What's Good Today is Bad Tomorrow: What Can I Eat?

We've entered the Twilight Zone when it comes to the multitude of
diets being promoted today. Starting with the Atkins Diet, then
the South Beach Diet, now the Hamptons Diet and more. All higher
in protein, lower in carbs, but the distinction should be quality
of carbs, not singling out one nutrient entirely. If you are on
the Atkins Diet, South Beach Diet or any other variation of a
high protein/low carb diet simply adjust from eating low quality
carbs like refined flour and sugar products (think if it comes in
a box, it's likely low quality) to eating more whole food
products like fresh vegetables and fruits - yes fruits.

Apples vs. Apple Jacks - You be the Judge

I know the traditional Atkins Diet doesn't advocate much fruit
(too high sugar) but think about that for one minute. My strong
belief is that an apple is a good food, a bowl of Apple Jacks
cereal may not be on an equal level. One is highly processed
sweetened by added white sugar and corn syrup, and one is
natural, plucked from a tree and sweetened by the sun. Which
would you choose? Don't shun fresh fruit for the sake of
following your low carb diet to the letter.

Eliminating healthy, wholesome foods is not the best way to learn
to eat better, but severely cutting back on the frequency of
eating highly processed foods is. I saw a site which called it GM
or MM: God Made or Man Made. If you think of those terms when you
go to choose your foods, it starts to make more sense. No one
says you shouldn't eat chips, or whatever strikes your fancy, but
make them a treat - and eat the GM foods more often.

Common Sense Diet

Common sense will answer the question about what to eat. If you
are on Atkins, South Beach or any variation of low carb diet,
avoid processed foods, not natural foods. Stop using "instant"
breakfast, and cook whole rolled oats for instance. Sure you
might have to get up 10 minutes earlier, oh well. You're worth
it!

You can still stay on a higher protein food plan, but this one
minor adjustment will allow you to continue with your eating plan
for a lifetime, rather than a short-time. I'd go insane if I
couldn't eat my daily apple, banana or other fruit. I love fruit.
I think there's a very good reason humans desire sweet foods -
Vitamin C, and other nutrients, including bio-flavnoids.

Can You Be Addicted to Fruit?

I heard someone complain they were "addicted to fruit" and I had
to wonder, what do they eat? The person who refuses to eat fruit
because they believe it is too high in sugar, probably does eat
cookies, crackers and sugary cereals. They might even drink
artificially flavored and sweetened drinks, but they refuse to
eat a natural food, grown from our earth? That makes no sense, if
you think about it. Did our planet develop and thrive based on
processed foods? No, of course not. They are very recent in the
evolution of our world. Very recent. In fact, we've had processed
foods less than 200 years while our planet is millions of years
old.

With the high incidence of obesity, and our high consumption of
processed foods, it's hard not to draw the conclusion that one
causes the other. You won't hear big industry stating that case
because our economy depends on us buying the products being
produced by the companies that employ us. You'll never see it
reported that "scientists discovered refined flour kills," even
if it were proven true because it doesn't support our way of
life. We need industry.

Witnessing the epidemic of food illnesses such as Mad Cow, and
now Bird Flu, I can envision a society without the mass produced
meat industry. It will come to pass - nothing but your local farm
will be allowed to sell meat because the big farm industry cannot
guarantee safety of the food supply. Meat will become much more
expensive because when they can no longer mass produce it, there
is nowhere for prices to go but up. So do we whine and cry and
moan about our misfortune or do we start to think of meat as
something to savor and enjoy like the Sunday roasts we had years
ago? We never ate meat every day then - and we weren't so fat
either. We simply didn't eat as much processed foods. Most of us
had moms at home cooking us dinner, making our lunches and even
fixing our breakfasts.

Yes, progress marches on, but when it comes to your body, common
sense rules the day. The Common Sense Diet! Try it on for size
today.

About the Author
Kathryn Martyn, Master NLP Practitioner, author of the free
e-book: Changing Beliefs, Your First Step to Permanent Weight
Loss, and owner of http://www.OneMoreBite-Weightloss.com

Get The Daily Bites: Inspirational Mini Lessons Using EFT and
NLP for Ending the Struggle with Weight Loss.
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