The Epicurean Diet is just eating less and enjoying what you have more.
Epicurus was a hedonist (the original kind)! He believed there were two kinds of pleasures. Necessary pleasures, and unnecessary pleasures. Necessary pleasures are food, water, shelter etc. Unnecessary pleasures are variety. Lentils are good, but having 100 kinds of lentils is unnecessary. Ultimately what you need to have a good life is to be alive. And to be alive, you’ll need food, but not 100 kinds of food. You don’t need ice cream, you just want it. You don’t need beer, you just want it.
I’ve been dieting lately and I’ve been thinking about food A LOT. What I’ve noticed is that the more I tone down what I eat, the easier it is to tone down what I want to eat. I started by eating soup or chili, or tamales, or what ever the cafe at my work was cooking, plus a fresh cookie. It was tasty, but not what I needed. Then I moved on to having salad with a heaping amount of salad dressing, and a huge apple, and 2.5oz of peanuts, and a protein shake, plus hot cocoa in the morning. Healthier, but still way more calories than I needed. Now I’m down to having kale with a few dips of salad dressing, broccoli, a small apple, and sometimes a protein shake. It tastes awful and I hate it. It sucks. I have to rinse my mouth out with coffee. Luckily when I get home, and I enjoy a slab of chicken… oh how sweet it is. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Having just a little variety makes all the difference. A slab of chicken is just a slab of chicken. It’s mostly tasteless. But when I’m hungry, it’s the best thing I’ve ever had. My life is so much fuller when my food actually satisfies me. Dieting is not pleasurable, but at least now food is 10x more pleasurable.