If you haven't jumped on at least one diet bandwagon in your life (especially if you're a woman), then you're definitely a rare species. I grew up straddling one household where tv dinners and Big Stuff Oreos (whatever happened to those?) were the norm and another household where anything with fat was totally anathema. Later, it turned into one house with four square meals and the other with no fat but pasta every night for dinner. So I wouldn't necessarily say I had a cohesive eating style growing up. In fact, I had rather a split personality with food, enhanced by afternoon rendez-vous with pepperidge farms cookies.
When I got the college, I had no idea how to cook. I started with things like rice pilaf (and let me tell you, a dinner of only rice pilaf and then working out the next day is just an invitation for crashing) and frozen stir frys (stir fries?). I went through Atkins, which can be greatly effective (my father lost a ton of weight with it) but isn't necessarily manageable long term.
My current thinking? I hate diets. Not that anyone likes them. I mean, how could you like a diet, which is inherently a system which tells you what you can't eat? I think all in all, it's a fairly losing proposition in the long run. Yes, people lose a bunch of weight, but more often then not, it packs right back on, and then some. And it's because so many of these diets seem to focus on the quick fix, and don't teach you how to eat for life. Seriously, can you imagine eating cabbage soup every day for the rest of your life? The primal diet seems at first to be more manageable, since there are a range of foods you can eat - it's mostly meat and veggies, with carbs and dairy being no-nos. Atkins too has had a lot of popular press with its no-carb diet. Then there are all the different organizations where you have to buy the food directly from them (frozen-dinner style), and they don't teach you how to make it yourself. But the defining feature of the diets is that there are foods (often many many foods) which you aren't supposed to eat, and when people do, it's with a sense that they're failing their diet, which can sometime derail their whole diet for the day ("hey, as long as I'm eating badly today, I might's well add on another pint of ice cream or three more cookies and call this day a wash, right?"). I'd rather focus on the positive.
Then I read The New Glucose Revolution. It discusses the glycemic impact of certain foods (what the food does to your blood sugar, and therefore how long you feel full and how much nutrition you get). It's kind of like a loose South Beach Diet without the crazy restrictive level 1. And it doesn't say you can't have certain foods. Now, as much as I'd like to eat cake and cookies and ice cream all the time, that's not what it says either. Basically, the rule of thumb is "everything in moderation." We have a culture of going to excess in this country (entrees at restaurants could give you the same number of calories as your entire normal day), with huge plates of food and eating until the plate is clean, rather than listening to the signals our stomachs are giving us. I'm just as guilty of that as the next person. But basically, eating low glycemic index foods (cutting back on (but not totally cutting out) refined carbs like white bread and rice, and eating foods low in saturated fat. And unlike the old low-fat diets, adding important healthy fats like nuts, olive oil and avocados.
Basically, I eat about 80% of my meals from food I've cooked, and I normally stick to protein, lots of veggies, and whole or multi-grain carbs (quinoa, semolina pasta, multi-grain bread, couscous), with a touch of dairy in there. Then when I go out to eat, I don't worry about what I get so much - I enjoy it, even if it happens to be fried or creamy or whatever. Because when I tell myself that I can't have a cookie, when I do I end up eating three. But if I just have the cookie in the first place, I'll have one (or two, or yes three, but whatever, I exercise). I also don't like all the chemicals they put in food, so I stay away from canned stuff like soup, or tv dinners (which fill me up for maybe an hour), or other preprepared foods. I'll just cook a lot on Sundays, put a bunch of stuff in my freezer for home cooked frozen dinners, and it all works out.
But the thing is, what many people completely forget, is that there is no Holy Grail of dieting. Maybe you don't have time to cook at all, or you can't even boil water, or you're on a restricted budget, or you don't have all the freezer space I do. Maybe you're a vegetarian or vegan or have celiac disease. Then the way I eat isn't right for you. And that's ok. Just because it works for me doesn't mean it'll work for you. And that's what I feel that people forget. They see some cool new diet, decide to try it, don't get results, and give up on the whole idea of dieting. Try approach "dieting" like dating. You go out with someone a couple times, but you're not likely to meet your life partner the first time out, right? So you date around, then eventually find the right fit for you. Because "dieting" has a short-term connotation, since so many diets are unsustainable. Think about finding a diet that's an entire way of life. So make small changes (drink water instead of soda, sorbet instead of ice cream, etc) rather than upending your whole system of habits, and you're more likely to stick with it in the long run.
And don't forget about exercise. Not my focus of this post, but just as important (if not more so).
What's your "diet," and does it work for you? What's the craziest diet you tried?
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