to guess how many calories that has:

Menu for the Average American Adult

Breakfast was skipped because we were on a diet.

Caffe Mocha with whole milk and whipped cream, venti (20 oz) at Starbucks on the way to work = 530 calories.

Full Morning Time: 530

McD’s Big N’ Tasty with Cheese (540 calories) for lunch.
French Fries, Super Sized, 610 Calories
20-ounce “Super Size” Coke 2500 kcal
Calories in an apple pie: 265

Lunch Attendance: 1665

Gum with zero percent sugar, a 0

Four cups of coffee with half-and-half in the morning has 160 calories.

Pause: Two glazed Krispy Kreme donuts (424).

512 Snacks & Rest Periods

Kentucky Fried Chicken for Dinner

1,420 calories for a three-piece lunch consisting of one extra-crispy drumstick, two thighs, potato wedges, and a biscuit.

Calories in a large soft drink (20 ounces): 250

Calories in 1 cup of ice cream served in a small dish

Dinner Attendance: 1930

Late-Night TV Viewing:

530 calories in 10 Oreo cookies (approximately a third of a package)

Aperitifs: 530

The Overall Sum is 5,167

Perhaps you find that laughable, but I consider it relatively moderate. We consume many more calories than we give ourselves credit for, even if we wouldn’t have eaten precisely what was on the menu.

If you reduced your calorie intake to 2,000 daily, you would consume significantly less food and could expect to lose at least one pound per week. You’ll likely never lose weight if you don’t think that’s quick enough. You can’t speed up the process of building muscle or losing fat. Rapid weight loss is only temporary because it is made up of water and will return as you start eating normally again. Keep in mind that a gradual decline is irreversible. The calculations are off. I shed eighty pounds, or 2.07 pounds a week in nine months.

How satisfied would you be if you reached your ideal weight by this time next year?

Wouldn’t you be pleased if, after a year, you’d lost 100 pounds (or the amount you needed to lose if it was less than 100 pounds)? In the beginning, weight loss occurs more rapidly the more weight there is to get rid of. The number on the scale is irrelevant. Do you feel better? That’s all that matters. Do you have the flexibility to stoop down and touch your toes? Is it a breeze to rise from a chair? Is it nicer to stroll, and do your clothes seem more comfortable? This is what counts. Have you returned to standard blood pressure?

Keep a food journal for a week to see exactly what you eat. Don’t try to change your diet in any way. That won’t help with the task at hand. You should try to catch yourself in the act of being you. Write out your true daily dietary intake. Eating in restaurants can significantly increase your calorie intake. Then we consume a coffee drink with 600 extra calories and wonder why we can’t slim down. Keep it in mind.

Once you have a written record of your weekly eating habits, you may evaluate them and make adjustments as necessary. If you usually drink a Caffe Mocha, switching to a Caffe Latte two days a week would result in 540-calorie savings. Once adjusted to that, you can save an additional 1960 calories each week by switching to a Caffe Latte instead of your morning coffee. Going from an extra 3780 calories a week from your morning Starbucks to just 1120 calories a week, a calorie savings of 2660, is possible simply by switching to a Skinny Latte (non-fat milk instead of whole milk). In this way, you may preserve your Starbucks habit while making a modest adjustment that will help you lose that extra pound each week. You’ll save money on the less expensive drink and have more to spend on the new wardrobe you know you’ll desire soon.

Keeping a food journal can help you understand your situation more clearly.

Start to see your eating habits clearly by recording everything you consume for the following week. For Windows, I use a lightweight app called the Food & Exercise Diary. Writing down what I eat helps me stay on track, and I also have easy access to information on the amount of exercise I got six months ago. When you find a program that works for you, it’s helpful to keep a record of your progress so you can look back and figure out where you went wrong if you regain weight a year later.

When I started working out and eating healthier, keeping a journal was one of the most helpful things I could have done. Now that I know what I did, I can repeat it with the same results. Document your progress and take note of your achievements. Then, please don’t make the error of cutting back too drastically; it’s not required. You can get there with much less suffering if you eliminate 500 calories daily.

Create a diet that works for you, and you’ll have a plan that will last a lifetime.

Author of the free e-book “Changing Beliefs, Your First Step to Permanent Weight Loss” and proprietor of “OneMoreBite-Weightloss.com,” Kathryn Martyn is a Master NLP Practitioner and an EFT counselor.

Get The Daily Bites: Motivating Mini Lessons Employing EFT and NLP to Conquer Your Weight-Loss Challenges.

Read also: How You Can Be Healthy, Wealthy As Well As Wise Part Three — The Detox Lesson.