Moderation is the key to dieting.
One of the questions I get asked most often is how I stay on a ‘diet’ followed up with I just can’t give everything up and stay on a diet. The thing is, giving up everything you like or love is the best way to set yourself up for failure on your ‘diet’. You have to think in terms of moderation; this of course will vary depending on the person, the goal, activity level, and food weaknesses. I feel it is also important to stress that ‘diet’ is more a term for what you eat daily rather than what you are restricting.
The way I recommend approaching a daily diet is to start with reducing the sugars and fats. This simply means switch from regular soda to diet or better yet cut soda altogether, order grilled foods rather than fried, and eat portions that are your palm size (fingers not included…). Once you start with this and are comfortable reduce a bit more. Start with choosing water rather than juice or soda, choose lean cuts of meat or fish, hold the sauce, get salad dressing on the side and eat LOTS of vegetables.
If you start with small steps and then build on that you are more likely to stick with your ‘diet’ and it will just become part of your lifestyle. I feel strongly that if you want to meet your goals you need to find the program that works best for you and make it a lifestyle. If you choose to go the route of moderating portions and altering basic food choices I suggest that you keep a daily food log. If you log what you eat at each meal it keeps you honest and you can look back on the week and see where you may need to make some adjustments.