There has been a recent surge in the experts weighing in (pun
intended) on popular and celebrity diets to rate them in terms
of effectiveness, nutritional adequacy, and balance. Look at the
latest crop of magazines, Internet news reports, and television
specials.
What is a semi-motivated would-be dieter to do?
Every diet listed seems to give rise to a chorus of criticism.
Either it contains too few fruits and vegetables, not enough
fiber, not enough fat, or too few calories. The glycemic index
is too high or too low, the nutritional content of its staples
are not good enough, there is too much or too little of
something.
Who rates what we are eating now? We simply pig out on
everything from pizza, to fast food, to snacks (did you know
that potato chips are the most popular snack food in America -
accompanying 32% of our lunches?), desserts, ice cream and beer.
While it would be nice, I suppose, to have a population who ate
only healthy foods, in moderation, exercised daily, and took
care to ingest at least the minimum requirement of vitamins and
minerals, that is not reality, my friend. We overeat on all the
wrong foods, we avoid regular exercise like the plague, and huff
and puff our way into enlarged bodies that are twenty to fifty
pounds heavier than our frames deserve.
Any way that we can take off some or all of that weight is
worthwhile. No one is going to stay on any of the popular diets
for a lifetime, let’s face it. We look at them as temporary
(which is part of the problem, but I digress) fixes. The last
thing we need are experts who make us afraid to start because we
might not be obtaining the right nutrition. Or do we take a
certain degree of self-satisfaction in telling ourselves that we
can’t start until the “perfect diet” is identified?
Are we eating the right way without a diet? No, our nutrition is
still deplorable, it’s just that we are eating a lot of
everything. Let’s have at least one expert come out and
truthfully report that no matter the deficiencies of any
specific diet – going on it is absolutely better than eating the
way we are now!
Let’s get our collective weight down, and then start worrying
about nutrition and health. Diabetes, heart attacks, and gall
bladders care a lot less about what we eat than how much.
Start a diet, ANY diet, and follow through for a few weeks and I
guarantee you’ll be in a much better place, physically and
mentally, to start looking after your health and long term
fitness than when hemmed in by too much blubber, reading scare
stories from the media about how your intended diet is somehow
unbalanced.
About the author:
Virginia Bola is a licensed psychologist and an admitted diet
fanatic. She specializes in therapeutic reframing and the
effects of attitudes and motivation on individual goals. The
author of The Wolf at the Door: An Unemployment Survival Manual,
and a free ezine, The Worker’s Edge, she recently completed a
psychologically-based weight control book: Diet with an
Attitude. She can be reached at
http://dietwithanattitude.com/index2.html
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