Chase Your Dreams
Tuesday, 31 March 2015
Book Review: Diet Cults, by Matt Fitzgerald...
I have just finished reading this awesome book. As someone whom is very interested in the world of fitness, health and diet I found Diet Cults a great read. It was interesting to see the science and other aspects to some of the cult diets out there today.
Here is just some of the titles in the contents page of the chapter that were to follow: Forbidden Fruit, 100 Foods To Eat Before You Die, Homo Coquus, The Caveman of Orange County, The Suck-It-Up Diet, It's A Bird! It's Plane! It's Superfood!, Consider The Potato, and many more. There is a total of 15 chapters to read and get your thoughts around.
Matt takes you for a ride back to the start of when only God inhibited the earth, and through to six millions years ago, when an ape species similar to the modern Chimp underwent an evolutionary split. This book is great in the sense of all the scientific information based on our past ways of eating food that is now questionable or completely not allowed by diet cults. Matt presents reason for the way some diet cults have worked, with regards to human having the need to belong in a group. For example Weight Watchers, the Paleo Diet, etc.
For me as a reader and have been against cult diets for a long time as I have seen for myself that they don't work. I have seen this in my own family with my mother doing Jenny Craig not just once but at least three times and still not learning from it. For her it seemed that because she was going on a holiday and needed to loose some weight before going to look better, she managed to drop some weight before going, but by the time she got back she had regained all the weight back and some more. I have also seen this in other people that I know. So for me Cult Diets don't work. I have become very much about commonsense eating or as Matt puts it Agnostic Healthy Eating, but before I get to that part let me share some of Matt's words with you regarding Chapter 8 Eat Bad, Look Good: This is the chapter where the argument, that does exercise really help with weight loss? Some believe exercise to be pretty useless with regards to weight loss, as it can make the person whom is exercising to eat more after. Matt stated..."Other research cited in Cloud's article suggested that working out might also thwart weight loss--and even promote weight gain--by making people less active than they would otherwise be during the rest of the day. Talk about a double-whammy of unintended consequences! If those forty minutes you spend on the treadmill at 24-Hour Fitness aren't already fully negated by the Starbucks Frappuccino you drink as a reward on the way home, then they will be when you decide you're too exhausted to walk the dog that evening. (pg 130)
This is something I have noticed even in Perth. One particular fitness center has a McDonalds across the car park, so how many people go and do their workout and then get a feed of breakfast, snack, or dinner on the way home? Seriously is this a ploy by the fitness centers or what for their locations?
So how does exercise and weight loss go? exercise will help you to loose weight, but it goes hand in hand with what you eat. You can't expect to loose weight by going to he gym and then chowing down on fried chicken from KFC or alike. I believe this is where the balance of a good healthy diet and that doesn't mean you don't have to stop eating fried chicken altogether, and daily exercise will work with each other with in the body to help you drop the kilograms (pounds). It is also the mental aspect that will get those kilograms off you as well. Do you want to diet, or live to be healthy? Matt says, "But in fact we are not what we eat. We are what our bodies do with what we eat." (pg 144)
While reading chapter nine; Coffee, Chocolate, and Wine on page 151 where Matt and his wife were at a chocolate tasting, in the shop there was an anonymous quotation on the shops website..."Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive, well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming, 'Woohoo! What a ride.'" I love the idea behind this quote, though I don't particularly want to go to my grave thoroughly warn out, just used enough to keep me going until my last breath and that I can say that I have enjoyed my life in all aspects and not been so regimented on what I ate, and that I allowed myself to enjoy food, as I had gone through life for the 25 or so years disliking food.
In the last chapter about Agnostic Healthy Eating, Matt lists the following terms: Essential Foods (Vegetables and Fruits), Recommended Foods (Nuts, Seeds and Healthy Oils, High Quality Meats and Seafood, Whole Grains and Dairy), Acceptable Foods (Refined Grains, Low-quality Meats and Seafood, Sweets and Fried Foods), Forbidden Foods (Oh wait a minute: There are no forbidden foods in agnostic healthy eating.) So really looking at all of this isn't it all COMMONSENSE to eating these kinds of foods, what it really means in you can eat as many fruits and vegetables you like, eat medium amounts of lean cuts of meat and good quality seafood, is a great source of protein, slow down brain aging, eating whole wheat, brown rice, etc is a good source of carbohydrates as we need these to help store energy in our muscles for exercise. For those whom are gluten free (sufferers of Coeliacs {Celiacs} Disease or intolerant) and not by choice still need to have the best quality gluten free bread and pastas. I will leave the rest of this chapter for you to read and see that you can have the foods you enjoy as its all about your mind, body and spirit. If you take away your favourite foods you start to feel like your world is falling down, so why should we forbid these delights, when with some restraint have them occasionally, to enjoy and not to binge on?
In order to loose weight or even to gain weight (in my case) don't forbid yourself from enjoying foods, learn to moderate the amount of those foods each day. This is where people let themselves down, and I did it for a long time to, just a little differently. Instead of eating fried food for breakfast, lunch and dinner have a piece of fried chicken with a plate of salad and a potato, that way you get the enjoyment of eating fried chicken (if you love it) and you still have the balance of other healthy foods as well, but also make sure you are not sedentary, and that you are exercising. It doesn't have to be going to the gym, it could be taking the dog for a walk.
Finally I would like to say a big thank you to Matt Fitzgerald for writing an amazing, interesting and thought provoking book. I hope many others get a chance to read Diet Cults.
Have a great week everyone..
Hayley xx
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