The Starting Ana Diet should not be confused with something designed to become anorexic (remember you cannot just get an eating disorder). This is really a diet to start of with dieting kind of diet.
1: Getting started
First off, get a food journal. Write down everything you eat, every single piece. Write down why you ate (craving, emotional reasons, hunger) and why you chose that food. This will show you how much you’re really eating; you may be surprised. People usually hugely underestimate what they eat. Writing down times you ate, feelings, reasons, will help you track patterns and find problems to account for such as emotional eating or late night eating. This will be your starting point, to know what you’re working with now and start making changes.
Get your mind ready. This is a major life change. You have to start thinking THIN, not fat.
Helpful Tools
Food journal or food tracking app: this is absolutely essential. You can use an app like MyFitnessPal, Fitday, FatSecret, a paper notebook. or an accountability thread or blog. Record ALL your foods. Count the calorie totals for each day, and record your weight and/or measurements. Look over it to see any patterns, so you can maintain the good ones and change the bad ones. Try recording foods before you eat them, so you can reconsider if you really want them after seeing what it’ll do to your total. You can also record your planned food in advance. like the day or week’s food, which can be motivating because if you go off plan you’ll have to go in and change it.
Scale or measuring tape: This is really good to have so you can see how much real weight you are losing/gaining and see how your eating patterns affect your weight. If you cannot afford a scale, a measuring tape will work too. Measure all over your body and write it down. Measure weekly since you probably won’t see much of a change day-to-day. For a scale you can weigh every day or twice a day, once in the morning and once at night. However some people find this discouraging and weigh every other day, for a bigger difference, or once a week. I find it helpful to track both weight and measurements.
Big water bottle: This helps you see how much water you’re drinking and make sure it’s enough. One with a big opening will let you put ice cubes in. Ice water speeds your metabolism.
Thinspiration: photos, quotes, songs, etc. You can put them on your phone or write them in a journal. Look at them often to remind yourself why you’re doing this.
2: Small Changes
The easiest first step is to start drinking water! Water all day, before every meal, between every bite. Water! Ana’s best friend.
Look through your food journal for opportunities to shave calories or replace high calorie items. Any dressings or sauces, toppings, etc are a good start. Cut out dairy whenever possible, or halve the portion. Replace bread with rice cakes or lettuce wraps. Replace sweets with fruits or mini versions. Example: instead of a pastry or candy, get a cake pop or single Hershey kiss or mini Reese’s cup. Gas stations and 7-11’s often sell singles of these, and Starbucks sells cake pops. Cutting out sweets is more likely to kill your craving for them, but reducing is a good start. Better yet, replace with sweet fruit like berries. Add stevia for a 0 cal sweetness boost. If you would usually have 2 pieces of something, try one and see if it even makes a difference. After conquering the basics, look for further opportunities. Trade pasta for steamed veggies or spiraled zucchini. Replace chips with roast kale or baby carrots and celery (don’t ruin it with a high calorie dip!) This should go without saying, but eliminate all caloric drinks. Soda, juice, milk, caloric coffee drinks, or anything else. 10-20 calories is a good limit for drinks since even diet soda has a few calories. Try replacing with water, coffee, tea, or water flavorings like Mio and Crystal Light. This also helps you start looking at food as opportunities to reduce calories, instead of things you want to indulge on.
3: Restricting and planning
Now that you have seen how much you eat and found room for trimming. start tracking calories and setting limits. To find your calorie limit, use a TDEE calculator. Subtract 500 calories from this, and that is your absolute maximum. Feel free to restrict lower, but if you find yourself binging or unable to function, increase cals by 100 or 200 until you find something that is still challenging to some degree, but sustainable. As long as you are eating under your TDEE you will lose, but a deficit of 500 should equal one pound lost a week. You can increase your TDEE by exercising!
Start planning your intake in advance. I recommend planning out your whole week. Plan exact foods and portions and then do not deviate! You can allow one high cal day every week or two weeks, to fit in the foods you crave or eat a bigger portion although you’ll quickly adapt to small portions and the portions you used to eat would be painful now. I’d plan this day extra carefully, pick the one or two higher cal foods and plan the rest (if you will eat anything more) and set a cal limit like 1800-2200, or less if you won’t need that much. Calculate weekly calories and see what you can fit to make sure it still works out to a 500 a day deficit at least overall. This is a good way I’ve found to prevent binges by allowing the things I would want to binge on, but still being controlled and staying on plan and within a limit. For your regular foods, think about whether you should really be eating that and try to phase only to good foods. Don’t be filling up your total with sugar, saturated fat, and empty carbs.
