By: Kevin Larrabee
1. Following a “Diet”
This is a mistake that everyone who is new to the fitness and nutrition world seems to make, and to be honest, it isn’t their fault. You walk into your local books store and see, “The Abs Diet,” “The Zone Diet,” and “The South Beach Diet.” Books that are written to help you cut bodyfat. “The Abs Diet” starts off on the right track, talking about eating whole grains, fruits, nuts, oatmeal (Instant oatmeal? Whats wrong with steel cut? ), lean meats, ect. This diet might help someone who is eating a bag of Skittles with each meal lose some weight with these dietary changes, but can it help the 190 lb 5’10” male lose that 15 lbs? Probably not. Like the other books, this may be a good start, but not the optimal plan for life long leanness.
Then with South Beach, many will go “no-carb” and lose 10 or 20 lbs in a month. Now they are so carb deprived that they crave their French bread pizza so much they jump off the bandwagon completely and gain more weight than they lost!! This is why we see so many yo-yo dieters who lose 10 pounds, then gain 15. This also helps me realize why these books sell so well. Just look at Amazon.com (the defining ranking for all books), two of the top 25 books right now are diet books. And this is just because there isn’t a new edition of the Zone Diet or that Oprah just hasn’t tried the next big diet yet.
Your nutrition has to be looked at as a lifestyle not a short time fix. Put down the “diet books” and get something that will help you make your nutrition a lifestyle and not just a short time fix. Whether you are new to the nutrition world or not you should do yourself a favor and purchase Dr. John Berardi’s Precision Nutrition. I use this for all of my nutrition needs, and I know it will be invaluable when I start taking on more paid clients when I leave college. You can also check out JB’s Lean Eating Articles at his site: JohnBerardi.com
Agreed.. In Norway there is a company selling MRP products and they have a diet which consists of 800 calories a day… Works very well for five days, then all hell break loose ^^ I feel the advice given in PN is great and that together with heavy exercise got my training partner to go from 120kgs to 100kgs in 8 weeks.. Thats 264lbs to 220lbs in American terms
Thanks for a great show, going to relax and listen to episode 54 now
yo kevin
i agree with you , except if you ever do read the south beach diet , it really isnt a “diet” and it accuatlly does flow into proper eating for life
unfortnally people dont apply it like they should , so i guess the same should go for pn
great job with the shows man
each week i am pumped when i itunes adds another fitcast
People need to educate themselves on good nutrition, not a quick fix. I am a walking testimony to diets don’t work. I tried them all. BTW, nice having Jen on the show. You guys needed a woman’s perspective.
Good one. But I think it is good to experience a diet. I find it to be a part of finding your particular lifestyle. There might actually be people who medically need low fat, high carb nutrition to live and excel in life. I would not have known what I responded better to for my health condition, my body composition, and my performance if I didn’t try a diet or two. I have to thank my college pursuit in U.S History and U.S. Foreign Policy for helping me notice common themes of effective nutrition plans. I believe Dr Berardi was probably one of the first to publish it though.