Below is an excerpt from Part One of

The 2004 Multi-Diet

by Anderson A. Anonymous, M.D., Ph.D.

What Can You Do Wrong on The Multi-Diet?

Reading The Multi-Diet is like reading a basic introduction and strategy guide for a new kind of ball game. It gives you a good understanding of what the game’s all about and how to play---but you still need a lot of practice to actually be able to control the ball, keep statistics, do the right thing at the right time and so forth.

Fortunately, since you’re not likely to stop eating anytime soon, you might as well use the opportunities this presents to practice using food to control the Eight Vital Factors.

Naturally you are going to make mistakes. Don’t get discouraged by them. Learn from them.

The most common problems on The Multi-Diet all fall into a single category. This is that after the initial “newness” of the technique wears off, you tend to get lazy about accurately tracking the Eight Vital Factors. Then at some point you stop getting enough of one or more of them and The Beast very quietly and very sneakily starts making you eat more food. (This may happen several times on a long diet.) Naturally, your weight-loss stops and you think “this diet isn’t working!”

Well of course not---because you’re no longer on the Multi-Diet at all. You’ve switched to a Heroic Diet (without noticing) and we already know they don’t work.

I warn you about this in order to help you notice it more quickly when it happens (and it will happen). When it happens, you need to refocus your attention and figure out what you probably haven’t been getting enough of lately. Then try to increase the amount of that thing moderately and see how that makes you feel---which means whether The Beast’s “food focus” goes away again or not. If not, try something else.

Below are the most common problems people tell me about. These are therefore the first factors I suggest you consider when you are trying to diagnose dieting difficulties.

Protein: When dieting, you need more protein than you think you need. The calculations you will do in part two will very likely show that you need at least 9-12 oz daily of high-quality protein (fish, chicken, or very lean beef). This is a fairly large amount, so many people tend to “short” themselves on it without noticing (for various reasons).

Potassium: Many people find it hard to get enough potassium every day when dieting. 3500 mg is the largest RDI required of any of the macrominerals and it’s sometimes difficult to keep track of how much you’ve eaten in foods---so you tend not to do it (and The Beast quietly wakes up).

Sodium: It’s easy to add salt to food. But when you aren’t eating much food, the opportunities to add it are fewer. And sometimes the food you choose when doing the Multi-Diet isn’t the type that you would normally add salt to. So you find you don’t get enough sodium unless you make sure.

Carbohydrate: Many former low-carb dieters tend to unconsciously avoid carbohydrate---and not get enough. Your body also uses carbohydrate at a very variable rate---a busy day can use up all of your stores of it and a slow day might not. Unfortunately, unless you pay attention, you usually have little awareness that this may produce a “food focus”.

Water: When you don’t drink enough water this can cause a disruptive buildup of things that can’t be flushed out properly. Heavy coffee drinkers may have this problem often because of caffeine’s thirst-suppressing effect.

Restaurants: There’s no way you can accurately track either Calories or the vital factors when you are in a restaurant. So when you go to one, the “Liar’s Diet” is about the only type of weight-loss diet you can actually be on. If you must go to a restaurant for business or social reasons, be honest with yourself---you’re not dieting that day. (It’s a “vacation” from dieting.) Try to do the best you can, but the fact is you’re almost certainly going to get too many Calories. Record this in your food records. Resume your real diet tomorrow.