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How to Lose Weight Without Restrictive Dieting

Follow This 1 Rule So You Can Lose Fat (and Still Have Pizza and Wine!)

There are tons of diets out there telling you to ditch certain foods. No fruit, no whole grains, no sweet potatoes, no pizza, no ice cream — what kind of life is that? Aside from making you unhappy, that kind of lifestyle isn't sustainable. Maybe you can ditch these delicious foods for a week or two, but soon the cravings will come on so strong that you'll say, "Forget this!" and have a huge binge. Of course that won't help you lose weight.

Fitness trainer and fat-loss coach Ivica Fridrih (@ivicafridrih on Instagram) posted this diagram to show how you can lose fat and leave restrictive diets behind. It illustrates the good old 80/20 rule, in which 80 percent of the time you focus on healthy, whole, unprocessed foods. Then the other 20 percent leaves room for the treats you love (like pizza and wine!).

Implementing the 80/20 rule is the only way you'll be able to sustain a healthy lifestyle for the rest of your life and enjoy it! "What's the point of getting in a better shape if it will make all other areas of your life worse, don't you agree?" Ivica said. You're eating right and exercising to lose weight to enhance your life — never forget that! So the method to get there shouldn't negatively impact your life.

Basically, the 80/20 diet really just gives some structure to the not-so-sexy "everything in moderation" mantra that registered dietitians like Sheri Kasper preach day in and day out, and it's the diet she follows to help herself maintain a healthy weight. Here are her tips for implementing the 80/20 rule.

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