Day 1 – The Round 28-Day Diet

Welcome to your first day of the Round (Holiday) Diet — also known as a HEALTHFUL AND Round lifestyle!

In 28-days, Diana takes you through the diet, talking to you as your coach. By the time these 28-days are over, you will have followed the steps below with daily reminders of what to do at each point in the diet — all while changing your habits and taking on the responsibility of your own body — how much it weighs, how it looks, how it feels and what food goes into it — along with Round activities that will make you a well-Rounded person — inside and out .

One thing Diana cannot do for you is the actual following of the Rounding down steps. It’s up to you — but fear not — helping it be up to you is part of the eating Round philosophy.

That’s why it is important to follow this diet, day-by-day, so that you get the full Monte on Rounding down for a smaller butt — one that you can maintain for the rest of your life.

The first 3 days of this Round Diet will cleanse your palette and start a new habit of healthy Round eating. You will purge your desire for salty, fatty and sugary foods that call your name and entice you to eat them like a cigarette calls a smoker’s name and lures them into smoking — which by any other name is called an addiction. After 3 days, you will get to add more flavor and variety to your meals and snacks. So hold tight and hang on! You can do it!

In a nutshell

Here are the 21 Steps to Rounding Down by eating healthy Round foods:

• STEP 1: Be prepared
• STEP 2: Recognize Round foods
• STEP 3: Choose your Round meals
• STEP 4: Choose Round recipes
• STEP 5: Make a shopping list
• STEP 6: Go Round food shopping
• STEP 7: Prepare Round food
• STEP 8: Portion and plate Round food
• STEP 9: Eat Round food
• STEP 10: Follow a balanced Roundercise routine
• STEP 11: Visualize your smaller butt and happy self
• STEP 12: Affirm yourself
• STEP 13: Write in your Round diet diary
• STEP 14: Stop eating 3 hours before bedtime
• STEP 15: Take time to relax
• STEP 16: Measure yourself
• STEP 17: Get 8 hours sleep
• STEP 18: Find a diet buddy
• STEP 19: Fit laughter into your day
• STEP 20: Stand Beside the Round Diet No No’s
• STEP 21: Enjoy your new Round eating and living habits

For more on these steps in a nutshell, take a peak at Day 20 – In a Nutshell.

Before starting you will need:

• A definite decision to Round Down.
• A commitment to visualize yourself as the fit person you want to be.
• Ability to focus fully on your diet.
• An internal motivation and the belief you are worth it.
• An understanding that you can deal with any setbacks or plateaus.
• A commitment to lose weight and find fitness for yourself–not your spouse, child, sibling, parent, neighbor, co-worker, your dog or even your cat.
• A desire to go beyond your own personal best even if you don’t know what that might be.
• An open mind to love yourself and your well being.
• A willingness to let go of any excuses that might stop you from becoming less Round.

Make sure you have your doctor’s blessing before trying this diet or any diet. Once you start this Round Diet, you may want to find a diet buddy to join you in your Rounding Down adventure. Support is a good thing and linked heavily to success in doing most anything difficult like changing your eating and lifestyle patterns.

What to Eat

For the next 3 days you will select from the below meal choices for breakfast, lunch, dinner and 3 snacks. You can then need to make a grocery list and shop ahead-of-of-time so you have all the food you need for these first 3 days.

It takes about 3 days to curb your appetite, quiet your sweet tooth and prepare you for a Rounder and simpler way of eating. Allow yourself  to ease into the Round Diet, it can take your body, mind and cravings a few tries before your new Round Diet attitude kicks in–and simple foods taste sweet and extra delicious. So hang in there, follow the diet instructions, ask questions if you get lost or confused or anything else, and know you are not alone — and that after the first 3 days you will be passed this first step.

After these first three days of eating super simple Round foods, you will learn how to be more creative and even downright inventive with recipes and plating designs.

Your Meal Choices

Copyright © 2009 Diana Kaaha

As if you are eating at the Round Diet Diner, choose your breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for the day. Drink meals with tea, up to 1 cup of black coffee and lot of water throughout the day. Alcohol is not allowed on this diet, except for special occasions and you will hear about that later. For now, no alcohol, especially if you want to slim down around the middle.

Also refer to these Round recipes, and later you will learn how to choose recipes that fit the Round eating bill — by yourself. Baby steps!

