Hello and Welcome to the Beach Diet. The Behavioural Change Approach to Managing What You Eat.
Two things right from the start. Firstly, The Beach Diet does not have much to do with the beach. Unless you’re thinking about getting your beach body in shape. Secondly, it’s not really a diet. But the Beach Diet is a way to help you manage what you eat.
The word Beach is based on ‘BE‘ from the word BEhaviour. ‘CH‘ is taken from the word CHange. Behavioural Change = BEACH. (We added an A because it’s better that way).
We called it Beach Diet because that’s what these things tend to be called and because it sounds cool. 🙂
The biggest difference between the Beach Diet and most other diets is this: Where other diets ask you to change almost everything about what you eat, with recipe ideas and ingredient dogmas, the Beach Diet just asks you to change one thing at a time. And you choose what that thing is.
Eating is a Behaviour
So what is the Beach Diet about? Most diets are based on calories. The Beach Diet is a behavioural approach to managing what you eat. Looking at your eating behaviours and seeing what you could change. (By the way we do use the word diet because it’s just easier to do so, but most of the time when we say diet, we mean a behavioural approach to managing what you eat.) By managing our behaviours we can maange what we eat.
How does the Beach Diet work?
The Beach Diet works on behaviours. Eating is a behaviour. What we eat is a behavioural choice. How often we eat is a behavioural choice. The Beach Diet gives you ideas on how to look at eating as a behaviour. It’s not about telling you what to eat. Or selling you packets of foods. It’s about raising your awareness of your behaviours today, seeing what you’d like to change and then making those changes, step by step. And slowly! The Beach Diet is all about making small changes and letting them bed in as new habits. So that they become part of the new you. Small changes which together could have a big impact.
How long does it take?
A long time. The Beach Diet is all about the long term. It’s not a quick fix. Some behavioural changes can make a difference quickly, but changing what you eat is about the long term. It’s about you working out what you would like to change, making those changes and forming new habits in what you eat. It’s less about this week, or this month, and more about the rest of your life.
What happens?
Because The Beach Diet works on changing your behaviours, the actual changes required depend on your behaviours today. And these will be different for everyone. But there is a process of thinking to follow, which leads to your first actions.
The Beach Diet Process
Step 1 – What Do You Eat?
Step 1 is all about taking a look at yourself and your eating behaviours. This means taking a look at what you eat today. This week. How often you eat. The kind of foods you eat. Including snacking, nibbling and munching while you cook. How often you have treats. What is a treat for you? More on Step 1.
Step 2 – Assess What You Eat
Step 2 is all about assessment. Assessing what you eat means taking a look at what you eat today and judging it. You have to honest with yourself on judging what you eat. Is it good or bad. And if you’re not honest, forget it. The Beach Diet won’t work for you. More on Step 2.
Step 3 – Decide on Your Goal
Step 3 is about deciding on what you want to achieve. Why are you doing this and what do you want to be? We’ll help you to define your goal realistically. We’ll also give you some background and ideas on why other ‘diets’ may not have worked for you. (I know we said this isn’t a diet, but hey.) More on Step 3.
Step 4 – Identify What You Could Change
Step 4 is about how you might be able to achieve your goal. When you look at all the stuff you eat, you will notice some areas where you could more easily make a change. And we’ll help you with identifying these and making a plan to try some of these changes. More on Step 4
Step 5 – Action!
Step 5 is all about what you are going to do to get going. Get started. One small step at a time. Choose a behaviour change you feel most confident about. We’ll help with ideas on how to get started and what might happen on your way, both the hurdles and successes. More on Step 5.
What’s Next?
If you’ve read this page and you’re still interested, great. Next you can explore this site. Read some of the stories to see how a behavioural change approach to managing what you eat has worked for other people. Read some of the ideas about making changes to what, when and how you eat.
Good luck with your journey 🙂