How to stick to your diet plan. No, really

« 27 ways to stop having a bad day | Home | Living from the inside out »

How to stick to your diet plan. No, really

By John DeVries | February 22, 2008

Losing weight is tough. Keeping to our diet and exercise plans must be tougher still or I suppose more people would lose weight. I’m somewhat gifted genetically in that I don’t gain weight easily. Still, I’m pretty disciplined about my exercise and eating habits. However, this was not something I developed quickly. I’ve spent the better part of the last 3 years learning (mostly by screwing up) how to optimize my diet and exercise in a way that will meet my goals.

In the last few years I’ve intentionally gained over 40 lbs (a fair portion of it muscle). And after that gain it took about 2 months to intentionally lose roughly 25 lbs of fat. I say this not to suggest I’m some kind of fitness genius - ha! Hardly. But I do know how to control my body weight and add and remove pounds as I see fit. This may not quality me to be on the fitness channel with Chuck Norris, but if you’re looking to lose some pounds and are having trouble sticking to a diet… hear me out.

Why most dieting fails

I think most people fail when they undertake a new diet for a few basic reasons.

1. Lack of preparation and planning
2. Lack of knowledge
3. Lack of commitment

With this blog post, I’m going to focus on the first problem in that list. If you have a lack of health knowledge I suggest you start reading and perhaps see a nutritionist or personal trainer. If you lack commitment, read my article on committing to your goal. Lastly, if you think you have trouble with either the first, or even all three of these items, read on then do what I already recommended above.

Lack of preparation kills diets - fast!

First, a short hypothetical story…

It’s Thursday morning at the office and you forgot to bring your smoothie this morning because you were in a rush. One of your co-workers brought donuts. They look good, smell good, everyone else is eating them and you’ve been good about your diet all week. You think you’ve already managed to lose a pound or two. You think to yourself, “Well, I’m hungry. I forgot breakfast and I’ve been pretty good all week.” So, you have a donut. Shortly afterward you start to feel a bit guilty, perhaps like you’ve failed. Now you’re pissed at yourself and you beat yourself up over it. You’re tired and in a bad mood when you get home and it’s a heck of a lot easier to throw a frozen dinner in the microwave than to chop up a salad. The day is shot anyway since you had a donut this morning, right? You eat your nasty mac and cheese and hit the sack.

The next morning you wake up tired and weighed down from last night’s meal. You skip the gym. And by the time the day is done, you’re pretty much off the “diet thing” cause you “failed”.

Sound familiar? I’ve been there… a freaking 1,000 times.

If you want your next diet to work, you must give yourself plenty of adequate preparation

In the above story, proper preparation would have solved the majority of the problems that lead to the failure, or at least what you might think of as a failure. First off, if you had not been rushed in the morning you would have had the time to get your smoothie made. You probably would have drank it on the way into work and not have been hungry when you saw the doughnut. If you had planned dinner ahead of time the doughnut would have been a small issue, just a bump in the day. But two “cheat meals” in one day lowers your self-esteem and self-worth. It made giving up easier. Lastly, you didn’t prepare your attitude for failure. Something you must do when undertaking anything you haven’t succeeded at in the past.

Planning meals ahead

The best way I’ve found to stick to a diet is to plan the entire week out on the weekend. If you run into moments where you don’t have the right food and you’re not sure what to eat, you’ll almost always opt for convenience or taste, especially if you’re not particularly disciplined.

Sit down on Sunday afternoon with a piece of paper and make a chart with every day of the week on it. Now make lines or boxes for every single meal you’ll be eating that week. Fill in food you know will be healthy, nutritious and at least bearable. Don’t plan stuff you know you won’t eat, you’re just defeating yourself. Find healthy things you can, at a minimum, tolerate.

By having down on paper what you’re going to eat that day, there isn’t any guess work. You know what to do before you have to do it.

Note: You should be eating 5-6 smaller meals a day if you want to lose weight. This will stabilize your blood sugar levels and keep your metabolism in gear during the day. Your body will learn it doesn’t need to store calories as fat because another meal is always on the way.

Plan your schedule

I find 5 meals to be more manageable than 6. I like to do things right, but revolving my entire life around eating every 3 hours was just a huge pain in the butt. Do the best you can while keeping your schedule in mind. But don’t make excuses.

I read about a female fitness competitor who was in traveling sales, I think. She ate six meals a day, prepared all of them in advance and took a cooler and her briefcase around with her all day, often times across the country. Conversely, don’t set up an eating schedule you know you won’t follow.

Plan out what you will eat, when you will eat it and when you will cook or prepare it. Ideally you want to have your meals made ahead of time.

Prepare meals ahead

I use to cook for about 3 hours on Sundays to prepare for the week. This took too much time out of my weekend and I stopped doing it. Now I choose foods that require minimal preparation.

I don’t like to cook and I’m not married. I am hoping however that my future wife likes to cook. And if she’s reading this right now… I will gladly clean the bathroom and do the laundry in return… sound fair? I’m not ironing though, I hate ironing. But you can pick the curtains, I don’t really care about those.

Moving on.

In the morning I usually eat an energy bar before the gym; I have fruit afterward along with a protein shake. I often eat a snack of almonds and/or fruit before lunch as well. At lunch time I will eat a veggie sub, vegetarian lasagna and salad, or maybe soup. I try and pick things that are healthy and still calorie dense since this is largest meal of my day. I try and eat a second protein shake before I leave work, and I’ll either eat something I’ve already cooked for dinner or I’ll just have a salad before bed if I’m not too hungry.

Note: Eat light before you sleep. You will rest better and find waking easier in the morning.

Prepare your attitude

Failure is part of life. I didn’t make it to the gym in the morning on Tuesday because I was tired. Not exhausted, just tired. I was a bit upset with myself for about 10 minutes, that’s it. I got over it quickly and resumed my diet and exercise schedule accordingly.

If you’re not willing to accept your mistakes and shortcomings, you’ll give up quickly. You can’t battle yourself and your weight. It’s too much. Choose to accept yourself, your limitations and your guaranteed failures before you even begin. Better yet, don’t even view them as failures. They’re just bumps, trip-ups and lessons. Making a mistake doesn’t mean you failed. They don’t fire you at work for one mistake, usually not even for a number of mistakes. Being a good employee is what counts. Don’t fire yourself or your diet over a mistake, you’re better than that.

Prepare, prepare, prepare…

Make sure that before Monday morning hits, you know when you’ll get up, what you’re eating and what attitude you’ll adopt if you deviate from the plan. It’s ok to make mistakes in life. Success is about consistent effort over time, not perfection. Don’t plan on losing 100 lbs in 3 months. Weight loss or gain takes time. If you did everything perfect it might take you 6 months to a year to get where you want to be. You probably won’t do it perfect, accept that it may take longer. Be in it for the long hall or don’t bother. You can do this.

Bookmark It