Eating Plan Profile: Three Strikes

Unlike most other approaches, I made this one up (to the best of my knowledge, anyway).  As I was thinking about the contest and the eating plans, I wanted to try a simple approach that would serve as a proxy for the things I needed to do to lose weight.  Three Strikes is a “bend, but don’t break” approach that allows a few deviations from an otherwise disciplined approach. 

The premise is simple: you are allowed three “strikes” per day.  Everything else is basically “normal”.  For Pounds Off Playoff purposes, that means following the Default Plan.  Strikes are as follows:

Junk food.  This should go without saying.  I’m taking a Justice Potter Stewart style approach of “I know it when I see it”.  But generally, I’m talking about chips, sweets, and fried food.

Snacks.  What I’m talking about here is eating between meals that leads to weight gain.  Eating a 330 calorie bag of nuts at 3:30 or a bowl of cereal at 10:00 is a strike.  Exception: foods that are healthy and low calorie.  Eating a piece of fruit at 4 p.m. is not a strike. 

Seconds.  Eating three normal sized meals a day is allowed, and Three Strikes is pretty hands off about the main course (although I try to always include fruit or vegetables and avoid sodium when eating out).  It’s going back for seconds that is a strike.

Restaurants.  Eating out is a strike, no matter what you have.  And every junk food is an additional strike.

Exception.  No one food item can produce two strikes.  (Example: If you went to a restaurant and had dessert with your meal, that’s two strikes, one for eating out and one for dessert.  But it you just had dessert, that’s only one strike.)

I can’t help but notice that Three Strikes is like artificial eating intelligence.  On my own, I just don’t have the intuition necessary to judge how much food I can handle.  I usually alternate between total denial of certain foods and total indulgence.  But following Three Strikes is more like what thin people do, having occasional indulgences within the context of a generally healthy overall approach.