A weight loss goal is a problem of luxury, a matter of abundance. The poorest people of the world would love to have the problem. This week we will get to know real hunger. We will fast on clear liquids only. Now that's an extreme and unhealthy experiment, so the value will come with our choice of modifications. Short fasts are used as spiritual practices and as ways to cleanse the body of toxins. Besides gaining control over our hunger, our purpose here is to disrupt our eating patterns by taking a break from food. You may want to schedule a periodic day of fasting as a way to regularly renew your volition.
Make it Real:
The first modification is to broaden the definition of clear liquids. Soups are excellent examples. The question is how far to vary from the extreme of drinking only the broth. Vegetable soup makes sense, but the addition of noodles or rice detracts from our aim.
Next, you could chose to consume mostly clear liquids, but allow small quantities of solid food alongside the watery main course. This becomes a matter of thinking ahead and making a list of acceptable supplements. A small portion of protein will lessen the sense of urgency about your hunger, but crackers with your soup? Not a great match for this challenge.
The other alterations to the full week of fasting are to engage the diet only every other day, say Monday, Wednesday and Friday, or to shift into the clear liquid diet for only one or two meals a day rather than abstain from solid food all day long. If that is your choice, dinner rather than breakfast is the better option as a replacement for weight loss.
Looking at my week ahead, I plan to make Monday's dinner liquid. On Tuesday I'll omit solid food at lunch. Wednesday I'll eat sensibly but I won't participate in the challenge. I'll make both lunch and dinner a liquid only fast on Thursday; and my only full day of fasting will be Friday.
Food for Thought:
How and when does hunger get the best of you? Preparation is key. When you're going to give in to it, do you have plentiful healthy foods at hand?
Does the experience of real hunger increase your awareness or control of too frequent snacking?
If you decide to replace only one or two meals with liquid on any given day, do you overeat at the remaining meal in order to compensate?
Do you add fried foods, sugar, or alcohol to an empty stomach?
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Week X: White Out
The next two diets are extreme examples of will power. Neither are realistic or long term ways of eating. Instead they represent opportunities to demonstrate your volition and to modify challenges in ways that will work in your present life. Since adherence to the absolute discipline proposed by this week's diet "White Out" is unlikely to work, might even be unhealthy, you must alter the challenge and adopt it to your needs.
This week we omit all white foods, specifically dairy, starches and sugar. A list of white foods includes: milk and all milk products however colored they might be by fruit or later processes, potato, rice, pasta and anything made with flour or sugar. The point is to avoid refined carbohydrates and milk fat.
Make it Real:
The important part of this week's challenge is your choice of modification. It is important to the success of this endeavor that you take a moment to foresee possible pitfalls and decide beforehand how you'll meet them. Compromise is not failure if you've made it part of your strategy.
One modification for this extreme diet is to only undertake it every other day of the week, three days out of the five weekdays.
Another strategy is to choose just one or two white foods that most impacts your current diet. For instance, if you know that your downfall is french fries, remove that item. If it's bread that is usually the undoing of your best laid plans then take that one food out of this week's meals.
Yet another possible adjustment to the White Out diet is to limit the time of day in which you will engage the diet rather than hold to the challenge for every meal. Breakfast foods are typically composed of cereals, breads and dairy, so rather than fight to find an alternative to that meal, you might take on the White Out challenge only from noon onward.
Food for Thought:
As the week begins, have you a plan in mind that tailors this diet to your life, or are you improvising your modifications? Chances are, diet compromises grasped at the last minute haven't worked well or consistently in your past.
Have you selected the most difficult or the easiest white foods to eliminate from this week's meals?
Conversely, have you taken on more than you can handle? A slide into failure is more damaging than commitment to a smaller but more attainable task.
Notice on which side you find yourself when a food is "almost" white. Bread that appears dark, but is made from white flour for instance. Do you eat it or do you tell yourself, "When in doubt, leave it out"?
