This guest post is part of our New Year, New Approach feature to kick off 2011 with a renewed passion for healthy eating.

Over the next few days Estela Schnelle will describe three ways you can adopt a more mindful approach to eating with her Concrete Steps for Letting Go of Diets:

1. Part One - Stop counting calories
2. Part Two - Let go of the ‘Cheat Day’
3. Part Three - Define what ‘Normal Eating’ means to you  

There are thousands of diets that have a “cheat day”. We are supposed to follow rigid guidelines all week and then have that one-day where we can eat whatever we want. What this can do is eventually lead to an all out binge day (trust me, I’ve been there). We feel we have to eat everything we can’t have during the week on that one-day.

This leads to a last supper mentality where we think to ourselves “tomorrow I’ll start over again”. The problem is that this can mentally spread to days other than our cheat day. If we go off our diet, it’s so easy to just call it a cheat day… which leads to a full on binge, which leads us back to the thinking “tomorrow I’ll start over again”. Another common way of thinking is to eat healthy all week and “splurge” on the weekends.

Don’t get me wrong…I enjoy a good splurge every now and again…it’s the quantity of the splurge that matters. Eating healthy during the week and allowing ourselves to eat out more on the weekend is perfectly healthy, but we need to watch the amount of food we splurge on. We still need to listen to our bodies, listen to our hunger, eat food we truly love, and stop eating when we’ve had enough. Remember, it’s all about the portion sizes. If it tastes so good you want to keep on eating, keep in mind that you can take the rest home to enjoy the next day.

How to Splurge the Right Way
Be realistic in terms of the calorie content of your food. I’m not going to encourage full on calorie counting, but think of calories in a very loose and realistic way. If we order a dish of fettuccine alfredo, we know that dish has 1,600+ calories. Adding the bread, salad, and wine can put it way over a 2,000-calorie dinner.

Have a game plan and assess the menu before you order.

If you really want the fettuccine, you can pass on the bread and/or wine, or, you can order it all and have a small taste of everything, but in reality, you’re not eating much food at all. It’s the amount of food we eat that matters the most.

Never Deprive Yourself
If we let ourselves eat the foods we love whenever we want, we don’t need to designate a day to enjoy them. Eighty percent of your diet should be healthy, and 20 percent is whatever else you want (healthy or not). As long as you are honoring your body, eating when you are truly hungry, and being mindful of your portion sizes, you can easily reach and maintain your healthy weight all while allowing daily “cheats.”

Do you think you can let go of the cheat day and start incorporating foods you love into your diet in moderation? I’d love to hear from you!
Tomorrow we’ll cover the third concrete step to mindful eating and work on our own definition of normal eating.

Part One - Stop counting calories

Estela Schnelle is a registered dietitian and stay-at-home mom. She shares recipes, nutrition tips and her adventures in mommyhood on her blog, WeeklyBite.com.

Find related posts on Twitter by searching #NYNA.