Friday, December 19, 2008

Planning Your New Years Diet

So. You, like many other folks this time of year, are beginning to feel the indulgences of the holidays and are contemplating losing weight as part of a new years resolution. As such you may be rushing around trying to over indulge as much as possible prior to doing your penance of dieting. Well, let me tell you a little something. Now is the time to begin easing into your New Years plan. I'm not saying to forgo the Christmas pudding and pie. But not every day between now and the turn of the calendar needs to be an exercise in gastronomic debauchery.

Buy the book. Read the book. Get the book and read it from cover to cover prior to starting your plan. If you are new to the plan read it twice. If you need to buy a book, I'd recommend either "The 30-Day Low-Carb Diet Solution" by the Eades' or "The South Beach Diet" By Agatston. The Eades book is probably the easiest to follow for a complete beginner, or those just wishing for a tell me what to eat jumpstart. Neither book requires you to count calories or carb grams. Just follow the food lists and meal templates, and off you go.

Practice your plan. Take a day or two along the way, and practice eating LC. That's right, practice LC. You haven't done this for a while, and you need to get in the groove. This will also help to ensure that you start accumulating the grocery's needed.. One of the worst things you can do is to jump right from the sugar plum fairy dreams of the holidays directly into very low carb dieting. Ease up on the refined carbs as you work your way to the end of the year, and starting adding protein. These steps will help ease the transition, and reduce the shock of going cold turkey.

If you don't have one, get a cookbook appropriate for your plan. If you
don't want to spend any money, search the web for recipes appropriate for your plan and have a collection of them ready before you start. The Forums on ProteinPower.com and southbeach-diet-plan.com are both full of recipes. Of course for SB eaters, Kalyns Kitchen is a wonderful resource and one of the top ten reasons to eat SB. These resources will add needed variety to your food choices. Eggs with bacon, Baked chicken and salad, meat and vegetables , will get old. Having new ways to add flavors and textures will keep your food interesting and keep you on plan.

If all the above seems like a lot of work, then you aren't really serious about changing the way you eat. It would be better for you to start your plan a week or two later and have all your ducks in a row, than go off half cocked on Jan 1, and be done by Jan 10.