This is all well and good, but where do the dice come in? My problem with dieting has always been psychological. If you know, without a doubt, that tomorrow is going to be the same slog as today in regards to how much you can eat...it is easy to get frustrated. So, I figured out a way around that frustration.
The Diet Dice work like this, every morning I wake up and roll the dice. I bought a green dice and a blue dice to represent my food intake and water intake, respectively. I set up the entire thing in 30 day cycles and these are the rules. I can't roll the same number on either dice twice in a row (I learned this the hard way) and I can only have 5 occurrences of each number per thirty day cycle. I made a little spread sheet to keep track of all this and it has been very helpful.
Here are what the number results mean:
Food Die:
1= 500 Calories
2= 1000 Calories
3= 1500 Calories (Most fad diets aim about here or lower per daily intake)
4= 2000 (this is the minimum most humans should eat to stay alive)
5= 2500
6= Go crazy, eat what you want.
Water Die:
1= Nothing but water all day
2= Mostly water, allow yourself one half cup of soda as a "snack"
3= Water at meals, soda in between
4= Soda at meals, water in between
5= Mostly soda, have a little water if you want (and you will)
6= All Soda
As you can see, the permutations are varied.
I included a water die to help cut down on the amount of soda I drink. On bad days, I can kill a two liter of Dr. Pepper like nobody's business. The water die has made me appreciate water and just how thirst quenching it is compared with soda. The other nice balance is that, on low calorie days, you don't want to waste your calories with soda. On days where I roll high for soda and low for calories, I turn to Zero sodas like Coke Zero or Diet Dr. Pepper. Both of which taste good to me. Of course, there are some days I don't even care to drink soda now even when I roll high. I am fine "cheating" on my dice as long it is in the healthy direction.
The other trick is to buy your own groceries and keep track of the calories on the food labels. This is getting easier and easier to do. Likewise, most fast food places have nutritional guides online to check. Also, take a daily vitamin because (if you are like me) you will use your calories on crap.
I will give you a for example from today. I rolled a 5 on the food die and a 1 on the water die. I have been drinking nothing but water all day. With a five, I can go kind of nuts with the fatty foods (this caloric amount is slightly over what I would need to lose weight). I ate a Jimmy Dean Sausage, Egg and Cheese Croissant with a Special K granola bar (chocolate and pretzel) for breakfast. That meal was worth 510 calories. Due to me being an idiot, I accidentally drank half a cup of Orange Juice with it and boosted the meal up to 620 calories. I know every piece of gum I chew has 5 calories but I try not to worry about that. Just living you burn that off in a day. For lunch, I had a Burger King Tendergrill Chicken sandwich, add bacon and cheese. That was worth about 560 calories. Notice, no fries or anything. I am up to 1180 for the day, leaving me 1320 for dinner. I had a single baconater from Wendy's with a medium fry and two packs of ketchup. Then, for desert, I had 67 reese's pieces.
By the way, Reese's pieces are great for counting calories. They are about 4 calories per piece. So, if you have some calories left over after your meals, divide them by four, pick out your pieces and munch away.
Notice that my meals today are all pretty much crap. No fruits or veggies here. Granted, today was a high calorie day but let's look at yesterday. I rolled 1 on my food die and a 4 on my water die. With only 500 calories to eat, I try to make it as far through the day as I can before eating. Then, in one early afternoon meal, I ate a Dagwood style sandwich made with 2 slices of Natures Own wheat bread (50 cals each), a slice of velveeta cheese (60 cals), 6 slices of Oscar Mayer Deli style mesquite turkey (50 cals for all six slices combined), 6 slices of Oscar Meyer Virginia Ham (again, 50 calories for the 6 slices combined), mustard (calories free, or so small so as to be negligible) and salt and pepper. So, this one sandwich was a little over half my calories for the day. I joined that with a Nabisco 100 Calorie snack pack of yogurt covered Pretzels and 14 Pringle's Blazing Buffalo flavored chips. Pringle's is another brand I highly recommend as their chips are easy to count and usually worth 10 calories each. The beverage of choice was Diet Dr. Pepper and the meal was delicious. I spent not a dime on food yesterday either (but dropped a bit today).
As you can see, I haven't compromised my taste in food. And, this is the most important point, I don't dread tomorrow because I could end up with a six on the food die or a one, there is no point worrying about it. I just take it as it comes. The beauty here is that I know I will get five days out of these 30 to eat whatever my greedy heart desires. The cool thing is, after your stomach has shrunk from low calorie days, you really can't eat too much even on your crazy days. The only other cheating I do is when I know I have a day coming up where I can't control my food (like a cookout or going out to eat with a friend at a place without calorie counts), I go ahead and sacrifice a 6 day. I know I will be eating less the next day (due to the "no number can be repeated immediately" rule) and that is marked against my tally of 6's for the cycle.
You mathematically minded folks may have figured out by now that there is no guarantee (even without repetition) that I will roll a 4 five different times in 30 days. During my first cycle (where I experimented with all this), I ended up having to out all my unused numbers in a row at the end. The "no repeating" rule came about to try and keep that to a minimum. I will let you know when I finish this cycle if it worked.
Of course, who knows if any of this is working? Some days, I feel slimmer and other days, bloated and gross. At the end of this second 30 day cycle, I will weigh myself to see if any good has come of this two month diet.
If it hasn't (and I wouldn't be surprised), I am going to initiate Phase 2 of the Diabolical Diet Dice, which I will outline here soon.
Josh
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