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Do Not Deprive Yourself: How to Eat Healthy For Life

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Patricia Setzer | CATEGORIES: diet, health and fitness, self improvement

Diets do not work. Period.

They often eliminate whole food groups (which is unhealthy and dangerous) or they eliminate your favorite foods (which makes them hard to stick to!)

You can’t live on a restrictive diet for the rest of your life. You need to create a diet that’s going to fit your lifestyle, not force yourself to adopt a whole new lifestyle for your diet.

You can eat chocolate, ice cream, pizza, etc … and still lose weight.

It’s all about moderation and watching portion sizes. If you eat half a gallon of ice cream at a sitting, you will gain weight; if you eat half a cup, you’ll still be satisfied – but you won’t gain weight.

Taking Small Steps Toward Healthier Eating

Do not try to go cold turkey and cut out everything that you consider “bad”. Instead, make gradual changes.

  1. Start out by eating smaller portions, period. Take three or four fewer bites; gradually work down to a half-cup instead of a two-cup serving of ice-cream.
  2. Measure your portion into a (small) dish instead of eating out of a bag of chips or box of cookies –a cup or half cup dish is a good size. If you need to, take a measuring cup or use scales to work out exactly what you’re eating. The worst thing you can do is to eat directly from the bag or the box of cookies or tub of ice-cream.
  3. Out of sight, out of mind! Put food containers away once you’ve got your serving.
  4. Experiment to find out what works for you. Many people find that individual servings help them to control their portion sizes – but some may find that they prefer to buy one large container and weigh out the portions themselves.
  5. Use a food diary to record what you’re eating: this helps you to learn what works for you and what doesn’t.

Eating Out – And Eating Healthy

When you’re eating out, you can make your meal much healthier by:

  • Asking for sauces or dressings on the side.
  • Asking for a smaller portion – or get a “to-go” box straight away and put half the meal into it.
  • Sharing an entree with a partner.
  • Avoiding eating lots of free bread.

Decide what the most important part of the meal is, to you. If you love the cheesecake but aren’t fussed about fries, leave the fries. If you want dessert, have it, but have a small portion or share.

Enjoying Treats

Practice moderation rather than deprivation. If there’s a birthday cake in the office, have a small portion: allow yourself a taste of it. That’s not going to kill you or add a dress size.

If you struggle to eat healthy at work, bring your own snacks so that you’ve got a treat that you’re controlling. Simply trying to resist can cause more problems: you’re more likely to give up on your diet.

Don’t tell yourself that something is forbidden: you only make it more desirable.

Make conscious choices about what you will and won’t eat. If you only have homemade fudge at Christmas-time, then eat it and enjoy it – but don’t indulge in all the other foods that you can have year-round, like chocolates and chips.

Ditch the diet, stop depriving yourself, and start eating in a sustainable, healthy and enjoyable way instead.

 

Patricia Setzer is the author of How to Eat Healthy for Life (Without Giving Up the Foods You Love), available in ebook form for just $9.99. You can click here to find out all about it here.

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Related Reading:

4 Steps to Sticking to Your Workout Plan

How to Take Charge of Your Unhealthy Eating Plan

 

  • http://thelast3reps.com Brandon

    Treating yourself once a week to something like cake or anything like that is usually a good practice at the start. 

    I love how you said to not tell yourself that something is forbidden. It really allows you to enjoy eating healthier instead than in being that deprivation state. 

    Great post. 

  • http://thelast3reps.com Brandon

    Treating yourself once a week to something like cake or anything like that is usually a good practice at the start. 

    I love how you said to not tell yourself that something is forbidden. It really allows you to enjoy eating healthier instead than in being that deprivation state. 

    Great post. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000222932720 Emily Guy Birken

    I read the book Women, Food and G-d by Geneen Roth, and it really helped me to internalize a lot of what this post is talking about.  I decided to stop dieting, and instead treat every meal and snack as an opportunity to make good decisions.  Sometimes the good decision is to have some ice cream.  But by treating each meal as its own opportunity for good decisions, I let go of the all-or-nothing thinking that I’ve often fallen victim to–thinking that since I had an unhealthy or large lunch, then the day was shot and I might as well continue to eat crap.  Also, treating each decision as a new opportunity means I always get to start over again with healthy choices, which is really empowering.

  • http://www.clintcora.com Clint Cora

    I believe in the moderation rather than dieting theory as well.  However, in my own case, I do eat fairly large portions.  It’s just that I happen to eat a very low fat diet and do not add any table sugar or salt to my food.  I don’t eat junk food.  This is how I maintain a 30 inch waistline at age 50 – of course, exercise also is a factor too.

  • http://flawlessconfidence.com Martin K.

    “You can’t live on a restrictive diet for the rest of your life” – I love your for this statement! Okay, just kidding haha. But it’s so comforting to read that there are still people who don’t say that you can’t eat this or that type of food.

    It’s crazy to deprive yourself of your favorite foods for the rest of your life as many diets propose. Eating ice-cream (even in large amounts) once or twice a month (or even more often) won’t kill you (unless you’re too fat – then you have to diet until you lose fat!). Be healthy and enjoy it!

  • http://proactolreviewpros.com Lee

    I think trying to eliminate one or more basic food groups from one’s diet is insane. Your point about being careful when eating out is important. I recently had a scallop salad at a popular chain restaurant. My friend looked up our meals’ calories when she got home and called to tell me my salad had 3000 calories!  Yikes! I could have eat like a whole pie instead…

  • http://payforpaper.com/ pay for paper

    i rely think we should just change the understanding – healthy can be tasty for sure. and junk can be good at times, it is a matter of making it easy in your brain. Great info!

  • Anonymous

    Great article.

    Although I agree that you cant be on a strict diet all of your life. I dont agree that they dont work.

    If you are overweight the most effective way to drop down to your target weight is a diet, i think.

    Once you are at your target weight, theres a whole new challenge to keep at that weight, which is different to a diet with a whole heap of new challenges. I think this is the place where your advice really pays dividends.

    Rather than a food diary, i recommend weighing yourself every day. That way you know right away if somethings going wrong with what you are eating.

    I talk about it in more detail in my blog. Http://doug-loseweight.blogspot.com