To All the Diets I've Loved Before
It was love at first sight. Or at least I told myself that every time I encountered a new way of eating. This new diet, “backed by science” promised results like none other before. Yes, it had strange restrictions, but maybe this would be the one that would stick. Kind of like that new relationship you desperately want to work out so you ignore all of the red flags.
Before you go on your first date, you are so hopeful. You haven’t ever dated someone like this before. Who cares if he lives with his parents at 28 and your friend tells you he punched his dad in public on the basketball court because he was high on drugs. I’m sure all that won’t matter; he’s so good looking and so different. On your date you ignore the fact that he lights up a cigarette before meeting your parents while explaining that he needs to “make a stop” to pay off an old debt. Even though this is troubling, you instead convince yourself that he’s mysterious. You waste a few months of life with this relationship going no where. Finally you come to your senses and break up on the Walmart toy aisle when he tells you that he will pick you up for your dinner at 4pm to eat in the Furr’s cafeteria where the elderly eat so he can keep a low profile.
It wasn’t a surprise. You saw it coming all along.
Just like the boy who turned heads in my youth, so have many diets and ways of eating captured my attention with their enticing promises. For the first few weeks I would be totally smitten following their every rule. Until they didn’t work or I was miserable, whichever came first. And while my curiosity and quest for knowledge is certainly an admirable trait, many times it has caused me to throw caution to the wind. Here’s a brief look into different ways of eating I have tried and what led ultimately to our break up.
Fat Free
If you were of age in the late 80’s to 90’s you know about Snackwells, those cute little cookies claiming to have zero grams of fat. According to Michael Jacobsen, “The Dietary Guidelines for Americans and many well-meaning nutrition experts told everyone to eat less fat, and the American public responded by replacing fat with more refined carbohydrates, especially sugar (in the form of low-fat snack foods like Snackwell’s cookies), and the results were disastrous.” I fell victim to this rationale as I stuffed my face with many cookies at one sitting. I remember thinking, “If one cookie has zero grams of fat, then three cookies must have zero grams of fat because 0 + 0 + 0 = 0." Like many at that time, I overlooked everything but the fat content and our waistlines grew. Thank goodness I came to my senses.
No Snacking After Dinner
This way of eating works really good for some people (my mother) as you close the kitchen and don’t eat anything after dinner. Unfortunately for me, it was simply too hard emotionally. I would have wonderful intentions during the day of going to bed on an empty stomach, but as the night grew darker, so did my soul thinking of how dreadful life would be without a bedtime snack. Those hours between dinner and morning went on forever and emotionally I couldn’t adhere.
The Year I was Stressed Out
Unsurprisingly, the year I was so stressed out living in Europe and making bad personal choices, I found myself not being able to finish most meals because I was either running on adrenaline or sick to my stomach. What a horrible way to lose weight, but I did indeed. Reflecting back upon that tumultuous time, I could see firsthand that decreasing one’s portion sizes really does lead to a calorie deficit. If only I could’ve learned that while in a healthy mental state.
Ketogenic Diet
Deny me of carbohydrates, I will eat cardboard. I tried keto years before you could refer to it as “keto” and you had to say “ketogenic diet where you limit almost all carbohydrates” because no one knew what you were talking about. I ate some protein and lots of fat while peeing on little sticks in the morning to make sure I was in ketosis. Euphoric from the start, this diet was different and far more restrictive than anything I had ever tried before. It claims to give you more energy, which I thought I experienced for the first two weeks until I came crashing down into lethargy and insatiable hunger. Because of the severe limitation of carbs, I started finding myself daydreaming about fats in all form. Butter was no longer just a condiment, but it now had the power to elicit such feelings of fondness and desire that could rarely be satisfied by only a small amount. A pat soon became a tablespoon soon became a whole spoonful directly to my mouth. Several weeks of weight loss gave way to slow weight gain over the next few months. I overcompensated for my intense cravings for carbs by overeating fats which caused a caloric surplus which led to weight gain. Simple math. Keto definitely works well for some, but for me there were red flags from the beginning.
Time Restricted Eating
My longest and most successful way of eating to date is time restricted eating, which is a form of intermittent fasting where you only eat for a certain set of hours during the day. According to Dr. Jason Fung, “At its very core, intermittent fasting simply allows the body to use its stored energy. For example, by burning off excess body fat.” I’ve been eating this way for three years and love it as the rules are basic and not overly restrictive which works well for my personality. I don’t eat breakfast, but I eat lunch, dinner, bedtime snack, and then don’t eat again until the next lunch. It fits nicely into my lifestyle, and I don’t feel like I am suffering as no food groups are off limits for me. My nutrition consists mostly of whole foods and lots of vegetables. Because I have (and have always had) the appetite of an 18 year old boy with the caloric needs of a middle aged woman, time restricted eating allows me to keep my volume of food more in check for my goals.
We all have our food journey. Sometimes these diets or ways of eating give us red flags and warnings just like my teenage romance, but we ignore them, plod forward, only to end with frustration. Other ways of eating seem like a better fit, but ultimately we aren’t a good match. It’s all part of the journey and our story. Hopefully this wisdom through experience leads us to find something that fits our unique health makeup, our lifestyle, our personality, and that we can joyfully adhere to for the long haul. And perhaps like Willie Nelson waxing poetic to all the girls he’s loved before we too can say thanks “For helping me to grow, I owe a lot, I know.” And by the way, after I dated the blond haired gambler, I met my husband.
Jacobsen, Michael. “Burying the Snackwell Myth.” Medium. n.p. 11 December 2015. Web. n.d.
Fung, Jason. “Intermittent Fasting for Beginners.” Diet Doctor. n.p. 21 May 2019. Web. n.d.
