YOUR OWN PERSONAL DIET PLAN?

Have you ever wished someone would develop a personal diet plan just for you? One that helped you lose your excess weight and keep it off, without you feeling like you had sacrificed everything that’s most important and enjoyable about your life in the process?

Guess what? A personalized diet plan is not a pipe dream. It’s possible! In fact, that’s exactly the approach I recommend. I have always believed that in order for a weight management plan to be successful, it has to be a personalized diet plan the person can comfortably live with not just until the excess weight is gone, but for a lifetime.

Here’s a concrete example. One patient of mine likes chocolate bars a lot. One approach may have been to say, you can never have chocolate bars again. But how long would that really last? Wouldn’t it be better to help her learn to have her chocolate within a framework that also keeps that enjoyable habit from leading to trouble?

Sure enough, I could almost see her sigh in relief when I broke the news that she wouldn’t have to give up chocolate bars altogether. Instead, we needed to come up with a way to fit them into an overall plan that worked. Limiting the chocolate bars to once a week and knowing she could have them in this moderated way ended up working for her.

Another patient of mine simply could not eat cake and other baked goods at home without triggering a binge where she cleaned the plate. Her husband, who was naturally thin and could eat cake in a healthy amount, continued to buy such foods for himself even when she was trying to not eat them, which led to her also eating (and overeating) these trigger foods because they were around.

We discussed the issue and came up with this solution: Each partner would have a cabinet that was theirs. If he bought cake, it would go in his cabinet. The solution worked. She was able to stay out of his cabinet and thus wouldn’t be tempted to eat whatever foods he had there. The few times a year she encountered cake otherwise, like at birthday parties, she was able to enjoy a reasonable-sized piece in the moment without having the leftovers around, calling her name.

As these examples demonstrate, everyone deals with very personal situations during his or her weight loss journey. Perhaps you can have cake sit in your cupboard until it goes stale, so cake is not the issue for you. Maybe you don’t like chocolate but can’t leave the cheese alone. Whatever it is, it’s part of a formula that is unique to you, and so is the solution.

So if you have ever wished you could have a personalized diet plan created just for you, here’s the good news: Doing so provides your best chance for weight loss success!