Time to lighten things up – literally and figuratively – I literally need to lose some weight and that last post was a bit heavy.
If you are like me, getting on the scales has been the last thing on your mind during this period of isolation.
I thought I would share a diet I came up with 10 years ago – it’s very hard to do (I may not do it again myself) but unlike other diets, where you suddenly put weight back on after you are finished, this diet has a long shadow effect. I strictly followed it for three months in 2011 and lost a lot of weight and kept it off for about five years without trying.
It’s very simple in concept but, as I’ve said, it’s hard, messes with some ingrained moral code and can be socially awkward – you can see why I am an engineer and not a salesman.
Unfortunately, it can also make those around you fatter – some might see this as a win-win.
The amount of energy contained in food, our bodies ability to store it, and the ease with which it is consumed, far outweighs (no pun intended) the effort required to remove it.
The company accountant where I work is into cycling and he measures his energy output, for any given ride, in terms of Ferrero Rochers – a half-hour ride, is four Ferrero Rochers i.e. it’s equivalent in energy to eating about four Ferrero Rochers – which would you rather do? The key to losing weight is eating less. I’m told that exercising helps as well.
So, what is the better half diet?
Firstly, you don’t change what you eat.
Secondly, you don’t change the amount of food that you put on your plate.
You just eat half of it – the better half!
By better half I don’t mean eat the veggies and leave the meat, I mean eat half the meat, but pick the juiciest half – you might as well enjoy your suffering. I’ve found that most steaks have a good and a bad half. Also eat half of everything else on the plate – the best half.
The obvious question is – why not just serve yourself half as much?
Partly because you won’t!
But mainly because this is where the power of the diet lies.
You must break the habit of eating everything that is put in front of you!
This is where the moral dilemma lies. What about all the starving children in Africa that will be worse off if I don’t eat everything?
Most people are raised from a young age being told to eat everything because of the starving children.
I was in Ghana (Africa) in 2012, after I had been on the diet, and saw this sign in the mine mess hall – it seems that the message is both true and universal.
This is also where the social awkwardness lies.
What about the feelings of the person who prepared the meal – they will think I didn’t like it!
The waiter will ask you – was everything ok?
I found that if I told people what I was doing they understood – mostly! However, to avoid embarrassment for the host, I would sometimes just ask for a small serve because I was dieting. I would still leave something on the plate just to instill the habit.
Another downside of the diet occurs when someone else at the table is a scrap eater, they may actually put weight on because of you.
–
I’ve told you all of the downsides of the diet, here are the benefits:
You sit down to a hearty meal with lots on your plate, so you do not feel deprived.
You eat all of the good bits of the food on your plate.
You don’t have to change what you eat.
You don’t have to change where you eat.
You can still go to the same restaurants!
The habits that you learn create a long shadow effect – you keep weight off for a long time.
–
I kept weight off after the diet because …
Once I had finished the diet my appetite had decreased.
I started eating smaller portions but I still didn’t eat everything on my plate – It just felt right!
I had learnt what full felt like, so I stopped eating when I was full.
I had stopped seeing ‘eating everything’ as the goal.
–
What if it doesn’t work for you?
If you do this diet and don’t lose weight, it means that before the diet you were eating more than twice as much as you needed – you might need the ‘best quarter’ diet!
–
By the way I ate both halves of the lamington in the top photo – the shadow has passed.