The World's Greatest Diet For Weight Loss And Health

Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as the world's
greatest diet. Allow me to explain.

First of all, what would be the attributes of the world's
greatest diet?

1. It would be comprised of easily available foods.

2. It would NOT require any fancy measuring or fixing.

3. It would be easy to follow at a friend's dinner party,
a fine restaurant, or Mickey Dee's (McDonald's to old
fuddy-duddies like me).

4. It would not just help with weight loss and weight
management, but with health in general.

5. It would be made up of our favorite foods.

HMMMMMMM! TEACHER! I SEE A PROBLEM!

Okay, you can put your hand down. I see it too. It's that
"favorite foods" thing, isn't it?

Everybody has different "favorite foods", and we won't even
get into gourmet, regional, or ethnic cooking. I'll leave
that to my daughter and her husband. (Psst! Seen the
pictures of my grandkids?)

Anyway, let's see if we can put together the world's
greatest diet for health and weight loss...for you!

You see, there's the rub, as my good friend, though
somewhat older than me, Billy Shakespeare would say.

We are all different. We are different ethnically,
environmentally, educationally, genetically (ran out of
e's), and, dare I say it, sexually. All of these things
are important, because they exercise an influence on the
results of any diet that anybody tries out.

Hey, there's a good word, "try". How many people do you
know who actually stay on a diet...especially for the rest
of their lives? I guess we need to add another attribute.
The world's greatest diet would have to be one:

6. You could and would stay on for the rest of your life.

WHY THE REST OF MY LIFE?

Simple. I don't care what diet you go on and how well it
works. If it does work and you stop eating according to
that diet, over time you will find yourself right back
where you are now and wondering where you put this article.

So, to build your "world's greatest diet" we have to go
back to the title of this article, "The World's Greatest
Diet For Weight Loss And Health". I put "weight loss" AND
"health" in there for a reason. There are diets that don't
really help you lose weight, there are diets that are not
good for your health, and weight loss does not
automatically equal health...particularly if that weight
loss is accomplished thru dieting.

Here we go. It doesn't really matter what foods you eat.
You like apple pie, have some apple pie. You like popcorn,
have some popcorn. Filet Mignon? Sure, why not.

Let's back up for a minute. A "diet" is simply a list of
the foods you eat. In the last few decades, the word has
gotten loaded down with all kinds of extra stuff like the
pancakes at IHOP. A doctor can give you a "diet" to help
you avoid hives, get over a stomach upset, or even to gain
weight if that is what is needed for your health.

If that doctor gives you a "diet" that says you can only
eat seven foods, he or she would be doing you a grave (pun
intended) disservice. In order to get the nutrients your
body needs for health AND for weight loss, you need a
diversity of foods...and that diversity can range from soup
to nuts...or Filet Mignon! You don't have to just eat
cabbage. You NEED to eat cabbage, hamburgers, biscuits,
broccoli, apples, apple pie, chicken, fish, carrots...you
get the idea. You can deny yourself a lot of the foods you
like, take a lot of enjoyment out of your life, and even
damage your health without even losing any weight by trying
weird fad diets and strange pills that cause your body to
act in an unnatural manner.

Your personal "greatest diet in the world" is going to be
the foods you normally eat and enjoy eating.

THERE'S GOT TO BE A "BUT" HANGING AROUND SOMEWHERE!

Absolutely. It's not about WHAT you eat. It's about two
other things:

1. How MUCH you eat, and

2. How you live the rest of your life.

You see, weight loss and health is about balance. The
weight loss balance has been known for years. Eat more
calories than you use, the excess gets stored as fat.
Attempt to use more calories than you eat, your body burns
the available fat and abracadabra you have weight loss.
However, simply cutting calories down to the bone denies
your body nutrients necessary to health and does not allow
for the activity that helps keep a body healthy.
Exercising (the way we most commonly burn extra calories)
while continuing to eat excess calories not only makes it
harder to lose weight, but still creates a condition in
which our health can be threatened by that excess anyway.

A balanced program for health and weight loss does not deny
you the foods you like to eat, it merely tasks you to
realize what you are doing to your body and use some self
control and limit yourself when food is offered or
available. As far as the exercise side of the equation is
concerned, "exercise" scares people, so let's just talk
about activity. Your exercise program can be gardening,
swimming, bicycle riding, yoga, tai-chi; or gardening on
Monday, swimming on Tuesday, bicycle riding on Wednesday,
yoga on Thursday, and tai-chi on Friday!

There is an old saying: Keep doing what you have been
doing, and you will keep getting what you have been getting.

Makers of diet pills and sellers of diet books know that
you realize this, so they offer you something that seems to
change that no-win equation. The problem is that without
actually creating an actual change of the manner in which
you eat and exercise, these diet pills and fad diets at
best will only temporarily seem to change the actual
equation and allow you to lose weight for a short time if
at all. They will not make a permanent change in your life
or your health, and their "weight loss" effects, if any,
will wear out quickly, often leaving you in a worse
situation than when you started.

An article such as this is much too short to get into all
the various aspects of weight loss, diets, exercise, and
health, but the basic equations are simple. Too much
weight can adversely affect your health in a multitude of
ways. Losing weight in an unhealthy manner may leave you
in as bad a state as you were in when you started...or even
worse. Combining formal exercise or enjoyable physical
activity with a sensible enjoyment of food so that calorie
intake and calorie use can be balanced will result in
weight loss, health and a lifestyle that will continue to
bring benefits for years.


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Donovan Baldwin is a Texas writer. He is a University of
West Florida alumnus, a member of Mensa, and is retired
from the U. S. Army. Learn more about weight loss and
health at http://informationclickdepot.com/health/ .