If we’re going to be friends, there is something you should know: you must never, under any circumstances, give me a diet/nutrition book. Even if I ask you for it. First of all, I’ve probably read it. I’ve read them all. Or if I haven’t read it, I’ve read something very similar to it because truly there are only so many ways to adulterate your food. Second, I’ll do bad things with it. Case in point: This weekend.
Over the space of two days I burned through Real Food: What to Eat and Why by Nina Planck, The Eat Clean Diet: Fat Loss that Lasts Forever by Tosca Reno and Thin is the New Happy by Valerie Frankel. All good books. Three accredited, smart and talented writers. One big pile of confusion.
My problem lies in that I believe everything. Now before you hucksters out there get all rabid, my gullibility only extends so far as nutrition. I know I have no unclaimed funds in government accounts, nor do I believe Microsoft will give me a million dollars for forwarding an e-mail and I absolutely will not help you get 15 trillion dollars out of Nigeria. Even if that would solve our current financial crisis. A college friend once summed it up thusly, “Charlotte, you are one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. But you have no common sense. Like, zero.” Lest you question his assessment, he was saying this to me mere minutes after I had been knocked nearly senseless by the guard arm coming down across a parking lot exit. Which I didn’t see because I was crossing the street and reading at the same time.
This is what you are dealing with when you give me a book on nutrition.
Let us start with Real Food. The gist of this book is similar to the Primal Blueprint in that it maintains that historical peoples were healthier than we are and therefore we should eat like they did. Rather than eat like cave(wo)men, however, Nina Planck encourages us to eat like mid-19th century farmers. Raw dairy, lard, fresh eggs, meat, garden veggies – the whole works. Saturated and animal fats are encouraged, carbs are minimized, and spring grass-fed dairy is the Holy Grail. The only thing missing is Willa Cather and a freckled heroine in plaits running the basket to your door. And if you eat this way, she promises health, long life and a low BMI. I was immediately 100% converted. My plans of dietary Nirvana were thwarted, though, when I found out it is illegal to buy raw milk in Minnesota. And you can only get fresh, local veggies here 6 months out of the year. And the city will not allow me to raise a cow nor chickens in my backyard. Neither will my husband.
Next up was The Eat Clean Diet which was kindly loaned to me my Reader Gretchen who is hereby absolved of all ensuing insanity on my part. In this book (really more like a magazine – all shiny pictures, lots of collumn padding and random!! puncuation), Tosca Reno, a 50-something woman with the body of a 30-something, explains the principles of clean eating according the Gospel of Bodybuilding. Already indoctrinated in this school of thought thanks to Tom Venuto, Bill Phillips, Arnold Schwarzenegger and others, it almost felt like coming home. This was the first diet I truly embraced. The keys here are to eat 6 small meals a day with each meal containing a complex carbohydrate, a lean protein (the boneless skinless chicken breast is the official Bodybuilder mascot), and a green veggie. Sugar is the white satan, saturated fat is verboten and donuts, ice cream and soda pop are the great evils of our time. Reading Reno’s book made me remember everything I loved about this diet the first time around (the literal written guarantee of a picture-perfect body! the promise of never being hungry! the simplicity!) and then all the things that made it fail for me (I hate eating meat! And giving up sugar for the rest of my life is impossible!).
Lastly, in a fit of anxiety, came Thin is the New Happy. Every health, fitness and body image website in the blogosphere has been singing Frankel’s praises so when I got one child-free hour, I raced to Barnes and Noble and sucked it down. Along with touching my tongue to my nose, speed reading seems to be one of the few God-given talents I have and so I am ashamed to say that this type of B&N binge is a semi-regular occurence for me. I do apologize to both B&N (I know you’re not a library!) and to the authors whose books I do not buy (It’s just that I’m so very poor!). Anyhow, guilt revelling aside, it was a very good read. In it, Valerie Frankel describes how over the course of her life she has tried every diet in creation – sound familiar? – and finally found health and happiness through “the anti diet.” Which means that she gave up all of her food rules and just… ate. And she dropped 10 pounds without even trying.
