For anyone who has ever spent the time and effort to add up the money they spend on diets in a year, a Poor Man’s diet may be a clear and necessary alternative. Diet pills tend to just mess with your metabolism, and miracle abs machines fall short of their overreaching promises. During my time in Taiwan, I was fortunate enough to run across a Chinese traditional medicine doctor who offered me a simple cure to my weight loss problems. While I came to her seeking acupuncture, herbal tea, or some kind of quick fix pill, she turned me down a different path.
The first step in her plan was a logical one: try to eat more rice and vegetables. The average American consumes five times the meat they are supposed to in a day and not enough vegetables. Keeping this in mind, I piled on the green vegetables I found in abundance in Taiwan and geared up for some more meals of rice. My new diet had an unexpected treat as well: I started to save money on all the meat I was consuming.
Next on the list was to cut out alcohol and drinks that were not water. In its place I was allowed to have green tea and an occasional cup of black coffee devoid of any added sugar or cream. Green tea is know to enhance your metabolism naturally as does coffee. Coffee and green tea are also a source of antioxidants and can be healthy when consumed in moderate quantities. Although as a 21 year old girl, the cut to my alcohol consumption hurt me dearly, I managed to carry it out with surprising results. An extra beer a day average adds around 6,000 calories or almost two pounds to the waist line a month. Without having to do any restrictive diet, I was able to set myself up for success by merely cutting out the liquor in my life.
The toughest step in her diet was exercise. It does not have to be any kind extreme cardiovascular work out or weight regime, just daily walking or yoga sufficed. Any weight bearing exercise was also helpful because building muscle would allow me to burn more calories per day than just aerobic exercise would. A pound of fat burns under 5 calories a day just sitting there while a pound of muscle burns 40-100 calories.
So far my Poor Man’s diet is coming along fine. Although I would prefer to have a miracle pill or potion, I feel healthier as everyday goes by. Currently, my focus in on body shape and physique since the gain in muscle does not always correlate to a drop in body weight, just body fat. Stick to this plan of coffee, green tea, rice, veggies and exercise and get started on your newest diet trend for less!
