The Pizza Diet

Anyone who knows me knows that if I could eat one food every day for the rest of my life, it would be pizza. I never get sick of pizza and I can never get enough of it. I LOVE PIZZA. I even ate pizza for dinner tonight. Unfortunately, pizza isn't necessarily the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a healthy lifestyle. However, I still eat pizza at least once per week. I'm a strong believer in eating the things that you love, even if they aren't great for you...as long as you eat them in moderation. 

I mentioned in my first post that I lost 85 pounds several years ago. While I did a complete makeover of the foods I ate, I still kept one day per week where I allowed myself to eat anything I wanted (it was usually pizza). This was my "cheat day". As I also previously mentioned, I used to hate cooking, but I still ate out at a lot at various restaurants and learned to order healthier things on menus at my favorite restaurants, such as Chipotle and Panera Bread. Overall, I just became more AWARE of what I was eating and how much I was eating and learned to limit that. That is how I lost weight. 

I recently came across this article on another blog about a pizza shop owner got tired of people criticizing his giving away pizza coupons at the gym and decided to go on a 30 day pizza diet to prove that you can eat pizza every day and still lose weight and be healthy. He consulted a nutritionist and visited his doctor throughout the 30 day diet. He ate 8 slices of pizza every day throughout a 12 hour period, starting at 9am and ending at 9pm. His diet totaled 2500 calories per day. He also increased his exercise, but he did not change his soda or alcohol habits because he wanted to prove it was the pizza making a change not change from eliminating anything else. The results actually showed that he lost weight and lowered his cholesterol! 

The article states, "With the pizza diet Matt proved that pizza can be part of a healthy diet if moderation and wise topping choices are selected. He believes that the key to any diet is portion control and that’s basically what his pizza diet is, a way to enjoy a great food, but not eat the whole pie in one go."

While this is an extreme example of the point I'm trying to make, I still think it reiterates the fact that you really can eat the foods you love in moderation and be healthy. Life is too short to limit yourself from anything that you love. So pick up the phone, dig out those coupons, and jump on the pizza diet bandwagon. 

Source: http://www.diet-blog.com/09/30_day_pizza_diet.php