Ask anyone who has lost a *serious* amount of weight and they’ll generally tell you that 80+% of the battle was with their diet.

Once your diet is clean, the rest tends to follow without too much trouble.

So here and now I want you to take a few minutes to consider your own diet. What are your strengths and weaknesses? What have you easily given up? What could you improve on?

Because lets be honest - the “cleaner” your diet is, the faster you’ll see the results you want.

Offset that against the potential boredom - to the point of madness for some people - of living on plain, basic food groups.

Only you can decide how clean you’re willing to be.

Unless you are a saint, there is almost always a weakness or two in your diet. Things you feel you couldn’t live without or foods and drinks that have slowly snuck in under your diet radar and are holding you back.

Some people are willing to put their all into their weight loss diet and live on nothing but steamed vegetables and grilled chicken for months on end.

For many other people (myself included) this doesn’t sound like too much fun.

So they spice up their diet a little bit appreciating their progress will be a little slower but a lot more enjoyable.

But how “spicy” are you willing to get? You no doubt have goals (You haven’t? Go to the bottom of the class!) so how is your diet affecting these goals? Do you finish each week thinking “I lost more weight than I had hoped but I am so bored with my diet I could live on Big Macs for a week and love every bite” or do you think “Wow, I only lost that much weight? That sucks. Still, I’ll drown my sorrows in these beers”.

What sort of person are you?

How close to finding the perfect balance are you? Is this the first time you’ve thought about it? If so, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.

If you’re interested in healthy recipes then I highly recommend Eating For Life.

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Here’s an interesting point I hadn’t considered in the past.

I have slowly been coming to the conclusion recently that mixing up your exercise regime is a good thing. It keeps your body guessing from one week to the next if you keep changing weights, exercises and the order in which you do them but the author of a blog I just visited does the same thing with his diet.

He changes from one diet to another each week and says he feels it’s largely responsible for his weight loss success.

We know a lot of diets work - there isn’t just one that works - and by swapping things around and changing your diet every week or two it goves you an opportunity to test out diets to see which work best for you and suit your lifestyle, and it also keeps your body guessing about what is happening next. In addition, it’s hard to get bored of a diet if you’re only on it for a week. If you feel you’re missing out on something, choose a diet the following week that allows you that item.

It’s rather like what I found on the Atkins Diet. Some parts of it I loved, but I really missed fruit. The Body For Life diet however allows (even encourages) certain fruits, so by swapping them around doing a week of one followed by a week of the other it would be hard to get too bored.

I’m not saying it’s a recommendation (yet) but it’s certainly a new idea worth considering if you fancy a change to your weight loss program.

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One seldom discussed topic when it comes to weight loss and weight management is the subject of emotional eating.

You know how it is… something upsets you or stresses you out and next thing you know you find yourself tossing another Mars bar wrapper in the bin. What happened? And where did all your good intentions just disappear to?

That’s just what the excellent article from the Healthy Lifestyle blog discusses.

The biggest point that I took away from it is this: you need to be mindful of what you are eating at all times and why. As soon as you want to eat something “bad” or you find you’ve just done it it’s not time to beat yourself up. You’ll only make yourself feel worse. Instead, stop for a moment and work out *what* feeling caused you to behave like that. Also, what caused that feeling in the first place?

Once you know this, you can consciously work on avoiding or stopping the problem to begin with, and also finding displacement activities for when it next happens.

A displacement activity is one recognized by behavioural scientists as one that is carried out when another one is actually meant. A displacement activity could be fighting with your loved one because you don’t see them enough - except after the fight you’ll see them even less for a while of course.

In dietary terms, just like when quitting smoking or any other harmful yet powerful habit, you need to find things you can do to take your mind off those habits.

Here’s an example I have used in the past. When I’m out running and I start to slow and falter and that little voice in my head starts telling me just a short break won’t hurt me - after all I’ve already run 2 miles - I envision myself in a marathon.

Now I’ve never run one in my life, nor at the moment would I do so, but imagining I’m in second place with the first runner just a few metres ahead of me helps me to pick up the pace as I race my imaginary competitor.

