I was talking to my sister the other day about all the different types of diets that are out there and she had this to say: “When I want to lose weight, I just go on the ‘on sale diet.'”
Since I never heard of such a thing, I was intrigued. “What’s the on sale diet?” I asked.
She poured herself a cup of coffee, stirred in a teaspoon of sugar and sat down at the table. “I just buy what’s on sale.”
It didn’t make any sense to me. “What are you talking about?”
She rolled her eyes and continued. “When money’s tight, I go to the supermarket and I buy whatever’s on sale that week. If orange juice isn’t on sale. Then no O.J. for me.”
“And how does that make you lose weight?” I asked.
She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know the science behind it. All I know is that I lose weight whenever I have to eat that way. I guess it’s because one: Maybe I eat less and two: I’m mixing up what I eat. Sometimes I end up eating sandwiches one week, while eating plenty of chicken for dinner, because it was ninety-nine cents a pound. Other weeks the ground beef is on sale and other times spaghetti, milk, cheese and yogurt are on sale.”
I began to see a pattern emerge. It seemed like she was eating a lot more of one type of food some weeks and then not having much of it on others.
So this week, she ate chicken every single day, but next week she didn’t have chicken at all, and ended up eating ground beef cooked in different ways. (burgers, meatloaf, or in spaghetti sauce)
I found this interesting because most people eat the same meals over and over again each week. When I went to the supermarket yesterday, I noticed it myself. My basket was pretty much full of the same exact things that I bought last week.
Chicken
Ground beef
Pepper steak
Tuna fish in the can
Cheddar cheese
Donuts (yum…)
Italian bread
Orange Juice
Yogurt
I had already stocked up on the fruit and frozen veggies so I didnt need those. I always buy those in bulk, especially if I find them for $0.99 per bag.
Comparing this to my sister’s on sale diet, I saw why she might lose weight when she went on it. And it wasn’t because she was eating less food. In fact, I think she was eating more food than I was. So why was she losing weight?
Drum roll please….
I believe it’s the variety and lack of variety all at the same time. This week she didn’t eat chicken, but then next week it went on sale and she bought a bunch. So something else got cut out of her diet until it went back on sale, or she got a craving for it.
It makes so much sense. Think about it, if we lived way back in the hunter-gatherer days, would we be able to eat the same exact things every week? Or all year long for that matter? Doubt it. We’re lucky nowadays to have all types of food readily available, but that might just be one of the reasons we gain and have such a hard time losing weight. Right?
I plan on trying this out myself on my trip to the market next week, just to see how it goes. I’m curious to see if simply going on the “on sale diet” and changing nothing else would make me drop pounds.
I’ll post my results from this next experiment in the coming weeks. I think I need to follow it at least for one month to gauge the results correctly.
Curious to find out what happens?
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