The Diet Guy

Food Is Fuel

 

When I was reducing weight back in 2005 I can remember talking to a lady who I worked with who had lost about 3 stone, she told me the key to staying slim was to treat 'food as fuel', in other words stop eating food because it tastes nice and just eat food for the calories it gives you.

I remember thinking it sounds logical and all I needed to do was stop 'liking the taste' of food and just eat 2500 calories a day and then I was sorted.

But now I don't diet anymore and haven't for over four years the key for me is to have absolutely no restrictions, I don't treat food like fuel! I eat what I want to eat based on what I enjoy. Food does taste nice, it is a sociable act to go out for meals, and nice food makes you feel good and therefore I like eating!

Yes I like food! I enjoy food! In fact I enjoy food a lot more now than I ever did when I was big, I now go for quality over quantity and spend time now trying new tastes, new recipes and really exploring how nice food can be without feeling the need anymore to demolish platefuls every day.

Moderation is the key, but you have an allowance of calories a day that you can eat so I choose to pick foods which I like, are healthy and good for me and I can afford, I would never choose food solely based on it's calorific content otherwise you are going to feel restricted, sure I know that a plateful of broccoli is low in fat and calories but I choose to have some broccoli with some lasagna next to it as it is much more balanced and tastes better!

Food may be fuel but it also tastes yummy and alongside friends & family can make experiences and life moments so never try and just treat it like petrol as it tastes and smells so much nicer!

Eat As Much As You...

 

I was lucky enough to be in Malta last weekend and had a really lovely break. While we were there we were taken out for meals every evening and the first evening we went to this lovely Brazilian restaurant down on the waters edge.

The principle of the restaurant was that they had skewers of different meats such as chicken wings, Brazilian sausages, rib eye steak, fillet etc and that they walked around the room and cut you meat straight from the skewer onto your plate.

On your table you had a coaster which was green one side and red the other and basically while you left the coaster on green you would get unlimited amounts of meat carved onto your plate.

Now the food was fantastic! All of it tasted great but it so reminded me of the old me! The eat as much as you can mentality that got me big in the first place, the logic of 'value' based on having so much food that you would struggle to walk back to your hotel room.

When I was big I always made my menu choices based on what was biggest, what was the most expensive and basically what was the best dish that they sold! It was never based on what I liked the most, what I fancied trying because I hadn't had it before etc.

During the evening they brought round nine different meats and kept coming back with them for a second chance, I have never seen that amount of meat work it's way round a restaurant and because it was very nice it was tempting to just keep the coaster on green! The old me would have literally demolished piles and piles of meat and then felt sick and bloated but 'happy' because I had been out for a big meal.

So anyway the weekend went on and we went to a local Maltese restaurant on the last night, I ordered the calamari but the little chef came out to tell me he had none left but would make me a surprise dish if I was happy. I said go for it and a few minutes later he brought out the most fantastic local fish (called Rappa) which was THE freshest fish I have ever tasted, it was a small fish but I would have that dish a hundred times over compared to the eat as much as you like down the road.

Now I always say to people that it is 'Eat As Much As You Like' and not 'Eat As Much As You Can' but to be slim long term you have to break the beliefs that you have around value i.e. the more you eat the better, and also realise that moderation (which ultimately being slim requires!) is all about being able to stop before your body tells you to stop...

What Might Stop You Being Slim?

It always has fascinated me when I work with people 1-2-1 that they are so determined to be slim, they will tell me for literally hours how motivated they are and how they really want it more than anything else in their life. They have also done their research and have found the perfect diet that fits their lifestyle and hence they are ready to get slim....

But then nothing happens....
 
Either they just don't reduce their weight or the motivation and all that brilliant enthusiasm just goes....

You See What You Want To See

When passing a  mirror, or a shop window, when you see yourself what are you looking for? Whether you are a healthy weight or overweight are you looking for the good stuff or are you looking to pick faults with yourself?
 
Most people who are overweight tend to look for what is wrong with them, so they tend to focus on their stretch marks, loose skin or their double chin, and tell themselves internally just how awful they look.
 
But what you see and how you feel about what you see is totally up to you! If you look at yourself in the mirror and think of all the things you are brilliant at, all the things you do that you know you are fantastic at then you can't help but notice yourself smiling in the mirror. Some of the most confident and happy people I know aren't particularly "stunning" but they don't care and hence they only focus on what they are looking for, which is what is good in them and good in the world.