So what can you do to stop you from eating emotionally? Could you imagine the disappointment on your partner’s face when you fail to lose weight? Could you eat a carrot instead? Could you sing a favorite song to yourself? Imagine a beautiful beach with you stretched out tanned and toned on it?

Have a think - then try a few out - until you come up with a behaviour, no an automatic response - that will help you deal with the cravings.

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Let’s be realistic - eating 5 or 6 high quality meals a day is hard work. Eating every 3 hours or so while you’re awake can be hard enough to fit in anyway but when you consider your food choices it gets ten times harder.

No grabbing a candy bar or bag of chips. No we’re talking chicken, turkey, vegetables, eggs and so on.

No ideal “on the go” food.

You’d either spend your whole life cooking and washing up or would have to cook giant-sized portions and spread out the eating over several meals.

So if you’re going to eat right, you need a solution to this conundrum.

If you’re careful, you *can* do it with proper ingredients. A popular snack for me is king prawns on a bed of salad covered in a dash of salad dressing. It works. Or mix a fat-free yogurt with a protein shake. That works too. But soon after this my mind goes blank.

If you have healthy snacks that are acceptable on Body For Life please leave your comments at the end of this post so we can all share your ideas.

On the whole though, most people (including myself) end up relying to a certain degree on meal replacement drinks or MRDs.

There are a range of other terms used for them, and they don’t just come in drink format. You can get meal replacement bars for example, though I find them a bit dry and dull for my palette.

The meal replacement drink though is ideal. It comes in a range of flavors, it’s sweet so satisfies that element, is thick and creamy (the texture really is great) and lastly really fills me up.

One of these can be downed in 30 seconds or less then you can get straight back on with life knowing you’re good to go for another few hours.

Now I wouldn’t live on these things. These are just to *help* your diet. Meat and vegetables must be the basis. But to help you on your way, meal replacement drinks work just fine.

A highly recommended resource for your Body For Life success.

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The successes at the Body For Life program say that diet is 80%+ of the battle. Get your diet right and everything else follows. Also, most people find it easier to do some exercise than clean up their diet. It’s the real decider between success and failure and I find it as difficult as anyone else.

Temptation is always just round the corner.

Luckily, having tried all sorts of diets over the years, I firmly believe the Body For Life diet is the best around. It’s not as powerful at fat burning as the Atkins Diet but it works well, it’s quite easy to stick to and you have quite a variety of tasty foods you can eat.

Leans meats such as chicken, turkey, certain cuts of beef, seafood and so on mixed with egg whites, fruit, vegetables, low fat cheese and so on make up quite a nice diet.

Breakfast might be oatmeal with dried fruit and cinamon. Or maybe an omlette with chopped peppers and onions in. A glass of low fat milk, water or green tea can accompany it.

Lunch might be a wholemeal tortilla with chicken, salad and a little salsa and so on.

You eat regular small meals to stoke your metabolism and keep it burning calories on overdrive while you enjoy a diet you can stick to.

This sticking point is important so allow me a few minutes to dwell a little deeper on it.

Not so long ago I blogged here about trying out the Atkins diet. I lost an amazing amount of weight but I found a lot of the food a bit “stodgy”. After a month I was dying for something a little lighter, a little sweeter.

On the Body For Life diet not only can you eat fat-free yogurt and fruit in moderation (so helping any cravings for sweet foods) but you also get a “free day” each week.

For one day out of seven you eat whatever you like. Some people just have a free meal each week and eat clean the rest of the time but you’re allowed a whole day of pizza, donuts, cola and everything else you love but know you’re not meant to eat.

This makes it so easy to stick to good food the rest of the week. The difference it makes really can’t be described. Saying “no” to junk food for the rest of your life is hard. The Atkins diet diudn’t have a free day. I was on it for a month solidly, and would have killed for a free day.

So you think “Wow, I really fancy a choc chip cookie”. No problem. Buy it, then save it till your free day. It’s only a few days away. Then eat it and enjoy it. You’ve done well. Enjoy the treat.

Then the next day, get back onto the program.

Honestly, the Body For Life diet is the best I’ve found so far and I highly recommend you try it out.

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