Breakfast: Choose one

• 1/2 cup oatmeal with 2 chopped walnuts and 10 raisins
• 2 poached or boiled eggs with 2 slices tomato
• 2 egg omelet with 1 ounce lean beef or ham
• 2 ounces tofu with 1/2 cup snow peas
• 1/2 slice whole grain toast with 1/4 avocado and a squeeze of lemon

Lunch: Choose one (eat as much lettuce, spinach, greens, celery, chives, and sprouts as you want)

• Spinach salad with 1/4 avocado, 1/2 red pepper and 1/2 tomato, or
• Chicken salad with celery, cucumber, 1/2 shot glass sliced almonds
• Dark lettuce salad with crumbled egg, 1/2 red pepper and 1/2 tomato, or
• Light lettuce salad with 3 ounces tuna, celery, 1 tablespoon red onions, 1/2 tomato

Make your salad with as much lettuce, spinach, greens, celery, chives, and sprouts as you want. Dress salad with 1 teaspoon of any light dressing. Spice up meals with any herbs and spices, a sprinkle of soy sauce, hot sauce or hot peppers, or a squeeze of lemon or lime juice.

Dinner: Choose one

• 3 ounces salmon with 1 cup sliced asparagus spears and any leafy greens, or
• 3 ounces lean beef with 1 cup green beans and any leafy greens, or
• 3 ounces halibut with 1 cup broccoli and any leafy greens, or
• 3 ounces chicken with 1 cup cauliflower and any leafy greens, or
• 3 ounces lean pork with1 artichoke and any leafy greens, or
• 3 ounces tofu with 1 cup of bok choy and a handful of snow peas

Round Diet cooking methods you can use: Braising (brown food in a small quantity of liquid, such as water or broth), broiling (cook food on a rack and let the fat drip away from the food), grilling (cook food on a charcoal or gas grill), poaching (simmer food in a covered pan in shallow water, broth, or vinegar), steaming (cook food over steam).

Snacks: Choose one item per snack (3 snacks per day between meals, see below)

• 1 apple or banana or peach or orange
• 1/3 cup blueberries or 1/3 mango or ¼ cantaloupe or 1/3 cup berries or 15 grapes
• 12 almonds or 6 walnuts or 8 olives or 1 hard-boiled egg
• Handful of mixed vegetables, like celery, carrots, cauliflower, bell peppers, green beans, cucumbers, or mushrooms.

Prepare snacks ahead-of-time, put them in baggies or small air-tight containers so you can keep them with you, such as in your car, pocket, purse, gym bag, backpack or office to help you avoid becoming so crazy hungry and devour the nearest and most likely the wrong food –all because a steady flow of meals with small snacks will keep your body and hungry part of your brain constantly fed and satisfied. That is also why you will need to eat often, as you will see below.

When to Eat

Starving yourself all day makes you fat. Your body’s job is to keep you alive, so when you starve it, your body will save your life by holding onto fat. So keep your body feeling fed by eating every 2 to 3 hours–give or take half an hour.

• Breakfast: 1 hour after of waking up
• First Snack: 2 hours after breakfast
• Lunch: 2 hours after your first snack
• Second Snack: 2 hours after lunch
• Dinner: 2 hours after your second snack
• Last Snack: 1 to 2 hours after dinner–at least 3 hours before sleeping.

Breakfast: 9am
First Snack: 11am
Lunch: 1pm
Second Snack: 3pm
Dinner: 5pm
Third Snack: 7pm
Off to Bed: 10pm

Round Diet No-No’s

• Diet pills & appetite suppressants: Toss these anti-magic pills into the trash and never consider them again. They do not work long term and are bad for your vital organs.
• Food in a box: Never eat food that came in a box. It contains food-like substances that do not grow on a tree, vine, or in the ground and may not actually be food at all.
• White food: Do not eat white food, such as dairy, flour and sugar, with the exception of small amounts of Extra Round plain yogurt.
• Alcohol: Avoid adult beverages, except for a glass of wine on a special occasion.
• Mystery foods: If you do not know how a food was prepared, do not eat it.
• Eating fast: Never chow down in less than 20 minutes. It takes that long for your brain to tell your body that you ate and feel satiated.

Shop for Round Diet Food

Before you go shopping, be prepared:

• Prepare a shopping list ahead of time.
• Curb your appetite with a Round snack.
• Shop for foods with a small carbon footprint (grown locally), like fare found at your local Farmer’s Market.
• Imagine yourself filling your cart with the Roundest, freshest, and most colorful foods possible.

While Shopping

When you shop for Round food, keep the following in mind:

• Shop in a circle, around the edges of the store where healthy and fresh Round foods are displayed.
• Gather a variety of colors of Round fruits and vegetables to ensure that you get a full-spectrum of nutrients into your magnificent human body.
• Browse the produce section or even better, your local farmer’s market for fresh vegetables in season.
• If you accidentally venture into the center of the store, beyond the spices, hot sauces or oatmeal, where the square, over-processed, non-diet foods line the aisles–exit quickly in a calm fashion.
• Shun spreads in tubs, food in boxes, frozen meals, baked goods, chips, crackers, sugary cereals, energy bars, cookies, candy, toppings, dips, nondairy creamers, flavored coffees and gravy mixes.

