The Perfect Diet

There are several facts about all the diets currently in existence. They can all be summarized in a few words: nobody knows if they work or not. In fact, most don’t; and all the rest are dubious. The best one out there is the weight watchers diet, but in my opinion it is a waste of time. Calculating points? Oh please! Meetings to help you while you’re dieting? There’s nothing a person can say to debunk the number on a weighing scale in good condition; in fact, your weighing scale is all the company you need when losing weight. That and perhaps someone to service it once in a while.

A quick look on this “market of diets” reveals it for what it is – complete chaos. There are diets telling you to starve yourself; then diets that tell you to eat as much as you can (Atkins). Then, there are diets telling you to eat or not to eat a particular product, and the ones telling you the direct opposite. Some require you to count every calory and every vitamin you digest; but on the other hand, that can lead to being too nervous about losing weight – so nervous, in fact, that you start eating out of control to stop the depression; or so nervous that you become anorexic.

Can you believe the nonsense we are being sold? Products that will melt your fat away (yeah right), pills which will allow you to eat vast amounts of food and still stay slim (oh, dear), and various teas and preparations (which I like to call “magic potions” – and I don’t believe in magic) which will supposedly accelerate your metabolism (what hogwash!). I’m sure there are products that don’t even fall into these categories, yet they promise you the impossible.

I can’t then help but wonder how our ancestors – those who didn’t count calories and vitamins – survived? If all those people who are proposing various diets are correct, then I submit that all our ancestors and their closer and farther relatives died of heart attacks, and not a single one lived to see 60 years of age. Heck, by this standard all my grandparents are actually walking corpses.

This, of course, isn’t true.

But, let’s get back to the problem of diets. There is a recent research which says that our organism is genetically adapted to process the kind of foods our ancestors ate. Therefore, eating traditional foods, or foods your ancestors ate, will make you healthy – because your organism can thoroughly and effectively process these kinds of foods. And therefore, again, you should eat such foods – buy locally, ask your grandparents about their favorite and their most common meals, then eat that. Don’t stuff yourself with it though.

There are two more undeniable facts about eating. The first is that no matter how much you eat, your overall weight after a meal will not be larger than your mass before that meal, plus the weight of that meal. This goes for everything you consume – a bar of chocolate, a glass of water or milk, chips, mashed potatoes, chicken, hamburger, beef, etc. Another fact is concerned with calories. No matter what you do – whether you are sitting, sleeping, walking, running, studying, or building a skyscraper – your body spends energy. It spends energy over time, which – in physical terms – means that it has some output power. Depending on what you’re doing, your output power is either greater or smaller. In nutritionist terms, you are burning calories faster or slower. It’s the same thing, really. Whatever you eat, it contains some energy, or calories if you prefer it that way. Burning calories means that you are spending these calories over a period of time. This means that some part of that food you ate will linger in your system until it turns into energy. Understanding digestion, you also know that you will throw some of it away as feces. How long the usable part will stay depends on how fast you burn your calories.

Now, to connect these two important facts, all that needs to be said is that – considering the mass of that part of the food you eat which you throw out in form of feces as negligible – when you burn the amount of calories you’ve taken into your body, you’ve also spent its total mass, i.e. your body should then weigh the same as it did before your meal. However, this is only true if you’ve gotten rid of the feces and the urine generated by the intake of these foods, i.e. you’ve heeded the nature’s call. However, these things are difficult to know, because food in such form can linger in your system for days.

However, tracking down each molecule of food you eat is a waste of your time. It is both impossible and undesirable. Amidst all the diets, then, there is only one way to diet successfully and lose or not lose weight at the same time. Here’s how.

Basically, you don’t need to buy anything special for it. Just eat what you usually eat. If it’s McDonald’s, then eat that. But I would recommend not to eat junk food, because of other problems it may cause to your health in general. If you want to, you can count your calories and vitamins and whatnot. But it won’t really help you lose weight – these things, in my opinion, play only the motivational role in dieting.

Now, even though you may eat whatever you like, the amount you eat is limited. It is not limited strictly, though. At times, you can even overeat, but don’t do it often. Track your weight every morning and optionally in the evening. You will find great oscillations of your weight every day, particularly if you track it in the evening too. Take your morning weight as your referent weight. Create a chart of these oscillations, so you can compare your current weight to that of previous days. You don’t have to do this, though. This is motivational, but also it can give you directions for what and how much you should eat today.

So, let’s say that you’re overweight and now you wish to lose weight. The first thing you need to do is to determine your ideal weight. Calculating this using the formula for the BMI is good enough, although not entirely accurate, because the formula is based on statistics. If you have great muscle mass, but low fat, the formula may say that you’re overweight, even though you’re healthy. A doctor, or perhaps a nutritionist, might tell you your ideal weight. When that’s done, you need to start acting. The only certain way to lose weight is – to be hungry.

That’s right. Be hungry. The first step to successful dieting is to determine exactly when you are going to eat and stick to that religiously. Don’t even try to limit the amount of food you eat in those meals – the only way for this to work is simply by sticking to your schedule. The most important thing is not to allow yourself other meals or even snacks in between. Also, don’t be too generous, and say that you’ll eat ten times a day. Eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. In between meals, you’ll just have to be hungry. This may be a bit hard to overcome, so if you want to, you can consider buying some pills that diminish the feeling of hunger. If you do, try to get rid of them as soon as possible – you’ll just have to learn to be hungry on your own.

Consider also the fact that if you are not terribly overweight, going from step one won’t work for you – in fact, you might even gain weight if you implement step one. So, simply choose a step that most suits you, i.e. which is a logical extension of your current eating habits.

