Dieting

National Nutrition Month 1st Hot Topic: Dieting.

In all honesty, the most frustrating thing about being a dietitian and having all of the knowledge I have in my brain about food, body chemistry, physiology and metabolism, is knowing in my heart of hearts that there is no secret. There is no secret to losing weight, gaining weight, or even to being healthy. The big picture is one that everyone already knows – eat with balance, variety and moderation – and move your body. SO FRUSTRATING!

The second most frustrating thing is something that happens to me a lot when I am out in public without my “Food Police” uniform on (I’m just kidding I don’t really have a uniform, but it sure feels like it sometimes when you sit in my office – sorry about that). People always ask “so, what do you do?” and sometimes I’ll tell people right off that bat what I do but other times I’ll go ahead with an answer like “Oh, I’m in healthcare” or “I own a small business”. Just to avoid the following scenario:

Example Person: “So what do you do?”

Ashley: “I’m a registered dietitian”

Example Person: “Oh my gosh that’s so cool! Nutrition is such a passion of mine, I study everything I can about it on the internet and gosh you should see my bookshelf. I have every book by Dr. Oz and subscribe to a bunch of different health magazines…I’m actually in the middle of this cleansing detox right now and besides starving and not being able to think straight its going great! Have you ever heard of the blood-type diet? A girlfriend of mine said it makes so much sense….”

Ashley: (thinking) Shoot me now.

Let me just go ahead and put this out there: DIETING DOES NOT WORK. I don’t care if Doctor so-and-so wrote it, and I don’t care if your BFF lost 38 lbs in one week – it’s not healthy, it won’t last, and it’s a dangerous shortcut that you’re taking because you are lazy. Sorry, but that’s the truth and I’ll be the first one to smack you across the face with it. Figuratively speaking.
Click on the link below, its a timeline of all the "Fad Diets" and its pretty fun to look through: Let’s take a look at just how long “diets” have been wowing the world…

http://old.eatright.org/videos/nnm/timeline.swf

There are a lot of brilliant minds out there; don’t you think that if there was some secret we would’ve figured it out by now? I mean we have phones that we stick in our ears and can talk to people in Tokyo if we want. Grow up Peter Pan, Count Chocula, I want to be cowboys from Arizona or pimps from Oakland, but it's the fourth quarter of the big game and you're talking crazy.

Bottom Line: Diets don’t work. Move your body (if you don’t know how, ask a personal trainer) and eat right (if you don’t know how, ask.)

Blessings!

Ashley