The Four-Letter Word on a Food Blog: Diet

I am so pleased to welcome fellow author, J.L. Greger, from Oak Tree Press to my blog today. I know you will enjoy her post on that unspeakable word: diet! So glad to have you here, Janet!

Don't panic. I'll use the offensive word no more than necessary.

Why am I writing on dieting?  

You might guess I'm Scrooge and trying to ruin your fun at a blog featuring delicious recipes.

Wrong! It’s because my new murder mystery is called Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight. Linda Almquist (the heroine) is investigating two "diet doctors" for recklessly endangering the lives of their obese research subjects. They are convinced they’ve found an easy way for obese subjects to lose weight - just alter their gut flora. Then Linda finds one of them dead.

Does the research sound strange? You’ll be a believer after you read “The microbes made me eat it” (Science, volume 328, pages 179-80 in 2010).

Oh, did I forget to mention, Linda is trying to lose weight as she searches for the murderer.

Dieting advice that Linda uses

1. Decrease portion sizes. Super-sizing is your enemy. In restaurants, order children’s portions or a half sandwich with a cup of clear soup.

Toppings are meant to add a dash of flavor. That means a teaspoon (not a tablespoon) of butter on bread and a tablespoon (not a ¼ to a ½ cup) of dressing or guacamole on your salad or sandwich.

2. Don’t buy snack foods, except carrots and other raw vegetables. You can’t eat what you don’t have.

2. Decrease fat, sugar, and alcohol intake in beverages. Most standard servings of sweet iced teas, lattes, fruit juices, and regular sodas contain 130-190 calories. Many fruits smoothies and cocktails provide >200 calories, while the unsweetened tea, black coffee, and diet sodas contain no calories. These calories add up when you drink several servings daily.

3. Broil, bake, or grill meats and fish, don’t fry. For example, the typical over-breaded and greasy chicken breast contains at least 300 calories. The same chicken breast, if the skin is removed and the meat broiled, provides 121 calories.

4. Follow this advice everyday for months. It may be easier to stick to your diet if you chew gum between meals or drink at least one glass of water before each meal. For flavor, top meat, potatoes, and other vegetables with a tablespoon of a non-fat, fresh salsa.

Did you learn anything new?

Probably not. You know the basics of dieting, but you can’t stick to it for long. You're not alone. Did you ever notice how many physicians, nurses, and dietitians are overweight or obese?

That’s why so many researchers study obesity. Meet several of them when you read Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight. You may decide dieting isn’t so hard after all. 

Please comment

If you leave a comment to this blog along with a way for me to contact you, you will be entered in a drawing on October 1. The winner gets his/her name used in one of my upcoming novels.

Bio: As a biologist and professor emerita of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I enjoy putting tidbits of science into myr mystery/suspense novels. So far that’s Coming Flu and Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight. A third is on the way. To learn more, visit www.jlgreger.com or http://jlgregerblog.blogspot.com.

Sell line for Coming Flu: www.amazon.com/Coming-Flu-J-L-Greger/dp/1610090985/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363872699&sr=1-1&keywords=Coming+Flu.

Sell line for Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight: http://www.amazon.com/Murder-New-WayLoseWeight/dp/1610090624/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365534310&sr=1-1&keywords=Murder+A+New+Way+to+Lose+Weight

For Better Health: Don't "Diet"

Do you have any friends on a diet? Hahahahaha! ROTFLMAO!

Stupid question, eh? I can name at least a dozen friends on a diet at any one point in time. It’s an American pastime. And the font of big bucks for diet creators.

Oh, and the creativity of the diet creators! Who wouldn’t want to do the South Beach Diet (impying images of beach-body-beautiful), or the Mediterranean Diet (sunny beaches, laid back life style, perfect weather), or even the unnamed lose-100-pounds-in-one-hour diets?

Why am I against the plethora of “diets”? Perhaps it is because I consider myself fat if I have to upsize to Size 2. (No, that’s for SURE not it!) Or perhaps it is because I own major stock in a bacon factory. (Would that I had the kind of cash I could play stock market roulette.) Or maybe it’s because I have so many friends who are perpetually dieting because as soon as they go off the diet-du-jour, they gain the weight back.

Have you ever looked up the word “diet”? See, I’m an etymology kind of guy--love, love, love words and their origins, connotations and denotations, you get the idea. So diet is very interesting. This is from Dictionary.com:

1175–1225;  (noun) Middle English diete  < Anglo-French, Old French  < Latin diaeta  < Greek díaita  way of living, diet, equivalent to dia- dia-  + -aita  (akin to aîsa  share, lot); (v.) Middle English dieten  (transitive) < Anglo-French, Old French dieter,  derivative of the noun

Get it? Diet isn’t a short-term shock to your system; it’s a way of life.

Sure, you might lose pounds, even a lot of pounds with the extreme diets. But the research is pretty compelling that most people gain it back and pack on more pounds. Net gain: negative numbers long-term.

A dear neighbor was talking about his latest diet: 600 calories a day. That is dangerous, and I didn’t hold back on my concerns. But even very smart people  seem willing to take the risks they know lurk in such diets in pursuit of the elusive perfect body--or at least not as grossly over-weight.

I am in need of losing more than a few pounds, and after a medical crisis this spring, I decided to finally, really, seriously take charge of my health. No more sporadic exercise; that was one reason I was in the trouble I was in. No more yo-yo dieting or saying I was going to lose weight; that was another reason I was in the trouble I was in.

No, this time I was going to diet, in the etymological sense of the word. This would be my life-style eating plan, my forever-eating plan. I’ve lost 25 pounds in 6 months. I say 25 pounds in that time, but in reality it was shorter; I’ve maintained that weight loss rather than losing more because I broke my arm and couldn’t exercise. At least I maintained. Now that I am healing, I am going to get back to exercise, so I expect to take of the pounds I still have to lose.

I have to preface my diet “secrets” with this disclaimer. We already ate pretty healthfully--whole grains, 1% milk, olive oil and other healthful fats, lots of fruits and veggies, more chicken and fish than beef--you get the idea.

So my diet, my life-style plan revolves around regular exercise, portion-control, and smart food choices. That’s it. I don’t count calories or weigh food. If someone invites me to a birthday party, I’m going to eat the cake. I won’t beat myself up over it, but I won’t eat birthday cake every day. And I won’t pick up the biggest piece on the table.

I’m into simplifying. I can do this the rest of my life. It’s not a gimmick, not a quick-loss plan, but my goal is not the immediate number on the scale. I want to live a quality life for as long as I am given breath. I want a diet--a way of living. I don’t want to be searching for the next weight loss miracle.