Why Diets Fail

How many times have you heard it? The so-and-so diet worked very well for me. I lost 20 pounds. But the minute I got off the diet, I gained back every pound plus 8 more.

The reason for this is both simple and hard. If you went back to your old way of eating, your body gave out a big sigh and said AHHH, then began to plump itself up again. A more complicated explanation involves the notion of your metabolism, your body type, and your habits.

I have to go back to the original statement I made, "It's not your fault you're fat." The food presented to Americans has changed drastically in the last thirty years. So have cooking and eating habits. In the first place, the market is flooded with processed foods which are loaded with sugars in all forms, salt, chemicals and often built on a base of tasteless, nutritionless white flour.

Flour and sugar are the end products of a long processing system which strips them of any nutritional value and leaves them as nothing more than simple carbohydrates. Now when you eat these processed foods, in their zillions of permutations, they often taste really good, but your body is not fooled. Within an hour, your blood sugar will rise, your hunger will scream, and you're body will be saying, help! Feed me.

And so, you are on a roller coaster of eating empty foods as deadly as that of the poor soul who is addicted to alcohol or drugs.

But, you say, my sister eats cakes and cookies all the time and she never gains a pound. OK. Here's the deal. Your sister has a different metabolism from you. Her body turns everything she eats to energy. Yours, the more conservative model, says you never know when the next famine is coming, better stock up.

Just think of it this way. If you and your sister were stuck in a row boat in the great Swamp and weren't found for weeks, you'd have a better chance of survival than she does, because you have all that lovely stored fat. But, since its not likely that you are going to get stuck without food, you're going to have to accept the fact that your body treats carbohydrates differently than those string beans we all know and (secretly) hate.

So the short answer is you'll have to change what you eat, and when you choose to alter your eating habits, you'd better choose a plan you can stick with, basically, for the rest of your life, because the old ways are, for you, the bad ways.

If you can accept that sugar and flour are basically POISON to you, then you can move on from there. This means no bread, no cake, no cookies, no pasta (except whole wheat), no rice, except brown, you get the idea. You just have to put these food categories out of your mind.

It may take you a while to get used to this idea. Take your time. It's your life at stake here and I know you'll come to the right decision.

We'll talk more about this tomorrow. Meanwhile, here's a great recipe to ease your acceptance. As you'll see, the Fight Fat With Fat program is not so much a diet as an enlightened way to eat.
I believe you'll come to love it. After all, you never have to count calories again, you never have to worry about portion size, you just have to eat until you are satisfied from a wide variety of whole, delicious foods. What's not to love?

Peppered Lamb Chops on a Bed of Bitter Greens with Walnuts and Cranberries

(adapted from Fight Fat with Fat, by Dr. John Salerno and Linda West Eckhardt)

You’ll get a spicy, crunchy crust on the outside of the chops that is just the first of the flavor hits you’ll get from this one dish dinner that yields all the satisfaction you can stand and still call it a diet: sweet, salty, bitter, and sour flavors, and hot besides. All rolled into one.

Makes 2 servings

8 ounces thick loin lamb chops (2 to 4 depending upon the size)

2 cloves garlic

1 teaspoon olive oil

½ teaspoon cracked black peppercorns

4 cups mixed bitter greens: washed, dried and torn escarole, chicory and/or radicchio

1 tablespoon chopped walnuts

1 tablespoon dried cranberries

Dressing:

1 tablespoon tarragon vinegar

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon finely chopped shallots

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon water

½ teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon cracked black pepper

Preheat a large skillet over medium high heat, and then film it with oil. Meanwhile, make small incisions in the chops with a paring knife and insert slivers of garlic. Press in cracked peppercorns, then sauté, turning only once, about 3-5 minutes per side.

Place salad greens in a large bowl along with walnuts and dried cranberries. Whisk together dressing ingredients in a small bowl then toss with salad. Divide greens between two dinner plates. Top with sautéed chops and serve.