In this section, I will explain which food items you must include in your diet and which ones you must reduce or, better still, completely eliminate. In identifying these items, we will be making great use of the 80/20 rule we have already discussed.
Now, the first thing we must understand is that it’s important for your body to receive its daily nutritional requirements.
Hence, although you might decide to cut down on a few food items, you must absolutely make sure that you give your body the necessary vitamins and minerals it needs to remain healthy.
Let’s use the 80/20 rule and decide to eliminate that 20% food from our overall diet that will help in 80% reduction of your weight. Let this sink-in: if you want a healthy body, you need to concentrate on reducing or completely eliminating the following items from your diet …
The 20% of foods that are 80% responsible for your weight problems are …
Your initial reaction to that short list might cause you to think you won’t be able to see this plan through, but stick with me here because we have a cunning plan.
Firstly, it’s not complicated is it? It is also not a lot to remember. But this is powerful because if you can just work on cutting down or eliminating these foods from your diet, you will have no problems with weight at all.
Foods that contain added sugar and refined flour, quite simply, are nutrient-poor. Foods that contain whole grains, fruits, vegetables and legumes are rich in vitamins, minerals and fibre (fiber). So avoid foods containing these things - especially cakes, pastries, biscuits etc – which contain both!
Salt itself does not cause you to gain or lose fat because salt has no calories. However, a diet that is high in salt will likely affect both your blood pressure and your weight. Why? Because high levels of salt in the modern diet usually come from processed foods which are also usually high in calories. So stick to a low- salt diet, because it will most probably consist of lower calorie, healthier foods.
Now then – alcohol! A friend of mine, who was clinically obese, completely solved his weight problem just by – guess what?
Simply by giving up alcohol!
Here’s something that will probably surprise you: what is usually referred to as a beer-belly is NOT caused by excess alcohol calories being stored as fat! It turns out that less than five percent of the alcohol calories we consume are turned into fat. The main effect of drinking alcohol is a reduction in the amount of fat our bodies burn-off as energy.
So we need to work on reducing or eliminating this stuff from our diet! Now I understand that these items may be part of your daily diet and you can’t even imagine doing without them. The trick is not to cut down or eliminate them in one go, but instead proceed slowly.
So, now let the message of this book sink in. There are just those 4 food groups to remember. That’s the 80/20 law! You will probably not need to reduce all of them; and you do not need to completely eliminate – just cut-down! OK, that said, let’s consider how to do it.
How to Cut-Down
Let’s take sugar as an example.
If you’ve been eating sugar (in any of its forms) since childhood, it’s nearly impossible to stop eating it - tomorrow! What you have to do is cut down your daily sugar intake by small amounts. For example, if you take a total of 5 cups of sugary drinks per day (tea, coffee, sodas etc) you could begin by moving that total down to, say 4 or even 3 cups. That way, you won’t feel the ‘pain’ of having to do without it and still be able to control yourself. After a couple of weeks, you can cut it down to just 2 cups.
Better still, try to learn to take those drinks without sugar or perhaps try replacing them (or some of them) with herbal drinks that do not contain sugar. Just cut-down; you don’t need to cut them out completely.
The goal is to make small changes that will bring in huge results – that’s the 80/20 principle at work - and that’s how you have to proceed. We’re not cutting out everything. Rather, we’re cutting out, or down, on only that small number of items that are responsible for generating a lot of fat in the body - or obstruct it from burning body fat.
But your body is probably quite used to taking in a lot of those items each week. So how do you teach it to live without them in such a short period of time? Well, here’s what I suggest:
Eat anything you want every 5th day!
Yes, I really did say that – and I think I’ll say it again for effect because that’s the power of the Pareto Diet: eat anything you want every 5th day!
Obviously, you shouldn’t consume anything that is harmful and you shouldn’t eat or drink anything that your doctor or physician has advised against – such advice must always come first.
But, otherwise, every 5th day, I am suggesting that you eat whatever food you want! You could eat chocolate or drink coffee or maybe beer or eat cakes or pasta – just about anything. This will fulfill your body’s need to eat what it likes while still keeping your weight under control.
This approach will shake-up your body and keep you on-track to losing that excess weight even though you’re eating pretty- much whatever you like on that one day. Again this is the 80/20 law coming into play – you will be eating healthily for 80% of the time; and allowing yourself 20% of the time (1 day in every 5 to have a break from your regime.
This will keep you interested in this lifestyle change permanently. If you have a special occasion coming up - that means you will be eating and/or drinking some of the items we listed - that’s ok, just don’t do it more than once in every 5 day period.
That’s also why eating out should be avoided – for 80% of the time anyway! Quite simply, food at many restaurants is often not as healthy as homemade food; often containing high-salt, processed ingredients. And in addition, you may decide to have a dessert course (even if you are not hungry) which is full of flour and sugar. And furthermore, you will probably consume some alcohol too! This, of course will result in increasing the fat in your body.
Four days out of every five, try hard to reduce just those four things and you will find that Pareto’s Principle will work for you. On those four days, make eating healthy food your top priority in your diet. You don’t need to starve yourself when you go on a diet. All you have to do is cut-down on just the right food items so that you get the best results in the shortest amount of time.