The Comfort Zone

The 'Comfort Zone' is something that I hear a lot when working 1-2-1 with people. The notion of the comfort zone is that by not changing things and by keeping the 'status quo' then it is a comfortable place to be.
 
Now the comfort zone does exist but it isn't where most people believe it is!
 
My example would be my old job.
 
I was very much in my comfort zone. I had worked there for 15 years, I knew the job inside out and upside down, I was good at my job, I worked with some great people, I earnt good money, everything was perfect apart from the fact I wasn't happy! I wanted to make a difference and I couldn't make a difference there anymore.
 
I knew after working there for 10 years that I wanted to leave but I was in my comfort zone, it was more painful to move jobs and more risky than staying there and hence I spent every day wanting to leave but never doing it.

Can You Still Ride A Bike ?

One of things I hoped for when I was on a diet was that I would "forget" how to eat badly. They always used to say it takes 21 days to break a habit, so therefore, I was planning on forgetting how to overeat and just eat normally.

 

It is very common in clients I work with that they believe that once they reach goal weight they won't go back to their previous behaviour of overeating. The reality is though, if we believe the press, that 95% of dieters regain either all, or the majority, of their weight within a year of finishing the diet. The 5% are classed as a dieter who has reduced their weight by more than 30 pounds and has regained less than half of it after 12 months.

What Diet Would You Recommend?

I sat this morning having a coffee with someone who had done fantastically and reduced her weight by around three stone (forty two pounds) and was looking amazing.

She was very proud, rightly so, of her achievement and was chatting to me about the future and all the good things she was going to do.

All was going great until she asked me 'What diet would you recommend I did from now? Low carb? Low fat? Calorie counting?

Junk Food

Something I get a lot when chatting with people is that they assume everyone thinks they eat 'junk' food and actually they don't. When I was at my biggest I used to tell everyone that I didn't eat junk food and that it wasn't like I was having pizza every night.

Now that is absolutely true! I wasn't eating loads of junk food but then again I rarely meet many people who eat nothing but fried food and chocolate.

The reality is though and a key reality check for anyone overweight is that you are eating junk calories, in other words calories that your body doesn't need or want, even if those calories are made up of meat, vegetables and fruit you still don't need them if you are gaining weight and therefore you are eating junk calories.

What Could You Do If You Knew You Couldn't Fail

Fear is one of the biggest things that stops people achieving what they really want and desire. Fear of failure, fear of loss, fear of upsetting others, fear of looking stupid, fear of what others might say or do, fear of regaining weight, fear that people might talk about you, fear that you might blow up relationships, fear of not eating etc etc.

But ultimately fear is an emotion to warn us of a problem, it isn't an emotion designed to stop us moving or doing anything at all.

For example, if I was standing in the road and an out of control lorry was coming towards me then fear would be useful to get me alert and my adrenaline pumping so I could then take the immediate action of getting out of the way. But if fear was designed to stop me doing anything then I would see the lorry, panic, not move and get squashed!

Sins / Syns / Good Food / Bad Food / Treats And Other Emotional Things

I was working with someone yesterday who has been following a very popular diet for the past thirteen years. I have to say I was astonished as to be frank she was bigger now than she was when she started but she was still passionate that this was the diet for her.

I would question if I purchased some hay fever pills and still had streaming eyes ten years later that I would be buying the same pills but I was also in the trap of 'I'm big, I therefore need to diet and even though I know that I won't keep it off I have no other choice as I can't stay big'.

What was interesting to me though was her use of the words sins, treats, good food and bad food. I also used to follow this same diet (I did five years on it and was also heavier at the end than the start) and I used to live on the syns. Syns meant nice good! Syns was the good stuff and I was allocated 15 syns a day to have.

What Do You Do More Of When Dieting?

A common question I explore with people 1-2-1 is what they are 'suddenly' doing more of while they are on a diet.

Now hopefully the answer isn't 'eating more calories' otherwise the diet won't work but I am very aware that people will swap one 'vice' to another.

When I stopped smoking I swapped cigarette's for food, when I cut down on gambling I spent more on shopping, when I went on a diet I spent a fortune on clothes...

Now changing to other behaviours can be positive or negative, if for example you spend a lot of time smoking and suddenly give up and then instead spend the time reading and educating yourself then I would give that the thumbs up.

Affirmations

I have been training down in London this weekend and something that came up in conversation was affirmations. It was said that if when going for an interview you walk into the room running a 'mind script' of 'I am the person who is going to get this job'.

Or another was 'I am a confident, likeable, relaxed person...'

