The Most Important Diet Step of All

Maybe the most important diet step of all is research before you start.

We live in a world of big diet plans that are mass marketed, as if one-size-fits-all.

Pharmacies will sell you anything over-the-counter you want. Weight Loss programs will have you at a meeting once a week for a weigh-in, peer pressure, and support, and a few snack bars with "The Brand" on it to get you back to normal. Nutritionalists teach you what they know about nutrition, not about what you need to get to normal. Doctors look at test results and key numbers and leave it up to you, as in "Huh. Your TSH is normal, so it's not that. WHAT are you EATING?"

I've been sick, and I've been over 300 lb. Advice was easy to find, and success was next to impossible. Looking back, I'm not surprised at all because none of them addressed the problem or even looked. They were just selling "their way."

Look at the non-prescription items available at a pharmacy, and the options are awesome. Just spend $300 a week on everything there, and you might just find the right clue - or mess things up worse. I found something that said "Reduces belly fat by reducing Cortisol." That sounded familiar and I looked at my current medicine (medicine that is working - losing 5 lb a week sometimes - athankyou) and we are putting Cortisol in, not taking it out.

I should say people should check with their doctor before beginning anything, but with one exception, they have been the worse source of advice of all.

I had colon surgery once, and was visited by many well-meaning specialists while in recovery, including a nutritionalist. She said "You must stick with low fat eating. Snack on pretzels or cereal. Fat is calories. Never eat fat."

Thanks. That was a great way to get insulin resistance and high triglycerides. Being messed up didn't help. I basically got exactly the wrong advice for me, before I ever left the hospital. Now I am slamming Omega 3 fishoil and breaking that error down slowly. I doubt I will eat cereal or pretzels ever again.

I think its very tempting for people that struggle for answers and finally find one to spread the word, "Hey, nothing works but the Liquid Pancreas Diet! Try it!"

I hunted for years for a solution, and never got the same advice twice. All of it was wrong. My own case my have been tough to crack, but just that experience showed that we are pretty good at taking advice, being optimistic, and then failing because we didn't start out with a plan that had any chance of working. We are slammed with well-intentioned bad advice.

What if you could know all there is to know about every diet that is attempted after the holidays, and looked at how many were going to work for the specifc person that was about to start it? It may be an answer we don't want to know.

What to do?

- Know your own body. No one else does.
- Be honest.
- Use the internet, find more people like yourself. Find the answers together.
- Don't assume a doctor or program is going to help in the long run if it doesn't do anything for you. bad advice outnumbers good advice, so keep moving.
- If you really need to get serious, stay out of restaurants. "Is this a Diet Pepsi?" "Yes." "Tastes funny." "Oh wait, sorry about that."
- Never give up.

We are complex, wonderful machines, and we can be nearly impossible to troubleshoot. I actually found my answer by whining on a message board about motorcycles that nothing works and gave some detail, and someone wrote back "You sound like me, call this place."

It was the right place. I beat 10 years of bad professional advice by just complaining online.