Five Things To Consider Before Changing Your Diet

Based on my recent experiment with fasting and my current experiment with the primal blueprint, I’ve come up with a few guidelines for myself.  These are things you should consider before changing the way you eat.  I think anyone considering a new diet or eating plan should answer these questions before they make a decision.

Understanding

Do you know what the heck this new eating plan means?  I’m serious here folks.  All too often I hear of people trying out new foods and new ways of eating without really understanding what they’re doing.  I’m not saying that you need to understand all the little details of nutrition.  I’m saying, do you even understand what this diet means?  Do you know what foods fit into the Mediterranean diet?  Do you understand what are good sources of fat?  Do you know what’s a good source of protein if you’re going vegetarian?  When you say vegetarian, do you mean you’ll eat eggs, dairy or fish?  If you’re going on a low carb diet, what meats are you going to eat and what plants are you going to exclude?  You can’t just say “I’m going to follow such and such diet” without understanding what that diet means.

Long Term

Can you sustain this change long term?  If the answer is no, then don’t bother.  Temporary changes lead to temporary results.  If you’re looking for permanent changes then you should find an eating plan that you can maintain for the rest of your life.  Also remember that making small changes is easier than big.  So if you have a brand new eating plan you want to adopt, you may want to make gradual changes, adopting new habits one at a time without trying for the big bang approach.

For example, I’m still struggling with caffeine but I’m making great progress with lowering my intake of processed sugars and carbs.  So while I may want to adhere to the Primal Blueprint 100%, I’m going to focus on lowering sugars first and then wrestle with my caffeine habit.  One things at a time…

Social Circle

Does this eating plan fit in with your social activity?  Interestingly enough, the main stumbling block to most of my eating plan experiments has been my social life.  Friends want to go out and they’d like to get something to eat.  Very frequently that means going to restaurants which do not serve foods which fall into my eating plan.  So my choices are either to not go out or to not eat while those around me do.  Neither choice is sustainable in the long term.

Fasting for me was almost impossible since many of my social activities revolve around eating.

Price

Can you wallet keep up with your new foods?  If you switched to all organics without finding a cheaper market than Whole Foods, you’re in trouble.  The average meal at Whole Foods will cost you three to four times the average meal at a generic supermarket.  So make sure you find a cheap source of food or make other adjustments to compensate.

This was a big problem for me with going organic until I discovered the farmer’s market and cooking at home.

Choices

Does your new cuisine offer enough choices that you won’t get bored?  If the only thing you’re ever going to eat for the rest of your life is eggs, that’s not a very good plan.  Trust me, eating the same thing over and over gets boring really fast.  Make sure that you have enough options before you start your new eating plan, not after.

I had some issues initially with the Primal Blueprint over this problem since I couldn’t figure out interesting things to eat that didn’t involve a lot of processed sugars and carbs.  Eventually, I resolved this, but it would have been easier had I planned better earlier.

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Hope these rules help you out in whatever new eating plan you embark on.