This Year, Resolve Not to Diet!
added 02/06/08
by Mary Saucier Choate, M.S., R.D., L.D.
“I’ve been on a constant diet for the last two decades. I’ve lost a total of 789 pounds. By all accounts, I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.”—Erma Bombeck
Ru·bi·con: a bounding or limiting line; especially: one that, when crossed, commits a person irrevocably—Merriam-Webster Online accessed 12/01/04
No dieting! Is that dietitian crazy?! I’m overweight; of course I have to diet!
These days, dieting seems to mean going on an overly restrictive food plan, eliminating one or more foods groups and/or otherwise unbalancing the menu, continuing enthusiastically for a few weeks or months, and then going on a good binge or two on large amounts of forbidden foods, followed by a continuation of the poor eating choices from before the diet began.
There is a better way to attain a healthy weight as well as many other health and fitness goals. It isn’t an overnight process, and it’s not dramatic, but it is long-lasting and the benefits extend beyond a number on the scale or the size of a pair of pants.
It’s an older approach, loosely defined as: “making healthy food choices and getting regular physical activity.” Wild, huh?
Many tools are available to help one on this strange new path of healthy eating. At the Co-op, you’ll find the “Better Eating for Life” handout series in the green milk crates, near the entrance to each store, available at no charge. Another good resource is the book, The Way to Eat, by David Katz, M.D., of Yale University Medical School.
Make this year the year that you cross your dieting Rubicon, stepping off the diet rollercoaster and starting on the path toward healthy, sensible eating and activity. These kind of positive health changes, focusing on the wide variety of foods to eat for taking good care of yourself, can result in a lifetime of robust health benefits. And they taste good, too!
