To diet or not to diet?

Seems a break from my usual travel blogging.
Just some thoughts in case there are others out there who have the dieting disorder.

I might have a mild case of this.  We could argue that it is a wise idea to keep tabs on what you are eating (and how much!), and exercising is surely a good idea. Just when it slips into a neurotic behaviour is a grey area.

Having  been through several weight loss programs, I have experienced the fun of losing weight.
It is really great - you are not carting 10kg extra around all the time.

They worked, but the weight seems to creep slowly back up when I go back to my normal diet. 

So, in the library browsing for books I found two books on the subject.

"The Overfat Pandemic" by Dr Philip Maffetone and
"Solving the Paleo Equation" by Dr Garrett Smith.

This blog is not a review of these books, just an introduction to some of the key ideas they put forward.

Which leads to the moral of this story: Don't just get ONE book out! Because every where you look there is a huge amount of advice in this area, especially the internet, which is probably at  best case mostly wrong, and worst case dangerous.

Both books emphasize getting rid of junk food from your diet.

"The Overfat Pandemic" has an interesting two week program you can do, which is where your eliminate all carbs from your diet for two weeks. I lasted 1.5 weeks on that one. Might have to go back for another try.

The idea is you monitor your weight and at the end of two weeks see if reducing the carbs in your diet results in a weight loss. In my case it was only a slight loss.

"Solving the Paleo Equation" seemed like a better approach with some shattering of myths(?) such as you need to drink around 3 Litres of water per day.  I have tried that one on a previous diet and could not keep it up.

He says this is wrong.  Drink when you are thirsty. His main message is that you have to consider all the following: Stress, Nutrition, Exercise and Sleep.  Which to me sounds logical.

Another myth he busts is "No Pain, No Gain", which he says is not the right approach.

He lists various things you should eat, mainly red meat or wild caught fish,  stay away from pork and poultry. Avoid deep fried foods at restaurants. (Makes me a bit sad that one-I enjoy fish and chips)

An unusual list of "Anitmetabolism Foods" to avoid he lists as beans and legumes, and cruciferous vegetables such as Kale, Cabbage, Cauliflower and so on.  Which is strange because most nutritionists say eat all the veges you like.

At the end of the book is a section on Cell Phone/Wifi radiation which has solutions I would find very difficult to implement. Who knows, he may be correct.

Starvation dieting is not good for you and there are other approaches.