Free Yourself From Classicalness In “Dieting”

I know, I know some of you really were hoping for a post on my homemade Indian clubs that I have been talking about and teasing with pics on Facebook and Twitter this past weekend. Don't worry that post is coming. For now let's have a little diet and nutrition talk and hopefully shed some light on the past, current, and probably future buzz.

I borrowed and condensed a lot of this from a conversation I had with someone a while back. The discussion was about all the diet propaganda and marketing pushes that's out there drawing people into more and more crappy diets instead of lifestyle changes. For fun we're gonna look at a list of some of the most common diets, their basic principles (why it works or at least claims to), and the sales hoopla that goes along with it. See if you spot a common trend when you read through everything.


Fit for Life
Basic Principals: LOW CALORIE Vegan diet (with high fruits, high carbs and vegetables)

Sales Hoopla — Meticulous, detailed food combining.  Natural Hygiene is the 80's buzz word! Salads and juicing galore!


Atkins
Basic Principals: ANTI-CARB

Sales Hoopla: Protein is the friend, carbs are the foe and you can eat lots of pork bacon too! yummy!


South Beach Diet

Basic Principals: ANTI-CARB,

Sales Hoopla: Rice, carrots, orange juice fruit and other carbs are evil. Protein is your friend.


The Zone
Basic Principals: LOW CALORIE portion controlled meals (40,30,30)

Sales Hoopla: NO! it's not carbs, it's not protein. It's ... TA-DA! ratios and being in the ZONE! Thats the key!


Perricone Prescription
Basic Principals: LOW CARB, LOW CALORIE

Sales Hoopla: Riding on the coat tails of Atkins, with a bit of Zone, it's high glycemic carbs are the foe!


Weight Watchers
Basic Principals: CALORIE COUNTING!

Sales Hoopla: Neat-o! point values are assigned to foods, stay within your point limits and you WIN!  Yeah!


Macrobiotic Diet
Basic Principals: LOW CALORIE vegan

Sales Hoopla: meticulous attention to detail. Eat based on portions and percentages. Meditate. OHMmm!


Raw Food Diet
Basic Principals: LOW CALORIE - raw foods.

Sales Hoopla: Carbs are good. Fruit is good. Say goodbye to anything heated past 118 degrees. Cool Man!



The Warrior Diet
Basic Principals: LOW TO ADEQUATE CALORIES LOWER IN CARBS & EXERCISE

Sales Hoopla: NO! You've got it all wrong!  Don't eat your breakfast or lunch, eat one main meal at night. Eat foods in a certain order. Grrrr!

Now all you warriors out there don't get pissed at me. I'm not putting down the Warrior Diet, I actually think it has some noteworthy qualities.  Yes I know there are other benefits to the warrior diet as I follow my own version of Intermediate Fasting based off of the WD,  but there is still the element of sales hoopla surrounding it.  I'm just trying to make a point here that when you look across the popular diets there is a common thread with their own spin to it.

Contrary to what the Warrior Diet seems, you can't just pig-out and eat as much you want during the evening meal. If you eat 10,000 calories at night let's face it, you're going to gain fat!  There is sense of calories and carbs even though it's not actually counted per say, but the overall premise is what food, what food combinations, how much of the good stuff(colorful fruits and veggies) are you eating, and are you eating a balance of everything.

And let's not forget that exercise is the other basic principal. You can't sell swimming and weight lifting any more. There has to be a spin on exercise to make a buck too. What I'm saying here folks is you don't make any money these days just selling diet books just on the basics of eating healthy and working out. People have become sales hoopla addicts looking for the next workout craze and nutritional buzz. The magic pill is still being sought out even though the basics have worked for millenia. People just don't want to put in the time, effort, and work ethic.

The bottom line is that there IS NO MAGIC and it simply boils down to the fact that if you want to see results in order to be healthy inside and look, feel, be healthy outside then you just gotta work for it and it is ongoing. Think about this for a moment. If it was easy to get in shape and be healthy well then more people would already be there. Because it's not easy and does require daily effort is why the majority is not.

The common thread with all these diets is about calories, grains/starches, and exercise. Some people may feel better by incorporating this hoopla or that hoopla from this diet or that diet. Eating in the Zone, not eating any carbs, counting points or whatever is great if that works for you, but let's be true to ourselves it's really sticking to the basics that get results and when you don't follow the basics you don't get results.

We have to stop stressing over it and start living life the way it should be. The bottom line is if you're eating healthy and living healthy then wonderful, but if you're not then the real question is: When Are You Gonna Start? THAT my friends is the key!


In the end it is all about one thing: the basics. It is ALL about the basics and sticking to them regardless of what you do.  When I played sports, such as high school wrestling, I was able to do very well because I stuck to the basics.  Sure from time to time the special and more advanced moves came into play and sure were fun, but moreover whoever was better at performing the basics won.  The same holds true in top level sports today.

Nutrition is pretty much the same.


Exercise IS the same.  As many as there are diets proclaiming they are the best and the only way there are more fitness marketing fanatics who say the exact same about their product, service, book, or idea.  Have you seen the infomercials for the "10 Min. Trainer" or P90X, the same guy(Tony Horton) does both, and some of those others.  Nothing is new, but just some simple twists and variations of what's been around forever packaged in a glamorous marketing box.

The basics work and will always work.  Bruce Lee said it best: "I have not invented a 'new style', composite, modified or otherwise that is set within distinct form as apart from 'this' method or 'that' method. On the contrary, I hope to free my followers from clinging to styles, patterns, or molds.

There is no mystery about my style. My movements are simple, direct and non-classical. The extraordinary part of it lies in its simplicity. There is nothing artificial about it. I always believe that the easy way is the right way."

I couldn't agree more.  Free yourself from the classical mess.  Use what works and leave that which does not.  In the end that is true in everything.