Monday Morning Diet Blues

It’s Monday. Time to get your diet head on again. Your holiday is just around the corner and you don’t want to look like a beached-whale in those Speedos you bought last summer.

You’re determined this time. You can do it. Straight to the gym after work, then home to a plateful of tossed salad and wholemeal croutons. This week is detox week. 

By mid-morning you start to hear the siren-call of coffee and chocolate. And the lonely cottage cheese and lettuce sandwich in your lunch box has begun to lose what little appeal it had. 

Next thing you know, you wake up at your desk surrounded by chocolate wrappers and cake crumbs. You’ve done it again; you’ve raided the office sandwich cart. 

What went wrong? 

You became a diet casualty. You put yourself under so much pressure that you had to let off steam before you even got started. 

Somewhere between your high-fibre breakfast and your second cup of de-caf, you became obsessed with “forbidden” foods. After wrestling with your food demons for a couple of hours, your motivation went out the office window and took your resolve with it. By the time the sandwich lady wheeled into town, you were ready to sell your soul for a chocolate muffin and a cookie.

 

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Even though I had a lot of fat to lose when I started – far more than anyone I knew – I took a long-term approach. I’m in this for life, not just for my next vacation. Guess what? I got lean and they are still struggling to lose weight (imagine that!). Most of them have less than 20lb to lose, but after more than 12 months of stop-start deprivation, they have either put more weight on or they stayed the same.

They are trying to torture themselves thin and it doesn’t work. If fat loss is torture, how can you make it a way of life? You can’t.

You don’t need to put yourself under pressure to lose fat. Leave the diet casualties to their quick-loss diets and take a consistent, long-term approach. You’ll lose the fat and the sandwich lady will feel a lot safer when she visits your office.

Comments

[Razors]

You've made some great points there Craig. What food or drink would you say was the hardest temptation for you to cut out?

[Craig Knight]

Hi Razors.

I didn't struggle with any one food in particular, but not fearing hunger was a big step. Once I realised that I was not going to die from hunger - or a lack of digestive biscuits - I was able to stop eating before I was stuffed.