Fascinating article on dieting

I came across this article that moves me to blog on two blogs (this one and the ThriftyMom Blog).

What an interesting thing:

"When it comes to dieting, Americans put on a good show, buying millions of diet books, watching TV programs about weight loss, obsessing over celebrities and their baby weight. But in the end, that may be all it is: a show. The number of people on a diet - 26 percent of all women in the United States and 16 percent of men for the year ending February 2008 - is the lowest it's been in more than two decades, according to a soon-to-be-released survey.


"Our interest in losing weight is waning," says Harry Balzer, lead food and beverage industry analyst for The NPD Group, a market research firm, and author of the survey, the Annual Report on Eating Patterns in America.


The report, which asks 5,000 Americans to keep a daily journal for two weeks about their eating habits, also found that despite high levels of obesity nationwide, a declining percentage of people want to slim down or, for that matter, consider excess weight unattractive. In 1985, 55 percent of those surveyed "completely agreed" with the statement, "People who are not overweight look a lot more attractive." Today, only 25 percent completely agree with it.


Dieting was once practically a national pastime. In 1990, the same report found that 39 percent of women and 29 percent of men were on a diet.

(snip)


Kelly D. Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University ... says that diets are "notoriously ineffective," and posits that many overweight people may have simply given up."

Marge McMillan, 60, is one who says she's given up on diets, if not on slimming down. A veterinarian who lives in Medford, McMillan tried the low-carb Atkins diet and Weight Watchers but threw in the towel on both. Now, she's just trying to eat healthily. "Diets don't work," she said. "You lose the weight but regain more."

NOT true.  Diets DO work if you are willing to actually DO IT.  If you want to diet, lose weight, then turn around and sit on your backside and eat whatever you want, well, then, yeah, your 'diet' didn't work. You must want it badly enough to be disciplined and change your lifestyle to a healthier one ... permanently.

As a person who has lost a HUGE amount of weight, I am saddened that some Americans are so lazy and overindulged as to really think that a simple diet - getting healthy for your loved ones and yourself - is SO tough.

We are in control of our own selves.  We are responsible for our own actions.  If we overindulge and gain weight to the point of ill health, we have the ability to change our habits and lose the weight (barring a medical condition).  Simply DO IT. Put forth the effort.

Folks want something for nothing.  They want a magic pill.  They want to be able to eat whatever they want, sit in front of the telly all day, and still look fabulous.

How many times have you heard someone say, of a diet: "I felt so deprived!"

Well, duh, honey.  It's a DIET.

Yes, dieting is hard. It bloody sucks. But it's do-able.


The key word here is "DO".  What did Yoda say?  "Do or do not.  There is no try."