So here is what I took away: Real Food says to eat your animals – fat, bone marrow, organs, cream, lard and all. Clean Eating says to only eat the protein-rich muscles and ova of your animals but to leave behind the fatty bits. Real Food says raw dairy is the answer to all your ills. Clean Eating says that dairy, especially whole fat dairy, will clog your arteries, cloud your mind and make you bloat. Real Food says to avoid grains, mostly. Clean Eating says to eat complex carbs in the forms of grain or tubers at every meal. Real Food says to eat two entire eggs fried in grass-fed butter for breakfast. Clean Eating says egg yolks will kill you and you should eat six egg whites fried in a non-stick pan for breakast. And Frankel’s book trumps them all by saying you just shouldn’t diet at all. Really the only thing these books agree on is that you should eat breakfast. And vegetables are good.
My orthorexic mind, exhuasted from an entire weekend of paradigm-shifting, says to heck with it all I’m only eating vegetables, thereby demonstrating again my utter lack of common sense.
Let me set the record straight: I think that Planck, Reno and Frankel are talented, healthy, beautiful women. I think that they have each, in turn, discovered what kind of eating works best for their body. And I think that it is from a place of magnanimity they share their knowledge with the rest of us. I just don’t know that their solution is my solution. I wish I had the resources to try Planck’s retro-diet. I wish I had the self-control to try Reno’s clean diet again. And, most of all, I wish I had the guts to try Frankel’s anti-diet. I do, after all, have 10 pounds to lose.
Unfortunately I also have a tenuous hold on my sanity. Which is why for now I’m taking a pass on the diet books. Thank you.
So now tell me, have you discovered The Way To Eat that works best for you? How did you discover it? How long has it been working for you? Anyone else as lost and confused as I am?
PS> I have just been informed that one of our very own – Reader Daria – won the MBT shoe giveaway that I featured on my site! Yay Daria!!!
I mostly subscribe to the Clean Eating diet although I don’t eat meat and like you have a hard time staying away from sugar (it really sneaks up on me– “How many grams of sugar in that protein bar?!” And come on, I’ve got kids. Denying them the right to bake cookies is like child neglect, right?)
But mostly what I find that works for me is staying away from highly processed foods. No fast food (I don’t miss it a bit), no packaged sweets (it just feels right if I bake from scratch w/ more wholesome ingredients) and no soda or sugary juices. I also don’t keep a meal schedule– just eat when I’m hungry and usually pretty light.
Also, its good to be “sinful” sometimes and enjoy life. An ice cream cone w/the kids or loved ones does me more good than harm.
I think that it is from a place of magnanimity they share their knowledge with the rest of us.”
Pah! Say I. It’s from the Holy Love Of The Dollar that these people share their secrets. Not in a mercenary “it’s all lies!” way, but just in a that’s-why-you-would-write-a-diet-book-n-the-first-place way.
You’re right- these people are simply saying what worked for them, they’re just doin’ their jobs – not trying to save us from ourselves (which is ALWAYS what I think when I read any diet book – that it’s some kind of judgement on my person. Like a bible. Thou shalt not eat delicious oatmeal. Thou shalt instead dine upon our oink-ing and moo-ing friends).
I absorb every inch of diet advice that passes my eyes, feel entirely criticised by it and then decide that it’s too many calories per day to try and put the book back on the shelf.
Calorie counting is the only thing that makes me lose weight. 80% clean eating works if I want to maintain. But the main thing is Not Being Told What To Do By A Diet Book (because I can’t rebel if I’m the boss…)
TA x
My best friend had the same thing as Frankel, she just stopped dieting altogether and easily lost 5 pounds (she didnt have much more than that to lose).
We decided it’s probably because you stop thinking about food all the freaking time and thus start eating less.
I’ve tried copying it but I don’t do non-food-obsession very well. There is 1 little trick I got from it though.. When I really crave cookies or something like that, I now know it’s mostly because I wont let myself have it. So I tell myself to go ahead and get that damn cookie if I really do want it… and then usually I can’t be bothered, while I would have cracked and scarved it down while feeling shit if I hadn’t given myself permission to just go ahead.
good gosh woman you should have been paid for this post—-by all us women in america for SAVING our time and money buying and reading.
love,
An Avowed Eat Clean eater and longtime fan of Bill Phillips. (OLD SCHOOL BILL…not so much the Bill of today)
Hehehe. This is SO true. I’m exactly the same.
