The Grace Diet

Your goal in the Grace Diet is to diet gracefully.

But what does that mean?

It is essentially a slow gentle diet, one that anyone can do, and does not require huge amounts of willpower or crash dieting - just a small amount of willpower can get the job done, and a large dose of graceful patience. It involves slowly cutting back and/or avoiding foods you know are bad for you and embracing foods that are healthier, but going through this whole process slowly.

The principle of the diet is similar to the tradition of giving up something for Lent (the Sunday after Ash Wednesday). Except instead of giving up 1 thing per year, you are instead giving up / avoiding one thing per month, with cumulative results over a 12 month or longer period.

To start make a list of 12 foods you consume regularly that you know are unhealthy for you.

Example of 12 Foods to Avoid

1. Soda Pop drinks
2. Potato Chips
3. Beer and/or Sugary Alcohol
4. High Calorie White Bread
5. Sugary Cookies
6. Desserts in General (except on special occasions)
7. Sugary/Salty Snacks
8. Fatty Meat
9. Coffee with Sugar/Cream
10. Greasy hamburgers or greasy food in general
11. Syrup on your pancakes
12. Milk chocolate (high in sugar) / sugary chocolate bars

Then each month cut out one of those foods and start avoiding it. Simultaneously you substitute the food you are avoiding with something healthier.

For best results you should try to focus on foods that are high in calories, and replace that with a food that is lower in calories.

The Substitutions

For example lets say you drink a lot of Coca-Cola. One month you dump the Coca-Col and from then onward you only drink ice water (or Coke Zero, which has zero calories). Then each month you repeat the process, dumping one unhealthy food and substituting something that is healthier. This process over time slowly weans you off your addiction to sugary, salty and high calorie foods.

Examples of 12 Substitutions

1. Ice Water instead of Soda Pop drinks
2. Popcorn instead of Potato Chips
3. Low Carb Beer instead of Beer and/or Sugary Alcohol
4. Low Calorie Whole Wheat Bread instead of High Calorie White Bread
5. Oatmeal Cookies instead of Sugary Cookies
6. Fruits instead of Desserts in General (except on special occasions)
7. Savoury Snacks instead of Sugary/Salty Snacks
8. Lean Meat instead of Fatty Meat
9. Tea or Black Coffee instead of Coffee with Sugar/Cream
10. Healthy Non-Greasy Hamburgers/instead of Greasy hamburgers or greasy food in general
11. Berries instead of Syrup on your pancakes
12. Dark Chocolate instead of Milk chocolate (high in sugar) / sugary chocolate bars

 So why does the Grace Diet work?

Well for starters it is really easy to find the willpower to cut out 1 non-healthy food per month and gradually change your diet slowly over time. This makes the whole process easy. It is so easy you will probably never find a book on this diet either, because once you understand how the diet works, having a book about it is truly unnecessary.

Secondly, it is not a crash diet where you go from consuming all your usual foods to struggling to figure out what you are even allowed to eat / starving yourself and suffering from hunger pains / cravings. Instead the Grace Diet is a slow gradual process which allows you to wean yourself off the foods you need to avoid.

This whole replacement process requires you to make an effort to deliberately replace one food with another which is healthier, but fortunately this is comparatively easy because you are only replacing 1 food at a time - baby steps, one step at a time. That wee bit of willpower is all you really need to stick to.

The replacement food is important too; the diet isn't going to work if you get rid of Fatty Meat and you are not replacing it with Lean Meat, for example. If you skip finding a substitute then you could end up binging on something else that is equally bad or worse for you. You have to replace it with a healthier substitute that fulfills the craving.

Each time you switch foods you also need to avoid any temptations to binge on a food. Your goal essentially is to feel like you are eating normally. Thus binging on something you know is bad for you is definitely a no no.

Customization of the Grace Diet

For example lets say your doctor wants you to avoid salty foods. So you could customize this diet by avoiding 12 foods you know to be high in salt.

Or depending on how dire your situation is, 52 foods. Getting rid of 1 food per week, starting with the biggest sources of salt, and replacing it with a food your doctor would approve of.

Example Variations on the Grace Diet

• The Beach Body Grace Diet - a faster version designed to get you ready for bikini season.
• The Low Fat Grace Diet
• The Low Sodium Grace Diet
• The Low Sugar Grace Diet

Find a New Hobby

While doing all of this it is also recommended that you take up a new hobby. Whether it be painting, going for walks, doing nature photography, or trying a new sport. The goal of the new hobby is to take your mind off food cravings. Ideally try to find a hobby you can dive into and obsess over.

Eg. You could develop an obsession for the sport of archery.

Your choice of hobby is a matter of personal preference, and what you choose to do is less important than whether or not it does its job of causing you to forget about food cravings. Thus your new obsession should be something enjoyable. If your goal is weight loss, try to pick a hobby that involves cardio exercise.

End Goal of the Grace Diet

Keep getting rid of unhealthy foods until you reach your desired weight. So if you lose 50 lbs and go from 220 to 170, that is a good amount and you should be proud. If that is your desired weight then all you have to do afterwards is maintain your weight by continuing to eat what you now eat normally. You have achieved a balanced diet.

If you continue to lose weight later on, this might be due to you exercising more and/or a a faster metabolism.

If continued weight loss becomes a problem you can then re-add foods, similar to Reverse Dieting, until your weight stabilizes. So if you had given up bacon at an early stage of your Grace Diet, you can now re-add bacon to help stabilize your desired weight.

Please bear in mind muscle mass and bone density can also cause your weight to fluctuate. If you are weightlifting regularly then your muscle mass and bone density will go up, increasing your weight in the process. Such fluctuations are normal. Don't become discouraged if you see minor weight fluctuations up and down.