There are a lot of diet tips designed for people who are sensitive, and who need all of the help they can get pushing away negative thoughts during the dieting process. But maybe you’re tough—maybe you don’t need a diet that babies you, and maybe you’re motivated by a little tough love. There are diet tips that try to help you create long-lasting, sustainable habits, believing that crash methods will just cause you to bounce back to old routines. But maybe you can handle a little crash dieting because you know where the fine line is between going off a diet and eating the entire frozen food section. If you often go off the beaten path and do things your own way, then maybe you’ll benefit from these unconventional diet tips. Just don’t tell your nutritionist or therapist you heard them here.
Wear your skinny clothes
Don’t run from them; consider them your only option. Think about how uncomfortable you are in those extra-right jeans, and think about how much more uncomfortable you’ll be if you eat that third slice of pizza.
Naked pics
Hey, who doesn’t like to look good naked? Try taking naked selfies of yourself and really examine the details like the curve of your back, the little dimples above your butt and the shape of your side boob. You might become motivated to watch these evolve.
Get into partying
You’ll have to try it one weekend and see how you respond. Some people lose weight when they become bar flies; they care more about fitting into “going out” tops and at least if they’re at a bar they aren’t at home raiding their pantry. Cocktails have calories, but far fewer ones than entire cheesecakes.
Hang with your fitness instructor friend
If you make your fitness instructor friend your best friend for a few months, I’m sure you’ll be dragged on a hike or to a Pilates class at least once a week. She doesn’t need to know why you fade away when you lose those 10 pounds.
Have a bad word jar, but for bad food
Remember how, as a child, your parents would make you put money in a jar if you said a bad word? Force yourself to put money in a jar every time you eat a bad food. And when that jar gets full, you have to use it to buy something you want…for somebody else.
Cut yourself off from sex
Tell your partner that if you don’t see the number you want to see on the scale at the beginning of each week (do this in small increments, of course) that you’re not allowed to have sex.
Put up “no treat” signs
Put them on your desk, hang them on your front door, make them your social media status every day. Be loud, clear and a little rude about the fact that you are not accepting cookies or boxes of chocolate right now.
Enjoy bragging rights
It feels really good to talk about how much you’re going to the gym or how healthy you ate this week. It’s annoying to your friends, sure, but it feels great for you. So if that’s a perk you need to be motivated to diet, go for it.
Eat with someone who asks too many questions
Eat lunch with your overly-curious coworker who asks too many questions. You’ll be too busy talking to overeat.
Put a lock on your fridge
Yes, one with a complicated, long code. That will really make you think every time you want to bust in there for some cake.
Strategically place mirrors
Like right across from the chair you eat most of your meals in, or inside the pantry door.
Don’t eat regular meals
Some people need to eat regular meals or else they have no way to gauge their fullness. You, however, may be the type who likes to just have a few small snacks throughout the day, and then eat whatever you want for dinner. At the end of the day, so long as more calories go out than in, you’ll lose weight.
Tell everyone you’re dieting
If everyone knows you’re dieting, then everyone will stare at you when you reach for the pie in the break room. That’ll do something to you.
Sleep more
You could go to the gym in the morning on the weekends, or you could sleep so late that you miss the heavy brunch you usually eat after the gym.