It seems as though everytime I talk to my mom a new diet is sweeping through the area. Some are interesting, some are strange, some could work, most don’t. Fad diets, as their name implies, come and go so fast it’ll make your head spin and your stomach turn, literally.

Think back to all things that have whipped through your life on the fad train…..hmmmm let’s see, leg warmers, tight rolled jeans, mullets for the men, high bangs for the women, and that’s just from the 80’s. No generation is without fads. What do you do when you think back to those fads? That’s right, you smile as a mental image of yourself looking dapper cruising in your El Camino, mullet flowing in the breeze, your girlfriends high hair catching bugs, pigeons, Winnebago’s, and whatever else has the misfortune of entering the dreaded “Aqua Net Zone.” As you shake your head to clear it of the madness, it all just seems, well a little strange now, and you wonder just what you were thinking. Sorry I got sidetracked there in my stroll down memory lane. Anyway my point is this, get a good hair cut, and don’t flounder around in the fad diet world looking for the quick fix to get you back into your tight rolled acid washed jeans.

There is no such thing as a quick fix, and if it is a quick fix the results brought on by it will disappear faster than a box of twinkies in a bomb shelter (I don’t know). For a diet to be successful it has to stop being a ‘diet’ and become your lifestyle. You have to find out what is good for you, and of those choices, which do you like to eat. Your body needs certain nutrients and certain amounts of those nutrients to function correctly. If the needs of your body aren’t being met there will be consequences. Consequences such as slowed brain function, fatigue, and decreased metabolism, to name a few. Yes, decreased metabolism. If your diet involves extreme calorie reduction, which is anything below 1500 calories a day, your body will compensate by slowing your metabolism.

Our bodies are smart, and it sometimes wishes that the lump above our shoulders would quit teetering around under that mullet and think about what it’s doing to the body that’s carting it around. When your calories are restricted your body hoards what it has, which is good in times of famine, but we are far from those times. The metabolism slows, and then you fall off the fad diet wagon landing in a tub of BoomChocoLatta Ice Cream. Now your calorie intake increases, but guess what, your metabolism is still turned down lower than Burt Bacharach at a Metalica festival. All of this adds up to weight gain, loud music, bad hair, and the search for another diet. Not necessarily in that order. When it comes to your clothes and hair feel free to follow a fad, the kids always need costumes for homecoming, but when it comes to your diet and health choose wisely.

The holiday season, by the way, is no time to start a diet, no matter what the turkeys say. Never trust a turkey…even if you voted for them. If I don’t see you next week, have a Happy Thanksgiving.