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Eat To Live: The 'I'M Not Dieting' Diet

Posted on: Wednesday, 17 January 2007, 15:00 CST

By JULIA WATSON

Hands up, those who put Go on a diet on their New Year's Resolutions list. You neither?

According to a study from research company NPD Group, Americans on diets are down by 35 percent of women and 26 percent of men from 1990.

Given the amount of media coverage of obesity in the United States, this is an extraordinary finding. According to official statistics, roughly 60 percent of Americans are overweight. The highest rise is among those now considered obese -- 23.9 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number is up from 15.6 percent in 1995 and 19.8 percent in 2000.

NPD's Dieting Monitor survey found only 26 percent of females and 19 percent of men said they were on a diet in the 12 months up to February 2006, the period surveyed. That's even though NPD reports 60 percent of adults in the United States insist they'd like to lose 20 pounds.

Among those who were following a weight-loss program, the most popular method was a self-invented diet. Next in widespread appeal was a doctor-prescribed diet. Weight Watchers came in third as the most popular of the buy-into-the-program approach to dieting.

You have to be a little wary of administering your own system unless you know exactly what you are doing. In the days when calorie-counting ruled the diet world, I went on a fabulous 800-calorie-a-day diet, designed by me.

The first day I ate 800 calories of chocolate cake. The second I consumed up to 800 calories in potato chips and martinis, the third as many hot cups of malted milk as amounted to 800 calories, and from then on, whatever else took my fancy, up to its daily limit. You get the picture.

By day five I was seeing stars, developing zits, had stopped needing the bathroom and started losing friends I breathed over. The pounds that were driven from my body by such abuse returned as soon as I began to eat properly again.

The author of the new study is NPD Vice President Harry Balzer, who has made the study of American eating habits his specialty over the last quarter century. For the baby boomers he tracks, this is a time in life where health issues begin to creep into our lives and in the past, doctors provided advice. It appears people in this age group today are either not getting -- or not listening to -- their doctor's advice.

Still, there's a small glimmer of hope for us. We don't apparently treat January as the best time of year to start a diet. It's cold, we need comfort food, we're so well wrapped up against the weather -- who cares or can see what shape we are in? And besides, with hours ahead of us on the sofa behind a mountain of snacks in front of the Golden Globes and the Super Bowl, what's the point?

No, the peak dieting month is March, when we can almost feel the first zephyr breezes of spring against our cheeks so start checking ourselves out in the full length mirror. Oh my gosh! And there's only eight weeks before swimsuit season? Yikes! That's when you'll find around 26 percent of adults on a diet.

You've heard this before. But instead of going on a diet, just start eating right all year round. It's a lot less trouble and a good deal more delicious than following the irritating list of foods you can't eat that generally constitutes a diet.

You CAN eat chicken, fish, pork, a little red meat, a lot of vegetables and fruit. What's so bad about that? You don't have to cut out fats completely. Just use them sparingly. Deprive yourself of everything and you'll never stick to any diet. Yes, put pasta and potatoes and bread out of your mind, but not forever. They don't have to be banned for life, only until you've reached the weight you want. Then you can have them once in a while. And if you give up adding pats of butter to your vegetables, it's a pleasant surprise how it just feels greasy in the mouth when you try it again, and how much more of the vegetable you can taste without it.

Invest in a simple Asian cookbook. Fats and meat protein in the quantity we expect to consume them in the Western diet play a very small part in their delicious, quick-cooked dishes. Don't tell yourself you're on a regime, just look upon it as learning about a different culture for a while. And watch the pounds fall away.

-- Thai Chicken Salad

-- 1 chicken breast per person

-- 1 tablespoon sesame oil

-- Several picks from the following: cucumbers, peeled, halved lengthways, deseeded and finely sliced; green onions, finely sliced; carrots, peeled and sliced paper-thin on the diagonal; bean sprouts; red peppers, deseeded and finely sliced; cabbage, finely sliced; small mixed handful of mint and cilantro leaves.

-- Dressing:

-- 4 tablespoons fresh lime juice

-- 3 tablespoons peanut oil

-- 1 tablespoon sesame oil

-- 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, peeled and grated

-- 1 clove garlic, finely minced

-- 1 fresh red chili, deseeded and finely sliced

-- 1 tablespoon soy sauce

-- &189; teaspoon sugar

-- Mix dressing ingredients together in a lidded jar and shake to combine then pour over your salad ingredients and toss well.

-- Rub the chicken breast all over with sesame oil and broil on a ridged grill pan over high heat till cooked through and lined on both sides, then leave to rest 5 minutes while composing the salad.

-- Mound the tossed salad on a plate, slice the chicken in &189;-inch thick slices and lay on top. Eat.

Source: United Press International

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