I’ve read the first book and I’ve read Tosca’s cookbook but not the one you’re talking about, or Thin is the New Happy.
I like your comment about how their solution isn’t necessarily your solution. I think that’s partly why I read all of these books. I’m looking for other peoples thoughts to find out what works for them, and to give it a try and see what works for me. A little info here, a little info there, and voila, we have a custom-made solution:)
It’s all about what works for the individual- no one way is going to work for everybody.
I’m too cheap to buy diet books and tend to be skeptical of them… but I do the same thing with new scientific studies that come out. Must eat blueberries! Must eat more protein! Whoops, Less protein! More Omegas! Whoops, not THAT kind of Omegas!
I do think there’s enough common ground to develop a sensible eating plan: mostly non processed foods, plenty of veggies and fruit and legumes and whole grains, some lean protein, and good fats. As to saturated fats, sugar, etc: moderation but not abstinence because then I’d be miserable.
And then I do whatever the study of the day says for about two weeks, by which time I forget about it.
Have you discovered The Way To Eat that works best for you?
Ah..yes.
How did you discover it?
Slowly, by paying attention, and trusting an inner voice.
How long has it been working for you?
Many years.
I still make small adjustments, but overall, I think I’ve found a way that works best for me. I’d describe it as vegan with seafood. Portion control and eliminating my childhood addictions to salt, sugar and fat were very helpful.
this is how I know you and I majored in wildly different subjects in school:
The only thing missing is Willa Cather and a freckled heroine in plaits running the basket to your door
I don’t read any of those books – they’re just not practical for sustaining over the long term. For someone who used to be uber-obsessed about food, you’d think I sucked them down but back in the day, my nutritional sciences courses and mainstream magazine articles, coupled with visual evidence from my starving freshmen neighbors, were all I needed to know that the fewer calories one ate, the thinner one got. Which is all I cared about then. Now I just kind of live by the 80/20 rule (eat well 80% of the time, so I can indulge the rest). I would not drink raw milk or eat bone marrow. Call me old-fashioned.
Yeah, raw milk and bone marrow just don’t do it for me, either.
I do know that Valerie Frankel’s book is meant to be more of a memoir than a diet book. (I read it a couple of weeks ago and really enjoyed it.)
I kinda do eat everything I want, in smaller portions, but what I want to eat is usually vegetarian and healthy, so there you go. The minute I try to diet, I go nuts and eat a bag of Oreos.
I do find that I lose weight best if I just exercise more and eat fewer dessert foods. That’s about it. It’s harder to lose it the older I get, but it still works.
I’ve never tried a “diet” of any sort, but recipes – oh yes! I guess the combination of being too cheap and too ADHD keeps me from sticking with anything unless I really, really love it and believe in it. I do try to take it easy on sugary food, it always makes me feel sluggish…but I do love desserts!
Hey Charlotte, it is always so comforting to read your blog because I realize there are others out there just like me. I devour everything on dieting and exercise. I love anything fitness related, and I have tried all the diets.
We are all different, and it took me forever to realize that my best diet does not necessarily work best for everyone else. I initially lost a good bit of weight about when I was 22, about 10 years ago (wow, can't believe it's been that long!) by trying to eat more healthy, although it took me a while to figure out what "healthy eating" really meant. I grew up on pizza and mac & cheese. So, I had a lot of room for improvement. I learned to cook veggies, gave up meat, and discovered sweet potatoes – plain and baked in the oven until they are all ooey-gooey. Love them! Anyway, lost over 100 pounds and have kept it off watching what I eat and doing lots of exercise.
Over the years, I've tried everything to maintain my weight loss, and I'm still trying different things. I got into running and kept the pounds at bay for years by upping my mileage. I found that the more I ran, the more pizza and ice cream I could eat. I started eating meat again, but just kept running.
