It truly is the end of dieting; not only because Joel Fuhrman MD just launched what will soon be another bestseller called “The End of Dieting,” but because it’s in the air. People are waking up to the fact that they can’t outsource their nutritional wisdom to companies that do not have nutritional wisdom; companies that have as much of a vested interest in keeping you dieting and basically chasing your tail, as the fast food and junk food industries have in keeping your addicted to their foods.
Get this, no dieting ritual will ever work, for long.
Amazing right?
It’s true.
Dieting, defined by the ritual manipulation of any nutrient category, mainly carbohydrate, fat and protein, for the inducement of weight loss, or muscle gain, will naturally leave the body depleted, out of balance and unhealthy. The reason is simple; it’s because those foods that are typically marketed for their high, concentrated values of these 3 macronutrients are micronutrient poor. I’m referring to animal products and refined foods.
“Micronutrients”, meaning the phytochemicals, vitamins and minerals in a food, are not optional if you want to be healthy and have a fully functioning body.
Unless your diet is nutrient rich, you will inevitably find yourself dieting because your diet is not balanced. To be balanced a nutrient rich food is not defined by protein, carbs and fat alone; it must also have great representation in the micronutrients such as those found in the only micronutrient-rich foods there are, (vegetables, beans, fruits, nuts and seeds, and whole grains). In terms of getting all nutrient needs met at the level they need to be met, these are the only foods that can do it.
Most weight loss only diets are nutrient poor, and promote dieting. You have no choice but to keep on keeping on with macronutrient manipulation because of two reasons.
- Micronutrient-poor foods toxify the body when you are in the Anabolic phase of the digestive cycle – eating, chewing digesting and absorbing. This creates uncomfortable feelings in the catabolic phase of the digestive cycle when detoxification ramps up, and the tendency is to cover them up by eating again and going anabolic. Is it any wonder why people keep growing?
- Micronutrient poor foods, also don’t meet your nutritional needs. Even if you’re full, if you don’t get your micronutrient needs met, the drives to continue eating will stay in play. I know this first hand as a former bodybuilder, who lived on nutrient poor food. You can not imagine how unhealthy I was looking like that.
Of course there are other reasons why people eat, like stress and emotional eating, low energy etc that may prompt them to go on a diet at some point, but when you’re eating nutrient rich; regardless of how you got overweight, unhealthy or sick; raising the nutritional quality of the foods you eat is never dieting, everything else is.
The end of dieting is marked by that insight.
Just because you are not eating whatever, whenever, and now set preferences for volume, nutrient density, and caloric requirements, and steer clear of addictive foods (animal and refined foods) in any significant quality, does not mean you are dieting. It simply means you are enlightened to what it means to eat healthy.