Slimming - Can I Lose Weight The Easy Way?

Ok, before I even start on this one, I should point out that I am NOT a nutritionist, NOT a Doctor and NOT a diet, or weight loss expert, so it might be a good idea to consult with your Doctor before embarking on this or any other regimen or slimming diet to lose weight.

What I am about to share with you here is not so much a diet, but my own personal discovery. It is the way I lose weight when I need to. I find it far less painful and boring than any other slimming method I have ever tried. I thought that I would share it with you. If you have tried every slimming diet and slimming fad that ever came out, and you are still struggling to lose weight, then why not try it. It works for me - It may work for you.

I have never been massively overweight. But there have been times in the past when I needed to lose weight - when I piled on far more weight than was good for me. Possibly the worst time was many years ago when I was working shifts, and was required to do many months of night duty. It was a fairly sedentary job and over that period my weight seemed to be on a continual upward curve. Happily I was able to normalise my weight fairly quickly once this sedentary period on nights was over and my activity rate returned to normal.

Throughout my life, however my weight - like most people's I suppose - fluctuated between good and not-so-good, and seems to do so in cycles. I was never one for using the bathroom scales and so was not aware of creeping weight gain until it became patently obvious by looking in the mirror that I had started to pile on the pounds.

So here is my first tip - Monitor your weight at least weekly even when you don't need to! It is a helluva lot easier to lose the odd two pounds that you may have gained in the past month than it is to lose the twenty pounds that crept up on you when you weren't looking.

I know that some people with weight problems have an aversion to using the scales. It's almost like they are afraid of what they will find. They will say things like "I know when I've lost weight, I can feel it". I think this is basically wishful thinking, as these seem to be the people who struggle most with their weight. If you have no measurable way of comparing your weight now with your weight a week ago, how can you assess whether or not the method you are using to lose weight is working? If you do lose weight, how will you know? - It can't be done by guesswork and wishful thinking - So get on those scales - Do it alone and keep it secret by all means - But get on them at least every week. This will allow you to quickly react to sudden weight gain using a slimming method and nip problems in the bud.

As I mentioned earlier, I once went through a period when because I was working a night shift, I piled on weight. It took me completely by surprise because the difference in energy expenditure between the job on days and the job on nights wasn't massive - but it was consistent, and a small change carried out consistently can produce big effects and help you to lose weight.

It served as a lesson nonetheless on how important it is to have some form of exercise when slimming in order to lose weight. The fact that I was sitting down rather than just walking about my workplace was enough to tip me from maintaining a relatively static weight into an upward graph of weight gain (you can't lose weight sitting down). So never underestimate the value of doing even little bits of exercise - If you do them consistently and often, they all add up to useful amounts of calorie burning exercise, and when you're trying to lose weight, every little helps.

Make simple changes. Become the sort of person who never uses elevators or lifts - take the stairs instead. If your journey is less than a mile - walk or cycle there! (by the time you've found a parking space, it's probably just as quick anyway). Simple changes of habit like this can accrue big changes in your body's energy usage when you are trying to lose weight.

This was one of the biggest problems for me - Dieting! I had tried every slimming fad going in order to lose weight - The cabbage soup diet, The Atkins Diet, Low Carb Diet, Low Fat Diet, No Carbs after Six Diet, The Special Slimming Diet Diet . Yes I tried them all and stuck with them all... for a short while. Occasionally I even managed to lose weight, but then I would revert to my normal eating habits - and gain some more weight.

The problem was that either the slimming diets were too complicated. I simply wanted to lose weight, but they were requiring me to become some sort of lay nutritional scientist, weighing, concocting and accumulating data by the pageful, until I lost the will to live, or the fare on offer was so unappealing and repetitive that I just got bored with the whole slimming thing, and pounced on "normal" food just to alleviate this culinary boredom - It was no way to lose weight.

The only answer for me - If I was going to lose weight at all - was to create not so much my own slimming diet, but my own slimming regimen. One that would help me lose weight, and yet produce as little change as possible to the stuff I normally like to eat - And here's how I did it.

It wasn't even a slimming diet as such. I didn't stop eating anything - I just rejigged the way I ate it. Rightly or wrongly I didn't want to "give up" anything whilst I was slimming. I knew that if my attempt to lose weight was going to be overly complicated, or, at the other end of the spectrum, boring, that I was going to lose interest rather than lose weight and that would inevitably lead to failure.

I was aware however, of the need to reduce my intake of food in order lose weight. I must admit that I am a bit of a "sweetie face", My usual diet was disastrous.I love all the wrong stuff - Ice cream, crisps (chips), biscuits (cookies), cakes, as well as stuff like chips (french fries) - In fact I could (probably did) live on stuff like this, so I wasn't prepared to do without them while I was slimming. Instead I decided that I could indulge in these "forbidden foods" once each per week - but once only. I would normally have had these about three or four times a week (maybe more in the case of stuff like ice cream), and so this one change alone reduces the calorie intake from these particular foods by 75% or more without weighing or calorie counting - and without giving up the stuff that I like.

Now lets move away from the "special treat foods" and onto the main bulk of what constitutes my everyday meals - the average, not particularly unhealthy stuff that goes to make up my everyday diet.

Now I knew that when not slimming, a man needs about 2,500 calories per day (women about 2000). This means of course that if I was consuming say 3000 calories per day, there is an excess there of 500 calories per day which will just turn to fat and attach itself to my belly.

Now if I could chop that 3000 calories per day in half - i.e. 1,500 calories per day - there is a shortfall of 1000 calories per day which my body will have to make up for by dragging some fat off my belly and burning it. Aha! I thought - Easy-peasy! Who needs a complicated slimmimg diet? All I have to do is half-fill my plate instead of filling it and I would be instantly cutting my calorie intake in half, and I would lose weight - Simple!

Well, It started well, but human nature being what it is, the definition of what "half a plate" was, increased over time - "oh there's only a couple of spoonfulls left in the pan, I may as well have them as well" - and before long the plate was as full as it had ever been and my plans to lose weight had stalled.

Then came what I like to think as my slimming stroke of genius - use a smaller plate! I found myself a small plate - Actually a side plate, and this became my "slimming" plate. The rule was that I use only this plate for all my meals and I could only have one plateful per meal. The size of the plate physically restricted how much I could put on it so I couldn't cheat by being creative with the portions. This also produced a "double whammy" effect as it also reduced the quantity of the "naughty foods" mentioned above, as they all had to be consumed from my "slimming" plate.

This is the method I now use when slimming to lose weight and maintain easy weight control.

1. Increase your exercise by simple habit changes as discussed above
2. Establish what weight you wish to maintain
3. Weigh yourself weekly -If your weight is on target then just live your life and stop worrying about it.
4. If your weight has crept say five pounds above your ideal weight - switch to the small plate and continue with this until your weight returns to ideal.
5. Return to number 3. above and repeat.

The small "slimming" plate strategy has other added benefits besides just losing weight. You will find that after you have been using the small plate for any length of time, the portion size will "normalise" in your mind. i.e. your concept of what a normal portion is will shrink and a "standard" portion on a normal plate will begin to seem huge to you.

It will also train your stomach to expect less with each meal and you may find that your capacity to eat large portions was not what it was - Don't fight it. Go with the flow!

So that's it. I don't diet per se, I just follow the five rules above. No calorie counting. No afternoons sweating in the Gym and no missing out on my favourite stuff. It works for me - It could work for you.