Here is an article I love...I hope you like it too : )

[3aday]

Diets in the 21st Century
by
Joan Breibart


Maybe the time is right to talk about the "eat healthy exercise more directive. We see that it’s not working.

Where do we begin? How about the Fifties when almost no one was fat. When all Americans were very active and ate nutritious meals prepared with love by our dear Moms.

Sorry, but that idealized view doesn’t jive with the facts. No, we weren’t feeding on lean meats, fresh vegetables, or fruits. Believe me, fast foods arrived before the Beatles. White Castle served us greasy burgers and fries and soda. Industrial strength soda; there weren’t any diet versions. Same story with milk or beer. It was full calories ahead.

Juices? Unless your mother was a Super Mom who squeezed oranges, you drank frozen concentrate diluted with tap water or canned tomato juice. And what about those perfect fresh vegetables? Maybe in summer, but the rest of the time we ate canned or frozen peas, carrots, string beans, broccoli. All we knew from lettuce was iceberg.

And, of course, we cooked with Crisco or homemade lard — every home had a tub of it. That’s why the fried chicken, French fries, grits, pie crusts, and cakes tasted so good.

OK, we’ve put the lie to the idea that the trimmer bodies of the 1950’s were due to more wholesome meals. Let’s take on the myth that we were exercising.

Today, we all spend hours at our computers. Sure, sitting doesn’t do much for the shape of your butt, but what’s the difference what you sit in front of? Is a typewriter better??

You’ve seen fat construction workers and thin manicurists, right? Work that requires heavy manual labor doesn’t guarantee a svelte bod, nor does work that keeps you seated equal added pounds.

Did we burn more calories watching network TV than we do now watching cable? TV programming was limited then, so we also sat and played cards and board games. Or, sat and read a book. We weren’t jogging or going to the gym. Health clubs didn’t start until the 1970's and even then most women didn’t sign on because, believe it or not, sweating was unfeminine. So how come when 50's moms delivered four kids, they still managed to get back into pre-baby wardrobes?

Bottom line, we sat every chance we got, just like today -- because that is what human bottoms like to do.

Then why are we fatter than our parents and grandparents? The simple, unvarnished, scientifically researched answer from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is that we just plain eat more. The CDC reports that women today eat 22 percent more than women did in 1971. Go back to 1958 when daily adult caloric consumption was 1900 and we’re up to 30% more! And we’re not talking apples to apples unless we are actually eating apples. Because we can’t compare thousands of calorie-free beverages and reduced-fat foods to the limited, full strength selections back then.

If over-consumption got us into this mess, why didn’t we all just eat less? I’ll tell you why. Because in the 1980s, legions of fitness gurus and diet experts—some of them physicians-- became media savvy and perfected their messages. They convinced us that we needed the magical trifecta: eat only foods that are healthy ( eliminating fats then carbs); exercise( beat up your body and “burn†calories) and drink at least eight glasses of water a day.

So, first eager Americans embraced the “go for the burn/no pain no gain†body-damaging exercise to get rid of the extra calories; sort of our 20th Century version of the Roman vomitoriums.

Bad choice: the Pennington Biomedical Research Center recently determined after a six-month study that dieting alone reduces weight just as well as dieting and exercising. People who cut calories 25 % by only dieting and those who cut calories 12.5% through diet and 12.5% with exercise lost the same amount of weight. Worse both groups experienced the same decrease in muscle mass and basal metabolism! So exercise is not a weight loss solution; but it sure helps your heart, muscles and immune system.

Second, the diet industry convinced us that grazing, formerly known as snacking, was healthier than eating regular meals. This meant that consuming food anywhere at any time wasn’t just acceptable, it was downright medicinal. As for quantity, we so want to believe that if it’s “good†food, you can’t eat enough. Except that reason tells us that the more often your stomach is stretched, the more you must shovel in to feel sated.

The third development -- the glorification of water -- led us to believe that we could drink away our hunger or even “wash†away those calories. In 1976, each of us annually drank only a gallon and a half of bottled water. Today we each drink 28 gallons. Now we know there has been some climate change—obviously made worse by the need to dispose of billions of plastic water bottles-- but we don’t live in deserts today and we weren’t dying of thirst 30 years ago.

What’s the current word from the experts who gave us all this flawed advice? Well, you better believe they’re distancing themselves from their past weight loss theories. Now, they really know what the problem is and how to fix it. And, make us feel better about ourselves at the same time. If you’re over weight, it’s not your fault. Genetics, set points and stress hormones are to blame.

