Have you heard about this one? You probably haven't yet because I only just dreamed it up last night, but it's my very own gimmick diet program!
A little ironic considering I've called out, exposed, debunked and ridiculed pretty much every gimmick diet going around on my Lose Weight No Bullshit website already, right?
Here's the deal though. It's like I said in my post about marketing the other day... if you eat the right amount and train hard, you get results. All diets work by reducing calories below what is required to maintain weight... some do it in a drastic and unhealthy manner with extremely low calories, and others do it with a more sensible level of intake. The thing with the gimmick diets is that they try to act like there is something else going on... like they've put it together in some special way that means extra results. Well... if you aint eating the correct amount, none of that makes a difference. And if you are eating the right amount, you're going to get results anyway... at best maybe this gimmick diet is giving you a tiny little extra edge to what you would have been getting anyway.
So like I said the other day... outside of simply "hitting your macros" the value of any diet plan should be in terms of "this will make it easy and convenient, and you're sure to succeed", not whatever bro-science type claims they want to make.
As for my Strategic Gluttony idea though, it started as a bit of a laugh talking about pizza. Now, pretty much anyone I know who is successfully getting great results from training, without too much worrying or stress is doing this already anyway... and the other people who are NOT doing it should START doing it. Simply put, the happy and successful people are in the habit of eating about the right amount that their body needs to maintain their goal weight, fuel, adapt and recover from training, and get them through the day. Either they do this through intuition, or they've done the maths (or perhaps asked me to do it for them) and built a plan to meet their requirements that way. But all the same, they have no hesitation, second thoughts, guilt or regret about saying "to hell with it" once in a while and feasting on pizza, or ice cream, or whatever takes their fancy.
So we were talking about pizza and I made a little joke like "I think it is good for your mental health to enjoy gluttony just as much as training". And the more I thought about it... it seemed like a great idea. Fuck feeling guilty about eating for enjoyment... the very meaning of life is to enjoy things and food is no exception!
There's a strategic element too though. Making allowances for a weekly "cheat meal" is a great way to take the pressure and stress out of adhering to the plan. Although it stops being a "cheat" when you have planned for it, right? Also we all know that there is a favourable (leptin) response that occurs when consuming a larger amount of calories after restricting.
Aside from enjoyment and indulgence while still getting results, this is most importantly about mental health too. People need to eat in order to survive, they need to enjoy themselves and indulge once in a while too in order to be happy. There is absolutely no room for feelings of guilt to be associated with eating... but we do need a strategy to make this work in line with our fitness and body composition goals.
I put the idea out on tumblr and the response was so enthusiastic that I went ahead and started a new website, where I'll be writing it all up properly, soon. Check it out: Strategic Gluttony.
