Fad diets or a path to learning?

Fad diets or a path to learning?

Everyone has their own idea of what the “right” diet is. Talk to a vegetarian and they might tell you all about how meat supposedly rots in the stomach. Hit up a Paleo and they’ll tell you that grains are evil and we’ll let the clean eating brigade fight it out amongst themselves as to what is considered “clean” or not.

Everyone is quick to criticise someone else’s diet without understanding one crucial point, you are not the same as the next person and you have no rights in dictating what is right or wrong. What worked for you, may not work for someone else.

To the tune of Stevie Wonder’s higher ground: “Zoners....keep on Zoning, Vegans....keep on veganing (yeah I know it’s not a word)....”

What does this mean for you, the person ready to lose weight but not really sure what the “right” way is. My advice to you is to just simply pick something. That might be paleo, it might be raw, it might be juicing, it might be seeing a Nutritionist for guidance on your current diet. It can be whatever you want, because this is your body – not mine, not the guy sitting next to you...it’s yours.

*Ok so I picked a style, now what?

* Now, you follow it to the letter and start to learn about your body, and in doing so, you will start to devise the style of eating that is right for you...and guess what, it doesn’t need to have a trendy label attached to it to be a valid way of eating.

I eat Paleo, but I also consume dairy. I drink juices, but I’m not a die hard “juicer”, I eat raw food but I also eat cooked food. I eat tons of meat and I can’t stomach legumes etc. Gosh darn it you guys, I also eat chocolate and crap. What is this starting to look like? It’s starting to look like good ol’ food in accordance to what my body likes, no labels to live up to, just food. I know exactly what amount and type of carb, protein and fat makes me feel the best and controls my weight.

But to reach this point I did some “extremes” – all juicing....all paleo....all raw. And then I realised something, what if I combined them in the amounts that made me feel the best!

You might end up following a 30 day juice cleanse and sure you might have lost weight but it might have bloated the hell out of you, you get a choice to keep going or to make a change. Contrary to the gazillion posts you see on facebook, juicing is NOT for everyone.

You may be following a high fat, low carb diet and experiencing nausea – you also get a choice, you can decrease your fat if you like! Good gracious me, you could even ADD IN SOME CARBS and reduce the fat. The high fat diet police might lock you away for not being so strict, but your body might end up burning MORE fat and feeling a whole lot better.

You might even follow that stupid Lemon Detox diet and nearly drive your car off the road due to lack of nutrition, and even YOU get a choice to stay on the diet or to try something else.

You get choices, and the cool thing is that these fad diets give us the freedom to try many different things and really start to learn about what gets us results WHILE keeping us feeling healthy, vibrant and well. Jennifer Anniston has been following the Zone style of eating forever, and she looks glowing – are we really going to rake her over the coals for following a so-called “fad”.

Fad diets can be as useful or as dumb as we choose to make them. The point is to pick something and use it as your baseline, then play around with it from there. If you are 100% raw, try changing the ratio to 80/20 and see how you feel, see what your results are. Don’t be ashamed that you’re not following it according to the gurus over at rawfoodextravaganza.com, simply be proud that you’re on the path to devising a style of eating that is unique to you.

Stacey Hancock
January 2014