Fad Diets
The sages that wrote the ancient Ayurvedic texts would be horrified by our current fascination with the low-carb diet or the no-fat diet or the juice diet - from the Ayurvedic perspective, any diet that is exclusive in nature is by definition incomplete in its nutritive value and ability to balance all aspects of the physiology.In the philosophy of Ayurveda one must Eat a wide variety of foods for balanced nutrition - whole grains, lentils and pulses, vegetables, fruits, dairy, nuts, healthy oil or ghee, spices and pure water all have their roles in the balancing process.
it is equally important to eat natural organic and seasonal foods in order to satisfy satiety (not feeling hungry because the body has all the vitamins,minerals,protein and carbohydrates it needs in the right proportions) lets face it we all know? that most modern processed foods contain very little by way of nutrition, fast foods and fizzy drinks even less so, what is more most are high energy either by way of sugar or fat, when we eat junk food we feel hungry within a short time WHY!, simply because the body is still craving the essential nutrients it needs to maintain optimum health, so we eat more, we are still hungry, we eat more... within a short while we get fat, later we become obese,
we become morbidly obese, we die,
the simplest way to lose weight and keep it off is not by some fad diet they simply do not work. Why ?
So we start our new diet, perhaps this one is chosen at random from the thousands of new diets available, in fact most are old, very old diets with new names happy in the belief that this one will work because it is sponsored by a slim celebrity, a slimmer, bigger celebrity in fact than these who sponsored the other failed 100 diets before!.
So we drink our cabbage soup and munch on our carrots, and of course are delighted when the scales show us a week later that we have lost 5lbs, all be it water and muscle fibre, but still 5lbs is 5lbs right ! Well during that first week strange things have been happening within our bodies, after just a few days of reducing our food intake our body starts to slow our metabolism why?.
Simple we are starving, or at least that is what our body is telling us, no matter what we know, on an instinctive survival level we are starving, and that is the signal to the brain that counts.
So as a defence against imminent starvation and Death, no less, the Brain starts to slow our system in an attempt to conserve fuel (FAT) and unfortunately for these of us on a diet our system is very, very good at survival, as anyone who has dieted on a few occasions can attest, the first week we lose loads of weight and rightly so are delighted,
The second week a little less, the third week we have still been good!, Hardly cheated, and yet only lost a little weight, why, now the body is really beginning to worry, and starts to really bring all the starvation defences into play. So apart from really slowing down the metabolism the body now produces far less of the essential feel good neurotransmitters, Serotonin and Dopamine these two are responsible for most of your natural highs, a little like a legal narcotic but super powerful.
Serotonin and Dopamine are in fact stimulated by certain types of foods (usually the bad types of course). And to make matters worse if you are overweight or Obese, which of course you may well be, or you would not be on diet in the first place?. You may well have less D2 receptors (pleasure receptors) for the serotonin or Dopamine to excite in the first place.
So by week four we are really beginning to feel the effects of our diet, hungry all the time, and with our constantly slowing metabolism so we are beginning to feel lethargic to say the least, we are also beginning to get a little depressed our weight loss has all but stopped, and unbeknown to us our natural drugs are no longer being produced.
These emotions are basic emotions of survival; they have developed over hundreds of thousands of years as a means to keep us alive, and are very powerful, far more powerful than our desire to get into that red dress of last year.
So we give up we have lost 10lbs not bad eh ! Then what off shopping, with our depleted Serotonin and Dopamine levels, which is a disaster we will choose all the foods that we need to stimulate our pleasure receptors these tend to be heavily processed food full of sugar and or dripping with fat.
Before we know it we have gained all of our lost weight back and a little more as a bonus!, no matter ! we hear that a new top celebrity is on a new miracle diet she looks great, we will give that one a go. Next Year Though! by which time we will have gained another 10lbs
The latest obesity statistics are scary to say the least, it is estimated that if we do nothing by 2050, then 90% of today's children will be Overweight or Obese.
So what do we do, most people simply do not have the time or energy to constantly prepare nutritionally balanced meals all the time, you cannot be expected to check calories, fat, carbohydrate labels on everything you buy can you in truth if the food comes in a packet, can, or bag of some sort it has been processed to some extent suger, salt, preservatives, hydrogenated fats added, whilst at the same time most of the nutritional compounds taken away.
We are realists not saints if you can adopt an 80/20% lifestyle you will lose weight quicky and more importantly keep it off.
Simply Ayurveda
Devanāgarī: आयुर्वॆद, the 'science of life'
Devanāgarī: आयुर्वॆद, the 'science of life'
