fad diets

Read “Just Eat” and Learn Lots about Good Food Choices

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My husband listens to a podcast called “The Art of Manliness” and occasionally tells me about an especially-interesting episode. Recently he told me about an interview with Barry Estabrook, a journalist with wide experience in the food world, who has written this book. I love it, love it, love it–because, as I’ve said before about other authors I love, HE AGREES WITH ME. In fact, his book is going to join my small stable of books about eating and weight control that I plan to promote in a future podcast episode of my own.

Honestly, the book is quite short and very entertaining. I can’t recommend it highly enough. If you do decide to purchase it, follow this link to use my Amazon affiliate link, which will give me a small commission at no additional expense to you.

 

Podcast Episode No. Three Is Up!

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Hi folks,

Hope you’ve subscribed to the Respect Food Roles podcast. Head on over to the podcast page on this website to listen there, or, better, subscribe on your preferred podcast platform. In this episode I tell the story of a totally made-up woman, Gladys, and how she goes to a wellness counselor, is put on a ludicrously restrictive diet, and sees her life change for the better. Did the diet make the difference, or are there other factors at play? Be sure to listen and find out!

More Reasons to Ignore the Keto Krazies

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Image by zuzyusa from Pixabay

Maybe a little bit of an overstatement, as not everyone who follows a so-called “ketogenic” diet is literally crazy. Of course not! And I haven’t written about this type of fad diet, or indeed any type, for quite some time. But a recent article in the Washington Post, plus another book out by Gary Taubes, he of Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It, has put keto back on the front burner in the sense of my being reminded once again of its non-starter status for me.

Let me start by being sure everyone understands the term “keto diet.” Here’s a good summing-up quotation from the above-cited WaPo article:

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Why All Fad Diets “Work,” at Least Temporarily

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My husband listens to a podcast called “The Art of Manliness,” but it should really be called “The Art of Living Well.” They’re up to well over 500 episodes, with different guests and topics. A recent one featured Dr. Dr. John Berardi, who earned a PhD in exercise physiology and nutrient biochemistry, and is a writer, athlete, coach, and professor, as well as the co-founder of Precision Nutrition and the founder of the Change Maker Academy. So this is a guy who actually has scientific chops. He’s not peddling some nutty theory and trying to make money off of it. I found this podcast episode to be so packed with good information that I had to listen to it in chunks, then stop and absorb what I’d heard before going on to the next section.

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The Daniel Diet, Part 3–What Does the Bible Actually Say?

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Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

The whole idea of the Old Testament prophet’s being a health and wellness guru was given a bit of juice in January of this year when the superstar actor Chris Pratt announced on Instagram that he was going on a 21-day “Daniel Fast” (which is only slightly different from the original 40-day Daniel Diet Plan). Today I want to take a look at the initial Scripture passage that has given rise to this whole craze. First, though, some historical background:

Although some Bible scholars want to give the writing of this prophetic book a later date, according to the actual events described it dates to sometime around 600 BC and takes place beginning with Nebuchadnezzar’s successful siege of Jerusalem in which he captures the city, burning much of it down, and carries off both inhabitants and sacred vessels from Solomon’s temple, which he destroys. During the siege the inhabitants of Jerusalem run out of food, and then perhaps ten thousand of them are taken into exile by being marched off to Susa, the capital of Babylon, a distance of almost 850 miles. So believe me when I say that Daniel and his friends had no need of a weight-loss diet! They were probably skin and bones by the time they finally arrived in Babylon. (There are actually multiple sieges of Jerusalem by the Babylonian army, but I’m not getting into all those details here.)

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The Daniel Diet, Part 2: Evolution of a Fad Diet

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Image by Martin Ludlam from Pixabay

Here’s what happened, as Monk used to say on the old TV show:

As I explained in the previous post, Rick Warren realized that he was fat and out of shape, as were many people in his congregation, in late 2010. According to the NYT article I linked to yesterday, he told his congregation the next Sunday that he needed to lose about 90 pounds (having gained weight at the rate of 2-3 pounds a year for the 30 years he’d been pastor of the church) and that others could join him if they wished. The article doesn’t say what the reaction was on that Sunday. Then we’re told that shortly after Warren’s announcement he was “in Lenox, Mass., for a personal medical visit with Dr. Mark Hyman, a prominent metabolism expert and author of several best-selling books on avoiding chronic disease through healthier living.” I’d like to get some clarification as to why Warren was seeing Hyman, traveling all the way across the country from his home in Lake Forest, California.

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Yet Another Fad Diet—This One with a Biblical Slant

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Image by engin akyurt from Pixabay

It’s been over a week since I’ve posted anything on this blog, but that lack of posting doesn’t mean that I haven’t been thinking and pondering about various food fads floating around in our modern society. As I said in my previous short post about the blood-type diet, I had thought that I’d pretty well covered at least the most egregious fads out there, but there’s always something more to be explored in this area.

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This Type of Diet Is a Total Fad

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Image by 200 Degrees from Pixabay

Ho-kay. I haven’t written about fad dieting for a while; to be honest, I thought I’d pretty well covered the bases with the keto, Whole30, vegan, food-sensitivity and paleo diets, with a brief foray into what Tom Brady eats, and figured that every other weird eating plan out there was just a variant on these. But I realize that I’ve never actually discussed the whole gluten-free craze, which I plan to do, plus some other somewhat more fringe-y ideas (since, sigh, going gluten free has become pretty mainstream). But I’m going to start this new round of anti-faddism with something I heard about only recently, and that is the “blood-type diet.” While it became popular with the publication of Eat Right 4 Your Type (no link provided, as I don’t want anyone wasting money on it) in 1996, it’s still alive and kicking. A revised and updated version of the book was published in 2016, and I found out about (or was reminded of) the diet because I heard about someone I know who is following it.

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More Thoughts on Veganism

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Image by silviarita from Pixabay

I wrote last week about some of the complications that can arise from following a vegan diet, and I want to follow up with more, perhaps rather scattered, observations about this lifestyle. I’ll be including links to two articles written by young women who struggled while trying to follow veganism. One decided to start including some animal protein into her life and saw some dramatic improvements in her health; the other steadfastly refused to do that but was able to re-jigger things so that she was getting enough protein (understandable) and, you may be surprised to hear, cholesterol. Yes, that horrible substance that causes heart attacks. Too-low cholesterol levels are

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So What’s the Whole30, Like, For?

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Image by silviarita from Pixabay

Yesterday I ranted and raved about Melissa Hartwig and her crazy diet (that’s made her a very, very rich celebrity), but I went on and on without ever getting to the central question, which is:

Exactly what is this whole hoop-de-doo supposed to do for you?

Let’s get to that now. Remember, the idea for “going clean” for 30 days was an impulsive idea from Hartwig’s then-boyfriend, now-divorced-husband, Dallas:

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