The Limerick pedestrian diet and exercise plan
Never go hungry. Eat whenever the impulse strikes. Eat everything you can find in the way of apples, bananas, oranges, grapefruit, strawberries, blueberries, grapes, watermelon, cantaloupe, peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots, pineapple, and I have probably left out several fun and appealing fruits. Reduce the obstacles presented by the seeming hassle of preparation: every day or two, put ten minutes into cutting apples in quarters, washing grapes and strawberries, etc., and storing them in the refrigerator for easy access, so that not a second will pass between feeling hungry–and eating! Nothing can count as “forbidden fruit” on the Limerick Pedestrian Diet. On the contrary, as you settle into these new habits, fruit will become more and more astonishing in its power to knock your taste buds for a loop, almost overpowering the unleashing of endorphins as a good time.LinkSame for vegetables: asparagus, broccoli, or zucchini with feta cheese can taste like a gourmet meal. Eat enough salads well-stocked with cucumbers, celery, bell peppers, carrots, mushrooms, lettuce, and arrgula, and you are well-installed on the high-ground. Thus you are free to indulge in any salad supplement like olives, avocado, artichoke hearts, anchovies, smoked salmon, slices of roast turkey or beef. You do not, in other words, have to become a vegetarian (although it is always an interesting fact to contemplate, that it takes seven pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat). Perhaps most important, do not hold back on the salad dressing. Dump it on. Do not ask for the dressing to be brought on the side, and do not dribble out a drop or two on an otherwise graceless salad. Once again, dump it on. If you are eating a salad, you have made the fundamental commitment to eating a plate filled with lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, artichoke hearts, carrots, etc. (really, when you think about the make-up of these items, you are lunching on a big bowl of water with a little fiber thrown in), and no one (not even you yourself) has any right to punish you by withholding the salad dressing.
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As important as the food, I love what she says about the importance of walking, and how to integrate that into an urban lifestyle. She is cool.
This really is a glucose disaster waiting to happen. This is totally an AWFUL vegetarian diet. I can't think of a better way to run your body into shock and cause your pancreas to be asked to surge and drop back throughout the day.
The salad dressing suggestion is the worst of all! Most salad dressings are mostly water and high fructose corn syrup - and if you're lucky a heaping helping of hydrolyzed vegetable oil (that's trans-fat) as an emulsifier.
The only reason you'll lose weight is because you're starving yourself of long acting calories - but the damage you're doing to your arteries and vital organs - come on!
David B.
Here's my similarly simple diet:
Always drink water - no sodas.
Always take the stairs - elevators only for more than five flights.
Never feel like you need to finish what's on your plate.
What about the Saturday morning PSA "Don't Drown Your Food?"
I feel very disillusioned.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfEG15CLTqo
David B.: Did you read the entirety of the article?
I agree that the particular sample of her writing given is misleading: she's not suggesting you eat only fruit and salad dressing. The article is quite clear on what her point is: don't deny yourself the things you know you have to eat to keep sane. It's a wonderful essay of moderation, and moderation of moderation.
Even as a work of writing, I love it. As a health philosophy, it can't be beat. She reminds me of Tom Wolfe, or Mark Twain.
correct me if i am wrong, but glucose found in fruits and that found in other foods is processed differently by the body. One is fast burning like that in chocolate bars, soda, etc....Fruit glucose is slowly consumed by the organism, not having the same impact at all on the pancreas and spleen....you can't get diabetes from eating too much fruit.
Also, about the salad dressing, forget that ready-made store bought crap full of unhealthy stuff like hydrogenated oils and such as...just whip-up Dijon mustard (ok, there's some vinegar in there...), fresh squeezed lemon juice or balsamic vinegar, and last, olive oil, and you have a nice creamy vinaigrette... don't forget to put the olive oil in last, as it acts as the emulsifier...
She's cool. Also, salad dressing can be home-made, and healthy! Tahini, lemon juice, olive oil, soy sauce, blended herbs, yogurt -- tons of stuff you can mix in various combinations that aren't "bad."
I've been living in Portland, OR, since mid April, 2007. I was never a heavy person, and I was actually on the underweight side. I have, due to the pro-green, pro-health, pro-exercise demographics in Portland, become ten times healthier than I ever was. My insomnia, lethargy, and hypoglycemia (I don't have diabetes, just low blood sugar) have all but vanished, or become much more manageable. The moderation diet totally works if you are aware of the nutritional needs of YOUR personal chemistry (always consult a nutritional expert that HASN'T written a major diet book about a diet. ALWAYS).
