Reading diet books is my occasional hobby - not using, not following - just reading. So far, I haven't been much influenced to go along with any of these books for very long because I realized a long time ago that they all suffer from one flaw: They don't know me. These books start with the insane premise that every single person in the world should be eating the same exact things and you know what? No way. You mean to tell me that a twenty year old marathon runner should be eating the same food as a ninety year old nursing home resident?
Hmmm.
A number of years back in Hawaii a Doctor noticing that a number of his native patients were suffering from obesity and the related health problems - Diabetes, Cardiovascular disease, etc. - switched them to a more traditional diet that their ancestors would have, and his patients lost weight and became healthy. The culprit was thought to be our evil Western diet.
Every now and then you'll read how different countries have diets that are just horrible, like the French or the Italians, but there seems to be some one element, like the tanins in the wine or the asparagus they eat with their meals will be scientifically determined to counteract this. Or you might also read how the Japanese have a super diet because they eat a lot of fish and Sea Urchins and thus the whole world should be eating fish and Sea Urchins.
Excuse me, bull crap. The French are healthy because they are French people eating French food, and the Italians are healthy because they're Italians eating Italian food and ditto with the Japanese and pretty much everybody else. These foods represent the fuel that they've been genetically designed to run on over thousands of years. It absolutely should not be a surprise that they do well with traditional diets.
The US government has, of course, one recommended diet for every single person in the US called the food pyramid. I don't know about you, but I'd be pretty leary about following any diet created by government bureaucrats. Do you really want your body to be the same type of well oiled machine that our federal government is? I'd read that what the food pyramid suggested to eat as far as proportions of fat to carbohydrate to protein was almost exactly what you would get in one American candy bar. This it turns out is pretty close. After I finished eating a salted nut roll one day I looked at the nutritional information on the wrapper and - yes - it was almost exactly what the food pyramid recommends. The candy bar had a little less then optimal protein, but otherwise you can eat candy bars and the government thinks you're doing okay.
If I were you, I'd be leary of taking any diet advice from proponents who are not themselves actually thin. I'm thinking mostly of Robert Atkins who was absolutely chubby when he passed away, but this also holds true for bald and not thin talk-show psychologist Dr. Phil and the very excitable, not very sane, and not very thin Richard Simmons. They aren't necessarily wrong in what they tell you, but how come its not working for them?
In the past, I've gone for both higher carbohydrate diets, when I was running a lot and needed the fuel to propel me for miles, and higher protein when I was lifting weights and needed to the protein to build tissue. Both, I think, work just fine for those purposes. When I was more sedentary, then I just reduced my total calories and that seemed to work just fine, also.
The one popular fad diet that I gave a serious shot at was the Atkins diet, and I'd have to say it worked - in sending me to the bathroom a dozen times a day in fear that I'd crap my pants. I'd started on the advice of a buddy who'd trimmed down nicely on it and told me how easy it was for him. So I did it and lasted a week, and in that week I lost eight pounds. But I couldn't take any more so I had to stop. When I told my buddy about this, he urged me to get back on Atkins because my body would adjust and in the meantime I should just get used to it. So I tried again and did not adjust or get used to it and quit again, because I'm not going to spend that sort of money on Adult Incontinence Products just so my jeans will fit a little looser. Thank you.
But I will occasionally recommend the Atkins diet to others. Why, you may ask, is that? Is it because I'm a sadist and want other people to get the runs several times a day and risk social embarassment like I did? No, no. Not at all. The reason is that I've talked with many other people who it's worked for wonderfully - one was a cardiologist - and so I realize that even though it was not right for me, it's probably right for many others and so if you're having a tough time losing weight this might be it for you and go ahead and try it. It didn't work for me, but it might for you.
Today I'm on what I call 'the gravity enhancement diet', which has been specially designed to ensure that the centrifugal force of the spinning Earth does not fling me off into outer space. I don't want to give away too much information on this, but it does involve frozen dinners and fast food. It will all be detailed in my new diet book, including sample menus. Mostly from McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Wendy's et al.
Here is the magical diet that is guaranteed to work for everyone. Are you ready? Commonsense. Nobody knows you better than you do. You are the expert on yourself and you know who you are and what you do and with this information you really should know what and how much you should be eating. The thing is: you just have to stop fooling yourself. The magical diet can be as simple as just not eating so much.
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