ROTATION DIET: DIRECTIONS FOR CHOOSING A SAFE FRUIT
The free vegetables will help round out your meals so that you never have to feel hungry when you have finished the prescribed lunch or dinner. But free vegetables are not always satisfying - they don't have much flavor eaten alone, and, perhaps more important, they have so few calories that they don't give you any lift when you may really need one. That's why I think you should choose a safe fruit to fall back on whenever you feel hungry between meals or are tempted by some rich dessert. familymeds.com
Safe fruits do contain calories: from 40 calories for a small apple to 110 calories for a whole grapefruit. For this reason, they can give you a lift when you feel low on energy. The lift (and the bulk provided by the water and fiber) helps you stick with your diet until the next regular meal. The fruit sugar that they contain makes a safe fruit taste pretty good-not as good as your favorite high-calorie foods, perhaps, because safe fruits don't contain any fat, but good enough to get you by in a pinch. You must keep reminding yourself that every time you choose a safe fruit you are avoiding a choice of food that would prevent you from losing weight.
Choosing a safe fruit is very important from a psychological standpoint. It becomes symbolic of your weight-loss effort. You carry it with you to work and it's always available at home. Every time you get the urge to deviate from the Rotation Diet you reach for your safe fruit. Believe me, it's a charm! It's your absolute guarantee of success. Even if you have two or three servings a day during the 600/900-calorie rotations-a mid-morning snack, a mid-afternoon snack, a bedtime snack-you cannot add much more than 150 to 200 calories to your intake. Should you go farther and add three whole grapefruit, which is considered to be six servings of fruit, you will add only 330 calories, and you will still lose weight. It may be only 8 or 10 pounds in three weeks instead of 12 or 15, but even that is a success. It beats the complete failure that occurs when you allow yourself to dip into the candy bowl or the cookie jar, begin to feel disgusted with yourself for having blown your diet, and then let all hell break loose. (Safe fruits are built in to the diet at levels of 1200 calories and above, without exceeding calorie limits.)
It is very important, however, that you choose only ONE safe fruit to be your ally during the Rotation Diet. Be sure, of course, to eat the different fruits that are included in the basic diet plan for each day's menu because they have been selected to provide you with adequate vitamins and minerals. However, if you add variety in your safe fruits, which you can eat at any time, you may stimulate your appetite. So, follow my advice: choose just one safe fruit from the following list. Use it as your snack food when it is called for at calorie levels of 1200 and above, and as an insurance or "fallback" food to be used whenever it is needed to prevent dangerous deviations from the Rotation Diet.
Be sure to think of your safe fruit as your ally. Pick one of the fruits in the short list below that you really do like. Have "friendly" feelings toward it! I think of fruit as one of Mother Nature's most enjoyable gifts to mankind-the word fruit comes from a Latin word meaning enjoyment or to enjoy. I know that I am going to stay slim and healthy every time I substitute a piece of fruit for one of man's enticing, but less healthful, junk-food creations!
apple orange
berries peach
grapefruit pineapple
melon tangerine
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