Wouldn't it be nice.  The phrase "eat chocolate and lose weight" or in fact "eat chips and pizza or anything else you want and lose weight" would seem like a dream come true, but it can be possible.

A Calorie is a Calorie is a Calorie

When it comes to food, all Calories or kilojoules are created equal.  This means that one Calorie from the richest Bavarian cheesecake contains the same amount of energy as a Calorie from a granny smith apple.  Both have the ability to be burnt off throughout the course of the day, with any excess being stored as fat.  In the main, your body doesn't discriminate.  All food that you eat is broken down into its main constituents: proteins, fats, and carbohydrates.  The body in no way can distinguish whether these energy compounds came from a piece of wholemeal toast or a rich cream puff.  And that's surely good news for cream puff eaters.

What is important is the total amount of Calories or kilojoules that you consume.  Every day our bodies have an energy requirement, much like our cars do petrol.  And similar to our cars which have a petrol tank, our bodies have a storage tank for any excess energy.  But our petrol tanks are located on our stomachs and thighs.  Unlike an automobile's, ours can expand or shrink as the need arises.  Most of us, for cosmetic or health reason, would like to keep our level of excess body fat down to a minimum or manageable level, so what is important is that the amount of energy we consume doesn't exceed the amount we're likely to use throughout the day.

How dense are your Calories?

Given the case that the body doesn't distinguish between whether we're eating chocolate or bran flakes, can we actually eat chocolate and lose weight?  Surprisingly, the answer is yes.  Give that the calorific requirement for most people is about 2000 Calories or 8300 kilojoules per day, you could eat a packet of Tim Tams and still come in under your limit.  Successful dieting via chocolate covered wafers does have a certain appeal but don't through out all of your low-fat yoghurt quite yet.

From a strictly fat loss perspective, the only downside to our 100% chocolate diet is that chocolate doesn't go far.  On a mythical Tim Tam only diet, we reach our daily energy limit after about a pack and a half.  And that's all you could eat of anything for the whole day.  While a pure Tim Tam diet does have a strong sensory appeal, it would take the most avid chocoholic to stick to their packet allowance, and be sure that no any foods were eaten.  Chances are, that your Tim Tams would be finished soon after breakfast, and by lunch, you would hunting around for more.

The reason you'd be restricted to such a small amount of food has to do with Calorie or kilojoule density.  As in real life, some things are just more dense than others.  Chocolate, chips, pizza and cake tip the scale while fruit and vegetables fall at the lower end of the scale.  The advantage with low density foods is that you can eat a lot more of them before you reach your Calorie limit.  An orange contains about 65 Calories, so it would take 31 oranges before you'd reach your target.  So as you can see, the orange eaters diet will contain a lot more food, by mass, than the Tim Tam eaters diet, so they have one natural advantage - they're unlikely to go hungry.

So what, then, is the best diet to follow?  Well, by heavily loading your diet with foods from the low energy end of the scale you'll be able to satisfy your hunger and come in under your Calorie target.  Of course, there may always be some Calories left over at the end of the day for some chocolate cake, and in a balanced diet, you're "left over" Calories can be spent on just about anything.  The Weight Loss International Slim for Life Program actually has a clever Slim for Life ™ Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) system, by which you keep track of the foods you eat.  Such a program makes it a breeze to track how many Calories or kilojoules you're consuming, and how many will be left over for those little end of day luxuries.

Dieting boot camp

"Cadet weight loss recruit.  I want 2000 push ups and I want 'em now!  After an 18 mile run where you will do your best, you will return back to me where you will be given one scoop of porridge.  Do I make myself clear?"

If you don't feel the urge to respond "Sir, yes sir!" then it's probable that the usual "boot camp" style of dieting isn't for you.  That's where you go from eating chips and chocolate one day to eating nothing but lettuce leaves and mung beans the next.  Psychologically, it's not the best way of introducing a change.  It places stress on your body.  However, the greater danger is that it leaves you feeling totally deprived.  Deprivation is the single biggest cause of diet failures.  It's where you're used to eating full meals, having biscuits with your tea, and a snack for supper, and suddenly you place yourself on "military rations".  The result, naturally, is that you quickly begin to resent the new eating arrangements, and within a few days the diet is given up, and you return to your previous high energy foods.  Usually this involves throwing yourself a food party, where all your favourite foods are invited along as a way of making up for lost time.

To our knowledge, the Weight Loss International Slim for Life Program is the only program which encourages you to start off eating luxury, comfort foods and slowly weens you off to a sustainable healthy eating plan over a 21 day period.  This has the benefit of keeping you interested and fulfilled as subtle adjustments are made to the way you eat.

So there is hope for all addicts, chocoholics and chipoholics alike.  By creating an eating plan that is tempting, and at first perhaps a little naughty, you can move your diet to a healthy, balanced eating plan over a period of several weeks.  Mentally, this creates a great formula for success.