Reposted from Donald Sensing.com; links were good at time of original.
We're fat because we go on diets
Methuselah ate what he found on his plate,Prof. Ann Althouse is blogging over at GlennReynolds.com. Today she writes that Fat is sinfully complicated, with the thesis that, as Mireille Guiliano argues in French Women Don't Get Fat,
And never, as people do now,
Did he note the amount of the calorie count.
He ate it because it was chow.
He wasn’t disturbed as at dinner he sat,
Devouring a roast or a pie,
To think it was lacking in granular fat
Or a couple of vitamins shy.
He cheerfully chewed each species of food,
Unmindful of troubles or fears
Lest his health might be hurt by some fancy dessert,
And he lived over 900 years. -- Ogden Nash (I think)
... we're fat because of our American attitude toward food. Instead of fearing the sin of overeating and atoning with dieting, we should, like the thin Frenchwoman, eat a joyous array of delectable, elegant foods. In fact, why don't you start seeing yourself as sinful because you fail to appreciate the beauty of life – you lack the French joie de vivre?(Ann says that Jessica Siegel argues, however, that the French are thin because they smoke like fiends - which they do.)
Anyway, I can't solve the French problem, one way or another. Lord knows, the Brits have tried for lo these many centuries and they never solved the French problem, so I don't have a chance.
My contention is that Americans who try to reduce but regain the weight they lost, as most people seem to do, fail because they go on a diet.
Believe me, I know. After I retired from the Army I started seminary within four weeks. I was a fulltime student, worked full time also, and tried to make sure my three young children and wife remembered what I looked like, too. Something had to give, and what gave was PT. My daily diet slipped, too. The result is what anyone might expect: I gained weight, far too much.
I tried Atkins, I tried low fat, I tried the Type II diabetes diet a relative's doc had given him. And other diets, too. Sure, I lost weight - for awhile. Then it came back, and usually more. It took me a long time, but I finally realized that the reason I was unsuccessful was because I was on a diet.
The problem with diets is that they put certain foods off limits, at least for a time, such as breads, pasta, desserts of every kind, some kinds of meats, and so on. And they make you measure and weigh foods, not to mention weighing yourself (and who wants to do that?). But here is the real truth: there are no bad foods, there are only bad meals.
I found success when I decided that I would not weigh portions or myself. I would not measure portions to make sure I didn't eat a single pea more than a half cup. I would not place any food of limits, including ice cream and cake when, say, birthday parties came around.
I made only one vow, which proved surprisingly easy to keep. It was to ensure that the meal I was about to consume was a correct meal in nutrition and balance and portions (eyeballed, not weighed or measured). I did not give up snacks, I just changed what I snacked on. For the first two weeks I drank a small juice glass of orange juice whenever I wanted to snack. It satisfied the urge and gave me a flavor surge, but not empty calories. I drank a lot of orange juice in that time, but after two weeks or so the urge abated for OJ or anything else. And I did not embark on a PT program, either.
The result? I never got hungry and in six weeks I dropped one and a half shirt sizes and five inches in trouser size. I had to take my dress suit to Men's Wearhouse to get it cut down; it took six days and by the time I went back to pick it up it was too large again. I never found out how much weight I lost because I never weighed myself; it wasn't relevant to me. I measured success my an improved sense of well-being and by steadily wearing smaller clothes.
In honor of the anonymous poem at the beginning of this post, I call it the Methuselah Diet. Try it - it's free!
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