The Ten Diet Principles

When I was a kid, my dad was talking about trying to lose weight. My flip response as a high-school student was “Dude, just eat less and exercise more”. While that’s true, I’ve learned there’s a “most effective” way to lose weight… and that most other ways are much less effective.

The more I eat right, the more I read, the more I listen, the more I exercise, the more I realize there are just a few basic rules to almost all diets. These nearly-universal principles form the backbone of the easiest way to lose weight for almost everybody, except perhaps people on dialysis. If you follow them, even without a strict plan, you’ll win.

When I was a kid, my dad was talking about trying to lose weight. My flip response as a high-school student was “Dude, just eat less and exercise more”. While that’s true, I’ve learned there’s a “most effective” way to lose weight… and that most other ways are much less effective.

The more I eat right, the more I read, the more I listen, the more I exercise, the more I realize there are just a few basic rules to almost all diets. These nearly-universal principles form the backbone of the easiest way to lose weight for almost everybody, except perhaps people on dialysis. If you follow them, even without a strict plan, you’ll win.

  1. Eat six to eight small meals a day.
  2. Include a serving of protein in every meal. Eating plenty of protein is the only way to spare muscle while losing weight. Eat at least 60g/day for a woman* and 100g/day for a man.*
  3. Closely monitor your serving sizes. Once doled out on your plate, a serving of vegetables is around the size of your open hand; a serving of carbohydrates is around the size of your fist; a serving of protein is around the size of your palm.
  4. Cut out all foods from your diet which have sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, white flour, white (polished) rice,
  5. Take baseline measurements and photos of yourself, and compare them every week or month so you can remind and motivate yourself with your progress.
  6. Don’t eat carbohydrates near bedtime; they’ll just turn to fat.
  7. The principal purpose of cardio is to accelerate your metabolism. The amount of calories burned during the exercise itself is only a fraction of the amount burned due to a faster metabolism. The timing of your cardio doesn’t matter much; just do it 3-5 times per week.
  8. Dietary supplementation is important when you’re on a restricted diet of any sort. Figure out your nutritional deficiencies — if any — and come up with a supplementation plan to address them.
  9. Don’t make your program too complicated.
  10. Plan “time off” your program regularly. Maybe it’s one meal a week, or the weekend, or once a month. Whatever it is, plan for the time off so that you can re-start shortly thereafter if you fall off your program. Long dietary marathons are difficult, and not having a plan to get back on the horse if you fall off is discouraging.

I got one part of the formula back in high school wrong. I realize now it should be “Eat more often. Eat less food. Exercise more.” Sure, you can have just one meal a day and still lose weight, but it’s a lot harder than a lot of small meals.

* If you are extraordinarily short, tall, or muscular, this number will vary substantially. Also, this number can be adjusted downward once you have achieved your target weight.