By Kara Pifer
The Atkins Diet, South Beach Diet, Slim Fast, the Cookie Diet. So many fad diets, who can actually keep up with them? It seems that most people have experience with some sort of fad diet, or at least most of the women that I know do. What part of them isn’t appealing? Usually they highlight one food group or one food item and you eat that most of the day or all day and avoid everything else. Who wouldn’t’ want to eat some of their favorite foods all day, every day and still lose weight doing it? Well, those who have tried a fad diet can tell you that no matter how much you enjoy cookies, eating cookies for however many meals for as long as they can leads to never wanting to see a cookie again. I guess that specific diet works in that aspect at least, keeping cookies out of the kitchen of many actresses and other women’s homes for a period of time after ending their “diet”. Most diets like these include a short list of items that you are “allowed” to eat and an extremely long list of things that are “restricted.” How on earth does this add up to a healthy lifestyle when the items on the restricted list are usually your favorite items? Also, how can the diet itself be healthy when even nutritious foods are sometimes on the list of foods to avoid? Are there really any diets that work and are healthy?
How many readers have heard of the HCG diet? My wonderful mother told me about a segment from an episode of Rachael Ray centered around “Crazy Diets” that she found very interesting. A newly recognized “celebrity” diet called the HCG diet basically “works” by taking daily injections or doses of hormones and following a strict 500-calorie diet for however long you plan to follow the diet. The hormones are those that are normally released during pregnancy and were chosen due to their ability to mobilize fat stores. They come in the form of droplets, tablets and of course, injections. Does anything mentioned here strike anyone as unhealthy, or even crazy? First of all, the hormones can lead to mood swings, loss of hair or fluctuations in menstruation which are all serious side effects.
On this episode, Rachael Ray had two women come in who have used this diet and they definitely recommend being supervised by a doctor every step of the way because of all the associated risks. The pair, Candace and Amanda seemed to be the spokeswomen for the diet, although I cannot be sure. Apparently, Candace chose to use the injection method and injected herself every morning in her thigh and lost 36 pounds. Amanda stuck to the tablet method and lost a total of 47 pounds. Although this is a great loss, is this really a good, healthy decision? I think not.
The first tip-off was of course the fact that you are putting unnatural hormones into your body. You should not need these unless you have a medical condition that requires the use of them in my opinion. Secondly, and this just left me, jaw open and ready to protest, staring at the television screen, apparently there is a pre-HCG diet ritual that helps your body keep fat where you want it. Sounds wonderful right? Thank goodness there was a doctor on-site who set the audience straight. This “loading diet” is the first three days while you take your HCG, you eat everything and anything in sight. Nothing is off limits, you can eat four bacon cheeseburgers and two large orders of fries for lunch and still have your favorite macaroni and cheese casserole for dinner and then have an ice cream cake for dessert. Candace and Amanda, apparently “experts” state that this enormous fat intake will help your body deal with the calorie restricted diet and then “leave fat where it’s supposed to.” This will help you keep the fat in your face so you do not appear too thin, the fat in your butt so you do not achieve the “saggy butt look,” as well as keep your breasts the same size. As most medical professionals know, this is not how the body works and the doctor on-site definitely told the audience what they needed to hear, although I’m sure the brains behind the HCG diet did not enjoy his commentary. Although many of what I like to call the “diets of the day” seem to come and go as fast as the water weight they target, there is one in particular that seems to be causing quite a positive buzz. This diet, called the Mediterranean diet, is more of a lifestyle and a cuisine rather than what most people consider a “diet.” It appears that the main objective is to eat mostly monounsaturated fatty acids, coming from olives and olive oils, fruits and vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy products, fish, poultry, legumes and tree nuts. One major factor is to eat lesser amounts of red meat and something that surprised me, consume moderate amounts of alcohol, usually in the form of red wine, with meals on a daily basis.
This diet becomes even more interesting, as it seems that a website dedicated to this way of eating includes nutritional information. Following the information for women, it breaks down everything the diet includes, such as fat, calcium, iron and potassium. The information stresses that, unlike most diets, fat should not, under any circumstances, be avoided. This is refreshing to hear from a diet being featured in the news! Especially one that celebrities like Rachel Ray swear by.
Another component of this seemingly healthy diet is the way you eat your food. I found this of particular interest. It is stated that those in the area this diet originated from actually eat their food at a much slower pace, therefore they do not overeat. This way of eating and enjoying food is an essential component of transforming an individual’s diet into the Mediterranean diet. The more you taste and enjoy your food, slow down your eating and the less likely it is that you will overeat. Although this seems like common sense to many of us in the nutritional world, it does not enter the minds of many fast-paced Americans. Hence why much of America is overweight!
Other sources for this blog include:
The website: http://www.oldwayspt.org/mediterranean-diet-pyramid which features how to convert your style of eating to reflect the Mediterranean diet.
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