Eating Outside The Box.

So often our daily menus are repetitive and predictable. We eat certain foods for breakfast: eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, cereal. Lunch is often fast food, cafeteria meals, or sandwiches. Dinner consists of either microwaved ethnic specialties or the more traditional protein entrée, some kind of potatoes, a helping of vegetables, possibly soup or salad, topped off with a sweet dessert. Even when we go out for dinner, the routine is similar although the choices may have more variety.

Try shaking up your standard routine to inject some novelty into your life and to totally confuse your body. Keeping your digestive system in a state of confusion may lessen its efficiency and prevent it from noticing that you're losing weight, thereby bypassing its usual goal of maintaining your fat stores at all costs.

Have eggs for dinner. Skip the dripping fats of bacon and sausage in favor of a vegetable omelet. If you enjoy chicken or seafood for dinner, try them in the early morning with fruit and cottage cheese. Lose the fast food and sandwiches at lunch and have a bowl of cereal with yogurt or a helping of appetizers. Totally break out of the mold by trading in the pizzas for rice bowls, the pasta for sushi, burgers for noodle soup, and French fries for a plain baked potato.

Eliminate desserts from every meal by topping off your repast with a totally different flavor that will not encourage your sweet tooth to take control. Try coleslaw as a crispy final course, a handful of sweet cherry tomatoes, a few ounces of nuts or sunflower seeds, or a crisp sour pickle and you'll find them strangely satisfying and pleasant.