The next step is to implement the hara hachi bu principle. This means to eat until your hunger is sated, and not until your stomack is full. In mathematical terms, your belly should be about 80% full when you should stop eating each meal.

After you’re comfortable with that (and you still haven’t reached your target weight), start controlling the kind of food you take. Cut down on sugar and chocolate. Replace it with fruits and vegetables. Do try harder to stop eating junk food. Replace any high-calory food with low-calory foods. It may seem you’re eating more this way, but in fact you will be taking in less calories, which means that even if you burn the same amount of calories, the subtraction of calories burned from calories taken will be further in the negative – which means more weight loss.

The final step is to eat less. Try to go without chocolate for a week every two or three months. Then every one or two months. Reduce your intake of it in whatever way you can. Don’t get upset if you fail. Just try again. Before I went without chocolate and sugar for a week my first time, I’ve limited my daily chocolate intake drastically. Before I started dieting, I ate vast amounts of chocolate. I’d eat more chocolate in a day than the rest of my family did in a week. Then I limited that to only a bar of chocolate each day. Only after that I decided to have a week without of chocolate.

There are also four general rules you should follow with this diet, and are essential to it. The first rule is the rule of leniency. In any stage of your diet you can allow youself occasional large meal. Don’t be too lenient, though. You may allow yourself a larger meal, or some extra chocolate or sugar around once a week on average. This may seem counterproductive to your goal, but in fact it works to prevent the yo-yo effect, i.e. having all your lost weight return after you’ve stopped dieting. It is also motivational – not because you lose weight, but rather because you aren’t hungry, and you get to enjoy what you eat. Most other diets won’t allow that, except perhaps the Atkins diet, but then again it’s never been proven to work, and it’s dangerous to your health (and, dr. Atkins died weighing over 260 pounds).

The second rule is the rule of planning. After measuring your weight in the morning, you should determine whether you weigh more or less than yesterday morning. While also following the rules of the current stage of your diet, determine whether you need to eat less, about the same, or more than yesterday. Yes, you should even decide sometimes to eat more, because losing weight too fast can lead to serious health issues.

The third rule is the rule of water. You should drink a lot of water, because it is important in processing food in your system. Drinking more water may even be what helps you lose weight faster. Besides, it’s healthy. Don’t overdo it. A simple guideline is to drink half an ounce per pound of your weight when not physically active. So, if you weigh 180 pounds (81 kilograms), you should drink 90 ounces (2.66 liters) of water each day. If physically active, you should drink two thirds of an ounce per pound. This is just a general outline. Note that at first you might have to use the toilet quite often, but that’s natural. If you feel bloated by drinking this much water, then go slow. Drink less at first, until you are accustomed to it, then increase your intake of water, until you reach your goal. It might take several weeks to get accustomed to the increased intake of water. Also, if you decide to measure your weight in the evening too, you will note that with the increased intake of water, you weigh more in the evening. Don’t worry – you will lose more over night.

The fourth and final rule is the rule of exercise. Be active. Losing weight while lying in a couch is pointless, even though it’s possible. Remember that being slim does not automatically mean being healthy. Fat also builds up around your internal organs and there it can be fatal – particularly around your heart. Exercise helps burn this internal fat as well, and effectively. Start exercising immediately. Exercise until you can’t do it any more. Sweat it out a little. Do it at least three times a week. The best sports for this are running, hiking and rowing. And remember that if you don’t exercise, all your dieting is a waste of effort.

So, to revise, here’s a short list of rules:

1. Rule of Leniency – allow yourself a big meal or extra chocolate/dessert once a week.
2. Rule of Planning – determine whether to eat less, equal, or more than the day before.
3. Rule of Water – half an ounce per pound when not active, and two thirds of an ounce per pound when active.
4. Rule of Exercise – run, hike and/or row daily, or at least three times every week.

The same principles apply when you are simply trying to maintain your weight, although to a more comfortable degree. For example, you can allow yourself more leniency, check your weight only once or twice a week and plan accordingly, etc. However, you simply must exercise and drink water. You can, perhaps, exercise less – instead of running intermittently for an hour, you can reduce this to half an hour, or row just once across the lake and back instead of twice. Reduce it so that it fits your schedule, but don’t neglect it.

Notice how your weight oscillates constantly. Sometimes you weigh more, sometimes less. It’s impossible and pointless to keep your weight constant. Your body can handle these oscillations. It may take a very long time to see whether the trend of these oscillations actually falls towards your desired weight. So, don’t worry if your weight today is higher than the weight yesterday. However, if the trend shows growth above your ideal weight, it is time to take some measures. For this reason, don’t be too restrictive on your target weight. Allow yourself about 6 pounds more or less than your ideal weight and only take measures to lose (or gain) weight if you’ve moved outside of those.

Never attempt to force yourself into a diet you are not accustomed to. Not only is it uncomfortable – it is also dangerous. Go into it gradually. You will note that using the steps I’ve written above, you are in fact gradually eating less, and more healthy. It gives your body time to accustom to changes, and if changes aren’t too fast, then they won’t be very uncomfortable either. This is why you should wait until you get accustomed to each step of your diet for your body to adapt to it, before moving on to the next one. As a rule of thumb, such adaptation will take 30 days.

Finally, don’t take everything I say as scientific fact. I’ve built this weight loss scheme for myself, and for me it worked. I’ve never worked with other people on losing weight, so I acknowledge that my system might have errors. However, I firmly believe that I’ve got the principles right – be hungry to lose weight, start dieting gradually instead of suddenly, exercise and track your weight oscillations over a period of time, rather than from day to day.

Oh, and have fun. Don’t get too nervous dieting. Take it nice and slow. Being nervous about it, or setting a deadline is unhealthy.