A Lifelong Diet for All!
Inside the layers of your own consciousness, ask yourself: Dieting. When you were—or are on a program now, or are one who juggles between the latest fad diet, to relics of the past, at any point during your process, did you experience happiness? I don’t mean happy with the results, providing you achieved your goal. Happy as in satisfied, content, calm and centered within the parameters of your own being, during and after the dieting process.
Such a question is monumental, because after all, working a routine, planned set of foods through your body, while abstaining from others for any number of goal-setting or societal reasons, should leave a lasting smile somewhere inside of you, right? If you’re not the rare outlier who, for example, has a “video game” mind, whereby the monotonous counting and consumption of macronutrients literally feels like a level to be played, then surely you’re not sustaining a degree of joy that should remain.
After sitting with and working my question through your system, if the conclusion is that you were or are happy with your diet, see if you can then double down on your stance after understanding the following: anytime you diet, i.e., put restrictions on how you generally eat, what you’re effectively doing in one way or another is restricting caloric intake which equates to energy. In turn, when responding to the stressful predicament via lack of calories, your body releases cortisol.
This hormone triggers a process known as gluconeogenesis, which turns proteins into glucose in order to compensate for the absence of caloric energy. As inflammatory as this whole process is, meaning, the literal causation of acidic inflammation to your entire vessel, on top of the aforementioned firestorm, cortisol is effectively stealing protein from your muscles. You do not want to lose muscle, especially when entering the second half of your life. Think of muscle as the pillow you were fortunate enough to touch down on when slipping and landing on your hip.
To press further into the stance of happiness you may have taken when it pertains to dieting, consider a 1999 archived article from The New York Times, titled, “95% Regain Lost Weight. Or Do They?” Even back then, within that article, it was noted that such a percentage was tossed around from one congressional decade to another, four times.
It was noted that the “95% dogma,” as I’ve dubbed it, was discussed so often, that the medical community chalked it up to “clinical lore.” I focus on this percentage because it’s five percent away from making a statement that something is absolute. Anytime you think or speak in absolutes, you’re opening yourself up to being proven wrong. I do not think or speak in absolutes; therefore, I don’t agree that such a failure rate of regained weight after dieting, is upwards of 95% or more.
Furthermore, scroll down the abyss of Google’s search engine with regards to the 95% belief. Past and present day articles continue to replay and expound upon it. To me, and despite my stance on it, what this does indicate, is that an alarming number of dieters are regaining their initial weight loss and adding to it due to one failed, exploitative dieting program or another. I’m certainly not one to solely rely on Google for information, as I find it to be a lazy, watered down method for the pursuit of fact.
All one needs to do when seeking proof that diets routinely fail, is to ask five or ten people about the aftermath of their experience. I’m certain the majority will state that they’ve regained their weight. An alarming number will also begrudgingly tell you that additional poundage was added. This happens because the body is being led to believe it will no longer receive its accustomed number of calories. In turn, metabolism slows down in order to preserve its newfound limited intake. When returning to a traditional diet, your lackluster metabolism is now overwhelmed with what it views as an excess of calories that it’s no longer equipped to process. Yo-yoing one’s metabolism through a gauntlet of diets further exacerbates this unhealthy circumstance.
Side note: like someone’s slow functioning metabolism, a parallel example I emphasize with those I train, is the body’s inability to process water in such a way, that it’ll excessively urinate it out, or bloat one’s stomach. This occurs when an individual resides in a chronic state of dehydration; therefore, the internal governor that regulates and distributes what little water exists, has adjusted itself to survive from the amount it’s given. When a person decides to start drinking “a gallon a day,” their governor won’t be able to immediately adjust to the surge of water. However, the difference between upping your water intake and fad diets, is that the increase of water consumption should be permanent, since your body will fully adapt, and in turn, reap countless benefits. Fad diets, on the other hand, well, you know how I feel about them.
So, for a third time, I ask about your happiness. If my facts have loosened you enough to realize that my idea of what it means to be happy, i.e., satisfied, calm and content, and despite momentary results, never really existed—or arguably and all together, is impossible to achieve, given the havoc your body experiences, then indulge me in a diet I like to call, “Intrinsic Nutrition.”
