Diets, Diets, Diets....

Today, my peeps, we shall discuss the great American pastime of dieting and the constant hold it has on most of our lives. And what, you ask, makes me think I am qualified to lead this discussion? Because I have been on just about every diet known to humanity. And I have failed at all of them, too....Low Cal Diets; Atkins Diet, South Beach Diet; The Drinking Man's Diet; Jenny Craig; Weight Watchers; Nutrisystems; The Popcorn Diet; Vegetarian Diet; etc ad nauseum.

There are two main reasons these diets fail:

1. You are in a food comfort zone when you begin the diet, and that comfort zone is immediately stripped away as you begin. Me, I got to have my meat & potatoes every day---sometimes every meal. I mean, I suffer the DTs after 24 hours without my meat & spuds. I love sandwiches, too---bread is forbidden or restricted on most diets, so I am taken right out of my comfort zone, without bread, mayo, mashed potatoes, hash brown potatoes, potato chips, french fries, baked potatoes, etc...it makes me crazy. After about two days of torture, I usually start a second diet because I can't get enough to eat on just one.

2. Keeping the weight off after you complete your diet (if you are one of the rare folks who can stay on the damn thing in the first place). It turns out that the human body rebels at being forced to lose weight. And by God, when the diet is over and you think you can have a few good meals again, the pounds come roaring back---to an even higher level than when you began. It is diabolical.

"Experts" say that you are supposed to "change your lifestyle" and never go back to the foods you loved all those years. This is not natural. It doesn't work.

Eight days ago, I began yet another diet. This time, I chose the Atkins diet, which involves restricting carbohydrates. So far, I have lost 6 pounds. The diet works. But, there are problems---I can't eat bread or potatoes. I crave bread & potatoes. And, because I am not ingesting carbs, my body is rebelling with fits of weakness and a tendency to become "stopped up" in the bowel department. So, of course, I must compensate with a daily dose of metamucil. Nice.

Our ancestors did not deal with weight gain. They actually got out every day and WORKED---did a lot of physical stuff like plant crops, butcher hogs and build railroads. We have now "progressed" as a society to the point that we move our fingers and hands all day at a keyboard and call it "work". As we are sitting, our butts and bellies are bulging.

It would be really nice if we had a pill we could take to make our bodies just the right weight. Probably someday we will have that magic bullet. But, in the meantime, we must diet. Gotta go now---the DTs are startin'...