And now a post that some people will find offensive. Good! (Please come back and read my blog again in a few days after you calm down.)
Dieting Pet Peeve: People who go on fad diets.
I know people who are very smart people in every other aspect of their life who think it's a good idea to go on a fad diet and have the expectation it will change their life. From what I've read, success happens very seldom. Sure, you probably could find people who have been on Atkins diets, for example, for many years and are sticking to it. But are the majority of people who tried it still doing it after a year or two?
A dietary change is something you have to stick to your whole life. I'm guessing that those few Aitkin's success people found something that restricts their calories and is something that they can live with forever. I'm no expert on the solution for me and I won't be until I find something that works for me for five years or even ten years before I declare success.
When I lost 125 pounds in the 90s I started by using Slim Fast dark chocolate shakes. But then I started reading a little bit and educating myself. I'm a person who puts his trust in science, even if science is imperfect and evolves. People thought, because I was using Slim Fast that I was on a fad diet. I wasn't. I ate the same crap I always did, just less.
I had a chocolate Slim Fast double shake in the mornings. One shake didn't do anything for me, it didn't shut down the hunger so I combined my breakfast and lunch shakes together. I essentially starved all day. I could have replaced the shakes with a couple bowls of high fibre cereal and a multivitim and had the same result. In fact, I started doing that after I tired of the same shake every day. But I still enjoyed getting my chocolate fix so I always returned to shakes.
Nowadays I eat higher fibre toast or cereal to start my day and try not to let myself get too hungry. You slow down when you're hungry and burn less calories. My goal is to strive for five smaller meals throughout the day and not go overboard on the portion sizes.
If you start a fad diet, ask yourself if you can do this every day until you die. If you can't then the diet won't be successful.
In spite of this blog, friends still ask me if I'm allowed to eat this or that. The people at my clinic, my doctor included, aren't asking me to stop eating anything, even pizza. They're just asking me to eat less of the bad things and include more good things like fruits and vegetables. From what I can see, that's the current scientific thinking on how to approach the diet of overweight people. That thinking may change one day but I think we're starting to get somewhere with our understanding of how the overweight body and mind works.
I also roll my eyes when people do cleansing routines. Until science says it's a good idea, why do people do it? I "cleansed" my colon for two colonscopies and I was no different afterwards. Plus, there were no fifty pound chunks of undigested red meat coming out or found in my exam.
If you're not smart about things, you don't stand a chance on improving your health. You're doctor probably knows best, not the person you work or your odd cousin Harold who swears by something unproven by science.
Science: It's something to believe in!
