Simple Diet Plan Anyone Can Follow

Me and a colleague started out this simple diet plan about 3 weeks ago. It may sound extreme to some, but honestly, I thought it was OK and we have both been doing it religiously and the results speak for themselves. OK not to worry, I am not going to share the cabbage soup diet here, coz I personally think that is crap. You'd be better of doing the tree diet (I will share this diet with all of you some other time)

So here is what we did.

For breakfast (Mon – Fri) we only eat sandwiches. You can choose… be it an egg sandwich or tuna sandwich or peanut butter sandwich…. Its up to you. Just bear in mind that you need to stay away from Mayo, jam and cheese. Besides that, I think anything you normally put on a sandwich is good stuff.

Lunch – Here is where many may feel is a bit extreme, but again, I beg to differ. Since our office is in Brickfields and we have an abundant amount of Indian restaurants, we decided to try this. Eat chapatti and Taufu sambal for lunch…. Everyday. With the chappati, you will normally get a free curry which is a vegetarian curry. My favourite is this dhal curry they make… high in protein, fat free and tastes good. Other days its vegetarian kurma, potato curry, cauliflower curry. Good thing is, the curry varies everyday… only the taufu sambal is a constant with both of us. Due to my rigorous lifting routine, I do my best to pack in as much protein as I can. So I eat 2 chappati’s and 2 plates of taufu sambal along with whatever vegetarian curry they serve for that day. If it's potato, I do my best not to eat too much potato… since its unwanted carbs. If its vege, well I just eat as much as I want.

Dinner – I try to stay sensibly healthy with this but not overly healthy. Usually it’s a tortilla wrap kind thing, roast meat sandwich, home made burgers, pasta or on lazy days – Chicken Cornish from Secret Recipe. No pizza or fast food. That’s the only rule I have. Besides that, just about anything goes. If its going to be very unhealthy, then i try to keep the portions small.

Now since we started this diet 3 weeks ago, I have lost 4kg. I just weighed myself this morning in the gym. My abdominals looks a lot trimmer now and even my arms and chest have more definition…. All in all, it’s great. Is the diet boring? Honestly I don’t feel that way and neither does my colleague. The vegetarian curry in the restaurant (which varies everyday) is really nice so we really look forward to it. Of course if I did continue this for another 2 or 3 months, I probably would get sick of it, but hey, if I can keep it up for that long, I figure that’s pretty good already. Down side is, I feel like my strength in the gym has gone down a little – maybe by about 10%. I can lift the same weights, but just not the same number of reps as i used to. So if you are a weightlifter, this diet will take a small toll on your strength. If you just want to lose weight, then it will work miracles. In short, i guess i need to balance this diet out with some meat occasionally so i keep the additional fat off, while maintaining my strength.

Weekends – as mentioned before, I am not a big eater over the weekends… so I am safe there. Usually have a tiny breakfast, small lunch and if I do indulge, its only for dinner… but even then, its not all the time and only happens if I meet friends in TGIF or something. Otherwise, dinner is also kept pretty small. If you are one who likes to eat a lot during the weekend, you might want to watch that to ensure you see results as well. Cut down slowly and cut down where you can.

Why did we choose taufu? Simple, it’s a good source of protein, its cheap and fat free. Chicken and other animal based protein does contain some amount of fat, hence why we chose taufu. Chappati, because its made out of whole wheat flour which is complex carbs.

What’s next? Surprisingly our silly stunt has drawn some attention, and now more and more people want to follow us for lunch to try it out. Now we have about 4 people who follow us daily for lunch. Who would have guessed. I eat 2 chapattis and 2 plates of taufu because of my workout routine…of course you may vary this depending on your own nutritional needs. If you are a small eater, reduce it. If you are into gaining size, increase it.

So the plan is simple… healthy breakfast, healthy lunch and a reasonably healthy dinner 5 times a week and try your best to keep your weekend food intake to a moderate level… and your clothes will start feeling a lot looser and you will love checking yourself out more often in the mirror. Try it out and see. As usual, I look forward to hearing your comments and any other suggestions you may have.