Finally it is sunny outside and seems that the last snow is melting too, soon it's going to be nice and warm. and my birthday :).
Paskeferie last week went quite fast - I spent a lot of time working, prepared for my 3-week assignment and from Thursday, had a long weekend. My cousin from Estonia came to visit me and so we had a nice time shopping, chilling and sightseeing here in Aarhus. Was so much fun :).
But now it is time to turn more attention to my 3-week assignment. It is supposed to be like a miniature Bachelor thiesis and we have 3 weeks (1-19th April) to do it.
A while ago, when I was going trough this blog to find inspiration for topic, I also noticed how it always seems to be that I am writing about some kind of assignment and exam, and then afterwards, just suddenly, about "getting back to shape" :D. Obviously, there is an (unmentioned?) connection.
To avoid turning into a unhealthy nerd this time, I have made a plan. I mean like a real plan for every day of these three weeks (and even further), where I wrote down how far should I be with my assignment, what other things I have to do that day (like go to work or grocery shopping (:D), Skype meetings etc), my training plans and even what I eat. The food plan is not very strict or precise, more just like a "buy these things now then eat that that that and that, then they'll be used before they go off and then buy that and that", but in all other ways the plan is made to be followed.
And to keep myself on track, I will, on most days, write down here
-what have I written to the assignment
-about training
-about eating
-about general wellbeing (:D)
So that's what I'll do.
Quite irrelevant for this post here, but when I hadn't yet decided for another theme for my assignment, I was thinking to write something about why popular diets seem to attract more people (and work better?) than the official health guidlines. And (without any research or back-up theories though), I think I've reached my conclusion.
It is not that all people are seriously believing that "this magic diet here will help you lose 8kg in 3 weeks" (or whatever), it is just the "identity" you get. Suddenly you are "on that diet" or following that diet, you have concrete and straight forward rules about what you can and can't eat and what you should and shouldn't be doing. You kind of have already made a decision about following the diet for some amount of time. And don't, therefore, have to decide again before every single mealtime or health activity. And then it all seems to be working. As long as you follow the rules. The thing is, just, that usually the rules are so strange and limiting, that it is very hard to follow them, and then people "get off the diets" and gain weight. However, it's quite clever - the memory of the whole experience will probably sound somethink like 'I lost 5kg on that diet, but then I failed, stopped the diet and gained the weight back", so the diet will still seem successful in itself, it was just the person who didn't follow it, that gained weight. So maybe another person would still be successful on it. And that's how all fad diets manage to keep on excisting.
Following official, scientific health information can be more complicated. One day some health scientist says that something is very healthy and on the next day someone else claims it might kill you or cause cancer. The information is quite confusing and often times even controversial. Therefore, a person should make some kind of decisions all the time - Do I believe that? Do I stay to what I thought it was? Do I start avoiding that thing?
And making these kind of decisions without actually having enough knowledge to make these decisions, is of course very difficult.
That's how I started thinking about the Paleo diet, and how it's just genius!
Basically, (who doesn't know yet), Paleo diet, aka the stone-age diet promotes living like people in the stone age: eating a lot of fruits, vegetables, berries, meat, fish etc, but no dairy, wholegrain or highly processed foods. (http://thepaleodiet.com/)
You see what I mean? Or not yet?
Basically, they have made up a diet. Have a catching "theory" and a matching name for that diet, to make it sound appealing (remember "The South Beach Diet", for example? :) - just a catching name, I'm not pointing at any other similarities) And to make more people follow it, they also talk about weight loss.
But the actual diet information and how one is supposed to eat on the diet, is taken from scientific sources. I claim, Paleo diet is a real healthy diet, that has just (in order to have everything a fad diet has to have?) taken a fancy name, and came up with some unneccessary rules:
How do you make someone who is eating healthy, to loose weight quite fast? - You make her consume less calories.
How do you make her consume less calories? - You exlude the most calorie dense foods and the foods highest in saturated fat.
Therefore: exlude breads, pasta, rice, potatoes and dairy products.
Of course people start losing weight when they eat less than they are used to. And think about it - how many times a day you eat a slice of bread, potatoes, rice, pasta, drink milk, put cheese on your food? On Paleo diet you exclude all these, but other than that, have quite a normal healthy diet. So without knowing, or knowing, but just doing it for other reasons (to "live like a stone man", rather than "to lose weight"), people consume a lot less calories.
So from my point of view:
Paleo diet is just like a regular normal healthy diet, and that is why it works. (-people feel better and loose weight.)
But in a way, it is just another (low-carb) fad diet. It has its name, its theory and its reasoning. It has a set of concrete straight forward rules, it gives one the "identity" of being on Paleo diet, people know that these are the rules they have to follow, so they won't get confused, and then the diet works. And as it is quite nutritionally balanced, people manage to stay on it for a long time.
However, excluding wholegrain and dairy is completely unneccessary from a scientific point of view, and only necessary for the diet "identity" and to make weight loss more likely.
And this is why I say it is genius.
...I wonder, if I'd name the normal healthy diet something cool, and then make one book to describe the basics of healthy eating, (and then maybe 1 cookbook with normal healthy foods and maybe 1 desert book or baking book, and then maybe some key holders or pens or notebooks or whatever things to "get for free when you order the book!") would I then became really rich and people really healthy? :P
seems so
But enough is enough. These were my thoughts about the Paleo diet.
Thoughts about "How can body ideals influence people's health beahviour in modern Western Society?" will be showing up in this blog during the next 3 weeks together with my eating-training plans. Meanwhile, I will just brag with my little early birthday present to myself :) :
xoxo
veery happy,
k
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