For the month of January (in the spirit of new year’s resolutions) five Washington Post staff members each took on a different diet to change their eating habits, chronicling their results in 5 Diets, a single resolution to eat better in the new year: Which Will Work.
Joe Yonan, the Food and Dining Editor selected our very own Buddha’s Diet, what he called a “deceptively little book with a catchy title” for his journey. He found (as we suspected he would) that Buddha’s Diet not only brought him weight loss, but wisdom as well. Though the 30-day experiment is over, Joe’s writes “I’m not changing a thing.” Joe has new habits and new discoveries as a result.
Joe’s Eating Discoveries:
- It’s now second nature to finish dinner and stop eating for the day (and feel fine about it).
- After a month on Buddha’s Diet, the reflexive cravings that happened after dinner are gone
- Slowing down to eat comes more naturally. It takes 20 minutes (say studies) for the brain to register fullness. The slow down means Joe reduces the risk of overeating.
- Mornings are less hectic. Instead of rushing to eat, he now as a few moments of stillness, tea drinking and reading.
- Despite outside stressors (an IRS audit for one, to say nothing of current events) he managed to maintain his weight loss from previous weeks and even drop a bit more
- And perhaps more importantly, he’s going to stay on it. When was the last time you heard someone say that about a diet?
For us, the best part of hearing about Joe’s success is not losing weight, but the other things he’s lost – the cravings, the rush to eat, the mindless stress eating. Joe writes “I was looking for a radical shift in perspective, a way to truly break some habits that weren’t doing me (or my waistline) any favors.” It sounds like he’s found it.
