Your diet is a bank account. Good food choices are good investments. – Bethenny Frankel
As a dietitian in private practice, you can imagine I get asked a lot of questions about healthy eating, cooking and so forth. I welcome these questions and enjoy addressing peoples interest in the topic because after all that is why I got into this. Seriously, I get to talk about food, nutrition and exercise all day!
Generally questions like “what’s the deal with white rice versus brown rice?” are fairly easy to answer. Then you get to more technical questions like “shouldn’t we all be following a low-fat, low carbohydrate diet?” That’s where we enter into shades of grey (no, not 50 shades!).
Every body is different.
One thing I can assure you, there is not one solution for the general population.
Below are a couple fad diets on the market with the links for you to read and compare on your own.
The Military Diet
(because who doesn’t love a diet that includes ice cream?!)
This bland and weird combination of “chemically compatible” foods does make room for vanilla ice cream with dinner and promotes 3 days on very limited calorie-intake and 4 days off. It is promoted as the emergency plan if you want/need to lose weight quickly, which we all know tends to mean the dieter will regain that weight (plus more) when no longer on this plan.
This is a calorie-restricting weight loss program that includes shakes, meals and snacks provided by the company. A 3-week starter kit will run about $330 to kick-start the weight loss.
You may have also seen these HMR clinics in your town where they offer medically supervised plans for very low calorie diets. The concern lies in the lack of education. Until the individual learns how to make the right choices they will remain dependent on the shakes and pre-packaged foods.
NOTE: It is not Well Balanced Nutrition dietary advice to follow any of the aforementioned diets, but simply sharing facts.
Most diets were created out of someone else’s success and as your dietitian I feel this a good opportunity to remind you that real success comes from making lifestyle changes.
Food for thought:
If each of us requires a different “diet”, perhaps it’s about coming back to listening to our own body and what it needs.
Your body is telling you things every day about your choices. Let’s tap into that and find out what can work best for you.
