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Friday, June 15, 2012

Make peace with the word diet

I'm picking a rule, with a sub-rule from Refuse to Regain (by Barbara Berkeley, MD) to write about. My opinions are my own, your experience may vary.  I would highly recommend the book.
Asparagus with a tiny bit of coconut oil- I sautee everything!


Make peace with the word diet. I have no problem telling people that I stick to a healthy non-processed, low inflammatory, weight maintenance DIET. I'm okay with that. Then, only if they are interested, I'll use the Primal/Paleo words.

What works for me
  1. Eating a Primal/Paleo style diet template most of the time
  2. Planning to have enough meat, veggies, fruit, and oil/nuts, acceptable snacks-my diet foods on hand.
  3. Sticking to my diet while at home, work, travel, events, times of stress.
  4. Making it clear, in a kind way, that I eat this way and there is no exception, this is my diet!
  5. Throwing my doctor under the bus if there is fuss and hurt feelings. "Doctor says!" with a serious look on my face. Stops all protests to go off plan cold and reminds me why I do this.
What did not work in the past
  1. Not having a structured diet plan of solid choices
  2. Keeping off plan/(DIET) food items around AND eating them*
  3. Making exceptions for too many times and places to deviate from the diet(think GS cookies, fair food, cookie exchanges, bake sales, holiday eating, eating during times of stress or to reward myself)
  4. Waffle-ing back and forth and thinking it could work with steps 1-3. Slippery Slope thinking. Lack of diet ownership!
  5.  Doing steps 1-4 and thinking I could get to and stay at goal weight without a DIET. And loosing focus of my goal.
* Disclaimer- I do have a non-Primal/Paleo family member who does have off plan food around. But I place it where I don't have to look at it and I absolutely do not choose it, no matter what! 

A solid diet plan is key in my maintenance process, in my experince- like the book says. Before, trips to Costco (samples!), holidays items, fairs, baked goods, goodies brought in from trips, baking for bake sales could all derail my best intentions. Now that I have a defined DIET template and don't deviate, weight maintenance is a lot more do-able. Not easy, because cooking this way and bringing food along is a lot of work! But so worth it.

Feel free to discuss in the comments below.
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3 comments:

  1. UnknownJune 15, 2012 at 3:33 PM

    Good topic I'm certainly not ready to Transition a lot more to learn and a lot more weight to lose;/

    ReplyDelete
  2. donnamacdJuly 4, 2012 at 12:13 PM

    I just "found" you and I love what I've read. Now beginning to read all the archives. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  3. VickieOctober 27, 2012 at 1:07 PM

    I think we get ourselves in all kinds of trouble by trying to explain/justify in our real world. It opens the door and people think we are inviting conversation/opinions on our food/exercise/life Plan. It is a common mistake early in our processes. And I think later in our process we have to be super careful not to give the impression that our body size is up for debate. Those of us who get well into the normal BMW range often go thru this. I once had a commenter trying to convince me that my maintenance level should be 175 pounds (my starting weight was 215 and I am 5'6"). When I hit my first maintenance (155lbs) she thought that was too small even though I was just in the high end of the normal range. I am sure by the time I hit my second maintenance she was long gone and thought I was extreme. But what she needed to understand was that all my excess fat was around my middle. I needed to get further into the normal range to drop my risk factors (and fit into pants!)

    I also understand what a slippery slope maintenance is. So I really agree with all your points in this post.

    ReplyDelete