The idea being that if you are thinking something then your body language, posture, tone of voice etc will match that affirmation and therefore it can be really useful to do.

Now I actually do think affirmations can work really well but with one caveat!

If you run a mind script of 'I am going to do really well on my diet this week, I am going to enjoy it, thrive on it, smile about it, laugh and joke about it and be super positive and really do some great things'.. then that is fantastic!

But do you believe it? And I mean truely believe it?

If you run a mindscript now of  'I really like myself...' then do you actually smile and believe that or is there a voice that is already telling you that you don't ?

If you run a mindscript now of  'I scored a goal for Manchester United yesterday' then do you actually feel it or is the same voice going 'Of course you didn't?'

Therefore the key to affirmations is not just to say them to yourself but make sure you beleive them for yourself? It is great to use affirmations as a reminder and a refresher of just how amazing and great you are but you also deep down have to think it is true.

I remember someone once saying to me that if you pretend to be happy for the rest of your life then you will be happy for the rest of your life and that is very true, but if you NEED to remind yourself all the time that you are a nice person then I question that..

Once you KNOW something to be true then actually you don't need to ever remind yourself, if you ask someone who has always been slim how often they remind themselves they are slim then they wouldn't know what you meant, they are just BEING and not having to analyse or think about it too much.

Terrified Of Eating

Today's blog post is for those who have reached or are reaching goal weight but have the 'panic' of regain.

This is my story.

When I first got to goal weight I can remember eating again for the first time in some five months.

We went out for a meal with friends and I had chicken in a sauce with some vegetables, I felt incredibly guilty at having a sauce on my chicken and after eating dessert I rushed home to get on the scales.

I was convinced that I would have regained a few pounds but of course I hadn't.

Are You Focusing On What Is In Your Mouth Or Getting The Next Forkful Ready?

I was reading some material last night which was talking about eating slowly and enjoying every mouthful as this was the key to being slim. It was saying that you should take a mouthful of food, put down your knife and fork and just enjoy the experience and then when your mouth is totally empty you pick up the utensils and get the next moutful.

Now my opinion on this is that it utter rubbish, for me it doesn't matter whether you eat food quickly or slowly, ultimately I can fill my car up with diesel £1 at a time until it is full or I can just put £50 in quickly. The key therefore isn't eating slowly makes you slim.

Saying that I have observed bigger people focusing on the next mouthful and not the one they have in their mouth so just bringing to your attention, when you are chewing are you really enjoying the taste or are you just waiting to get the next mouthful in?

I Just Like Food A Lot

I was chatting with somebody yesterday in the office who was telling me that they don't eat emotionally at all and that they just like food too much. They just really enjoy the taste so therefore want loads of it. If they just didn't like food, then they would trim down and be fine because they never eat for any emotional benefit at all...

Now firstly, remember we are all trying to consciously change our behaviour, that means that we consciously have to think about dieting and restricting calories so that we trim down, but actually eating is a largely unconscious behaviour, you don't usually have to think that hard on how to eat! It just comes naturally to you as a process you have done for a long time.

Therefore sometimes you can 'forget' what the triggers are that make you eat. Now sure, it may be physical hunger that makes you eat, which is great, you are hungry! Therefore you get some food and eat...but a lot of the time the reasons for eating tend to be based on the clock, lifestyle, expectations, meals out etc etc.

Selfish!

Something I get a lot when working with people is this notion that if someone focuses on themselves and maybe spending some time getting themselves trim and fit and some 'me' time that they are being selfish. This is especially common in female dieters who have the mentality of that they cannot be happy until everyone else is happy and therefore they spend their entire lives trying to keep everyone else happy while forgetting the person that also has a life, themselves...

But when counseling people I always ask them if they would teach their children to put themselves at the bottom of the pile, to allow the world to tread on them, to give up what they really want to do with their lives so that everyone else can do theirs, to be the wind beneath everyone's else s wings and stay in the shadows of others.

Everyone always replies 'I would never teach my kids to put themselves last...' but the reality is that by putting yourself last that is exactly what you are teaching them.

Sharing A Pudding ?

 

You go to your favourite restaurant and you order up the pudding (or even the starter or main course) that you really fancied and wanted.

 

When the pudding arrives you are about to start eating it when the person you are having dinner with decides to share it with you, they grab a spoon and start eating their way through half of it.

 

How would that make you feel?

 

Would you eat quicker to make sure you had your fair share?

 

Would you tell them it was yours?

 

Would you order another pudding for them?

Measure And Celebrate!

 

Along with blogging when I was reducing my weight I also lived on an excel spreadsheet!

