the dewey decimal diet

THE DEWEY DECIMAL SYSTEM

000-099 General Reference: Dictionaries, encyclopedias
100-199 Philosophy: Ideas of mankind
200-299 Religion
300-399 Social Science: Government, how laws are made, fairy tales (worldwide)
400-499 Languages
500-599 Science: Animals, planets, space, rocks
600-699 Useful Arts: Cooking, pet care, transportation
700-799 Fine Arts: Art, music, sports, crafts
800-899 Literature: Plays, short stories, poems, novels
900-999 Geography & History: Atlases, travel, biography, history

introducing... The Dewey Decimal Diet!
The Dewey Decimal Diet. (If you're a librarian, I hope you're laughing at the name. If you're not, I hope you still get it and at least smile.) The Dewey Decimal Diet, or DDD, is for people (like me) who aren't really of the 'active' type. You'd rather sit and watch TV, or (like me) sit in a comfortable chair and dive into an action-adventure novel. (Yes, let the characters do all the work, I'll just read about it, thanks.) Anyways, in order to promote more active living and weight loss in my own life, I've decided to create my own diet. If it helps you too, that's great!

How it works:

1. Portion Control. You don't have to painstakingly 'count calories,' but you do have to watch how many you consume a day. I use a program called Fitday PC, which you can download at Fitday.com, or just use their free online program. To use it, I enter in what I eat for my meals and the quantities, and it calculates how many calories you've had that day and adds them all up. (You know how it says "Percent Daily Values" on the Nutrition Facts of packaged foods? That's all based on 2,000 calories a day, which is average.) For your first day, just enter in the things you normally eat. If you're waaaay over 2,000, you need to cut back and start with 2,000 calories a day (that's about 600 a meal). If you gain weight on 2,000 a day (like I did), try cutting back to 1,800 a day. You'll be amazed at how much just portion control helps! (And if you're constantly feeling hungry, you're cutting out too many calories. Eat a healthy snack, like an apple or carrot sticks or cheese. Just stay away from the sugary, salty, bad-for-you prepackaged snacks. Vending machines are evil.) The joke with the Dewey Decimal Diet is that you're in the 1800-2000 section-- which is the number of calories you're supposed to consume.

2. Exercising. Try to exercise and get your heart rate up at least three times a week. This can be as simple as walking a lap or two around the neighborhood or mallwalking. Listen to some upbeat music (but watch out for cars, don't have it turned up so loud that you can't hear anything!) and take your dog along.

3. Weight Loss. Try and lose one pound a week. This is VERY do-able, not ambitious at all. You should have no problem shedding one pound every week. (Actually, you'll probably lose more than that weekly if you really watch #1 and don't cheat.) You're allowed to lose more (of course) every week, but... you're not allowed to gain any. You worked too hard to shed those pounds-- don't let them come back! If you lose more than one pound a week, that doesn't count for next week's too. You need to lose an additional pound the next week. Over time, this really makes a huge difference.

Tip: If you find that you're carb-intolerant (aka you gain weight when you eat carbs) I strongly reccomend the South Beach diet. It's worked wonders for me!!

meesa4ever said...
What I find that is helping me recently... we have a group at work. We each have goals to meet per week - I have to workout 3x week for at least 30 min. If I don't then I have to put 2 dollars in for each workout day missed... since I am poor this is working out very well :-)

[Edit: I moved this post from my old blog, The Dewey Decimal Diet, because I never updated it... probably due to the nature of the subject. :P ]