4: Exercise
It would be ideal to add or increase exercise from the beginning, but some people may find it hard to change ALL their habits overnight and it’s best to get the food down first. Start researching and doing exercise, a good blend of cardio and weights/calisthenics. Something like HIIT might be appealing to combine these, especially if you don’t like to spend a long time exercising. There are a ton of great workout videos on YouTube. Tracking your steps is a good idea to make sure you are moving enough but exercise on top of that is important. You can allow yourself some pre-planned rest days, actually this is usually recommended to have 1-2 days a week, but it’s rest from further exercise, not a day to loaf around. Keep walking and stretching. Exercise is not an excuse to add more calories. Personally I don’t see as good of results from “net calories” and food should not be a “reward” for anything. You’re exercising to lose weight and look better, not to “earn” food. If you really need it, try a lower-calorie protein drink or electrolyte drink.
5: Research and refine
Continue researching and learning about calories, macros, exercise styles, fasting, body composition and BMI, everything that can help you plan better and reach your goals. Maintain motivation and keep refining your plan, reducing if you can, finding more nutrient-dense foods and other foods that work for you. There are lots of tips on this site and others (but be careful, don’t try anything that is obviously dangerous.) You can try them and incorporate the ones that help you. Learn new ways to inspire yourself and stay on track. Keep to your plan like it’s impossible to deviate from; binging or “cheating” just isn’t an option. You can develop this mindset if you try. Good luck!
Ana Starter Plan
Week 1:
For the first week you are allowed to eat any raw vegetable you want, in any amount. You may also eat any raw fruit, in any amount except bananas. Only if you get very hungry and want to binge may you eat any whole grain (brown rice, unflavored couscous, quinoa, rye, barley, etc but only in its unadulterated form) until you are full. Remember, you must FIRST eat the veggies, then the fruit, then only if you are still unsatisfied, the whole grain.
For this first week you are forbidden any bread, cheese, pasta, sugar (including all candies, non diet sodas or sugary drinks, anything with sugar on the label.) You should also work on avoiding meat (plain canned tuna is ok, but no meat is best), dairy (nonfat yogurt is okay but dairy has a lot of fat), and eggs (egg whites are ok). For protein try tofu (lite tofu if you can find it), seitan, or a protein powder (find the one with the lowest calories, and don’t take it every day).
You must drink 32oz of water per day if you are new to drinking water frequently, and minimum 64 if you already drink water.
Week 2:
For the second week, you must continue to drink 32oz of water per day and write down everything you eat. Here are the changes:
You must plan out your intake to 1000 calories per day. Write down every food you plan to eat, and check it off as you eat it. However, you are still allowed unlimited raw veggies if you get too hungry. Raw fruit and whole grains must be on the pre-planned list; however, any amount of raw veggies are allowed. All foods must be recorded and the calories counted. For any extra veggies, write down the calories so that you are aware, but they do not count toward your day total of 1000.
You must exercise for at least 30 minutes per day. Write down the time and duration of exercise, and amount of calories burned. If you binge, you must exercise until you have burned twice the calories consumed in your binge. Everyone gets cravings, but the point of the extra veggies is so you won’t binge out of hunger, and the longer you can put off indulging a craving the less you will crave it over time so eventually unhealthy, unnatural processed foods will no longer appeal to you.
Minimum 64oz of water a day
Week 3:
Now you have broken your food addictions to dairy, wheat, and sugar, and have an understanding of calories. You must plan out your food intake every day, to 800 calories, and not go over. However, you may still have unlimited celery and lettuce.
You may have up to 1 cup brown rice or whole grain, 1 whole small fruit or 1cup diced large fruit, 1 serving of protein (lite yogurt, tofu, or plain tuna) and the rest raw or steamed veggies (no dressing.) Write down everything you consume and add the calories. Celery does not count toward the day total.
You must continue to drink 64oz of water per day and work on increasing to 72.
You must exercise for at least 1 hour per day, primarily cardio with some calisthenics/weight training.
Week 4:
You must continue to drink 72 oz of water per day.
You are no longer allowed any overages. You must plan out each day’s intake to 600 calories. You may have up to 1/2 cup whole grain, one small fruit or 1/2 cup diced large fruit, 1-2 servings tofu or plain tuna, and the rest raw or steamed veggies. You can exchange the fruit for another serving of protein if you prefer. Write down everything you consume and record the calories. If you want to allow yourself additional celery or carrot snacks, you must pre plan it so it does not exceed 600 calories.
You must exercise 1 hour per day and at least 15 minutes additional calisthenics, leg lifts or abdominal exercises. Pilates or yoga counts.
Week 5:
You are now ready to create your own ana plan, or start one of the diet plans listed on this site. For starters, 2468 is a great plan that should be easy for you considering you are already down to a 600 calorie a day intake.
Continue to lower your intake. Work on reducing the grains.
Continue to increase your exercise. (just do not overdo it, unless you are going for muscle mass - fitness body look)
Continue to drink at least 72oz of water per day.
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