At the start of my diet I set myself up a spreadsheet which had loads of details on it such as weight, collar size, waist size, BMI, water drunk, steps taken, obesity classification, fat percentage etc etc.

Then every day when I trimmed down I filled in the spreadsheet with all my details for the day.

Now when I work 1-2-1 with people I always get them to come up with the BIG GOAL that they want at the end but the important thing is to measure and celebrate along the way with every mini goal.

In my spreadsheet I had enough goals set that I literally would complete one every week while on the journey, one week it may be my waist went in by 2 inches, the next week I dropped from being morbidly obese to obese (I remember that was a good one as morbidly sounded dodgy!), and the next week it might be that my fat percentage had dropped below 40%.

Because ?

When working with people 1-2-1 I would estimate I say 'Because' around 30 times an hour...

'Because' with a big ? following it...

The reason is that 'because' makes people think and justify the belief and statement that they have just made. So for example when someone says 'I want to be slim...' I will always reply 'Because?' and most of the time they cannot answer within fifteen seconds.

I had a chat with someone this week who was 'blaming' her weight on the fact her and her boyfriend enjoyed cuddling up on the sofa and sharing boxes of chocolates and 'junk' food in the late evening.

The conversation went...

Why Do You Want To Be Slim?

The "Why do you want to be slim?" question is one of those questions where, as a coach, the answer will tell you an amazing amount about someone. Just the next ten seconds of their answer will give away whether or not it is a well formed goal, or whether or not it is likely to fail.

 

I actually spoke to someone at work and asked a similar question, which was "What do you want to do with your life?" He replied that he had no idea. He sat there for about thirty seconds and just kept saying he had no idea. He actually then went off to think about it.

 

Therefore, I ask you again,

 

Why Do You Want To Be Slim?

 

What is your first instinct, is it because you think you should? Because others have been pressuring you to? Because your doctor said so? Because you are getting married? Because you have a holiday? Because you think it will make you happy? Because you don't want to be the big person in the playground anymore? Because you saw a Christmas photo and was horrified? Because you have a party coming up? Because it's your birthday soon ?

 

Whatever your answer is, that is absolutely fine! If it works for you, then fantastic. If you actually can't think of an answer, my advice is to go away and really think it through. You must have a really good reason to do something, otherwise you are unlikely to do it.

 

The reason I asked is that if, for example, you said "I want to be slim for my holiday in March", then you go and reduce your weight and achieve that. The day you get back, if you were asked the question again, your reason has just disappeared. This is a large part of why so many people put weight back on after things like weddings or holidays. The original reason for reducing their weight was a good short term goal but gave no reason for long term maintenance.

 

I was talking to someone who had maintained her weight for about a year longer than I have. I asked her the same question to see her response, "Why did you want to be slim?" and she replied "Because that's who I am". That was exactly my answer! I didn't want to be slim for an event. I wanted to be slim because that is who I am. I am just me now. I am not "keeping the weight off", or jumping on and off diets. If you can really create a great answer, buy into that answer, and truly believe it, then the results will be totally different.

Dieting Can Leave You Flat (And We're Talking Boring Not Slim)

  

 

There was an article in the Daily Mail today which really got me thinking.

Daily Mail Article On Dieting Can Change Your Mood

When I first got to goal weight I really struggled with my moods and my weight.

When I was big I didn't particularly monitor my weight (I maybe weighed once a month) and I was also not that bothered about what I ate as long as I ate something!

But once I got to goal weight and got slim all that changed, I started weighing myself 5 times a day, I was scared to eat anything and when I did I felt guilty and thought I was going to regain all my weight straight away.

What's The Benefit Of Being Big ?

When I first got to goal weight I went to the supermarket to take back a CD that I had bought for my son that wouldn't play. I stood at the customer services desk and asked for my money back as they didn't have anymore in stock.

The lady looked up and said that she wasn't prepared to give me back my money and would only issue a credit as she didn't believe the CD wouldn't play as there were no scratches on it and it looked fine.

It then hit me like a brick!

She was arguing with me!

Nobody argued with me when I was big, when a 25 stone bald headed guy asks for things he usually got them and suddenly I was 13 and a half stone and weak....

Do Diets Work?

My answer is

'Yes, as a tool. No, as a lifestyle choice'

If you are overweight then you have to do a diet. Even if it isn't a formal diet and is just cutting down calorie intake and eating healthily. If you want to reduce weight then you need to do a diet.

Therefore, people can't say don't diet, if you don't diet and eat less calories than your body size requires, then you won't reduce weight!

