You Shouldn't Have Asked My Opinion...

I’m bugged….

So all along my focus has been to promote HEALTH through our food choices.    Logically, “health” is a broad term, so I’m going to make a list of what I mean by it:   Lack of disease.  Each organ and part is put to its best use in the most efficient way within your machine that is your body. Quality of life.  Energy to live that life.   Restful sleep. A little sunshine thrown in.  Simple.

Did you notice that I didn’t include what you weigh?

Because (again, logically) if you are taking care of the business of eating what you should in the right amounts, weight takes care of itself.  Every single time.  It’s science.

In the absence of disease, when you eat (and drink) more calories than you use, you gain weight.  Conversely, when you eat (and drink) less calories than your body needs, you lose weight.  Simple.

To illustrate, if all you cared about was losing weight, I could put you on an ice cream diet, or a frito pie diet, or even a peanut butter on shoe leather diet and you would lose.  As long as you ate less calories than you burned up, you would lose weight.

Now.  Here’s why I’m bugged. Is that all people care about?

I was asked by a friend to comment on a diet that she’s following.  You may have heard of it, because it’s the diet du jour right now.  (What’s that phrase?  15 minutes of fame?)  The theory is to go back to eating what our ancestors, the cavemen ate.  Meat, vegetables and fruits.  No grains…nothing agricultural. The video clip is very interesting, and I must admit, convincing.  The founder of this diet is in his 70’s and (I kid you not) pulled his Range Rover out of his driveway by a rope.  He was asked “when was the last time you had a bagel.”  He responded, “What’s a bagel?”

For every 70 year old you show me who is the picture of health in spite of eating only meat, fruits and vegetables, I’ll show you a middle aged person eating like that in serious danger of a heart attack.  (To most people, a fruit means an apple and vegetables mean canned green beans.) The fact is grains are an important part of anyone’s diet, if only for the fiber.  But they also provide nutrients found only in grains.  (I’m blogging on vitamins soon.  Very soon.)  

Not to mention the headgames.  Geez.  How long can the normal person go without a piece of bread?  How long before the “that ain’t fair” kicks in, not to mention turning up the “want what you can’t have” volume, and it’s not long till we are in the “hide and watch” “you and what army” are going to keep us from that stinking piece of bread???

Dear friends, the very act of going ON a diet implies what?  Going OFF one, right?  When (oh when) will we all just get on board with eating right? Is it just not sexy enough?  Not trendy enough?  Not join the bandwagon enough? What if we all started a movement called, "The SANE way?"