During the course of patients’ visits during the SP Program, we will often receive questions such as:
- Can I use coffee creamer?
- Can I substitute Lean Cuisines for lunch instead of a prepared dish?
- Are protein bars a good snack?
- Should I devote 50% of my exercise time to strength training?
- Can I have an occasional glass of wine?
There are many, many more questions that are posed to us about issues that may or may not impact their weight control efforts. My usual answer is: “For most of our patients, eating/drinking_____ is usually not compatible with effective weight control, BUT you can trial this and see what happens in your case.”
Here is the point: We are all individually different. I have seen patients that are able to drink alcohol every night and still lose weight whereas others will derail their entire week with 1-2 drinks that week. There are some people that can incorporate protein bars/shakes as a meal substitute and still lose weight whereas others require a constant intake of food based protein.
Individually, sometimes you need to “trial” certain things and see what happens on the scale. It is probably smart to not change too many things at once, because if weight loss stops occurring, you will not know exactly what caused this to occur. As an example, if you start eating more cheese as snacks and the weight control slows down, trial a week of no cheese and see what transpires.
There are many commonalities about what “works” and what does not for the majority of patients and the SP Program’s dietary plan incorporates many of these principles. However, it never ceases to amaze me about how individual differences play a role, so as you progress in your journey, do not hesitate to “trial” things that you like to eat/drink and then see what happens on the scale. You will quickly see “Trial and Success” or “Trial and Error”.