Forget the Dieting Gurus: Go the Traditional Route
/There are thousands of people out there pushing diets and making promises all around the world. If you get on their plan, they tell you, you’ll be able to lose weight, tone up and get rid of those love handles you loathe. The problem with diet gurus is that (at the root), they’re trying to sell a product, be it a book, supplement, or online course. While there’s nothing wrong with this per se, it creates a conflict of interest. Does the guru want to make you healthy, or do they want the money? In reality, it’s probably a bit of both.
Fad diets, however, are often unsustainable, and sometimes they can lead you to eat foods that are dangerous to your health, all in the name of weight loss. Many, for instance, advocate high fat and high meat consumption - two food categories associated with shorter lives and more disease.
The key to the puzzle is to look at what thriving populations ate in the past and what worked for them. The inhabitants of Sardinia in the Mediterranean, for instance, had long lives and lived practically disease-free. They ate a diet of beans, whole grains, and vegetables, with the occasional peppering of nuts and seeds. Meat, fish, cheese, oil, and sweets were rare treats - not a part of the everyday diet.
The following infographic details some of the most popular fad diets and talks about the dangers of going on one of these programs. It then describes the kinds of foods we should adopt if we want to live well for a long time.
