Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as the world's greatest diet. Allow me to explain.
First of all, what would be the attributes of the world's greatest diet?
1. It would be comprised of easily available foods.
2. It would NOT require any fancy measuring or fixing.
3.
It would be easy to follow at a friend's dinner party, a fine
restaurant, or Mickey Dee's (McDonald's to old fuddy-duddies like me).
4. It would not just help with weight loss and weight management, but with health in general.
5. It would be made up of our favorite foods.
HMMMMMMM! TEACHER! I SEE A PROBLEM!
Okay, you can put your hand down. I see it too. It's that "favorite foods" thing, isn't it?
Everybody
has different "favorite foods", and we won't even get into gourmet,
regional, or ethnic cooking. I'll leave that to my daughter and her
husband. (Psst! Seen the pictures of my grandkids?)
Anyway, let's see if we can put together the world's greatest diet for health and weight loss...for you!
You see, there's the rub, as my good friend, though somewhat older than me, Billy Shakespeare would say.
We
are all different. We are different ethnically, environmentally,
educationally, genetically (ran out of e's), and, dare I say it,
sexually. All of these things are important, because they exercise an
influence on the results of any diet that anybody tries out.
Hey,
there's a good word, "try". How many people do you know who actually
stay on a diet...especially for the rest of their lives? I guess we
need to add another attribute. The world's greatest diet would have to
be one:
6. You could and would stay on for the rest of your life.
WHY THE REST OF MY LIFE?
Simple.
I don't care what diet you go on and how well it works. If it does
work and you stop eating according to that diet, over time you will find
yourself right back where you are now and wondering where you put this
article.
So, to build your "world's greatest diet" we have to go
back to the title of this article, "The World's Greatest Diet For Weight
Loss And Health". I put "weight loss" AND "health" in there for a
reason. There are diets that don't really help you lose weight, there
are diets that are not good for your health, and weight loss does not
automatically equal health...particularly if that weight loss is
accomplished through dieting.
Here we go. It doesn't really
matter what foods you eat. You like apple pie, have some apple pie.
You like popcorn, have some popcorn. Filet Mignon? Sure, why not.
Let's
back up for a minute. A "diet" is simply a list of the foods you eat.
In the last few decades, the word has gotten loaded down with all kinds
of extra stuff like the pancakes at IHOP. A doctor can give you a
"diet" to help you avoid hives, get over a stomach upset, or even to
gain weight if that is what is needed for your health.
If that
doctor gives you a "diet" that says you can only eat seven foods, he or
she would be doing you a grave (pun intended) disservice. In order to
get the nutrients your body needs for health AND for weight loss, you
need a diversity of foods...and that diversity can range from soup to
nuts...or Filet Mignon! You don't have to JUST eat cabbage. You NEED
to eat cabbage, hamburgers, biscuits, broccoli, apples, apple pie,
chicken, fish, carrots...you get the idea. You can deny yourself a lot
of the foods you like, take a lot of enjoyment out of your life, and
even damage your health without even losing any weight by trying weird
fad diets and strange pills that cause your body to act in an unnatural
manner.
Your personal "greatest diet in the world" is going to be the foods you normally eat and enjoy eating.
THERE'S GOT TO BE A "BUT" HANGING AROUND SOMEWHERE!
Absolutely. It's not about WHAT you eat. It's about two other things:
1. How MUCH you eat, and
2. How you live the rest of your life.
You
see, weight loss and health is about balance. The weight loss balance
has been known for years. Eat more calories than you use, the excess
gets stored as fat. Attempt to use more calories than you eat, your
body burns the available fat and abracadabra you have weight loss.
However, simply cutting calories down to the bone denies your body
nutrients necessary to health and does not allow for the activity that
helps keep a body healthy. Exercising (the way we most commonly burn
extra calories) while continuing to eat excess calories not only makes
it harder to lose weight, but still creates a condition in which our
health can be threatened by that excess anyway.
A balanced program
for health and weight loss does not deny you the foods you like to eat,
it merely tasks you to realize what you are doing to your body and use
some self control and limit yourself when food is offered or available.
As far as the exercise side of the equation is concerned, "exercise"
scares people, so let's just talk about activity. Your exercise program
can be gardening, swimming, bicycle riding, yoga, tai-chi; or gardening
on Monday, swimming on Tuesday, bicycle riding on Wednesday, yoga on
Thursday, and tai-chi on Friday!
There is an old saying: Keep doing what you have been doing, and you will keep getting what you have been getting.
Makers
of diet pills and sellers of diet books know that you realize this, so
they offer you something that seems to change that no-win equation. The
problem is that without actually creating an actual change of the
manner in which you eat and exercise, these diet pills and fad diets at
best will only temporarily seem to change the actual equation and allow
you to lose weight for a short time if at all. They will not make a
permanent change in your life or your health, and their "weight loss"
effects, if any, will wear out quickly, often leaving you in a worse
situation than when you started.
An article such as this is much
too short to get into all the various aspects of weight loss, diets,
exercise, and health, but the basic equations are simple. Too much
weight can adversely affect your health in a multitude of ways. Losing
weight in an unhealthy manner may leave you in as bad a state as you
were in when you started...or even worse. Combining formal exercise or
enjoyable physical activity with a sensible enjoyment of food so that
calorie intake and calorie use can be balanced will result in weight
loss, health and a lifestyle that will continue to bring benefits for
years.
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