Round Exercising (Roundercising)

To lose weight and feel the joy of being strong, you must diet and exercise! At first, exercise can make you hungry, so start slowly and you will see yourself transform into a strong person, inside and out.

More exercise tips and routines will be added throughout this diet. This is just the beginning, and you will learn that dieting sizes you and exercise shapes you. For instance, if you are a pear shape and lose weight you will become a smaller pear shape, so expect to exercise so you can become firmer and shapelier in a way that does not need to be a in the shape of a pear.

Consult with your doctor before Roundercising. Side affects may cause you to feel more energetic, along with enjoying less fat clinging to the inside of your body or jiggling on the outside of your body. You are likely to live longer, so be aware that you may need to plan your retirement accordingly.

What to do

Start with a 30 minute walk or any other form of Round aerobic exercise, like rebounding, roller-skating, hula hooping, exercising on a fitness ball, jump roping, bicycling, dancing, playing any game with a ball (like basketball, bowling, or golf), rock climbing, skiing (shushing down a curvy mountain), running or jogging, swimming, gymnastics, fancy diving, Tae Bo, treadmilling (running or walking in one place as if you are in a hole), Bikram yoga, or rolling in the hay.

How your Round dieting and exercising day might look

• 7am: Wake up and stretch for 10 minutes
• 7:30: Eat a snack (write it in your diary)
• 8am:  Work out (write it in your diary)
  • Drink lots of water – constant flow
  • Do aerobics (swim, walk, run, bike, skate, rebound, gym aerobic machine or class of any sort, walk, etc) for a minimum of 30 minutes and maximum of 1 hour
• Between 9am & 10:30am: Eat breakfast (write it in your diary)
• Noon to 1 pm: Eat lunch(write it in your diary)
• 2pm to 4 pm: Eat a snack (write it in your diary)
• 6pm to no later than 7pm: Eat dinner (write it in your diary)
• After dinner, start no later than 8pm: Do more aerobics (swim, walk, run, bike, skate, rebound, gym aerobic machine or class of any sort, walk, etc) for a  minimum of 30 minutes (write it in your diary)
• Take a bubble bath to relax & visualize how you will look in your goal jeans, who will see you, and picture your fat cells shrinking. (write it in your diary)
• In your diary, write anything you may have forgotten during the day.
• In bed no later than 11pm, but try for 10pm, and make sure you get 8 hours sleep (studies show adequate sleep is essential for weight loss)

What to Expect

You can expect to be more active as you also gain a new view of food with healthy Rounding Down skills that will add up to a healthy new eating lifestyle where you are in control. Then you can spend time on more important things and live a more enjoyable, positive, healthy and active life—even if you feel exhausted right now just thinking about it.

This Round Diet will make your life simpler, your butt smaller, your jeans looser, and you will want to rejoice.

Tonight’s Homework

Start your diet diary: Start your diary tonight to begin tracking your progress, feelings, visualizations (you will hear more about this later) and the food you eat. On this first day, write down the following:

• Measurements for your bust, waist, hips
• Your starting weight and the weight you plan to be
• Every snack, meal and morsel that passes your lips
• How you feel in the AM and PM, using emoticons to depict your feelings

Writing in a diet diary is linked to success! For more on what you will need to note in your diary, check out keep a diet diary.

Take your before photo: Take a before photo of yourself, and make sure to snap your front, side and back. Set it aside. When you are Rounded down you will be happy to see these photos, because they will not longer be you.

Display your goal photo: Put your goal photo of your slimmer self (how you want to look even if it is a magazine photo) on your fridge or bathroom mirror (or both)

Find one or more pairs of goal jeans: Fitting into smaller jeans is the true test of feeling slimmer and better about your body. Nobody comes up to you and measures or weighs you, but they certainly can see how you look in your jeans. Depending on how many pounds and inches you want to lose, you may want to find several pairs of goal jeans to fit into as your body shrinks.

If you want to lose 40 lbs, and you have several sizes of jeans in your closet, you might want to set aside jeans that are 10 lbs apart. This means if you want to lose 40 lbs, find different jeans you can wear if you are 10 lbs lighter, 20 lbs lighter, 30 lbs lighter, and finally 40 lbs lighter.

If you just want to lose 5 to 15 pounds, you may only need one, maybe two, pairs of goals jeans to set aside.

Contact Diana

Have a comment, question or need advice? Go ahead and make a comment below or email me, and I will get back to you right away.

For random Round questions: roundlady@gmail.com