Sooner or later you're going to get sick of eating the same old thing over and over again. Now, most guys will fall off their diet right here.
They just won't eat or they will just eat junk and continue to tell everyone “Yeah, I gotta get back on it!”
Well, I go through this myself, but I don't stop eating and I don't eat junk.
I just throw in some things that I wouldn't normally eat if I was dieting strictly:
- Cottage cheese
- Avocados
- Whole grain toast with natural peanut butter (with breakfast and before bed)
- Greek yogurt
- Milk
- Cheese omelette (instead of scrambled eggs)
- Corn Flakes
- Lean pockets
- Graham crackers (usually with post workout meal)
- Instant grits, flavored packets (3 packs at a time)
- Tofu meals
- Potato wedges (recipe; cut up a bunch of potatoes into wedges and put in glass Pyrex dish, cover with olive oil, then sprinkle onion soup mix on top, 1-2 packets of dry soup mix, cook 425 degrees for 40-50 min). They are slammin'!
- Sweet potato french fries
- Mixed nuts/flavored almonds/cashews
- Replace protein shakes with bars instead
- Shrimp
- Kiwi/melon
- Seasoned pork chops
- Deli style sliced turkey
And probably a bunch of other things I just cannot think of right now. Basically I'm eating things that I don't need to cook as much. I'm still eating, but these food choices just give me a little break until I'm ready to go back at it full swing.
When dieting strictly everyone's diet is basically similar; proteins consist of mostly chicken/fish/lean red meat, carbs come mostly from oats, rice, potatoes. I don't care who you are, it's going to get old. Every so often we need a break, and like I stated above a break doesn't need to be a junk binge. You can get just a “little dirty” but still be eating predominately healthy.
For example, here is a typical days strict diet:
Meal 1 – 4 scrambled eggs, 1/5 cup oats
Meal 2 – 50 gram whey shake in water, 1 cup rice, 1 cup broccoli
Meal 3 – 8 oz chicken, fish, or steak, 1 cup rice
Meal 4 – same as meal 3
Meal 5 – same as meal 3, but replace rice with 1 cup oats, 2 cups broccoli
HERE IS THE REPLACEMENT DIET, and mental break (4 week diet)
Meal 1 – 4 egg omelette with cheese, 1 big bowl of corn flakes (or 2 pieces toast with peanut butter)
Meal 2 – 2 servings cottage cheese, couple handfuls of cashews
Meal 3 – turkey sandwich on wheat, fruit
Meal 4 – protein shake blended with banana, natural peanut butter, 1 cup oats, serving of low sugar chocolate Nesquik, drop of half and half cream
Meal 5 – sweet potato french fries, 1/2 lb burger with cheese
Meal 6 – 2 pieces whole wheat toast with natural peanut butter
As you see there, we still have some sort of nutritional value, but a little more variety and flavor. I like to take small breaks for a few weeks where I switch over to something like this. Also, your body becomes used to diet food when you do it for too long. It stops reacting the same way, and the changes come slower. When you're eating diet food 24/7 it's hard to adjust to anything else. Often a small break with the latter diet layout is just what you need! You don't need to go to McDonalds, quit cooking altogether, or completely fall off. Just throw in something a little different, and if you can't think of what then use my food list!
Train hard.