Ok, obviously I know that there are both fat men and fat women and skinny men and skinny women, but I do mean what I say (and say what I mean). I really do think there are things men do with food that we women can learn from. Things that are delicious, and will help us stay in our jeans.

1. Eat dinner for breakfast

“Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a beggar.” – old axiom for good health and a small waist

When my brother and I were growing up under the same roof in our teenage years, I spent most mornings eating eggwhites and he spent most mornings eating leftover pizza. Which really means, I spent most of my mornings eating eggwhites but fantasizing about the pizza he was eating. Then, that pizza would then be on my mind for the rest of the day, where I would continue to mindlessly eat healthy foods and fantasize about “real food,” until at some point I would give in, break, and and eat “real food” that I wasn’t really even physically hungry for at that point, I just mentally had to have.

I still notice myself doing this today. I’m a morning person and I wake up, generally, really hungry. Sometimes in an effort to “be good” I’ll eat a healthy breakfast, that I don’t even really taste/enjoy, and then just work until lunch when I can really eat and enjoy something that I actually want to eat.

Over the last couples years, as I’ve stopped calculating food and just started working on enjoying my food, I often find myself eating dinner leftovers for breakfast. Rather than waking up and mindlessly filling myself up with healthy “breakfast” foods, I’ll get up and enjoy some tea, water (and now, most recently, Chia Seed Kombucha) until I’m really hungry, at which point I’ll get whatever I’m craving – sometimes it’s eggwhites, and a lot of times it’s a more lunch-like food – some leftover meat from the night before, some salad, and this morning, about 1/2 cup of leftover Indian food from last night.

When I indulge these weird morning cravings, I end up eating something not-really-so-bad-for-you (my dinners are usually fairly healthy, and always incorporate some good protein and fiber) and I find myself so satisfied that I don’t think about food again until much, much later in the day.

2. Use common sense

Have you ever seen a guy go on a diet? They don’t sit there meticulously counting calories seeing how much hun-cal-fro-yo they can fit in, they just, avoid shit. If the waiter asks them if they want fries or a salad, they get salad (I, on the other hand, get fries and then rationalize it because I am only eating half of my sandwich. This, though, is really a ridiculous philosophy because the sandwich is the part that’s going to satisfy me and keep me from the hun-cal-fro-yo later on.) But no, not men. No justifying or obsessing necessary- they just eat less. They don’t eat desserts. They DEFINITELY don’t drink a glass of wine then drive around town scavenging for something that represents chocolate in a calorie-free form. They don’t start pumping artificial sweetener into their blood stream. They have some chicken, some salad, some gym time, cut back on the beer, and move on. It’s so… brilliant.

3. They sleep

Oh boy do they sleep. Chase, I know, LOVES to sleep. And my little brother also LOVES to sleep. I don’t see the sleeping habits of other males, because that would be creepy, but I imagine a lot of other guys LOVE to sleep too. And do you know what happens when I operate on Chase’s sleep schedule? We sleep right through breakfast. We end up so well-rested that I don’t crave sweet, sugar-y, carbohydrate-y things. And then, on the days I don’t sleep, I go right back to empty/I need energy/fill me with carbohydrates and caffeine mode. And then do you know what happens when you fill yourself with carbs and caffeine? You crash. And there are two ways to cope with a crash – 1. sleep, 2. caffeine, or 3. carbohydrates. Again, the best option here – sleep! It’s zero-calorie, gets the job done, and when you wake up you’re happy and it’s almost dinner time. But, if you’re a functioning member of society and can’t just siesta whenever you feel like it, this might not be an option. So, now you haven’t slept, you’ve binged on caffeine and carbs to stay awake, you’ve crashed but can’t go to sleep now because you have a job for christ’s sake and you can’t just go to sleep in the middle of the day whenever you damn feel like it, and so you are down to two options – more carbs, or caffeine. A stream of carbs all day for energy is not ideal for weight management, to say the least. But, if you opt for caffeine this late in the day chances are good you won’t sleep well again tonight, either. So, moral is, you’re screwed – you should have relaxed a bit last night and gotten some damn sleep.

4. Weight Training

You always hear it – lifting weights will help you lose weight.  And, at first, you like the idea. Because the treadmill gets really boring. But then, you think, I don’t want to look like a she-male? I don’t want bulging biceps? I want to be ladylike, and graceful, and elegant, damnit. Well, turns out if done well these weight-lifting guys (and gals) are onto something.

First of all, one of my favorite visuals (and I have lots of favorite visuals, *cough*) is that 5 pounds of muscle looks like a tangerine and 5 pounds of fat looks like a grapefruit. So, a 130 lb person composed of lots of tangerines is going to be much tinier than a 130 lb person composed of grapefruits. This, my friends, is why I don’t weigh myself. Way too confusing. So lesson number one: turn your grapefruits into tangerines and focus on how your clothes fit.

Second, you burn some calories doing stuff during the day, but, over the course of 24 hours, most of the calories you burn are to keep you alive. They keep your organs moving and your body temperature stable, your brain buzzing and your heart pumping. Now, muscle at rest burns more calories than fat at rest (i.e. it raises your basal metabolic rate). As someone that sits at their desk working all day, I like the idea that sitting I can burn more of my Indian-food-breakfast without having to do anything.

Third, strength training burns calories for hours after it happens. When you do cardio, calories are expended in the effort of the task, and the elevated heart rate, and all that fitness-y goodness, and then once it’s over you keep buzzing for awhile. But, with strength training, it goes to a whole other level. The process of building strength is a process of breaking down muscles during the workout, after which they repair themselves and you’re left with a stronger muscle in its place. This process of re-building and restoring itself is a calorie-burning process. So, essentially whenever you’re sore after a workout, that feeling is the feeling of calories being burned at rest while your muscles burn lots of calories repairing themselves. That, my friends, is awesome.

5. They act like kids

Ok, ok, I’m kidding. Sort of. But all those things we nag and tease and berate our husbands and boyfriends for doing – playing video games, watching too much TV, spending too long in the shed – those are what we call “hobbies.” Not only are they hobbies, they’re hobbies that our significant others get lost in and spend way too much time doing. They are an escape. Often, women get so nervous about multi-tasking, wearing 1,000 different hats, and being so endlessly productive that we get ourselves so stressed, bored, and wigged out that the only release or enjoyable part of the day is lunch or dinner time.

When I talk about my old job I referenced this feeling, and how that feeling was part of my cue that it was time to go. Essentially, a rule of thumb in my life is that when I am looking forward to mealtime too much it means I’ve lost the joy in my day and my life needs a serious change.

The truth is, everyone has things they get lost in. For me, writing and blogging and the things I am creating online put me into that “flow” state and I’m able to get so consumed I forget about food. This is, by far, the most effective and happiest “diet” I’ve ever found. I read a quote once that said something to the effect of “I’ll tell you how to lose weight – get a life.” I don’t remember the exact words or who said it, but it essentially said that the easiest way to stop “using” food is to find things that you get so lost in and enjoy that food becomes an indulgence once-in-awhile, but usually just a necessity, so you can get to the things you really care about.

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