7. Take One Day Off a Week
Choose one day a week to eat whatever you like. And however much.
I agree with Oscar Wilde that ‘the best way to remove temptation is to yield to it’. However, yielding to temptation every day isn’t going to help your waistline. Once a week on the other hand means you can’t do too much damage and you get to enjoy all your favourite things as well. It’s something I intend to do for the rest of my life.
When you’re first starting out, make sure your first ‘cheat day’ is at least 5 days after you started the diet. As you think of food you’d love to eat, make a list (mental or otherwise) to include it on the menu for your cheat day. Its amazing how knowing you can have something on Saturday makes it so much easier to say no for now.
For more details see the all about cheat day page.
8. Eat Slowly
The faster you eat, the faster your body absorbs the nutrients and the more likely you are to have an increase in blood sugar that causes insulin to be released.
Eating more slowly also helps your body to let you know that it is full so you can stop accordingly. Speedy eating can easily lead to over eating.
In The 4-Hour Body, Tim Ferriss tells of a guy who lost weight by making one conscious change to his eating habits. He just started making sure he chewed each mouthful for 20 bights. Simple but effective.
Eating mindfully has other benefits as well. It can really help you relax at meal times. And more importantly get the maximum amount of pleasure from your food.
9. Eat Until You Are Full
After years of always trying to ‘eat less’, it can be scary to make the change to learning to listen to your body and eat until you are full. But take the leap and you’ll be well rewarded.
The aim is to eat until you feel full but not over stuffed. The slower you eat, the more easy it is for your body to have time to send signals that its full.
By applying this rule, you’ll be amazed how cravings and the desire to snack seem to dissipate.
It also encourages you to develop a healthy relationship with food and see it as a wonderful source of fuel and goodness for your body rather than something sinful and bad that must be controlled and dominated.
I know this can be a difficult one for some people. It does take time for our bodies to register we’re full and for some, eating until they’re full means they feel completely stuffed 15 minutes later. This isn’t the aim, of course so like everything else, you need to interpret this rule to suit your own situation.
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