So doing a diet as a tool to reduce weight works really well and there are loads of diets on the market that allow you to do that.

Copy The Slim People

If you have been big for a long time or dieting for an eternity then knowing how to eat in moderation can be quite daunting and feel alien to you.

A lot of dieters therefore ask advice from other dieters on what they think they should do, very often I will get people ask me what diet do I recommend once they get slim...

I always reply 'Why do you need to diet when you are slim?'

If you were to say to someone who has always been slim what diet do they recommend it would be the same alien question to them...therefore if you want to be slim long term you need to start thinking like someone who has always been slim.

Food Is The Solution

Apart from for nutrition, why do you eat?

Why do you choose the foods that you choose?

Why in a restaurant do you make the menu choices you do?

Why do you shop in certain aisles and in certain areas of a supermarket and not in others?

Why do you choose red grapes over green grapes?

Why do you choose steak over chicken, pizza over pasta, or yellow peppers over red peppers!

People generally make their food choices based on their feelings and emotions as opposed to the nutritional content of something. Even if you are 'eating healthily' you will still go for something you LIKE against something you don't LIKE.

The Mirror

A lot of dieters will start a diet because of how they look. They will see themselves in the mirror, or in a shop window or a photograph and decide that enough is enough and they want to lose weight. 

The motivation at that time is huge to lose weight as you are so tired of what you see that you want to be different.

Therefore, you do really well on a diet for a while but as you get slimmer, the motivation gets less and less and eventually you just stop the diet and go back to your old ways and put the weight back on...

Sound familiar? It is incredibly common....

Imagine you are in a bank and a bank robber pulls out a gun...the motivation to get away from him as you stand there would be huge...but when you reach the door of the bank the motivation, although still high, would be slightly less...and when you were three streets away from the bank, the motivation would be even less to keep running as the motivation lessens all the time. So imagine yourself  50 miles away from the bank!! What is the motivation now for getting away?

The Two Types Of Dieter

 

When I finally got my head round slimming down I came to realise just how different I was treating the final journey. Having now worked with thousands of people both personally and over the web I am even more convinced of the stark differences between people.

The first, and most common, is the dieter that thinks losing weight is hard, they don't like themselves, they hate dieting, hate the fact they got big, don't want to die young, don't want to be big anymore, don't like the fact they are trapped in their bodies. They see dieting as a prison sentence and it is all about what they can't do, aren't allowed or are being restricted from.

They tend to rarely smile when I meet them and always talk negatively, and when talking about the future they paint a bleak picture in terms of trying and wanting to and opposed to knowing that they will succeed.

I was this type of dieter for twenty years and I would reduce my weight a bit, and then put even more back on, then go back on a diet and lose a bit and got stuck in the yo-yo diet lifestyle that is so tiring....

All Or Nothing

 

Most people who are overweight can definitely do the 'all' approach to eating. They can eat what they want, when they want and hence, they put on weight.

Then they reach a certain size when they have had enough, and it is important enough to them to get away from being that big person and they don't want to be fat anymore.

And so, they dive on a diet and flick the switch to nothing. That may mean literally no food, or just not certain food types i.e. no chocolate, or no/low carb.

Booking A Holiday This Summer ?

 

Now is the time of year when people look to their holidays for later in the year, so you do a bit of research, decide where you want to go and when you want to go.

Usually you search the internet checking out the tour providers and the resort you want to go to, seeing what the temperature will be and whether their are any local excursions you fancy.

And then you make a decision and book it!

Now I'm sure you enjoy finding your holiday and get excited as you book it as you have something later in the year to look forward to....

Keeping It Off

When you get to goal weight if you try and keep the weight off, it means you are focusing on what you don't want to be. You are focusing still on the big person you were and hence you are always 'fighting' to not be that person again.

Therefore when people say they are 'keeping it off' then they are always focusing on a negative.

Some people don't agree with me on this but the simple question I ask is 'Keeping what off?' , the answer always has to be 'the weight'...and therefore it is about the weight!!

Cause Or Effect?

I get a lot of people ask me what was the turning point when I decided to be slim, what was the "trigger" or the reasons etc. I have studied this a lot as it fascinates me why I waited until I was 32 years old to really do something about my weight. Why did I wait until I was peeing blood and struggled to walk up the stairs to actually reduce down my weight.

 

But then I realised it was the day I took responsibility! What I call  cause and effect, and up to that point I was living my life in effect.

 

For example I blamed being overweight on the following reasons.