A Ramble On Dieting

I've always felt that people tend to grasp onto fad diets, hoping that they'll magically lose weight. They'll read the book, which makes the diet make total sense, and stick to the principles of the diet for one or two weeks. They'll lose a whole bunch of weight or not lose any weight at all, and then they'll go back to eating the way they ate before. Even when I was really young I knew this didn't make any sense at all, and yet so many hours of women's time are wasted discussing how they're present diet is working. I always wondered why they didn't realize that you had to change the way you eat, ALL THE TIME, not just for a few weeks. And hello, why didn't people realize that fatty, greasy foods, and candy make you fat when you eat too much? And did they really not know that if you're really overweight than you are probably eating way too much of whatever it is you're eating, even if it seems healthy? And that you have to actually move your butt from the couch to lose weight? It all boils down to the fact that as Americans we have gotten altogether too lazy. We look for the quick fix. Why do the diets of the French, or the Italians, or the Chinese work better? Not because they eat more cheese or drink tea. They live a healthier lifestyle! They're not too lazy to make their lunch and dinner, or to walk down the street when they need to get something. They don't rely on the mass media to tell them what they should be eating (did we need lawsuits to tell us that McDonald's is making us fat?) they rely on what their bodies tell them and they eat what is available. They don't eat the way they do for two weeks to slim down, they eat and LIVE fairly healthy all the time. You can be vegetarian, vegan, low-carb, high carb, low-fat, and still be fat (or just unhealthy) if you don't have a healthy lifestyle to go with your diet.

I really like Myia's new blog about living healthy. I think what has helped Myia and I over the last year and a half is that we didn't just exercise, we started eating better at the same time. We started drinking more water. We started looking at not just what we were eating, but how much. Myia actually wrote down how many calories she was taking in, and anyone can see that that definitely worked for her. I just made myself look at packages and think about how many calories were in a meal before eating it. The most important thing we did though, was making the commitment to a lifestyle change. When we started we knew we weren't trying it out for a few weeks, we had to change for good.

What's the point of all of my rambling? I think it's obvious, something that we all know deep in the recesses of our minds that losing weight can't be done with a magic pill or diet. We need to stop looking at the quick fixes and get up off of our butts. Cook your own dinner. Pack a lunch. At least look to see what is really in your food before you shove it down your throat. Pay attention to how much your eating. Find a way of eating that makes you feel good, and stick to it. AND EXERCISE. There is always the excuse that we don't have enough time. But that is only an excuse. We find plenty of time in our days to email and surf the internet and watch tv. There is time for exercise.

Things that make us fat (because we eat so much of them):
Fast Food
Soda (Drinking our Calories!)
Big Portions
Lack of Exercise