Guest Post - Chris from MoneySuperMarket.com

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Diet Boredom – How to Beat the Grind

I’ve been on this diet for about twenty three weeks now. That’s like… nearly half a year.

I’ll be honest, I’m getting a bit bored of it - every night I come home and I cook one of a few different
things, eat it, then I sod off and do some form of exercise.

Pfft, I think. I wish I could have this. I wish I could have that. Then I slump around the house, flinging
my arms around like they don’t have any bones or muscles in them, muttering things about Muller
light like some sort of Harry Enfield teenager that’s not allowed chocolate anymore.

It’s called diet boredom, and it comes to us all. But what can we do to beat it?

Well, there are actually a number of different ways you can do it – I’m going to tell you about what I
do, but please feel free to share your own.

Way number one is very simple: Let yourself have the thing you want. Depending on what it is,
you’ll likely find it doesn’t hurt your diet as much as you reckon – I still allow myself a sausage and
bacon bap once a week on really cold mornings, and so long as you’re well behaved either side of it,
going out for a big meal isn’t the ruinous event you might think it’ll be. Letting yourself having the
thing you want can often reset your appetite – after my sausage bap I’m no longer thinking about all
the “naughty” things I want; I’ve had my moment of devilry, and then I’m right back on the straight
and narrow, sated and determined.

Of course, this might not work for you; allowing yourself a treat might be the gateway to a whole
chocolatey mess of eating – but worry not, there are other things you can do.

I’ve found going to my girlfriend’s house for tea really helps out – her mum’s a great cook, and as
such being handed food you wouldn’t normally eat can really make a difference. My meals are based
around rice, pasta, chicken and peas, so being given stuffed sweet potatoes the other night was
fantastic; it’s not something I would have ever made, and it was absolutely delicious whilst being
pretty healthy (There’s a few syns in the Crème Fraiche and the Chilli Sauce, but not many) – It just
helps to break the monotony of eating the same things week in, week out. I’m not suggesting you
all pile round to my girlfriend’s mum’s, by the way, I’m just saying that if you can find someone else
who’s on a diet who’s prepared to chuck some stuff in a pan for you, you’d be amazed at some of
the great food you can eat and still stay on plan.

Of course, there’s always the other option: Allow yourself to go a little bit mad one week, and damn
whatever the scales say next week. If you’re someone like me who has lost 6 stone and the rest
(6 stone 4 now, thanks), then on an overall graph of your weightloss, one bad week is barely even
going to register – again, just so long as you get back on the diet horse afterwards…

Think about your diet objectively; if you’re normally eating 1500 calories a day, but one day you
crack and have, say, 1800, then over a week that’s a grand total of 10800, compared to 10500 – and
when you consider that there’s around 3500 calories in around a pound of weight, those extra few
calories barely even register.

So basically, what I’m saying is: Don’t be afraid to be a little bit naughty every now and then – we all
have our weaknesses, learn to accept them (but also to control them) and you’ll be fine…

Chris works for moneysupermarket.com as a life insurance blogger. As a result
of this, he’s always telling folks to get fit. After a long time of doing this he decided to start taking his
advice, and now he’s proud to purge his diet gland over the pages of WAMK.