Nothing Gained
So, for the past several weeks, I’ve been trying to (finally) lose my grad school weight. It’s kind of scary to think that I put on 45 pounds without noticing, but grad school can do that to you. I haven’t felt really healthy or comfortable for far too long.
Anyway, I don’t like the idea of a high-protein diet, not because it doesn’t work, but because you end up eating a lot of fat and it’s rough on your kidneys. So, one day it hit me. What if the point isn’t to eat more protein, but less simple carbohydrates? Following that line of thought, it seemed that the way to go was to substitute more fruits and veggies, rather than protein, for the the bread, rice, sugar, etc.
Well, for me, at least, it seems to be working. It’s not as fast as a high-protein diet, but I’m OK with that. I wouldn’t want to stay on a high-protein diet forever, but I can’t see any drawbacks to what I’m doing now. Ironically enough, I’m lousy at dieting, but not bad at changing my diet.
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February 28th, 2003 at 11:21 am
The dirty secret of the diet industry is that the only way to really get healthy is to eat less and exercise more. Manipulating what goes in is not as important as getting the right nutrients out of what you do eat (the good, ol’ food pyramid) and exercising to keep calories from storing as fat. It’s not as sexy as all these trend diets, but it works.
February 28th, 2003 at 1:37 pm
It’s true…but as I don’t take the time to exercise much (note choice of words, and yes, I know it’s a bad choice) I pay attention to regulating my food intake, or more to the point, my calorie intake. That’s one of the reasons I like the high-fruit-and-veg diet. First, fruits and veggies (without sauce or cheese) are low calorie/high nutrition, and second, when combined with a relatively small smount of protein, they fill me up. I end up consuming fewer calories and getting a lot more for them. Finally, I’ve never had a doctor tell me to eat fewer servings of fruits and vegetables.
February 28th, 2003 at 7:08 pm
I’m making changes to my diet along the lines you’re talking about (switching fruits for carbs) and it helps. One of the real helps has been that before we got laid off, we bought a fruit-of-the-month club from Harry and David, so there’s generally good fruit in the house.
Having said that, I know from experience that my excess weight will melt off if I can just start walking again.