The Essence of Diets - Part Two

As I stated in a previous Blog, The Essence Of Diets – Part One
I’ve been thinking a great deal about the essence of Diets.

The term “diet” is defined as Habitual Nourishment.

It seems clear to me that there are essentially 3 issues involved in all Diets,
One main food issue, AMOUNT,.
and two sub-issues, KIND and FREQUENCY.

AMOUNT -- of food eaten.
KIND – fundamental nature (micronutrients) of food eaten.
FREQUENCY of eating food.

 RESTRICTIONS:
All Diets involving weight-loss or maintenance of weight-loss place restrictions on one or more of those 3 food issues.

My careful study of many different diets has revealed some things to me.. things that might be obvious to others, but which took me some time to figure out. I’m still not certain about all of them, but here are a few “insights”.

The majority of diet book authors claim to have used that diet him/herself, and had excellent weight-loss results from it. I tend to believe this is true. What this proves to me is that there are a great many different ways to lose weight, but that what all of them have in common is EATING LESS.

EATING LESS, of course, means…not just eating less than one ate in the past while gaining weight, but also eating less than the amount of one’s normal (maintenance) energy burn. This, of course, is where it gets sticky.. ... because all of the rules one finds in the Expert’s charts and graphs are simply Generalizations.

People are different.
Male and Female, Tall and Short, Large and Small,
Young and Old, Sedentary and Active.

Each of these categories changes a person’s basic energy use. In addition, Genetics vary between people, and even being a “reduced obese” person changes energy use.

Diet Books show that there are many different ways to accomplish EATING LESS.
All of these ways involve somehow reducing the “calorie” amount of a person’s food intake.
This can be done Directly, or Indirectly.

In my previous post, The Essence Of Diets - Part One,
I discussed many of the details of that issue.

Most diet book authors who have created Diets,  appear to have structured his/her version of Eating Less on his/her personal preferences regarding the three fundamental restrictions which are listed above.

Those Diets appear to be based on that diet book author’s eating preferences; his/her viewpoint and morality, including values about food; and the general way he/she tends to live his/her life.

These personal lifestyle choices usually involve that Diet in additional matters which are sometimes rather unrelated to the basic food-substance-as-nourishment issue.

These differences between people’s preferences are reflected as different eating style choices inside each of the diets they have created. At some future time, I will provide some specific examples of this phenomenon.

For now, my simple point is that all diets have much in common.They appear to be all based on the same principles, and every diet seems to work for someone.