Diet Is a 4-Letter Word

Maybe it’s the influence of lessons learned when I lost 20 pounds as a “Weight Watcher” several years ago. Maybe it’s my local TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) group and their emphasis on lifetime weight maintenance. Or maybe it’s the implicit groan I hear when people talk about dieting.

Whatever the cause, I avoid the word diet. For one thing – diet used as a noun simply means “daily intake of food.” If we eat, we’re on a diet – whether it’s high-fat, low-fat, Western, Eastern, or Indian.

Second, “to diet” implies a temporary solution to an ongoing problem. When someone says they’re on a diet, they usually mean, “I’m depriving myself for a while because I need to take off some pounds. Once those pounds are off, I’ll start enjoying myself again.” This implies that to eat healthfully is to deprive oneself of the best things of life.

Is it any wonder some people are “always” dieting? If the dieter loses weight, she’s typically right back where she started – or heavier – when she starts eating “normally” again. If she doesn’t lose weight, she gives up or tries some other fad diet, always thinking that to lose weight means deprivation, which leads to depression, which inevitably leads to food obsession.

Choose to Eat Well

Eating well has nothing to do with quantity; it has everything to do with quality.

When we “eat well,” we feed our cells, not our appetites or our emotional vacuums. We eat the foods that God created to fuel our bodies – high-octane fuel, if you will.

The higher the quality of food, the better our cells react. The better our cells react, the better we feel and the less likely we are to crave low-nutrient foods.

Count Nutrients, Not Calories

Dr. Joel Fuhrman, author of Eat to Live and Eat for Health, advocates two basic premises:

1. Our bodies are made to live;
2. Our bodies are self-healing machines  – when we supply them with the right nutrition.

Thanks to Dr. Fuhrman, I’ve become aware of two terms related to the food we consume: macronutrients and micronutrients.

According to the doctor, macronutrients are the “nutritional components of the diet that are required in relatively large amounts: protein, carbohydrate, fat.” When you read the nutritional labels on processed foods, these are the items listed in the larger box.

Micronutrients are “essential nutrients, such as trace minerals or vitamins, that are required by an organism in minute amounts” – such as Vitamin A, Vitamin C, calcium and iron. You’ll see these below the line on the nutrition label. Though our bodies require these nutrients in small amounts, micronutrient deficiency leads to diseases such as anemia (lack of iron), scurvy (skin disease caused by a lack of Vitamin C) and night blindness (Vitamin A deficiency). (World Health Organization)

Read the Small Print

When you read labels, pay attention not only to the fat, sugar and sodium content, but to the micro-nutritional value. Eat foods with the highest possible nutritional bang per caloric buck.

As you might guess, most of these foods come straight from nature: fruits and vegetables. And despite what you think, nutrient for nutrient, eating fruits and vegetables is less expensive than eating poorly. (See “Fruit, Glorious Fruit” for some data on this.) “Cheap” food  usually means empty calories. Nutritionally, you’re wasting your money.

I invite you to join me in a new way of talking about eating. Avoid the word diet like you avoid other offensive four-letter words.

Let’s start the campaign to stop the negative consequences of dieting, while we salivate over salad and grin for greens.

Cheryl Bryan

Talk to me: What is your reaction to the word diet? In your mind, does the word represent challenge,  failure, or something else?

Recently I heard of a casual acquaintance who went to an impoverished African country as part of a mission group. Their aim was to give medical aid to sick children. As is usual when Americans travel to such places, she was astonished by living conditions, particularly the quality of their food sold in open marketplaces with no access to refrigeration.

However, it’s not cholera or dysentery that is killing their people. It’s AIDS and malaria.

An African man asked one of the Americans what our most common diseases are.

“I suppose they’re heart disease and diabetes,” said the American.

“What’s the cause?” asked the African.

“We don’t eat enough fruit and vegetables,” replied the American.

“You mean you can’t get fruit and vegetables in your country?” asked the African.

I don’t know what the American replied, but when I heard the story, I gasped. It makes what we do to ourselves even more tragic. The African man couldn’t fathom anyone having access to prevention and not using it.

Not all heart disease and diabetes can be prevented, but we all know most of it can. It’s an ironic luxury we enjoy – this ability to choose to kill ourselves when we are surrounded by an abundant supply of prevention. It’s like an African country refusing vaccines that would cure their epidemics.

It makes our excuses – too much trouble, too expensive, too many “bad” foods available – seem rather feeble, doesn’t it?

Talk to me. What was your initial reaction to the story? Do you think it’s really that simple, that all we need to do is eat our vegetables?