Want to diet? Eat breakfast for dinner

I was suffering from the worst panic attack I had ever experienced. As a trained nurse, I knew what to do; I started running my wrists under cold water, but it didn’t work. My daughters were trying to talk me down. Even so, my heart was racing. The girls ran a cold bath for me and I soaked in it for two hours. I still didn’t feel right. I was afraid to go to a doctor; I feared that something awful was happening. The attack went on for the next five hours before finally subsiding. I went back into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I hated what I saw; I hated myself. There I was with two beautiful daughters, years of education, and the world in front of me, and I was killing myself, destroying my body, and ruining my future.

After the panic attack, I tried to figure out what had brought it on. I thought it must have been something I ate, drank, or smoked, and so I refused to eat or drink for the rest of the day (and I have never had another cigarette). I did not eat or drink anything for the next three days. On the fourth morning, I woke up and knew that I couldn’t keep starving myself. I looked into the mirror that morning and didn’t hate what I saw, because I began to realize that I could change it. I knew that everything I had done up to that point with my weight and health had been wrong. I knew that I couldn’t keep living the way I was living. I had to reverse course — to flip-flop everything — to change my life. That was the beginning of the Reverse Diet.

I went into the kitchen that fourth morning extremely hungry, but still frightened from the panic attack and worried that food would cause another attack. I stuck to basic ingredients, nothing exotic. The first breakfast included a plain chicken breast, a baked potato, and some broccoli. No butter, spices, or salt. I took my time, checking my pulse every few minutes. Everything seemed fine, and I felt good. Within a couple of hours, I was hungry again, so for lunch I had more chicken and veggies. My belly always growled by dinner time, as it was the only big meal I typically had, but this day there was no growling. I wasn’t hungry and ate very little: just a small serving of plain, dry shredded wheat. The next morning I was very hungry, so I ate the same things because I knew they were safe. For the next week, I continued the same routine: my dinner in the morning, a smaller meal for lunch, and a small breakfast for dinner. I knew that my clothes were getting loose and I was shedding a few pounds, but I didn’t know that I had lost 12 pounds in a week! By the time I got my cast off in September, just a month later, I had lost 40 pounds.

I started to think that something was wrong with me — there was no way I was eating this much food every day and losing weight without something being wrong.  While I was definitely watching the foods I ate, my meals weren’t tiny and unsatisfying as they had been on every diet I had ever been on. Instead, I was eating until I was full. How do you lose weight by eating more? This didn’t make sense to me. I made an appointment with my doctor, who did a complete physical and told me that I was entirely healthy — in fact, healthier than I had ever been. I couldn’t believe my ears. Not only was I not dying, I was actually going to live longer. I became obsessed with the concept of eat more food, lose more weight. I bought diet book after diet book searching for the answers to my questions, but I was on my own. I’d have to figure this out by myself.

Some of the changes to my lifestyle I just fell into. It started with me trying to have the fewest ingredients for a light dinner. I chose cereal (shredded wheat), but I didn’t want the milk. I used to drink orange juice every morning, so one day I just decided to mix it in. I know shredded wheat with orange juice sounds weird, but I found that I really liked it, plus it satisfied my sweet craving. Other aspects of the plan took research and experimentation.

That New Year’s Eve I went to a party wearing a size 9 dress. I had gone from 250 pounds in August down to just 150 pounds. I had set a goal weight of 130 pounds and knew that I could do it. By March 2000, I was at 130. I even got as low as 112, but that was too thin for my build. I went back to 130 and have stayed that weight ever since.  Now I work as a motivational coach for fellow Reverse Dieters and have dedicated my life to helping others reverse their lives the same way I did.  All I have learned is in the pages that follow. I’ve teamed up with Heidi Skolnik, a knowledgeable nutritionist, and together we’ve made this diet something that can work for everyone.

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