This week we omit all white foods, specifically dairy, starches and sugar. A list of white foods includes: milk and all milk products however colored they might be by fruit or later processes, potato, rice, pasta and anything made with flour or sugar. The point is to avoid refined carbohydrates and milk fat.
Make it Real:
The important part of this week's challenge is your choice of modification. It is important to the success of this endeavor that you take a moment to foresee possible pitfalls and decide beforehand how you'll meet them. Compromise is not failure if you've made it part of your strategy.
One modification for this extreme diet is to only undertake it every other day of the week, three days out of the five weekdays.
Another strategy is to choose just one or two white foods that most impacts your current diet. For instance, if you know that your downfall is french fries, remove that item. If it's bread that is usually the undoing of your best laid plans then take that one food out of this week's meals.
Yet another possible adjustment to the White Out diet is to limit the time of day in which you will engage the diet rather than hold to the challenge for every meal. Breakfast foods are typically composed of cereals, breads and dairy, so rather than fight to find an alternative to that meal, you might take on the White Out challenge only from noon onward.
Food for Thought:
As the week begins, have you a plan in mind that tailors this diet to your life, or are you improvising your modifications? Chances are, diet compromises grasped at the last minute haven't worked well or consistently in your past.
Have you selected the most difficult or the easiest white foods to eliminate from this week's meals?
Conversely, have you taken on more than you can handle? A slide into failure is more damaging than commitment to a smaller but more attainable task.
Notice on which side you find yourself when a food is "almost" white. Bread that appears dark, but is made from white flour for instance. Do you eat it or do you tell yourself, "When in doubt, leave it out"?
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Week IX: Faceless Food
Last week we pumped up our intake of water. This week we increase our fresh fruit and vegetables. For the next five days we become vegetarians. People choose the lifestyle for a variety of reasons. There's the global/political rational that the resources devoted to raising food animals would feed all the world's hungy if everyone ate plants instead of animals. Some folks decline to eat animals on moral grounds, "I never eat anything that used to have a face," and others don't eat meat for health and hygiene reasons.
Farmed animals may live and/or be slaughtered under unsanitary conditions. Medications that are used to accelerate growth or to combat disease in animals may end up on your plate. Toxins present in cows and chickens pass the poisons to their mild and eggs. Dietary cholesterol is found only in animal products.
To know the vibrancy and healthy skin of a true vegetarian, we'd have to adhere to the diet everyday until the toxins from consumed animal products dissipated from our bodies. Here we experiment with the discipline for only five days; and for that reason we will refrain not only from eating beef, but from anything that used to have a face.
Make it Real:
As these diet plans progress, we face more and more difficult challenges that require greater preparation and change in food choices. Therefore, if you are already a vegetarian, this wee become a vegan and quit all animal products altogether, including milk, cheese, yogurt, eggs, butter and any baked goods that list dairy among their ingredients.
If you can foresee meals at which you are likely to slip and eat an animal, consider minimizing the compromise. Perhaps becoming a pescatarian (fish eating) this week is enough change and challenge for you.
When you find yourself giving in to temptation and eating meat, at least make sure that you also include a large quantity of vegetables in the meal.
Food for Thought:
Consider how you feel after your meatless meal. Lighter than usual? Less drowsy?
Does the grocery or restaurant bill decrease?
With regards to preparation, how do you approach this challenge? Do you ready yourself with vegetarian cookbooks and include tofu and tempeh or other alternatives when shopping? Is advanced planning lacking from other commitments in your life?
Farmed animals may live and/or be slaughtered under unsanitary conditions. Medications that are used to accelerate growth or to combat disease in animals may end up on your plate. Toxins present in cows and chickens pass the poisons to their mild and eggs. Dietary cholesterol is found only in animal products.
To know the vibrancy and healthy skin of a true vegetarian, we'd have to adhere to the diet everyday until the toxins from consumed animal products dissipated from our bodies. Here we experiment with the discipline for only five days; and for that reason we will refrain not only from eating beef, but from anything that used to have a face.
