The bottom line when it comes to special diets is "What am I trying to accomplish?" There is a ridiculous amount of dieting options in this world, virtually one for every person who studies nutrition and fitness. To name a few:
Atkins Diet
Buddhist Diet
Cookie Diet
Crash Diet
Detox Diet
Diabetic Diet
Dukan Diet
Earth Diet
Fruit Diet
Feingold Diet
Gluten-Free Diet
Grapefruit Diet
Hallelujah Diet (you don't say hallelujah during the diet....)
Inuit Diet
Jenny Craig Diet
Juice Diet
Kosher Diet
Liquid Diet
Low-(insert type of food here) Diet
Mediterranean Diet
Organic Diet
Paleolithic (Paleo) Diet
Raw Food Diet
South Beach Diet
Subway Diet (thanks Jared!)
Vegan Diet
Weight Watchers Diet (ranked #1 of all popular diet plans)
I hope you're still reading. Have you ever tried any of those diets before? How did you do? If you're like the average American, you've probably struggled with getting into one of these diets before, and struggled even more when you stopped. What typically happens when you start a new diet is you give yourself a crash course in moderately starving yourself. In our culture in the U.S., we have been raised to eat. We know what we like, it is easily accessible (sometimes entirely TOO easy), and there is no one to stop us. Therefore, we overeat...thus creating the need to begin a diet.
Now you will hear from the conspiracy theorists about how all diets are meant to fail so you will keep going on more diets. I'm not buying that. However, ALL diets are based on our ability to maintain discipline. There is no diet that is successful without some means of self-control. After all, the lack of self-control is what got us here in the first place. Now I'm not about to tell you which diet is best and which is worst, because there is no clear way to define that for every individual person. I will say that I know multiple people who have tried Paleo diets, Jenny Craig, and Weight Watchers. Of all the folks that could maintain self-control, they saw great results. Those who cheated more often than not, found themselves right back at square one.
For me, dieting was as simple as picking one thing at a time to either cut back or cut completely from my menu. As you may have read earlier, I had (have) an obsession with sweet tea. I probably drank around a gallon of sweet tea a day (special thanks to Chick-Fil-A and Bill Miller's BBQ). That delicious nectar of heaven was my staple for any meal, snack, or just because I was driving by. It had to go. It wasn't easy. But it worked. Pounds melted off from one simple adjustment from my menu. And that's exactly what I want to encourage you to do.
If you like a specific type of diet, then go for it. But do so slowly. Don't try to shock your body into submission, but TRAIN it to be okay with less portions, and different things. If you just can't cut something out of your diet, try and modify it. Though I would never wish this on my worst enemy, I will say it did help me to throw in the occasional sugar substitute in my unsweet tea in order to get by. Like I said, WHATEVER IT TAKES.
So what did we learn from this?
1. There are ten million diets on the market out there
2. Ask yourself "What Am I Trying to Accomplish?"
3. Take it slow. Moving too fast only sets yourself up for disaster.
Like always, if you have any questions, or would like to sit and talk fitness and nutrition in your life, shoot me a message.
Stay Strong,
CHAD
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