After 7 years, 20+ half marathons, 1 full marathon and even 1 ultra marathon, I wanted to cut back on the cardio. So, I tried out the primal fitness thing. Loved the shorter amount of time spent exercising, but I kept gaining weight. Honestly, I just don't think my body likes the higher fat diets. I cut the carbs, but I was eating lots of red meat and nuts. OK, so the half jar of almond butter at lunch wasn't such a good idea, but anyway, it just didn't work for me.
I dug out my old "Body For Life" book that I bought years ago, but never really tried. Well, I've been following the program to a tee for a month now. I'm losing weight and getting stronger (held plank for 2 minutes this morning). I like the smaller meals 6 times a day – something totally new for me. I used to do coffee for breakfast, and although I ate a healthy lunch and dinner, I would eat way too much food during each meal (i.e. almond butter). Plus, I like getting some carbs. It works for me. I feared my morning oatmeal for so long. I'm glad to have it back in my life!
Anyway, thanks again for sharing so much about yourself. I love your honesty.
I try to eat as many fruits and vegetables as I can, eat a cup of yogurt a day (in addition to milk in protein shakes and coffee and the cheese in the stuff Amy’s Kitchen makes, and nothing from 4-legged animals.
I also have a half-serving of the most decadent dark chocolate I can find.
I work out for about 1-1.5 hours a day, 4-5 days a week, in addition to daily yoga. And I love all of it and don’t feel deprived. I’ve accepted the fact that I’ve turned myself into a freak of nature.
You’re right on about this, Charlotte. All these people have found the plan that works for them — and if Tosca Reno suddenly started eating the “primal/farmer way” (or whatever they want to call it), more than likely that way of eating would work for her, too.
I’ve read a couple articles recently about people who stopped counting calories and ate healthy meals in moderation. All of the people interviewed said they lost weight and feel better. I think ideally this would be the best way to eat, but you’re right — a lot of us might not be quite ready to let go of the control we have over what we eat (including how many calories those foods contain).
First of all, I am surprised at your comment about having ten pounds to lose. I do hope you were kidding because from what I’ve seen from the 20/20 piece and other pictures on your blog, you look great. I too am frustrated with all of the contradictions that exist. I have Tosca’s book right next to Intuitive Eating on my shelf. How’s that for contradiction?
How did I miss this post?
I’m laughing because I had considered a little while ago sending you two books. and then thought, hmm. One of those books MIGHT make her more crazy. 😉
I will keep them. (but for the record – they have both driven me INSANE…really really INSANE. I *almost* wish i hadn’t even picked them up) And I hadn’t heard of either of these books before I read them…
I don’t read diet books and I don’t diet, but I’m not sure if that contributes to maintaining a healthy weight. I know I inherited some damn good genes somewhere, but that’s not to say I don’t look twice at my thighs now and again or think I could do better by my butt. Anyway, I could always, like you, cut down on sugar. I should. I don’t. I just finished off a pumpkin and cream cheese muffin. Shucks. If I ever purposely cut back on anything it will be refined sugar. Some day I will. Some day. But here’s what I’ve been turned on to lately. This book: http://www.amazon.com/Feeding-Whole-Family-Cooking-Foods/dp/157061525X/ref=pd_sim_b_1
It’s a cookbook, so doesn’t fall into the dangerous diet book realm. It is wonderful. Wonderful. I checked it out at the library and don’t want to give it back. I’ve made at least 10 different recipes and they’re all easy. It’s all healthy, although she’s not afraid of butter or whole milk yogurt. And that’s totally OK with me. It’s not crazy rich fatty food. Just wholesome. Some stuff is vegetarian, some includes meat (that describes how I eat too). We get a box of veggies from a CSA each week and this has been a great way to eat them. But you are talking to a woman who can orgasm over roasted beets or mashed turnips. Curried lentils and cauliflower? Thai Chicken soup? Stuffed chicken with winter squash and raisins? I’ve had as much cooking these simple recipes as I’ve had eating them. Does this have anything to do with what you blogged about? Good gracious… I’m fuzzy today. (Too much sugar, she says.)