Make it Real:
As these diet plans progress, we face more and more difficult challenges that require greater preparation and change in food choices. Therefore, if you are already a vegetarian, this wee become a vegan and quit all animal products altogether, including milk, cheese, yogurt, eggs, butter and any baked goods that list dairy among their ingredients.
If you can foresee meals at which you are likely to slip and eat an animal, consider minimizing the compromise. Perhaps becoming a pescatarian (fish eating) this week is enough change and challenge for you.
When you find yourself giving in to temptation and eating meat, at least make sure that you also include a large quantity of vegetables in the meal.
Food for Thought:
Consider how you feel after your meatless meal. Lighter than usual? Less drowsy?
Does the grocery or restaurant bill decrease?
With regards to preparation, how do you approach this challenge? Do you ready yourself with vegetarian cookbooks and include tofu and tempeh or other alternatives when shopping? Is advanced planning lacking from other commitments in your life?
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Week VIII: How Dry I Am
The primary point of this challenge is to disrupt your automatic eating pattern, but instead of mounting a direct attack on your preferred foods, we'll enter through the back door, via your choice of beverages.
Every diet advocates drinking plenty of water, to help fill you up, to flush toxins from your system and to hydrate your cells. This week we address the fluids you consume. We replace all your beverages with just one -- water. The big three liquids that we want to avoid this week are coffee, soda and alcohol. Alcohol is the first beverage to replace with water. If you don't like the taste of alcohol and it already doesn't figure in your diet, then take aim at replacing coffee or soda.
Make It Real:
You may want to begin with replacing just one of your favorite beverages instead of all three. Start with alcohol.
It's okay to flavor the water with citrus or tea. If you go this route, omit sweeteners like sugar and honey, and thickeners like milk.
If you have a beloved ritual such as a couple sharing coffee in bed, allow yourself one cup to celebrate the morning together.
If an entire day of foregoing your favorite drink feels impossible or destined to fail, try shifting to water replacement for just half the day.
As an alternative to eliminating a specific beverage, you could simply add water in great quantity to your other fluids. Nine glasses a day is not too much to ask.
Food for Thought:
Do you associate pleasure or luxury with your favorite drink? "The meal just isn't the same without my glass of wine." Has becoming a connoisseur of certain kind of beverage made you associate your self-image with a certain drink?
Does this exercise help you recognize how little plain water you consume on average?
Could it be true that the bulk of your excess calories are not found on your plate, but in your glass?
Are you surprised by how difficult it is to limit your drinking to water for just five days and evenings?
What other elements of your life might benefit by a week of doing without?
Every diet advocates drinking plenty of water, to help fill you up, to flush toxins from your system and to hydrate your cells. This week we address the fluids you consume. We replace all your beverages with just one -- water. The big three liquids that we want to avoid this week are coffee, soda and alcohol. Alcohol is the first beverage to replace with water. If you don't like the taste of alcohol and it already doesn't figure in your diet, then take aim at replacing coffee or soda.
Make It Real:
You may want to begin with replacing just one of your favorite beverages instead of all three. Start with alcohol.
It's okay to flavor the water with citrus or tea. If you go this route, omit sweeteners like sugar and honey, and thickeners like milk.
If you have a beloved ritual such as a couple sharing coffee in bed, allow yourself one cup to celebrate the morning together.
If an entire day of foregoing your favorite drink feels impossible or destined to fail, try shifting to water replacement for just half the day.
As an alternative to eliminating a specific beverage, you could simply add water in great quantity to your other fluids. Nine glasses a day is not too much to ask.
Food for Thought:
Do you associate pleasure or luxury with your favorite drink? "The meal just isn't the same without my glass of wine." Has becoming a connoisseur of certain kind of beverage made you associate your self-image with a certain drink?
Does this exercise help you recognize how little plain water you consume on average?
Could it be true that the bulk of your excess calories are not found on your plate, but in your glass?
Are you surprised by how difficult it is to limit your drinking to water for just five days and evenings?
What other elements of your life might benefit by a week of doing without?
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