Learning the “three R’s” of weight loss has taught me the secrets to small, sustainable dietary changes which have been instrumental in my losing 150 pounds (and counting) over the last two years.

If you’re as old as I am, you grew up learning the “three R’s” of education: reading, writing, and arithmetic.   Personally, I always held a small grudge against an educational system which promoted a “three R” tool that featured only one R word, and I was especially irritated by anyone who tried to squeeze a second R in there by claiming ‘rithmatic was a word.

That disdain, however, led me to make certain of two things in any “three R” system I designed.  First, of course, my three R’s of weight loss are an effective method of making small changes to your diet which will help you lose weight and keep it off.  And second?  My system features only R words.  In fact, because of my childhood trauma, I’m throwing in a bonus 4^th R word at the end, the origin of which is largely responsible for my naming this blog “Lighten Up.” 

In order to apply the three R’s of weight loss to parts of your diet, it’s first necessary to identify those foods you eat which are the best candidates for change. My previous blog entry gives you the basics on how to accomplish this.  Assuming you’ve got a handle on it, let’s begin.

Three R’s of Weight Loss #1 – Remove

The first question to ask about any unhealthy food is simple: can I remove it from my diet?  Before you answer too quickly, let me rephrase.  Ask instead: can I PERMANENTLY remove it from my diet?  The goal with making small, long-term changes is not to test the strength of your will power by determining for how long you can depriving yourself of a particular food.  We call that dieting.  And we all know dieting has a long-term failure rate of right around 100%.

So when we’re talking about removal, we’re not looking for you to be a hero.  This is simply to identify those foods which you can, without pain or regret, eliminate from your diet, most likely because because you have no emotional connection to them and primarily eat them out of habit.

There might not be many, or any, foods that will initially succumb to the “remove” filter … and that’s fine.  But this is always the first step.  Remember, if at any point you find yourself asking “how much longer do I have to go without this?” you’ve unintentionally walked yourself into a state of deprivation/diet.  Allow yourself to start eating that food again at once.  Time to try other things.

Three R’s of Weight Loss #2 – Replace

This second R is where a lot of the work gets done.  And it is also why, rather than advocate a specific diet for everyone to follow, I instead lay out a philosophy so that people can build their own individual weight loss programs.

To replace is where you take an unhealthy item and replace it with a healthier alternative.  Again, the concern here is you’re looking to avoid anything that feels like deprivation, and instead focus only on those changes that you believe you can accept as permanent substitutions.

These changes will take place on a sliding scale, as everyone will land somewhere different.  For example perhaps you are a whole milk drinker and have identified that as something you’d like to change. You might try low fat, or skim milk as substitutions.  Or perhaps almond milk if you wanted to take it a step further. It all depends on what you’re comfortable with.

There’s a lot of trial and error in the replace category.  The most important factor is to give yourself time: time to try new things, time to make mistakes, and time to acclimate to changes.

Once you successfully hit on a replacement food, you’ll know it.  After a few weeks you’ll find you no longer miss the old food nor really notice any difference.  That’s the standard for which you’re striving.

Three R’s of Weight Loss #3 – Reduce

Sometimes, you’ll try several replacements for a food but still find that despite your best efforts, none of them really satisfy you.  While you COULD tolerate one of the replacements in the short-term, if you’re being honest with yourself, you know eventually you’d go running back to the original food.  

Attempting to force this kind of replacement to work could potentially bring your weight loss program crashing down around you, which leads us to R #3 – Reduce. 

Reduce means just what it sounds like.  The questionable food continues to be part of your diet, but in a reduced amount. The foods we target with this filter are often favorite foods, and sometimes pretty unhealthy ones.

In the past, these have typically been the first foods you were forced to give up completely when you dieted, and the ones you missed the most.  Again, that’s called deprivation, and has no place in a successful long-term weight loss plan. Because as surely as you were made to give up these foods on your old diet, I’ll bet giving into your craving for them ended up being responsible for breaking that diet for good in most cases.

That’s why you don’t give up these foods. You simply try to eat less of them, and take your victories where you can get them. If you take a snack bag of Doritos with your lunch to work every day? Try doing it on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  If you grab two donuts with your coffee each morning? Try instead seeing if you can make due with one donut.

Objectively, three days a week eating Doritos, or a donut a day are not something you’d consider part of a weight loss program… but in these specific examples they’d be excellent progress and something of which you could and should be proud.

Putting It All Together – Eating Happy

Hopefully by now you’ve also read my blog entry on tracking you food as it really helps you see the big picture of what your food days and weeks look like.   In those cases, you can see how each of your food choices fit together and maybe where you can make some changes – small or large – in your consumption.

And if you’ve also read my entry about how to pick items to change, you’ll know the system we’re talking about in this blog is an ongoing exercise. A food that you might only feel comfortable reducing now, might be something you’re able to replace six months from now.  Or at the very least it might be something you’ll continue reducing as time goes on.

The key, as I’ve mentioned, is when you make changes you need to give yourself some time to live with them and adjust to them.  These are not tests of your will power. These are permanent changes to your eating lifestyle.  If you make a change and you’re not happy with how you’re eating after a few weeks of trying it?  Go back to what you were doing before. 

The Three R’s of Weight Loss – The Fourth R

It’s hard to call them the three R’s of weight loss when I’m about to give you R #4… but you’ll understand in a moment.  If you find yourself unable to REMOVE a food, unable to REPLACE it, and even unable to REDUCE it… my advice is to “lighten up” and turn the fourth R – RELAX.

Here’s the thing – once you start making some changes that you can live with and eating healthier, you’re going to start losing weight.  Good for you. And when your clothing fits better, and you get a few compliments, you’ll suddenly want to ramp up the changes so as to see faster and more dramatic weight loss. That’s only natural. You need to resist that temptation, and stay the course with the small, smart changes. Is it true that if you make bolder changes that put you into deprivation mode you’d lose weight more quickly? Certainly.  But if the cost is your eating happiness it’s not worth it.

Stick with the process.  If you run a particular food through its paces and you find that you’re not comfortable making changes to it? Don’t.  Or if you make changes and after a few weeks you find yourself being unhappy with the way you’re eating? Change back.  Do not, however, feel guilty about any of this.  It’s not failure. It’s just your individual process at work.  That’s what I mean by “relax”.

Above all else, if you’re going to lose weight and keep it off, you need to develop a positive relationship with food.  Not based on guilt. Not based on deprivation.  Enjoy what you’re eating.  I eat a lot more fish now. Which I enjoy. I focus on doing more with vegetables, making them taste great.  There are no foods I eat simply to punish myself. 

So take your time, make small changes that work for you, and be happy with the way you eat.  Every time you get to that place, take another shot at making more changes and see if you can get to that place again.  In doing so you will transform your diet and keep yourself on the path to long term, sustainable weight loss.