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Summer barbecues sabotage many diets, but there is a way actually to use the opportunity to eat the foods you love to lose more weight rather than less. I am not suggesting to forgo a grilled cheeseburger so you can eat a nice bowl of alfa alfa sprouts.
Many studies have found that people who are overweight or obese now, or who were overweight or obese in the past, tend to underestimate how much they eat. The studies don't really tell us whether people underestimate how much they eat and then they get fat, or if people get fat and then they lose their ability to keep track of food. But the simple fact is that you will lose weight a lot more easily and keep it off a lot longer if you have somebody else doing the calorie counting for you.
You don't have to have somebody counting each and every calorie for you.
Suppose you have decided that the way you are going to eat 1700 calories a day to lose weight is by eating one frozen dinner, one sandwich that is made the same way every time at a restaurant you like, and by drinking a diet shake a day. If you find yourself getting hungry, you will eat a salad or a piece of fruit.
Many people find that this approach is an optimum way to lose weight. They get almost the same calories every day, and they don't let themselves "starve." Filling up on plant foods most days will kill your appetite so you don't go out foraging for burgers, fried chicken, or tasty meat pies.
You can vary this approach by following your normal diet most days, maybe skipping part of your diet plan some days, and then eating what you like at social events. This actually helps your metabolism stay running high and it also relieves you of peer pressure that leaves you feeling that you have been "dragged off" your diet. You stay in control.
You just allow the people who make prepared dinners or sandwiches to do most of your calorie counting, making occasional exceptions for social events.
This approach does not take off as much weight as extreme low-calorie diets during the first six months, but most people who practically stop eating also stop losing weight after a few months. By the end of a year, people who eat a varied diet they plan, with some room for spontaneous choices at special events that you have "earned" the right to eat by eating less earlier, have lost weight and kept it off. Most crash dieters gain their weight back.
Barbecues are a great way to keep up your metabolism, enjoy food and company, and continue to lose weight. There is no food served at a barbecue that will "ruin" your diet, and eating moderately more than usual (up to 6 oz./ 170 g more meat than usual and maybe a little more alcohol and carbs) won't hurt if you plan. Don't leave a party feeling deprived!
Barbecues give you chances to prove your self-control and to show yourself that you can continue to lose weight without fixating on foods. Almost any barbecue choice can be a weight loss choice if you just decide what you are going to eat ahead of time and "pay for it" by harder dieting the day before.
Suppose you have decided that the way you are going to eat 1700 calories a day to lose weight is by eating one frozen dinner, one sandwich that is made the same way every time at a restaurant you like, and by drinking a diet shake a day. If you find yourself getting hungry, you will eat a salad or a piece of fruit.
Many people find that this approach is an optimum way to lose weight. They get almost the same calories every day, and they don't let themselves "starve." Filling up on plant foods most days will kill your appetite so you don't go out foraging for burgers, fried chicken, or tasty meat pies.
You can vary this approach by following your normal diet most days, maybe skipping part of your diet plan some days, and then eating what you like at social events. This actually helps your metabolism stay running high and it also relieves you of peer pressure that leaves you feeling that you have been "dragged off" your diet. You stay in control.
You just allow the people who make prepared dinners or sandwiches to do most of your calorie counting, making occasional exceptions for social events.
This approach does not take off as much weight as extreme low-calorie diets during the first six months, but most people who practically stop eating also stop losing weight after a few months. By the end of a year, people who eat a varied diet they plan, with some room for spontaneous choices at special events that you have "earned" the right to eat by eating less earlier, have lost weight and kept it off. Most crash dieters gain their weight back.
Barbecues are a great way to keep up your metabolism, enjoy food and company, and continue to lose weight. There is no food served at a barbecue that will "ruin" your diet, and eating moderately more than usual (up to 6 oz./ 170 g more meat than usual and maybe a little more alcohol and carbs) won't hurt if you plan. Don't leave a party feeling deprived!
Barbecues give you chances to prove your self-control and to show yourself that you can continue to lose weight without fixating on foods. Almost any barbecue choice can be a weight loss choice if you just decide what you are going to eat ahead of time and "pay for it" by harder dieting the day before.
- Johnson RK, Soultanakis RP, Matthews DE. Literacy and body fatness are associated with underreporting of energy intake in US low-income women using the multiple-pass 24-hour recall: a doubly labeled water study. J Am Diet Assoc.1998,98:1136-40.
- Rennie KL, Siervo M, Jebb SA. Can self-reported dieting and dietary restraint identify underreporters of energy intake in dietary surveys? J Am Diet Assoc.2006,106:1667–72.