Are you ready to turn off your taps?

When looking at starting a diet so many of us can go around it the “wrong way”. We start to focus on particular food groups or substances within the entire umbrella of our food intake rather than taking the easiest step first.

A high percentage of people who are looking at losing a little weight will normally do so due to an illness or risk of health. Now this can be anything from diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol to things like a bad back or poor mental health. These are all “illnesses” that can come from being overweight.

There is so much information going around about what you should and shouldn’t cut out of your diet with no real clear definite answer due to many articles contradicting themselves. Should we cut sugar, leave out bread or maybe even stop eating meat. I am just as confused as most.

However, there is something that you can do which will help.

Let me put it this way… If you walked into your kitchen and the sink was overflowing, I would like to think that you wouldn’t go straight for the mops and buckets and instead go to the source, turn the tap off then access what is needed next. Grab the mops and towels and clear up the rest of the spillage.

Ok, so how to I relate this into dieting?

Lets call the overflowing sink your overall calories and the water on the floor your “illnesses”. Instead of trying fix the small variables first you should look at reducing the overall calories being taken on board as in turn this will automatically reduce the thing that you are in need to reduce. The reason we are overweight is not down to a low metabolism but is because we have been overconsuming calories over a prolonged amount of time and its time this is understood.

So reducing calories will at first reduce your weight and body fat which will also help (not necessarily cure) your issues that were the reason for the start of your diet. When you have reduced your calories and you have a plan in place it is then when you can “grab the mops and buckets” and take a little look into the smaller, more intricate parts of your food intake such as reducing sugar or fats.

Let me put it in a more statistical version…..

Lets say you are currently consuming 3,000 calories a day and from that your sugar intake is at 60g. If you didn’t change what you were eating, but instead just reduced the portion size by 33% you could reduce that sugar content down to 40g (and calories to 2,000) without having to spend much time or effort in picking different foods or making some exquisite food plan of food you do not enjoy.

Do not make your diet journey more difficult than it needs to be by ignoring the blatant issues that are at hand.