However, read the entire article. Eating just fruits and green veggies without any tubers, legumes, or fish or meat isn't healthy unless you're a vegan or vegetarian who knows what ratios of things your body needs due to a nutritional expert's personalized advice. Never starve yourself and never eat just leafy greens--they have lots of vitamins and water, but they don't have enough protein or carbs to keep your body running.
I've lost 45-50 pounds over the last year. I did it by just cutting my calories way, way back, but still eating things that tasted good to me. It is certainly not the most healthy diet—I still eat plenty of hamburgers and tortas—but it works. The Hacker's Diet (http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/) is good reading for the details, but the core principles are really that simple. Figure out how many calories you burn a day, then eat less.
Oh, yes, you're right subspace, I thought the quote in the post was representative of the greater whole. I'll follow the link...
Bakermiller: one is simply more empty than the other. You can just as easily get buzzed off eating too much fruit (out of balance and proportion with other foods) as you can with anything. A Snickers bar or a slice of cheese pizza has less of a glucose hit on your body over 2 hours than a fair number of fruits by themselves.
If you're diabetic or hypoglycemic the effect between processed sugar and fructose can be negligible (especially fruit juice).
The point is if you're exercising all day long without taking in complex carbs that release quality sugars throughout the day, you're creating an up and down production requirement on your pancreas and liver (as well as your thyroid) that is not sustainable over time.
I love this discussion...
David B.
I'm a big fan of walking, although all mine is directed - I walk to and from work, totalling about 6 hours a week on average. I also always try to take the stairs rather than escalators, and almost never drink anything but water (like Jetsetsc). I think in part because of this I've remained fairly slim and I eat a fair bit, including decadent things.
"[I]f you are facing the ocean and are stymied on how to proceed, just turn right or left, and rediscover that there is no better turf for walking than a beach."
Wow! Great writing!
Reminds me of the "physics diet." Very funny, but to the point ... a reasonably famous MIT physicist (who served on the JASON presidential advisory board) wrote two papers on physics (and specifically, the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics) and dieting ... the first can by synopsized as "energy in minus energy out equals energy conserved (the 1st law of thermodynamics is also known as "Conservation of Energy") and the second is basically that "since you inhale O2 and exhale CO2, to remove carbon (i.e., the stuff food is converted to) from your system ya gotta breath more" (the 2nd law of thermodynamics is, sorta, about conservation of mass). Great stuff!
See The Physics Diet by Richard A. Muller in MIT’s Technology Review (November 14, 2003)
See The Physics of Gluttony by Richard A. Muller in MIT’s Technology Review (November 12, 2004)
hmm I'll second (or third) the walking and the drinking water all the time. But I'll also add that I eat what I want and then find time for seconds (many midnight snacks and dozens of foods before dinner!). Still, I'm convinced that my drinking diet consisting of water and Wuyi Mountain oolong tea (Wuyi shan) is what keeps things in check. I'm not talking about the fake stuff all over these 'lose pounds quickly with WUYI tea' junk sites. Do some searches for Da Hong Pao or Shui Jin Gui. There are dozens, maybe more. But the first point is that I don't drink them for weight control, I drink them because they are delicious. THey are just also well known in China for weight control, or at the very least for helping with digestion and after heavy meals. Google it! I'm also big on Pu'er tea, but I put all good Wuyi Oolongs ahead of Pu'er. Such a huge range of flavors, so don't be discouraged with one that you find too strong!
Erm, hang on. MY salad dressing is made from olive oil and vinegar. Not high-fructose corn syrup...
I use honey mustard for salad dressing. mustard is healthy and big taste with barely any calories.
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This diet is actually really good. Don't need to feel hungry (even if fasting is pretty awesome too.) The more you do this, the healthier you get, and the easier it will be to listen your body's built-in desire for food that feeds it well. i'm no hippie, but fruits and veggies are just good stuff.
I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes about 6 months ago and changed my lifestyle as a result of not wanting to go blind and digit-less!
I'm managing it very successfully with extra exercise (hard to do less than I used to...) and reducing my carbohydrate intake considerably.
The Glycemic Index (www.glycemicindex.com) is a very useful indication of which carbs are going to be turned into blood sugar quickest, and which ones will give you longer-lasting energy. There's some surprising results in there; not all "complex" carbs are slow-release!