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Everything that's Old is New Again

Written on September 14, 2008

For the past few years, I have delivered a lecture that highlights the history of diets. People find it  rather fascinating when they see how little has changed in the hundred plus years of dieting.

Check this out:

Early ideas about dieting originated in the 1800’s. The relationship between health and food prior to this point was not understood.

• 1800’s – People started to eat more sugar, drink beer and wine and other distilled beverages and for the first time obesity became an issue. (Hmm, more food, more sugar and alcohol? Sounds like a recipe for extra lbs.)
• 1850 – William Banting was told his obesity was incurable. So he sought out someone who could help him lose weight and  found Dr. Harvey. Dr. Harvey suggested he change his diet by eliminating sugar and starch. He lost 50 pounds (about a pound per week) and wrote the first book on weight loss- Letter On Corpulence Addressed to the Public . (Now  I bet that was some fascinating reading, eh?)
• 1879 – Saccharin was invented (who'd a thought?)
• 1890’s - Dr.’s believed that obesity was a disease caused by lack of thyroid so they prescribed animal based thyroid compounds for weight loss in 1894.  (People still hope thyroid is the issue when in fact, about 2% of people have thyroid issues that cause weight gain).
• 1896 - First advertisements for weight loss products. Some ingredients included; laxatives, arsenic, strychnine, washing soda and Epsom salts.
• 1900’s – Upton Sinclair declared fasting as a way to weight loss and emancipation.
• 1912 – Spiritualist and Magician, Hereward Carrington advocated eating only raw fruits and vegetables in his book, The Natural Food of Man. (Surely a magician can create the illusion of easy weight loss, right?)

If you look at the 1850's you'll see similarities between that and the low carb lifestyle. If you look at the latter 1800's and things that people were taking in an effort to lose weight, you might say, "Wow, that's terrible, those things will kill ya!"  Are things so different today? Look at the extremes people will go to in an effort to lose weight, side affects aside!

In 1912 you see it was all about raw fruits and veggies, not much different than the popular raw food diet which is well known on the west coast.

There are over 30,000 registered diets in the U.S.  and it costs an average dieter about $84 per pound of weight lost. More than 54 million Americans are currently dieting. Men diet for an average of 6 weeks, women 4 weeks.

The Institute of Medicine found that those who lose weight on diets, regain two-thirds of the weight lost within one year and almost all back within 5 years.

A Little More History

• 1919 – Dr. Lulu Hunt Peters – Dieting and Health; With a Key to the Calories– The first book to tout calorie counting, she recommended 1200 calories.
  “Successful dieting is a hard, demanding, lifelong commitment, requiring vigilance, exercise, and probably some suffering.” Dr. Peters sold two million books, making hers the first bestseller American diet book.
• 1930’s – Food combining became popular and then the depression caused a setback for the dieting industry.
• 1960’s – Weight Watchers started and the rest is history.

You can see that many of the weight loss approaches made popular literally hundreds of years ago are being resurrected today. Why? Because there is no miracle, there is no "cure" to weight loss, simply finding the right approach for you and your lifestyle while taking your health in to consideration.

If you have spent years dieting, it's probably time to understand they don't work, for the long term. I won't even go it to it, you know where I'm going with this.

So the bottom line is this, make changes that will propel you forward into a world you can feel good about. When is the last time you embarked on a quick fix weight loss program only to feel lousy and gain the weight back once you went back to your old eating habits, right?

The one and only best way to stay healthy, drop some excess weight is to rethink our lifestyle, i.e. how much you eat in a day and how much you move in a day. If you eat more than move, you'll weigh more. If you move more than you eat, you'll weigh less, wild, huh?

Make a list of activities, you can even go online to see how many calories you burn with various activities based on your height and weight. Then create your own personal menu and go on another website that will help you add up calories, it will be very educational for you. Do however pay attention to the calorie count. Just because something is good for you doesn't mean the calories don't count! :-)

Don't make history repeat itself in your life, do something different, don't diet. Instead discover the practical changes you can make today that will have a profound impact on your life tomorrow!

Your health, your choice.