Less eat = lose weight? Skip breakfast, eat very light during lunch, and only have salad for dinner. Does that sound familiar to you? It is the common diet almost every woman knows. But the result? In the beginning, it seems working, but after a certain time, you’ll find yourself often in a starving condition, lack of concentration, weak and sleepy during your productive time. That condition force you to come back to your old eating habit, and...welcome back to your weight! So, what is the problem? Why most of diets cannot last long?

That might be because you’ve forgotten about the power of your mindset!

Yes, the success key of diet is not about total calories of your food, or how much carbohydrate that you consume. YOUR mindset is the only thing that can change your eating habit. See, eating is always the most important thing in human’s life. Every event or celebration always include food in it. And when your mind is full with the thinking of eating or of food, it would be very distressing to have diet that force you to have less meals.

Actually even before reading books about diet by changing mindset and Shangri-La diet (which I found very interesting), I have tried to change my mind and daily habit, especially concerning food and dieting. These are the steps I have been taking,

Enjoy the food

I always try to spare special time for meals, even for breakfast. If you often do your work while eating sandwich for lunch, stop it! Don’t do anything else besides enjoying your food. This way you won’t feel hungry until your next meal or snack time.

Don’t eat to release stress

I often get stress in my work, and everytime it happens, the first thing that pop up in my mind is to eat something sweet and rich in calories like cake or burger in a big portion! Seems that I can be more relaxed in every bites of the food. But now I have learned to control the need of eating when stress come, and do other things instead like listening to slow music, thinking of something funny (the stress will go away when you can laugh!), or just take a few deep breath.

Don’t set a high target

Actually I’ve never set any target of losing weight. I just want to get rid of some stubborn fat in my stomach and hip, and I try to be realistic that losing weight is not an instant process. I’ll just follow and enjoy the process, and NEVER try to cut my meal portion or something like that. I only replace the high calories food with healthy food (well, I still allow myself once every two weeks to have chocolate cakes or pizza !)

Strong commitment

A strong commitment is what I always keep closely during my diet program, as the temptation is so big sometimes I almost can’t resist. The worse often happen when I dine out, in restaurant or in a party. When looking at those yummy cakes (chocolate cakes are my favorite!), I could hear myself saying: ‘Oh, look at those cakes, just eat it! Forget all about the diet stuff just for today...!’ Well, I answered myself: ‘Are you sure? You want to ruin all the hard working you’ve been through just because one piece of chocolate cake? Is it worth?’ Always keep the strong commitment, and you’ll win the ‘battle’ !

Eat in small portion

To keep the amount of food intake, I usually eat 6 light meals a day (plus a glass of milk). The lesson I took from my old eating habit : NEVER wait until you’re hungry, as at that time you’ll tend to eat in huge portion without ever thinking about calories you consume!

These are the example of my daily menu :

6:30 am : 4 tbs rice + small piece of meat/fish

8:00 am : 1 glass low fat milk

10:00 am : 1 slice whole wheat bread + fruit jam

12:00 pm : rice + meat + vegetables (the only full portion of the day)

15:30 pm : 1 apple or other fruits

17:00 pm : 1 slice whole wheat bread + fruit jam

19:00 pm : ½ portion of rice + meat + vegetables

If I still feel hungry or want to eat something different, I have 2 pcs biscuits (no egg) or a slice of sweet rice cakes (no egg) in between those meals or to replace the whole wheat bread.

Small step at a time

During the diet program, I tried to scale my weight only once a month. At first, I only set 2 lbs weight I’m gonna loose. After a month of diet, my weight went down to 1 lbs. That’s OK, I continued on till the next month. After I have lost 2 lbs, then I set next 2 lbs, and so on...till I got to my ideal weight. NEVER be forced to think about losing 20 lbs in one month! You won’t achieve it, and that’s going to upset and distress you.

And the result ? I’ve succeed to lose about 4 lbs in about 2 months.

Of course, to lose more weight, you’ll need more effort. Have you read Prof. Ben Fletcher’s book of ‘No Diet Diet’? It’s interesting to learn how changing habits can switch your focus to food into new interesting things that you’ll find with the new habit. Oh, there’s one more tip I think would be useful to ‘forget’ the urge of eating. Shangri-La diet mentioned about how consuming tasteless food can stimulate your brain to feel satisfied. Try to add sugar to your drinking water, your brain will respond it as a tasteless food, and you won’t get hungry easily.

Last but not least, whatever diet method you have, don’t forget to do exercise to build and shape your muscles! Good luck!

Find out the 10 tips to eat healthier and lose weight faster !

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