The Secret of Dieting

This is no great revelation, but I think I've just confirmed the underlying principle that makes dieting (sometimes) (sort of) (for a limited time) work.

I saw some "low carb" boxed dinners (pasta and sauce mix, basically an up-scale mac and cheese) a couple weeks ago, clearance-priced at 75 cents each. I thought smugly, "So the Atkins fad has peaked, and now you've got too much inventory for it, eh?" A quick scan of the nutritional info indicated they wouldn't be bad for me, so I bought a few, and pocketed the savings over a full-priced box of Hamburger Helper® or Pasta Roni®. Money's tight, so I was happy.

This noon I pulled one of them out to prepare for lunch. Inside was the usual nondescript packet of powdered cheez product, and... a bunch of strange dark brown twisted noodles trying hard to look like rotini. And failing. The color didn't put me off (I eat whole-grain breads, not that glossy white stuff) but why wasn't it shaped like regular spiral pasta? A glance at the ingredients explained both: it was made of soy, with only a little wheat gluten to try to hold it together. I went ahead and prepared it according to the instructions on the box (substituting skim milk for the heavy whipping cream), but the not-rotini mostly fell apart into little strips of soy pasta. The texture of it wasn't exactly unpleasant, but still... unappetizing.

And that is the key to diets' success. Whatever the gimmick, the real trick is to make people not enjoy eating. Whether it's the hassle of counting calories, the ennui of eating the same thing all the time, or even going so far as to make the food disgusting, that - more than any metabolic models or nutritional principles - is why people (sometimes) (sort of) (for a limited time) lose weight when they go on these special diets.

I admit that at 200lbs+ I'm clearly no fitness guru. I'd really love to drop 40lbs and I really need to drop 20 to stay healthy. But I'm doing that the old-fashioned way: getting more exercise and eating less junk. I ride my bike to work in good weather, I take the stairs instead of elevators, I do some light weight-lifting when I can motivate myself to. I eat oatmeal (with honey) for breakfast, I take carrots and apples to work for lunch, I build my dinners around pasta or rice (not meat), and I've recently dropped the 2-3 beers from my nightly routine. It'll probably take me years (rather than months) to get my weight down to where it needs to be, but at least I'll be able to enjoy getting there.