OyChicago blog

There is a perfect diet.  It will help you fit into your skinny jeans, and help you gain muscle.  It works for everyone.  This magical meal planning will help you feel energetic, sleep soundly, gain muscle and drop fat.  You can either hire me to tell you this secret, or just keep reading.

My guess, you are still reading.  I would too, this is a steal.  Many fitness experts and doctors will not want me to share this with you, but I’m doing it anyway.  I can handle the scrutiny.

The perfect diet has nothing to do with Atkins, South Beach, or San Diego.  The diet that works best for you, is different than the diet that will work best for me, or anyone else for that matter, because it has to do with your own unique DNA.  A low-carb diet work may work well for some people, others may end up eating too much protein and fat, feel like crap, raise their cholesterol and end up with liver problems.  Giving up refined sugar works can work for many people, but not over the long haul, because at some point you’re going to find that cookie irresistible.

Finding the best foods to eat starts with tracking— write down what you eat.  Also, write down how you feel—tired, nauseous, energetic…  You have to make sure you write down everything you eat, even if it’s just one peanut m&m at four in the afternoon.  Why?  You are looking for patterns:

• Do you feel tired after meals?
• Do you eat too much sugar in the afternoons (i.e. mini-snickers and twix)?
• Do you drink too much soda?
• Do you eat enough fruits and vegetables?
• Do certain combinations of food bother your stomach (sometimes fruit after a heavy meal makes people gassy)?
• Do you eat too many empty calories (i.e. pretzels, rice cakes, dry cereal, chips)?
• Do you eat enough protein?

I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.  To help you in your journaling, you can use a Blackberry or other application on your smart phone to get calorie and nutritional information.  The only way to improve your diet is to truly understand what you’re eating.

Once you have a month of data you can start to really analyze trends and make changes slowly.  Many yo-yo dieters make drastic changes and then once they drop a few pounds, they fall back into old habits.

Speaking of nutritional information, do you know that a chopped salad at Corner Bakery Salad contains over 60 grams of fat, and most Au Bon Pain sandwiches contain over 1200 milligrams of salt?  Eating out is no easy task these days.  Many of my clients had no idea how often they ate out, till they started logging their food.  My dad once told me, “I’m eating rabbit food everyday for lunch, and I’ve lost no weight.”  I asked him to bring me home the dressing he put on his “rabbit food.”  He was adding 26 grams of fat to his salad!

I’m not saying you should stop eating out, just be an informed customer.  Check out the nutritional information before you eat instead of after.  Almost every chain has information on-line.

So, start logging your food for 30 days and see how you do—  if you want to, you can email me your log and I’ll evaluate it.  Good luck!