Dr. Foster’s damn-good diet, Pt. 1
by Mira and Charles on February 1st, 2010Getting started, getting support
Today I [Charles Foster] like an idiot went on TV and in my weekly Fostering Change segment on New England Cable News announced that I’d started a diet on Jan. 1 and had a goal to lose a pound a week for the entire coming year. Yikes! What was I thinking?!?!?! Now I’ve got to do it!
But the fact is I want to do it. What’s more, I need to do it. My doctor just told me I was slightly pre-diabetic, so if I don’t lose weight I could get diabetes, which sucks. What’s more, I could die (which sucks even more) and not get to see my grandson graduate from college. Plus I know that if I turned out to eat myself into an early grave my wife (that would be the wonderful Mira) would be really pissed, and maybe a little sad too, although on the plus side she would gain control of the remote and be freed from my snoring.
Plus I really hate being fat. It’s not me. Well, OK, it has been me. That’s true. But it’s not the real me. I have photos of the real me and I look trim and fit. I’m not a fat man; I’m a temporarily fat man, a hopefully soon-to-be-no-longer-fat man.
But why would I embarrass myself and go public with all this? First of all, it makes me accountable. And that’s the first of many weight-loss tips you’ll find here as I lay out Dr. Foster’s damn-good diet. Accountability helps people successfully lose weight. So tip #1: if you want to go on a diet, don’t keep it a secret. Tell everyone in your circle, family, friends, neighbors, co-workers. The fact that they all know will keep you motivated and on track.
Second, going public can give you a lot of support. When people know you’re trying to lose weight they can help and encourage you. And that’s another key to success. Tip #2: figure out the support you need and get all the support you can.
And by the way, you need to ask for the support you need most. This is particularly true of the people closest to you. When we’re trying to lose weight, people often do or say things that just don’t work for us. Sometimes they turn into the hall monitors of your diet: “Do you really need to eat that?” Sometimes they set themselves up as diet gurus, constantly emailing you tips. Sometimes they’re always telling us, “Hey, looking good,” til it becomes annoying. So here’s how you handle support that’s not supportive. You just say, “Look, I know you really care about me. And I know you’re trying to be helpful. But doing that just doesn’t work for me. It would actually be much more helpful if you…” and then tell them what would be helpful.
OK, so going public can help you be accountable and get you support. Of course, sadly, going public isn’t enough. (Because if it were, I’d be all done!) Merely saying to the whole world you’re on a diet won’t help you lose a pound. You actually need a plan.
And that’s where things get loopy for so many of us. There are umpteen bazillion diets out there. (I counted, although I’m not sure if Deal-a-Meal is still around.) And a lot of folks go from diet to diet the way Tiger Woods seems to have gone from bimbo to bimbo. And too often things turn out just as unhappily.
Well, I’ve got good news, if you like commonsensical, hype-free, actually true news.
There is only one diet. Here, let me headline that. Tip #3: there is only one diet. All the diets out there are only variations on that one diet.
Let me explain.
If you want to lose weight, you’ve got two problems. You need to eat healthfully. And you need to feel satisfied, not hungry. And you have to do all that while you’re consuming fewer calories. Well, there is only one way to do that. Only one. You have to eat more high bulk, low calorie foods and cut out low bulk, high calorie foods. And that is the ultimate, wonderful, darn-good weight-loss diet.
And of course the high bulk, low calorie foods are vegetables and fruit. The low bulk, high calorie foods are…well, you know. Candy, cookies, chips—all the sweet, salty, fatty stuff we like so much.
Every diet is a way of switching you away from sweet, salty, fatty stuff and towards more fruits and vegetables. Do that, and you’ll feel satisfied, eat healthfully, and lose weight.
Beyond that, which diet should you use? Here’s what to look for.
Is it balanced? Is it a diet you could actually survive on and be healthy over the long haul?
Is it sustainable? Would it be bearable for you to eat like this forever? Because here’s the thing. If your goal is to lose weight and then go back to business as usual, you’ll end up fatter than ever. The only successful diets are those that you can live with day in, day out over the long haul.
Do you like it? And that’s key. As long as a diet is balanced and sustainable, the only thing that matters is that you like it. So don’t get caught up in worrying about the “best” diet. There isn’t a best diet. There’s just the ultimate, wonderful, darn-good diet I’ve talked about. Beyond that, the best diet is the one you like. Because that’s the one you’ll stick to.
Tomorrow I’ll write here about exactly how to go about this. Details. It’s all in the details. And I’ll write about some sources of support and help you may not know about. And I’ll begin the conversation about the emotional and psychological factors that go into successful weight loss. And that’s key, because in the end the best weight loss tool of all is you mind.
And then every day this week I’ll have more tools, tips, and insights. After that, once a week we’ll have a weight-loss support day.
And a year from today, I hope to have stayed on track with my goal of losing a pound a week. So far (this is Feb. 1) I’ve lost four pounds, so I’m on track. I know you have your goal too. Let’s wish each other luck. And please let me hear your suggestions, because we all need to help each other.
See you on the other side of skinny!
(PS: A huge shout out and lots of thanks to my two wonderful nutritionists: Audrey Young and Mary Dineheart. I have shamelessly stolen many of their excellent ideas. If I am successful with this attempt to lose weight, much of the credit belongs to them. May you all find such good nutritionists.)
