An Ideal Dieting Strategy - Lazy Dieting...

DISCLAIMER: I am no doctor/dietitian, and everything in this post could probably kill you, and you cant hold me responsible for it! :)


Today I came across a news report about extreme dieting using a fricking feeding tube!!! I cant believe these fad diets/weight loss programs people come up with... and it makes me stick to the stomach. So I thought I should write this blog about what worked for me, repeatedly.

As many of you know, I had been an on-off fitness nut for a while... I had done many kinds of diets, my most successful one being the high-protein diet, 500 calorie deficit diet... But I realized something - most diets work (other than some absolutely stupid diets - like alcohol diets etc) - if followed well... the key to a successful diet is to follow it and not cheat. Why is cheating so bad? Because other than the physiological implications of eating more calories, everytime you cheat you feel bad about yourself, and you motivation levels go down... so you concentrate less, and the results plateau... and you get even more demotivated and cheat more until you give up completely. It is an unstoppable vicious cycle.

So why do we cheat on a diet, when we know we want the results so bad? It is simple... dieting is TOO FREAKING HARD.. Right??!! Well the surprising thing is - it does NOT have to be so hard! I realized that a successful diet for you should be something - where you have little incentive to cheat...

So I came up with something called the lazy diet... it is a diet where you change it based on your comfort levels, let the diet adjust to your day, not the other way round. that is the only way to make a diet work long term, without feeling like you have given up control of your life... Remember, If you are spending 1 hour to cook something for your "diet" which you hate.. you are setting yourself up for failure...

For example, earlier my diet used to consist of sprouts, but I realized that sprouts are very hard to get. The ones in stores are typically bad, and making them at home requires a lot of planning. So I removed them from my diet and replaced with egg whites. Now eating egg whites is very hard! I am talking eating 6 eggwhites at a serving, so I tended to cheat... so I went for protein shake tins off the shelf... but they had too many carbs, so eventually settled for fat-free lactose-free milk. Just take it out of fridge and drink it up.

The only catch is you need to have a white list of foods, and keep changing them based on your comfort levels... once in a while you can eat other foods too... just you need to keep track of them. My diet is primarily subways & milk - subway takes 10 mins to drive and pick up, and I can drink milk out of the fridge. Once is a while I skip the subway an eat a biryani... and I dont mean once in many weeks, sometimes once or twice a week I skip some of the parts of the diet. The point is not to go overboard and track the calories & control portions... I never eat a full biriyani at a single sitting, but split it over lunch & dinner.

And diet ONLY 5 days a week... the weekend MUST be free to eat whatever you like, just control the portions a little bit.. always remember, the second piece of pastry is much less tastier than the first...

Dieting does NOT have to be so hard... The problem is most people fail so much and so many times at dieting that they think it MUST be super hard, and so try to work themselves to death trying to stick to it... you can only have such motivation levels for a week or two. If you fight your body, you WILL lose... So diet simple, and make it easy on your life, and the results will follow...

Be Lazy*, Be happy

* Not to be taken literally and to the extreme ;)