This is difficult subject because everyone has an opinion about it or believes in some mystery diet. To wake up one day with the perfect body-in spite of not eating right and not exercising as you should-is magical thinking. It is okay to have magical thinking because that means that you have a desire to be better.
Like everything else in this website, nutrition is about balance. And most certainly, it is not about deprivation or starvation. You have to balance in your diet (intake) and activity (output).
Boring facts
Many high-calorie foods over-stimulate your appetite and deceive you into eating more than your body needs. Many popular diets counter this by grouping foods into “approved” and “unapproved” lists. However, this restrictive approach makes eating tedious and boring. Eating should be enjoyable!
Some diet programs provide you with ways to judge new foods. For example, low-carb programs assess food value based on carbohydrate content. Unfortunately, though, this assessment can be quite limited. Do an orange and a chocolate eclair really have an equal impact on your body? Some low-carb practitioners seem to think so!
Better diets start with a simple nutritional analysis of your current diet. It evaluates each food that you eat, and recommends alternative foods that may provide more nutritional value and help you feel full on fewer calories. Instead of shocking your body with an abrupt change in foods, this approach focuses on evolving your diet one food at a time.
Still, most people will tire of measuring and researching and then analyzing before eating, and eventually they will give up.
The Common Sense Diet
The Common Sense Diet is simple to follow and simple to understand. Depending on your involvement, you can expand on it any way you desire. The most important aspect of this diet is that it does not require you to change your lifestyle and habits. Start by recording your eating habits. You are the only one that knows whether or not you sneak a Creme Brule as a snack, so be as honest as you can be. Realize that you only need three main courses a day. Look for trends of unhealthy habits and start by eliminating or reducing these habits. Then begin to introduce alternative choices that you find tasty into your mix of meals. And most importantly, reduce the portion of your meals. And depending on the current portion size you are used to, you will soon realize that you are often satiated long before you would normally stop eating.
No one should have to put up with a restrictive lifestyle or diet. Instead, find the balance of what you like and eliminate what you do not like. Then simply eat less of all that you find pleasurable. When you combine this diet with the appropriate Excercise Program you will lose the unwanted weight and achieve the body shape you desire. That magical thinking will no longer be a pathology.