I know a few people who have gone on diets involving a 'point' system. They're allotted so many 'points' per day. (For example any diet drink is 0 points where an 8 oz steak for dinner is 8 points.) It's worked for many of them, so I was thinking about giving it a try.
Once I looked into it, I realized the amount of points I would be allotted each day did not seem fair. The points they allotted were based on gender, age, weight, exercise, etc. There were no points allotted if you were married or had kids. no points allotted if you thought about going to the gym. positive thinking should definitely count towards something. So I decided to create my own weight loss point system. I'm feeling pretty good about it.
Give yourself points for the following:
Step 1 - gender:
Female: 12 points (emotions burn a lot of calories. women are very emotional)
Male: -5 points (because if a man gains 15 pounds - no one notices)
Nursing: 22 points (When you can relate to a cow - you always get 10 extra points)
Step 2 - age:
17 to 26: 0 points (please, life's still easy.)
27 to 37: 5 points (turning 30 can be hard, you need the comfort food)
38 to 47: 7 points (when you turn 40, the 30 year olds seem so young and that's
depressing)
48 to 57: 9 point (you burn more calories when recovering from plastic surgery)
58 and over: 10 points (turning 60 is freaking awesome. you're in your prime and
you need the extra points to celebrate)
Add the points from the above steps.
Step 3 - No need to weigh yourself as that could cause negative feelings which causes emotional eating. Instead, take your best guess. From there take the first two numbers and add and an extra 10 points as a reward for even trying. (For example, if you weigh 140, you would take 14 and add 10 points.)
Step 4 - Determine the amount of exercise you engage in each day. This does not only refer to exercising in a gym. (If you work out add 15 points. If you think about working out add 5 points for positive thinking) The amount of time and energy women spend beating themselves up, wishing they were better at this or that, being patient when there's no patients left, cooking food when you'd rather crawl into bed, smiling at your husband when he asks, "what have you been doing all day?", etc., these all take quite a bit of energy and work. To determine the amount of "exercising" points you're allotted, feel free to use the following examples:
If you're a woman and married: 10 points
If you're a woman, married and have children: 20 points
If you're a woman, married, and all your children are under the age of 10: 30 points
If you're a woman, married, have multiple children under the age of 10 and are able to keep them fed at least once a day and bathed twice a week : 40 points
If you're a woman, married, have multiple children under the age of 10 and have done the following in the past 6 months: got out of bed when you're tired, cooked dinner when you're sick of cooking, smiled at your husband instead of throwing something at him, answered your child's same question 10 times in a row without raising your voice, gone grocery shopping with two or more screaming children, gave up a girls night out because your family needed you and never once sat on your closet floor in the fetal position: forget the points. You can eat whatever you want.
