You probably know someone just like this

Today I want to write about two different types of people who both are very misguided in their approach to a sensible diet. Both are attempting to lose weight. One just wants the weight off, no matter how it happens; the other wants to be healthy but is extremely naive and gets caught up in all the latest trends and hype, and caters blindly to a set of ever-changing "rules" about what comprises a good, healthy diet.

The first person is the desperate dieter. This person will go to extreme lengths to lose weight, claims to be determined to lose weight, and yet is only interested in the "quick fix" approach and refuses to make the necessary lifestyle changes to actually accomplish her goals. For example, this person might start drinking a "weight loss tea" on Monday morning, two weeks before planning to attend an event that she wants to look her best for. The tea makes her sick--literally. She has violent boughts of vomiting and diarrhea. Simultaneously and repeatedly, lasting the whole day and into the next morning. She is so sick at one point that it actually starts to scare her. By Tuesday afternoon she feels mostly alright again so she makes some more tea for herself.

What is wrong with this picture?? Does the above approach seem like a reasonable way to lose weight to any rational, sane person? What exactly does the tea claim to do, I'd like to know. Is it marketed as a laxative or is it actually supposed to suppress the appetite or enable you to burn more calories somehow? Do they even bother to make a logical argument as to how it works, or is it just "miracle tea"? Sure, one might lose some weight this way... perhaps even five pounds or so in just a few days. Of water weight. Purely as a result of being radically dehydrated. To the desperate dieter, though, five pounds is five pounds; who cares where it comes from??

The second person is the uninformed dieter. This person takes any new information she receives, regardless of the source, as the gospel truth. One day she might hear that chocolate is good for the heart. She immediately tells all her friends, sends e-mails to all her co-workers, and revels in being able to eat chocolate again (since she had long since written it off as a no-no food). The next day someone tells her that the chocolate is bad for the skin. How disappointing, she says, and gives up chocolate again. For months or even years she has been eating whole grain bread for the health benefits. Then one day she reads something on the Internet that says the gluten in wheat bread is bad for women. She does not question why--something about women's hormones, she asserts--or in what way. Instead she sighs and throws her hands up in the air and resigns to eating potato bread from now on, or rye. Some of the new information she hears might conflict with old information. No matter; she assumes something new has been discovered that discounts the previous claims. Next week she might be convinced to choose real sugar over artificial sweetener only to revert back a day later; it's ok to eat eggs one month but the next month some new evidence says it's not again.

At least the uninformed dieter is attempting to be healthy, but at what point would she begin to question some of these "facts" and seek out the truth on her own? If someone she's never met who has no credentials or authority on the matter claimed that eating three tablespoons of lard every evening prevents cancer, would she go out and buy a tub of lard? I think she would. And she'd eat her lard adamantly, every evening, vehemently spreading the news about the benefits of lard, until the day someone else mentioned to her that saturated fats can raise cholesterol levels. And then she'd throw away the lard and shake her head in disappointment because maybe she was really enjoying the lard (pretend with me for a moment here). And yet she would still not learn that one cannot simply assume that everything she reads or hears or THINKS she hears is factual. For an indeterminate period of time, everything she eats will be dictated by what she thinks she "should" be eating, based not on tried and true scientific research or even, God forbid, her actual preferences, but solely on the latest rumors pertaining to optimal health and weight loss. She may actually be successful in losing weight and achieving good health; if she is, it is purely luck of the draw as she's no better off imposing such wildly fluctuating restrictions on herself than she would be to just use common sense and practice moderation. She's only setting herself up to grow weary of the whole scene and/or become so dependent on outside guidance that she feels she can no longer "trust" any food, let alone her own body. And really, can anyone consider that to be truly healthy??