A New Diet Idea

I've come up with what I think is the best diet ever. It makes perfect sense to me, and I'm curious to see what you all think of it. And it goes a little something like this . . .

I was reading an article about weight loss that explained why most diets don't work. It explained how the body "adapts" to diets after a while. If you eat 1500 calories a day, your body will regulate itself to where it burns 1500 calories a day. If you eat 2000 calories a day, your body will adjust itself to burn 2000 calories a day.

Then, when you finally break down and eat an extra 1000 calories (not hard--I have a bag of Jelly Bellies sitting next to me I got in my Easter Basket that's calling my name and has 700 calories in it), none of it gets used, and it all goes to fat.

This article argued you should actually do the opposite--eat at a certain level, and then drop your calories drastically for a day or two, then go back to your regular eating pattern.

Now look--that's insane. Don't even try it. That just sounds to me like "Hollywood Diet"--a diet that consists of nothing but drinking juice for a weekend.

Diets like this do not help you lose fat. When your body needs energy for the short term, it does not go to fat. It goes to the sugars in your muscles. It saves the fat for last, lest your attempt to starve it go on forever.

So what good idea did I get from this diet?

I combine it with an idea I got from my Dad a while back.

Go find a calorie calculator. They're all over the place online--here's a good one.

In the calculator, don't put in your current weight--put in the weight you want to be. Don't put in any exercise or anything--just what your regular lifestyle would cause your body to burn if you were your ideal weight.

Then eat that many calories every day. Spread it out over five or six meals, but eat that many calories or less--maybe as many as 500 calories less, but no more than that.

Top that with some exercise to burn a few more calories.

Your body's natural inclination to slim down will work together with your exercise to get you down to your ideal weight.

Not a "Lose 20 pounds in one weekend" tabloid diet, but a very safe, sensible way to get your body where you want it.

So the Hollywood Diet guys sell gallons of the stuff, while I still get about 20 hits a day. Maybe I should try going for a little more hype.