They don’t exactly say we have mutated in just 50 years, but the implication is that we have no longer have control over our bodies because after decades of gaining and losing and then regaining they aren’t cooperating.

It’s a complicated situation and we’re burnt out from all the talk and failed solutions. And what can we do now? Seven out of ten of us are fat; obese people outweigh the merely overweight; and we’re even adding to global warming! (the more you weigh, the more fuel it takes to get you where you’re going).

No quick fixes here, just some food for thought. Stop forcing yourself to guzzle water and exercise more. Quit beating yourself up for not eating healthy (it’s ungrammatical). Instead, cook food you love an d enjoy it. Just less of it.

[BrightAngel]

Good article.
For those interested, here is the link
http://www.inmamaskitchen.com/BODY_SOUL ... ht_JB.html

[Starla]

That is an excellent article - thanks for posting it! And thanks for the link, BrightAngel; I'd like to read more of what this woman has to say.

[wosnes]

Interesting article!

[wosnes]

This part is interesting, too:
http://www.inmamaskitchen.com/BODY_SOUL ... orial.html

[dmarie710]

That diet directives program looks interesting. Anyone know anything about it? I wonder if it's pretty much No S in a nutshell.

[kccc]

I looked it up. Inquiring minds (trying to avoid real work...)

http://dietdirectives.com/home/
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/ ... ekey=50434

Basicaly, it's a 21 day program in which you eat what they tell you, divided into 3 meals plus a small snack. (That part is the most No-S-like.) According to the review, it works out to a low-cal diet if you do the math, but also helps to keep some nutritional balance.

However, there's also "bite counting" for those 21 days, with the idea that you'll shrink stomach size and learn portion control, and it looks like some other behavior-modification-type stuff.

The review likes some of it, takes issue with some of it.

[TunaFishKid]

I completely agree with the food aspect of the article, but not the exercise. People really did move around more back then. Kids walked to school, and Mom walked with them if they were little. Mom hung the laundry outside on a clothesline. Two-car families were rare, so she also walked to the grocery store, probably pulling one of those folding metal carts behind her. Dad cut the grass himself - only rich people had gardeners. Today almost everybody in my middle-class neighborhood (the same one I grew up in) uses a lawn service or they at least have a power mower. We got up to change the channel on the tv back then - no remotes. Today I have remote controls for not only the tv, but my garage door and the doors on my minivan! I don't have to scrub my oven when it gets dirty - it's self-cleaning. I don't have to defrost my freezer - it's self-defrosting. I don't have to get on a ladder to wash windows - they tilt in. My husband doesn't have to climb a ladder to install/remove window screens when the seasons change - they're built in.

I don't have to scrub pots and pans with Brillo - I either use teflon or microwave. I remember scrubbing those pans every night and working up a sweat doing it! I don't even have to pull the lever to release the ice cubes in those old metal ice cube trays - my refrigerator makes the ice.

There are so many ways, big and small, that our lives are physically easier today...I'm sure I've forgotten some. There are probably more that I don't even know about, but my parents and grandparents would.

[wosnes]

I completely agree with the food aspect of the article, but not the exercise. People really did move around more back then. Kids walked to school, and Mom walked with them if they were little. Mom hung the laundry outside on a clothesline. Two-car families were rare, so she also walked to the grocery store, probably pulling one of those folding metal carts behind her. Dad cut the grass himself - only rich people had gardeners. Today almost everybody in my middle-class neighborhood (the same one I grew up in) uses a lawn service or they at least have a power mower. We got up to change the channel on the tv back then - no remotes. Today I have remote controls for not only the tv, but my garage door and the doors on my minivan! I don't have to scrub my oven when it gets dirty - it's self-cleaning. I don't have to defrost my freezer - it's self-defrosting. I don't have to get on a ladder to wash windows - they tilt in. My husband doesn't have to climb a ladder to install/remove window screens when the seasons change - they're built in.

I don't have to scrub pots and pans with Brillo - I either use teflon or microwave. I remember scrubbing those pans every night and working up a sweat doing it! I don't even have to pull the lever to release the ice cubes in those old metal ice cube trays - my refrigerator makes the ice.

There are so many ways, big and small, that our lives are physically easier today...I'm sure I've forgotten some. There are probably more that I don't even know about, but my parents and grandparents would.

