Dieting and The Littles

When a person goes on a diet or makes a lifestyle change, such as a low-carb diet, there may be slip-ups, inadvertent cheating, or blatant cheating. It happens to the best of us. You may be at someone else’s house and you have no choice but to eat something that you know you shouldn’t. You may have a stressful day, throw caution to the wind, and eat something you shouldn’t. It happens.

In many cases these cheats are often done a little at a time. Here and there. I believe if someone is on a low-carb diet that they really are trying…but then little cheats occur. Which is why I coined the term, the littles.

Often times when I’m working with a client they tell me how healthy they eat…but they had a hand-full of M&M’s, and there was that one glazed doughnut, and then there was that half of a slice of cake–not a full slice, only a half of a slice–and come to think of it there was that one cookie. Only one.

As you see the littles added up to something big. Several small cheats can equal one big cheat. That is why I use the term the littles when talking to people about diet. A person may eat healthy most of the time, but then there’s a little cheat here and a little cheat there. Maybe it’s only one cheat a day, or maybe one cheat a week. That could be enough, just enough to make them plateau, or even cause a few pounds increase on the scale.

Sometimes the littles can be inconspicuous. The person wonders why they hit a plateau. The littles can be something as small as licking the knife or spoon when making a family member (not on the diet) a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

It’s good to be aware of the littles. The littles can be sneaky or in your face. But a little cheating here, a little cheating there, the littles can interfere with weight loss, blood sugar, energy, and adrenaline dominance symptoms such as ADD.

by John Connor, CNC