Don’t diet, apply the 80/20 method

The 80/20 method is not a “magic” diet. What’s more: it is not a diet. It is rather a strategy that allows us to acquire healthy eating habits without depriving ourselves of anything. Yes, you can eat a hamburger with fries. Yes, you can drink beer too. No, you don’t have to give up flour. You don’t need to forget about desserts either. You can follow a healthy diet without prohibiting foods.

Sounds tricky, right? In a context where everything seems to tend towards absolute terms (“flours are bad, vegetables are good”), it is expected that a food proposal that offers us the possibility of being healthy by eating everything will seem to us to be an idea as crazy as it is impossible. However, if we stop for a moment to reflect, we understand the background that supports the effectiveness of the 80 method./twenty. Through it, we manage to achieve what we all need: balance.

If you have done click in this article, chances are you’ve tried (and abandoned) a crash diet at some point. I can assume that you gave up on it because dissatisfaction, guilt and frustration take a leading role when a person believes that what they have to do to lose weight is to starve and say goodbye forever to the foods they like the most. It’s torture!

The 80/20 method is based on the Pareto principle.

Why don’t diets work?

The promising slogan of miracle diets catches our attention. Many of them announce that we will reach our goal quickly and practically without effort. And let’s face it… people find this really tempting.

Although many people around the world will “go on a diet” next Monday, it is not news that diets do not work. Let’s see, eating a very low-calorie diet most of the time causes weight to decrease considerably (although water or muscle is generally lost, but not fat).

However, In addition to the fact that this restriction in intake is not usually enjoyed precisely, this cannot be maintained over time. In this sense, the famous “rebound effect” soon appears, accompanied by psychological and physiological consequences.

80/20 Method: what does it consist of?

Laura Romano, a nutrition graduate, was inspired by Pareto’s law, which is a rule from the world of economics that says that 80% of the results are given by 20% of the effort, to create the 80/20 method. She took the economic concept and transported it to the area of ​​her interest: food.

The proposal is more than interesting: eat 80% in a healthy way and reserve 20% for foods we like, but not so healthy. That is, a person can be healthy and even lose weight (if he wants and needs to) by eating “good” most of the time and “bad” the least part of the time. It is important to clarify that thinness is not synonymous with health nor fat with illness.

Taking the percentages to more specific numbers, we can say that if we eat four meals a day (breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner), we should eat 23 healthy meals a week and 5 unhealthy ones. 80% and 20% are elements that feed off each other, they are not opposites but complementary.

This method is not intended to represent a rigid or universal plan, but rather rather be a guide that guides us. In this sense, it is essential to incorporate solid knowledge about food to relate to food in a healthier way and thus make a change in habits effective… Francis Bacon already warned us: knowledge is power.

The guilt goes along with the diets

Guilt is the basis of restrictive diets and the basis of relapses. The chain is common sense. You change your diet radically. You avoid flours, sugars and fats during the first two days and, on the third, once you break the rule that you have imposed on yourself, you do so without restraint. That’s when torturous guilt appears.

You decide to abandon the diet and return to your usual diet. After a few days or weeks, you try again to resume the initiative. The cycle repeats itself, causing dissatisfaction and dependency.

With the 80/20 method, guilt loses its strength and often even disappears. Do you wonder the reason? Because you are expected to consume foods that are not included in the “healthy” group! Thus, the feeling of guilt is difficult to maintain. On the contrary, Not prohibiting foods helps us stop worrying about what we eat, without that meaning neglecting ourselves.

A family lunch, a party with friends or a birthday with a starter, main course, sweet table and toast are events that are no longer perceived as a threat when we apply the 80/20 method to our lives. They become what they should always be: spaces of enjoyment.

The 80/20 method is about eating in moderation without leaving out foods prohibited for any other diet.

Recommendations for applying the 80/20 method

The main recommendations for applying the 80/20 method are the following:

Make a consultation with a health professional with a specialty in nutrition to receive a personalized plan depending on your weight, your lifestyle and your goals.Try to Incorporate, most of the time, foods of high nutritional quality that provide satiety. A balanced plate is made up of 1/2 vegetables, 1/4 proteins such as chicken, egg or vegetable proteins, and 1/4 carbohydrates such as rice or potatoes.measure the quantity of the portions. In this sense, to register Your own satiety and being able to differentiate physiological hunger from emotional hunger will help you a lot.Reserve the “unhealthy” 20% for social events, weekends, or special holidays. In circumstances that are beyond routine, it is usually much more complex to maintain a moderate diet.Incorporate conscious eating strategies to adopt an active position regarding the choice and consumption of foods. To avoid snacking at any time of the day, it is important Don’t skip any meals.

The 80/20 method does not boast immediate success, but it does boast lasting success. For this reason, it is possible that you will not notice the physical results after one or two weeks, since you are incorporating healthy habits that will accompany you throughout your life. In addition to your physical health, your emotional health will also be strengthened.

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