I totally agree! We used to have exercise built in to our lives -- even if we didn't go to the gym. We washed and scrubbed not only the pots and pans -- but the dishes, too. When it snowed, we shoveled -- no snow blowers. We raked leaves -- no leaf blowers. At least you still have to walk behind a power mower, but most people with any size lawn have a riding mower.

It also wasn't unusual for families to take a walk at night after dinner (weather permitting). Stop and visit neighbors and the kids played.

[dmarie710]

Well, not sure about the diet idea's, I'm sure some of them are good, but I sure like what the lady has to say in her articles. Thanks for looking it up, KCCC. I also went to the website, but you have to pay for the info. it seems. Glad you were able to find that review.

[Starla]

Mom hung the laundry outside on a clothesline.

I remember my Mom teaching me to do the laundry with a wringer washer! I'd like to know the weight of all the wet clothes I lifted and put through the wringer - made easier, of course, by the adrenaline rushing through my system at the thought of what would happen to my hand if I pushed a little too far!

[TunaFishKid]

Mom hung the laundry outside on a clothesline.

I remember my Mom teaching me to do the laundry with a wringer washer! I'd like to know the weight of all the wet clothes I lifted and put through the wringer - made easier, of course, by the adrenaline rushing through my system at the thought of what would happen to my hand if I pushed a little too far!

OMG! That's scary. My adrenaline rush came from making sure there were no earwigs attached to the sheets I removed from the clothesline.

[TunaFishKid]

It also wasn't unusual for families to take a walk at night after dinner (weather permitting). Stop and visit neighbors and the kids played.

My own family's after dinner walk is another casualty of the exercise craze. My husband and I would like to walk after dinner, but he has two bad knees and I have a gigantic Morton's neuroma, all from jogging miles and miles in the seventies and eighties.

[wosnes]

Mom hung the laundry outside on a clothesline.

I remember my Mom teaching me to do the laundry with a wringer washer! I'd like to know the weight of all the wet clothes I lifted and put through the wringer - made easier, of course, by the adrenaline rushing through my system at the thought of what would happen to my hand if I pushed a little too far!

OMG! That's scary. My adrenaline rush came from making sure there were no earwigs attached to the sheets I removed from the clothesline.

I learned to do laundry with a wringer washer, too.

[kassabma]

I completely agree with the food aspect of the article, but not the exercise. People really did move around more back then. Kids walked to school, and Mom walked with them if they were little. Mom hung the laundry outside on a clothesline. Two-car families were rare, so she also walked to the grocery store, probably pulling one of those folding metal carts behind her. Dad cut the grass himself - only rich people had gardeners. Today almost everybody in my middle-class neighborhood (the same one I grew up in) uses a lawn service or they at least have a power mower. We got up to change the channel on the tv back then - no remotes. Today I have remote controls for not only the tv, but my garage door and the doors on my minivan! I don't have to scrub my oven when it gets dirty - it's self-cleaning. I don't have to defrost my freezer - it's self-defrosting. I don't have to get on a ladder to wash windows - they tilt in. My husband doesn't have to climb a ladder to install/remove window screens when the seasons change - they're built in.

I don't have to scrub pots and pans with Brillo - I either use teflon or microwave. I remember scrubbing those pans every night and working up a sweat doing it! I don't even have to pull the lever to release the ice cubes in those old metal ice cube trays - my refrigerator makes the ice.

There are so many ways, big and small, that our lives are physically easier today...I'm sure I've forgotten some. There are probably more that I don't even know about, but my parents and grandparents would.

I am with you! We have totally made our lives overly easy as far as most physical constraints are concerned. This reminds of me of the movie Wall-E. Cute little kids movie that I was made to watch with my seven year old. But it has some importance and relevance, as it is about what the future may hold if we keep up our laziness and habitual overconsumption that plagues many of us.

Anyway, in the movie, Wall-E the robot hitches a ride on a ship that arrives back at a large space cruise ship, which is carrying all of the humans who evacuated Earth 700 years earlier mostly due to landfills overflowing into all of the habitable parts of Earth. The people of Earth ride around this space resort on hovering chairs which give them a constant feed of TV and video chatting. They drink all of their meals through a straw out of laziness and are all so fat that they can barely move. I find it to be an interesting commentary of what may become of the human race.

Sorry - I know this was a bit of a sidetracking here - but it just reminded me of the movie!