Circumventing every layer of your personality and ego that was placed there by family, friends, society, and ancestral influences that swirl around the spirals of your DNA, deep within the beginnings of your primordial brain, you have an intrinsic understanding of the perfect, lifelong diet, that naturally belongs to you. Intrinsic nutrition isn’t an entirely new concept; rather, it’s a reworking of how to consistently go about using your hands to prepare your own food.
Starting with Real Salt. Real salt, i.e., an unrefined and completely natural salt, is wonderful; it’s great for you; it livens up and brings out flavors and nutrients in most anything it touches. Again, salt is not the enemy. Used harmoniously with other natural, seasonal and unadulterated ingredients, real salt, in my opinion, is one of the most important ingredients that comprises the mysterious elixir of life we all search for. The island of Japan has 4,000 different salts! If additional evidence is needed to recognize the brilliance of salt, I suggest watching part one of the four-part Netflix series, “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat.”
Heat. I mention heat because it’s the number one mistake I witness amongst many in the kitchen. Heat can not only destroy the taste of a lovingly prepared meal, it can zap out, and/or smother the nutrients of your chosen ingredients. Unless you’re searing, frying or flash-frying something, chances are you don’t need to be working with a roaring flame. Plant-based ingredients (grains included) need gentle handling. Treat them as such when cooking.
Oils. Look up a “smoke-point chart for oils.” They, too, can wreak havoc on a meal, all while losing their taste and nutritional value because they’re overheated. If eyeballing usage, as many of us do, to be safe, always use less than you think you should.
Seasonal ingredients. I cannot stress how underutilized nature’s four season offerings are. For example, squash. There’s 16 different options! More importantly, seasonal foods keep your pallet excited, and the body in a homeostatic state. This ensures that the likelihood of building intolerances to the same foods decreases.
Raw food. See if close to 50% of your diet can consist of a raw diet. An easy start towards this goal is to consider the finishing ingredients of a meal. For example, soups and stews. Instead of tossing in the final herb and vegetable that needs less time to cook, hence the reason for a recipe to instruct in such a manner, don’t submerge them in at all. Rest them on top of your final product. Living, digestive enzymes remain, as do various nutrients that would otherwise perish inside the bowels of heat. An added bonus is the textural contrast between crunchy raw and stewed smoothness.
Water. I will never stop driving home this point. Most people are chronically dehydrated, but cannot tell because it’s their lifelong norm. Work through the uncomfortable yet brief adjustment period, and come out on the other end in a state of hydration that brings about a healthy balance to the entire circumference of your personal, intrinsic diet.
Food allergy test. If I had the clout to rule with an iron fist over our healthcare system, general practitioners, during a routine checkup, would set in motion a thorough food allergy test. I’m specifically referring to the ELISA (Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay) Test. The blood work collected from this procedure allows you to identify foods that cause an immediate reaction. More importantly, the test provides insight into foods that cause a delayed reaction up to a week later, once food has thoroughly funneled its way through the body.
It’s critical to know what true food allergies you may have. We all know broccoli is healthy. If you’re allergic to it, then forget any and all belief that it’s serving you well. Following the necessity of eating in accordance with our four seasons of the year, and the link between that and food allergies, if you consume the same thing ad nauseam, rest assured, an allergic reaction may develop over time. There are 127 million people in Japan. Their primary consumption is white rice. Their number one allergy: white rice.
Fundamentals are necessary, even if they feel like a synonym to rules. I, like many, have an aversion to rules. Yet, once I relaxed and allowed my seven aforementioned rules to take hold, a fundamentally sound and intrinsic platform for my own personal diet emerged. One that is of lifelong permanence. Now, working on this foundation of guidance, interestingly enough, I feel free; rule-less.
The same autonomy I experience with my innate food choices, awaits everyone. Get after and unearth your natural diet, so you can enjoy the fruits of your labor, and taste of freedom.
“BIBLIOGRAPHY”
F. Batmanghelidj, M.D. You’re Not Sick, You’re Thirsty!
Grand Central Life & Style Hachette Book Group. 237 Park Avenue. New York, NY 10017.
2003.
Skye Weintraub, N.D. Allergies and Holistic Healing.
Woodland Publishing. P.O. Box 160 Pleasant Grove, UT 84062
1997
“WEBSITES”
The New York Times. 95% Regain Lost Weight. Or Do They?
Nia Shanks.
Stress and Damage Caused by Dieting, and How to Get on The Path to Recovery.