Easy Diet Plan

You want an easy diet plan?

First of all, get every diet book you’ve collected over the years and make a big pile of them in the back yard.

Now (assuming local laws permit it) set fire to the pile. Or give them away, or throw them in the rubbish. As long as they’re gone. Diet books are a mass of contradictory information, bad science, creepy calorie counting, and the kind of advice that turns people into diet obsessives. There are fashions in scientific opinion that come and go; it’s the way the diet industry works. When every airhead celebrity on the planet has a diet book and an exercise DVD to sell before they end up in the remainders bin, they all need a unique selling point, and that’s usually the latest diet trend.

Here is all you need to know about diet.

If you follow this advice, you’ll be a sight healthier and you’ll never have to worry about your weight again.

• 1. Eat a healthy diet, by which I mean plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, nuts and grains, dairy produce, and meat and fish. Drink water. Learn to cook simple, nutritious, delicious meals from fresh ingredients.
• 2. Cut out junk food. By which I mean high fat processed meats, sugar, and pastry. Cut out high-sugar foods, and don’t add sugar to drinks. Start reading labels. If it has ‘Fructose syrup’ on the side, throw it out. Don’t drink soft drinks. Not even if they’re ‘diet’.
• 3. Cut out alcohol. Glass of wine with dinner – great. Drinking beer until you fall down – bad.
• 4. Don’t skip meals, especially nor breakfast. Eat enough, but never too much. Never stuff yourself.
• 5. Don’t eat so much and get off your fat ass once in a while. Go for a walk every day. It’s the least you can do that you can call exercise. And it works. Bad neighbourhood? Get a treadmill, or hike up and down stairs, but do something. There is always a way.

Easy. I just read something online about a third of American kids being clinically obese. When surgical weight loss is being touted as a good thing, something is badly wrong with the way a nation eats. If you follow the five steps above, obesity will never be a problem for you.

It could well be that your family background has predisposed you to the sort of lifestyle that makes you obese. Habits are handed down to us, and it may well be that we become somewhat fatalistic: ‘My parents are fat, so I’ll end up fat. It’s in the genes.’ Well, it might not be ‘in the genes’. What you do is at least as important as who you are. Take a long hard look at your diet, at what you eat and drink every day, and what you do every day. Don’t just take it for granted that you’ll always be fat. If you do something as simple as this – cutting out sugar and stepping up your activity levels – you will start to lose excess body fat.

It’s about here that the squirm-inducing subject of sabotage rears its ugly head, and it has to be said that our nearest and dearest are usually the ones most likely to be responsible. Don’t get into any arguments about it, but keep a cold eye on the way your family react to your changed eating habits. Is someone always trying to tempt you with treats? Putting sugar into your coffee because they ‘forgot’? People fear change, even when it’s for the better. If they’ve grown used to you being overweight, your family might have a hard time making the necessary adjustment to your new shape. Don’t let that stop you.

BUT…It’s also about here that the topic of anorexia has to be addressed. This website is about healthy weight loss through eating well and working out, balancing what you eat with what you do to build a strong and healthy body you can be happy in. I think people are healthiest and happiest within a few pounds of their ‘ideal’ weight, which can be found in any Body Mass Index scale. I wouldn’t obsess about a figure on any scale except in this instance: if your BMI is at the lower end of the scale for someone of your height and build, I would seriously advise you not to attempt to lose any more weight. Starved and scrawny, as well as being a bad look, is also a major ongoing health risk, with knock-on effects that could last the rest of your life. If your family is concerned about your eating, and you’re making yourself vomit in an effort to get your weight down below 98 pounds, it could be that they have a point. Strong and healthy = Good. Starved and Scrawny = Very Bad Indeed.

One more thing: I am not a vegetarian. (Why do I get the feeling I’m taking my life in my hands here?) I know the subject of vegetarianism arouses something like murderous fury in the hearts and minds of those who are pro and con, but I’ll stick my face into the fan anyway. I don’t advocate a vegetarian diet. I think vegetablists miss out on vital nutrients. I think humans are omnivores, and should eat a wide variety of different foods to maximize the health benefits of their diet. (Please don’t email me. I’m too old and set in my ways to change, and the arguments just give me a headache.) I will say I tried it when I was young, on moral grounds. I don’t like killing things – I’m just a big softy when you get down to it – and I tried a vegetarian diet for a month to see if I could live that way.

And found out that I couldn’t. I’ve never felt so ill in my life. I quit after a couple of weeks and returned to a normal diet, and the change was immediate; within days I was back to my old self. What is my conclusion? That if your diet makes you unhappy and/ or unhealthy, change it.
Which is the whole point of this website: Change is Always Available. You can, through simple means, change the shape of your body by losing excess fat and building muscle. You can’t make yourself taller or shorter, and you can’t alter the size and shape of your bones, but fat and muscle are yours to command.

All it takes is knowledge and the will to change.

If you’re serious about getting the body you want, take a look at ‘Get in Good Shape.’ Yes, this is a shameless plug. Hey, it’s worth a look.