No Fat, Low Fat, Low Carb, No Carb... What's The Deal?

Let's cut to the chase with all these different diets out there. I have never had much success with any of them. I have tried them all, but after losing some weight with all of these methods, I found those "lost pounds" again, and then some of their friends!

So here is the "Skinny" on why the diets above do not work for me.

I checked Wikipedia for details regarding No Fat, Low Fat, Low Carb, No Carb diets. Both of these diets restrict the amount of fat or carbs that you are getting in your daily food intake. With the No Fat and Low Fat diet they stress that a no fat or low fat diet is not necessarily that you are not eating any foods that contain fat but that the food you are consuming has the right type of fat. By this they are referring to "healthy fat". (I don't know about you, but I did not know there was anything healthy about any type of fat!) The menu for this type of diet includes dairy products, lean meats, and heart-healthy oils but you must monitor the amount and type of fat in the item.

Low-carbohydrate diets - low carb diets are dietary programs that restrict the amount of carbohydrates that you consume. Most diabetics try to stay within a lower carb lifestyle to help maintain a healthy blood sugar ratio. Foods high in digestible carbohydrates would be breads, pastas, and Potatoes. The Atkins Diet is probably the most popular and well known diet of this type. Many people can lose large amounts of weight quickly on this type of diet because they are not taking in the foods that give you carbs.

The biggest problem that I have with both of these diet "choices" is that they are not sustainable for me. I get burned out eating only lean meat and veggies or salad. I can only go so long without bread, potatoes, or other starchy foods. I think that is because our bodies know best. It knows that we need carbohydrates for fuel. The question is what are the best options for this fuel. For me, the answer is not so simple. I like sweets, desserts and chocolate! I could eat my weight in those things, but they are not going to give me any real nutritional value. I would only feel satisfied for a short time and them I would want to eat more.

What I am finding in My Journey To A New Me is that if I try to eat more lean protein, vegetables, and salads and sprinkle in bread selectively, aka my bagel thin in the morning, my biscuit on Saturdays, then I don't use all my calories on the things that make me feel stuffed. Let's look at yesterday for example. My sales team in our Georgia office won a sales contest against our New York counterpart. The reward? You guessed it, Food! (the very thing that I try not to reward myself with on a personal level. HaHaHa

Any way they brought in lunch for us yesterday from Olive Garden. There were huge bowls of salad, lasagna and grilled chicken Alfredo pasta. Oh and don't forget the endless Basket full of Garlic Breadsticks! Any way as I was walking down the hallway I could smell the itallian feast before I reached the conference room where everything was prepared and waiting,

I had a decision to make, do I just skip over the wimpy salad and jump feet first into the lasagna and chicken Alfredo trays or do I load my plate with salad (minus the croutons and cheese that were luckily served ala carte) and take a small serving from the two pasta dishes?

I know the anticipation is getting you, but I did the right thing for me. I had a full plate of salad with very little dressing and a very small serving of each pasta dish. The result? I was satisfied, no actually I was full! When I got back to my desk my stomach felt more than full! The pasta must have begun to swell or something and it felt like I had eaten the whole pan of Both! Good thing I did not enjoy those tempting breadsticks too! I would have definitely been miserable! So the moral of this story? In my humble opinion, carbs and fat are not the bad guys that we make them out to be. You must eat some carbs and fat in your diet but it is just what type and how much that really matter! Here's to healthier food choices from the carb and fat catergories in your near future!