Many Americans will try almost any new thing to lose weight. The problem is fad diets NEVER work . . . at least not in the long term. Any diet can help you lose water and even muscle weight in a very short period of time. But in order to maintain the loss, you have to get rid of extra fat and that takes hard work and balanced eating. And it will very likely as much time to lose the fat as it took to gain it.
Fad diets have been a part of the American psyche I’m guessing since the industrial revolution brought so many folks indoors to work. But until we get control of our idea that food—and our bodies—are our enemies fad diets will continue to make their creators rich while they add one more reason to feel like a failure to the dieter who will most likely gain back all the weight lost with a few extra bonus pounds to boot.
Feeding Tubes for Brides-to-Be
In a recent New York Times article Linda Lee reports on one of the newest dieting fads for brides-to-be who are resorting to using a feeding tube to lose 20 pounds before the wedding. Part of the shock for brides, as Lee reported, is that wedding dresses run small so that the average size 8 woman needs a size 10 or 12 wedding gown. The real truth is that wedding gowns don’t run small; clothes have been re-sized over the last 30 years so that what was once a size 10 is now a 6 or even 4. However, our bodies are not numbers on a piece of fabric, they are amazing systems that so many Americans are regularly abusing in an effort to satisfy a craving or look a certain way.
Brides who use a feeding tube to send their bodies into a state of ketosis for ten days to lose 20 pounds is a little over the top even for hardcore dieters. Not even considering the cost ($1,500) or the potential adverse reactions (kidney stones, dehydration, headaches) or complications, the hard truth is that after their crash diet to fit into that dress on the wedding day – if they time everything right – they will likely gain back the 20 they lost soon after the wedding when they return to their normal eating patterns and then hate themselves for it.
Fake Food
We have a ridiculous relationship with both our bodies and food. A walk down any grocery aisle will prove my point. We have low-fat everything which removes an essential part of a balanced diet (and often replaces it with sugars or carbs). We have no-sugar everything that is loaded with chemicals that our bodies can’t digest and that make us crave sweets even more. We have genetically modified foods that have pesticides implanted in them as part of their structure without research that tells us if those toxins in the food become toxins in our bodies. We buy water infused with vitamins and minerals. REALLY? We gulp diet sodas which have no nutritive value yet replace the water that would actually help our body metabolize what we ingest. Consuming food that isn’t food like processed snacks, soda, or items with ingredients that you need a chemistry degree to read won’t feed the miracle that is you for any length of time. And vitamins come from real food not enhanced water.
Science is not better than Mother Nature. To maintain a healthy weight, feed your body all day long with foods that it can use like vegetables, fruit, unprocessed meats, fresh fish, seeds and nuts, and whole grains that are not genetically modified. You won’t go hungry and weight will melt away because when you are good to your body, your body will be good to you.