Diet Crazy!
There’s a new study that came out recently that compared low fat, low carb and the med diets. The end results seem to indicate that the low carb and Med diets are better than low fat, which is now causing quite a few heated arguments in various health publications. Everyone is coming out in favor of their favorite diet. People are claiming the study is revolutionary while others are claiming it’s flawed. Some authors are saying the study once and for all proves that low carb is the right choice, other experts are saying it’s meaningless. What are we to make of all of this?
Does It Matter?
To me, this kind of study is meaningless. Not just because the study itself seems flawed but also because I don’t really care. All of these heavily structured diets that tell you exactly what to eat and how much of it to eat are way to restrictive to be effective. I don’t want to spend my life checking nutritional info on every thing I eat. I don’t want to spend every meal time calculating if I’ve had too little or too many carbs, too many fats or enough fresh olive oil.
What Makes A Diet Good?
First, the basic idea behind it has to be healthy. I think low carb and low fat both fail in this aspect. Our basic diets include both carbs and fat and a diet that says avoid one or the other is automatically suspect. Maybe if the low carb diet was called the “avoid junk carbs like bread and pasta diet” I would like it more. However, it’s not. It’s the “low carb diet”, and people use it to avoid eating vegetable and eat way too much processed meat. Hey folks, you can read as many studies as you want but it still won’t make eating tons of bacon and no tomatoes healthy.
Second, a diet shouldn’t be too restrictive. Fad diets like the cabbage soup diet and such usually fail this one, but low carb, low fat and med diets all fail this one too. Low fat is especially bad here since fat is in almost everything we eat and trying to restrict its intake is nearly impossible.
Third, a diet should be sustainable. That means you should be able to keep it up for the rest of your life. Remember, a healthy diet is not a temporary thing, it’s the eating plan for the rest of your life. Personally, I don’t feel like restricting my food for the rest of my life to just Mediterranean cuisine. So again, all three diets fail on this one.
A Good Diet
A good diet is simple and unrestrictive. It’s something you can easily follow and not feel like you’re giving up on the good things in life. Otherwise, you’re not going to follow it.
The best quote about this study came from the Chicago Tribune. It said:
Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, was not in involved in the study.
It has not changed her basic approach: “Eat less, move more,” she said.
That’s it right there folks. You want good, healthy eating? Focus on that. Eat less, move more, and my own little addition, eat healthier. Stop counting carbs and fat calories and stop worrying about whether or not your food came from an Asian cuisine, an American cuisine or a Med one. Just apply some basic rules to what you eat, eat in moderation and be physically active. The weight will come off and you’ll feel much better.
If you want to read more about this study, check out Discover Magazine, The Chicago Tribune or the Wall Street Journal.
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Eating doesn’t have to be a complicated science and it shouldn’t feel like a battle, it should be simple and enjoyable. Stop focusing on specialized diets and start focusing on being healthy.
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