I’ve never really understood the big deal about dieting. All my life, I’ve been a skinny dude, never once topping 150 lbs on the scales. And even though I can eat pretty much anything in any quantity without gaining weight, I’ve always chosen to eat relatively healthy. Greasy, sugary foods just haven’t been that appealing to me. At least, not more than the occasional pizza delivery or ice cream run. And food just hasn’t been something that I’ve been very emotionally attached to.
So I’ve always watched friends and family struggle to diet and wondered to myself…”Seriously, now…how hard can it really be to put down the bottle of Pepsi and stop eating so many Oreos?”
Well, as of midnight last night, my first ever experiment with dieting came to an end. It was 4 straight weeks of complete abstinence from everything non-organic, non-natural, and otherwise not easy for the liver to process…including all dairy and wheat products. To put it bluntly, those 4 weeks were quite an experience.
The first couple of days were easy. Motivation was strong, and I was excited about the adventure and potential benefits that the expiriment would bring. But it wasn’t long before that initial “high” began to wear off, and reality started making life difficult.
By the end of the first week, walking through a supermarket was near torture. Everything looked amazing. The frozen pizzas in the freezer aisles. The donuts and freshly baked bread in the bakery. That Campbell’s Firehouse Chili in a can that I used to eat in the dorms. Those bags of my favorite Fiery Habanero Doritos. And let’s not even talk about the candybars in the check-out lines. Those were the worst. My mouth would literally water while I was waiting to pay for my cart full of broccoli and free-range chicken!
Funny thing was, I normally never would have felt much temptation for unhealthy foods. I’ve always been a pretty health-conscious guy, and a trip to the supermarket usually results in very little junk food purchased. But as it turns out, there’s a big difference between usually not eating junk food and forbidding yourself to EVER eat it.
Not only is there a physical withdrawal that takes place for the first few weeks of a diet like this, there’s a psychological withdrawal that happens as well. It’s a potent mixture of “wanting what you can’t have” and “the grass is greener on the other side”.
By the middle of the second week, I was feeling the pain. I was sick of my grass-like morning smoothies and bland meals. It just wasn’t fun anymore, and I was beginning to seriously consider quitting. It was more difficult to be that picky about my food than I had ever predicted…and often even embarrassing.
I came home for a weekend to visit my parents a little sister, and mom has cooked up a big delicious roast beef meal with mashed potatoes with gravy and hot buttered crescents. Couldn’t eat it, so Mom had to cook a separate meal for me.
One morning, I was at an event that my dad was running a couple of weeks ago, and an older woman was cooking breakfast in the kitchen of the venue as a concession stand. The smell of bacon, eggs, and hash browns frying on the stove wafted out of the kitchen, but despite their tempting smell, those foods were off limits. Before I even realized it (I was about to ask myself), my dad was leaning into the kitchen and yelling, “Hey, my son doesn’t eat the kind of foods that you’re cooking, is it OK if he comes back there and uses the microwave to cook his oatmeal?” How embarrassing. I noticed her looking me up and down as if to say, “You’re already a stick-figure, boy, why in the world are you dieting?”
The worst thing is when an overweight person finds out that I’m dieting. A lot of people have insecurities around their weight, so it’s almost always a little awkward…especially since most people don’t understand the fact that dieting doesn’t always mean you’re trying to lose weight. It can mean that you’re trying to be healthier…or even gain weight.
By the time the end of the second week rolled around, the difficulty of the diet was reaching it’s peak. It was around this time that I began involuntarily spending most of my time thinking about food and arguing with myself over whether or not it was OK to quit the diet. It’s amazing how your brain can come up with convincing, highly logical points to justify doing pretty much anything you want to do (or believe)…even if it’s not really the best thing for you.
I remember several instances when I almost did quit. But by this time, I was actually becoming KNOWN for my four week expirement in extreme healthy eating…and I couldn’t bear the thought of admitting to everyone that I had surrendered before the end of the game. Not only that, I wanted to prove something to myself.
I wanted to prove that I keep the promises I make. Partly to create a higher degree of self-trust, and partly so that I would begin taking the goals that I set more seriously.
So I stuck with it.
And a funny thing happened. The third week was a little easier. It was still difficult…but a little bit easier to handle, and I was starting to get really good at making delicious smoothies in the mornings from fresh fruits and berries. My cooking got much better as well, and dinners were becoming less boring and more interesting and flavorful as I learned how to use fresh garlic and other spices.
By the middle of the fourth week, I had lost most of my cravings for junk foods. It no longer bothered me to walk through the supermarket and see all the fresh donuts and steaks and candybars. I had broken the addiction to sugary, fatty, preservative-laden foods. And I had formed a new habit in it’s place: the habit of buying and cooking foods that support my body and give it the fuel that it needs to function the best.
The cool thing about habits? Good ones are just as hard to break as bad ones.
That’s probably the funniest thing that happened. The day after my diet ended, I found myself in the supermarket picking up some random groceries. At this point, I had once again granted myself the freedom to buy and eat literally anything in the store. But for some odd reason…my desire to buy them had almost disappeared the moment I let myself have them.
Now, that was an interesting effect. And I liked it. But I did venture to toss a few of those foods into the cart that I had been longing for nearly every day for the past month. A bag of Doritos. A box of donuts. You know, the essentials. And WOW…the flavors were like a tornado hitting my tongue. I tasted sugar in a way that I’ve never tasted it before. And those Doritos? Mmmm.
Fortunately, a few of each was all I needed. Then I was happy. And feeling a little sick. But happy. And most importantly of all, I was ready to go back to a nice, juicy peach with it’s clean, refreshing taste once again.
The truth is, our bodies are so addicted to all of these sugars, fats, and chemicals that we constantly pump into ourselves. We constantly poison ourselves with this stuff until our bodies actually become dependent upon them in order to function. So we keep eating them. And we keep getting fatter. And sicker. And we keep feeling crappier…and crappier.
Our bodies are MADE for natural foods.
And if you’ve ever done like I did and try eating only natural foods for four weeks or more, you know that everything just begins to FEEL better when you do. You begin to sleep better. Focus better. Feel cleaner. Feel more alert.
Oh, and by the way…those of you who are older and have lots of health complications should try this. You would likely experience a far more drastic improvement than I did. I’m a healthy 21 year-old kid, so let’s be honest…I feel pretty darn good no matter what I do.
Anyway, there you go. Four weeks in the Life of a Dieter. I now understand the struggle of those who are overweight better than I ever imagined I would. Dieting is not easy, now I know. It’s tough. But it CAN be done. And it WILL make a difference. And no matter what happens, that feeling of knowing that you perservered even through the hard times makes it all worthwhile.
