My 2 Day A Week Diet

Our friend who told my hubby and me about this diet called it the Starvation Diet. Well, that is enough to have anyone running to the fridge for some comfort food! Besides I researched it and got info about people eating 5-600 calories a day EVERYDAY! That will KILL YOU! So here it is: The 2 Day A Week Diet Two days a week (usually Tues./Thurs. unless something special is happening, then we do Mon./Wed. - like this week because Thursday is Thanksgiving) - As a woman, those 2 days, I eat 500 calories - As a man, my husband gets to eat 600 calories (Women, I don't really think it would hurt much to add the extra 100 calories, but that is a slippery slope to eating whatever the hell you want!) Basically, if you ONLY eat veggies, you will be stuffed by the end of the day. My husband (Angelo) often doesn't eat all 600 of hits calories. I usually have a fruit which is about 3 times the calories of most veggies so I have to severely limit myself by the end of the day, BUT REMEMBER, this is only 2 days a week! THIS CAN BE DONE! IT IS NOT THAT PAINFUL! If I do have 100 calories left after dinner, I can eat a bag of low fat popcorn. These are the things we are noticing and are changing in our diet: 1) Salad dressing has as much as 200 calories per tablespoon! I usually make my own out of oil, vinegar & mustard but since we started this diet, we are buying fresh made salsa which adds few calories and lots of extra vitamins & minerals. 2) Meat is calorie dense so STOP EATING 3 OR 4 PORTIONS! This was very difficult for my hubby as he was on the Atkins Diet for a few years. (For those of you tempted to try it, you will gain all your weight back and then some once you go off it.) I am not a big fan of meat so this didn't bother me. BUT BE AWARE that if you choose to have meat on the low calorie days, you will probably go to bed hungry. Our friend has a Weight Watchers frozen dinner on his low cal day. We go vegetarian that day as eating all that fiber and whole, natural food helps clean out your belly and intestines and colon. 3) We are being more careful even on our non-diet days. I am joining my husband in eating sugar-free products (like ice cream) and he is joining me in eating more high fiber, whole grains. I think this is what is helping us more than anything. I am so happy that my hubby is not putting himself at risk anymore by eating 3 to 4 portions of meat in every meal. And he is happy that I am not putting myself at risk for diabetes by eating all those sweets. (P.S. I also got him to stop drinking diet sodas - I just kept e-mailing him the articles about how bad they are until he finally gave in. ;->) 4) We are drinking coffee with 1% milk and Splenda when we have the urge for something sweet, esp. on the low cal days. I have done a lot of research and Splenda and Truvia do not have the same issues as the old zero calorie sweeteners. (This I know because the others give me terrible headaches.) 5) BE VERY CAREFUL WHAT YOU BRING INTO THE HOUSE, EVEN IF IT ISN'T THAT BAD IN SMALL QUANTITIES. There are some great sugar-free sweets out there nowadays. We bought some home-made sugar free fudge that was delicious, but even with Angelo skipping two days, he had finished it off in less than a week. I won't be buying that fudge anymore, nor will I be buying tortilla chips. I can eat a few and let it sit in the cupboard (sometimes for too long), but Angelo eats things "so they won't go to waste". ;-) O.K. You have the basics here. My biggest recommendation is to learn to love veggies. Find ways to eat and/or cook them so they taste delicious. I am really starting to appreciate raw veggies. You might even want to look at the raw food diet recipes. If you have questions, post them here. Comments would be very welcome too! All the best to you on your journey to better health!