I would have posted about this yesterday, but I don’t think people would have believed me about it (the whole April Fool’s day thing)….
Back in January, I had said I was going to get back on the diet bandwagon. I didn’t do that. It’s been a very stressful few months around here, mostly with things that revolve around work. I am teaching three different and mostly new classes this semester, Annette and I were both applying for different jobs, There’s been some time demands on some publishing projects, I’ve had trips to both New York City and San Francisco, etc., etc., etc. I think the result of all this was that I’ve been pretty “unconscious” about my diet lately, meaning that I pretty much didn’t worry about what I ate during all this time. This is the opposite of a diet.
Well, just about all of this dust has settled. At first, I thought that I should try to get “diet religion” with the South Beach Diet again, with the whole two week “no carb” induction phase followed by the “low carb” phase 2. But I think I’m going to try my own version of the “non-diet” diet plan instead. This is more or less inspired by a story I saw in the “lifestyle” magazine Real Simple. In the nutshell, here’s my plan:
- In general, eat less and exercise more. Pretty obvious.
- Be conscious and aware of what I’m eating. Also pretty obvious, but not as easy to do as you might think, especially when you’re stressed out.
- Eat as many veggies as I can stand, and follow it up with some fruit here and there.
- Don’t give up completely on carbs, but don’t fill up on them either, and steer toward things like whole grain breads and pasta, brown rice, etc. I made home-made bagels a couple weekends ago, and they’re simply too good to give up entirely, so they must be included in my non-diet diet. I guess the word I’m looking for here is “moderation.”
- Eat lean meats, but make veggies the center of the meal and meat the side dish.
- Cut down on snacks and sweets. This is a tough one because things like cookies are one of my weaknesses; I mean, what’s a nice cup of coffee at Bombadil’s without a white chocolate chip and Macadamia nut cookie? But I’ll try….
- Don’t eat at night. This one is harder for me than you might think because I teach two nights a week this semester and I always come home starving. Of course, this semester is over in about two and a half weeks.
- Oh, and one more time, get some more exercise, which I hope is going to get easier with better weather, a better work schedule, and an additional car.
There you have it. I’m going to try to do this non-diet diet as consciously as I can for this month and we’ll see how it goes. I’d like to lose at least 5 pounds this month; the more, the better. I’ll go get on the scale right now and then go for a brisk morning walk.