The Happiness Diet

Seth Godin said that you can never ever, not in your wildest dreams, expect to be successful if you publish a diet book that just plainly tells people to eat less. No one will buy it and I think he is right.

I know I wouldn’t be happy to spend my money on a book like that – but I do have an extensive library of just about every popular diet book ever sold. I am shamelessly seduced by the flagrant promises of speedy weight loss and having Zero body fat on only 5 minutes of exercise a day and a diet that is so complicated that you give up reading after chapter 2. In fact, in some instances I can’t even figure out where the diet is actually laid out eg: for breakfast eat this, for lunch eat that….

Needless to say there are probably a multitude of very rich writers / dieticians around.

Lots of people have heard me banging on for quite a while now about the Happiness Diet. And, as I took heed of Seth’s advice, a while ago I gave up writing the book that would cover all aspects of food and dieting, the way you would be turned into a slim trim person, rippling with muscles, six packs and good health. Firstly it has all been done before and secondly no-one would buy it!

After my blog posting about my NYR’s, especially the one where I mentioned diet and food, some people contacted me to ask what had happened to the Happiness Diet as they were keen to do it…. So here is a bit about it – if you want more please let me know and I will send info to you.

The Happiness Diet:

After that grotty little intro you may well ask what is the Happiness Diet? Well, this is the diet that will never sell a million books…. It’s the one that says EAT anything you like, but EAT MUCH LESS food and eat the RIGHT STUFF.

Depending on your age, gender, height, build, activity level you only need so much food to keep going – and we all (well at least 90% of us) eat far too much. Think huge steaks weighing in at 400 – 500 grams, giant muffins which I am told are equivalent to 7 slices of bread, huge portions of chips, bread and potatoes at the same meal, enormous breakfasts with lashings of bacon, sausage, toast, tomatoes, eggs…..you get the picture! We seriously eat too much. If you were to work out the amount of calories in just one meal in a restaurant, you are probably eating your whole daily calorie allowance.

And how do you lose weight….well if you typically eat one lemon meringue pie (like the one from Mugg & Bean) every week, and then only eat half a LMP per week, you will lose weight. Similarly, if you eat 5kgs of potatoes each week and cut this down to 2.5kgs, you will lose weight. Why….because you are eating less.

Remember that cutesy little saying: “A moment on the lips is a lifetime on the hips” – well, that really nice feeling you get when you are eating something nice really does only last a moment. And here’s another one for you: “lots of nice little white rolls (as in bread) makes lots of nice little pink rolls” *grin*

The Happiness Diet says you can still eat just about anything and everything but you must just eat less…. Buy yourself a smaller plate, actually eyeball the size of how much a recommended serving of cornflakes actually is, don’t go back for seconds, only have one potato, cut the fat off the meat, and get used to eating nice fresh bread without butter…. Cut down the amount you eat – EAT LESS FOOD. And then try, as much as possible, to eat food that is GOOD FOR YOU. Eat the stuff that is packed with vitamins and minerals, all the goodies you need to stay healthy and watch the size of the portions.

So, that’s the Happiness diet – good luck. There are no quick fixes or magic potions I am afraid.

If you would like more information on portions sizes, calorie requirements, how to work out foods choices, how much of what you should be eating every day, Happiness treats (this is a new take on snacking) and if you can drink alcohol and so on, then drop me an email.