Thought I'd post this to the group.  Enjoy!  EG


Wednesday, February 23, 2005


* Try the Methuselah Diet! *
/We're fat because we go on diets/

    Methuselah ate what he found on his plate,
    And never, as people do now,
    Did he note the amount of the calorie count.
    He ate it because it was chow.
    He wasn't disturbed as at dinner he sat,
    Devouring a roast or a pie,
    To think it was lacking in granular fat
    Or a couple of vitamins shy.

    He cheerfully chewed each species of food,
    Unmindful of troubles or fears
    Lest his health might be hurt by some fancy dessert,
    And he lived over 900 years.

Prof. Ann Althouse is blogging over at GlennReynolds.com. Today she
writes that Fat is sinfully complicated
<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7011728/#050222>, with the thesis that, as
Mireille Guiliano argues in /French Women Don't Get Fat/,

    ... we're fat because of our American attitude toward food. Instead
    of fearing the sin of overeating and atoning with dieting, we
    should, like the thin Frenchwoman, eat a joyous array of delectable,
    elegant foods. In fact, why don't you start seeing yourself as
    sinful because you fail to appreciate the beauty of life - you lack
    the French joie de vivre?

(Ann says that Jessica Siegel argues, however, that the French are thin
because they smoke like fiends - which they do.)

Anyway, I can't solve the French problem, one way or another. Lord
knows, the Brits have tried for lo these many centuries and they never
solved the French problem, so I don't have a chance.

My contention is that Americans who try to reduce but regain the weight
they lost, as most people seem to do, fail because they go on a diet.

Believe me, I know. After I retired from the Army I started seminary
within four weeks. I was a fulltime student, worked full time also, and
tried to make sure my three young children and wife remembered what I
looked like, too. Something had to give, and what gave was PT. My daily
diet slipped, too. The result is what anyone might expect: I gained
weight, far too much.

I tried Atkins, I tried low fat, I tried the Type II diabetes diet a
relative's doc had given him. And other diets, too. Sure, I lost weight
- for awhile. Then it came back, and usually more. It took me a long
time, but I finally realized that the reason I was unsuccessful was
because I was /on a diet/.

The problem with diets is that they put certain foods off limits, at
least for a time, such as breads, pasta, desserts of every kind, some
kinds of meats, and so on. And they make you measure and weigh foods,
not to mention weighing yourself (and who wants to do that?). But here
is the real truth: there are no bad foods, there are only bad meals.

I found success when I decided that I would not weigh portions or
myself. I would not measure portions to make sure I didn't eat a single
pea more than a half cup. I would not place any food of limits,
including ice cream and cake when, say, birthday parties came around.

I made only one vow, which proved surprisingly easy to keep. It was to
ensure that the meal I was about to consume was a correct meal in
nutrition and balance and portions (eyeballed, not weighed or measured).
I did not give up snacks, I just changed what I snacked on. For the
first two weeks I drank a small juice glass of orange juice whenever I
wanted to snack. It satisfied the urge and gave me a flavor surge, but
not empty calories. I drank a lot of orange juice in that time, but
after two weeks or so the urge abated for OJ or anything else. And I did
not embark on a PT program, either.

The result? I never got hungry and in six weeks I dropped one and a half
shirt sizes and five inches in trouser size. I had to take my dress suit
to Men's Wearhouse to get it cut down; it took six days and by the time
I went back to pick it up it was too large again. I never found out how
much weight I lost because I never weighed myself; it wasn't relevant to
me. I measured success my an improved sense of well-being and by
steadily wearing smaller clothes.

In honor of the anonymous poem at the beginning of this post, I call it
the Methuselah Diet. Try it - it's free!

by Donald Sensing, 5:55 PM. Permalink
<http://www.donaldsensing.com/2005/02/try-methuselah-diet.html> Comment
(6) <javascript:HaloScan('110920458263627507');> | Trackback (0)
<javascript:HaloScanTB('110920458263627507');>