Am I Turning Pro-Diet?

If you’ve read more than a post or two on this blog you may have the feeling that I am very much anti-calorie restriction diet, anti-high-or-low any particular food, and very anti-foodlike-substances packaged up prettily to look enticing and part you from your money (and your health, by the way!)

This past weekend I was at an alernative health expo and had the great good fortune to meet a woman who has had an enormous impact on my family’s health! I grew up in a family of good cooks, and am a good cook, but was also heavily influenced as a young woman by the Pritikin craze, and aunts and cousins and friends doing what I now recognise as crazy experimentation with their bodies by following programs like the Israeli Army Diet, and the Drinking Man’s Diet, and the Grapefruit Diet, and so many others, to get thinner.

After Pritikin (don’t eat made-up mustard!), the next one I can remember following closely was The F-Plan, and it spiralled downwards from there. I was the classic diet-program junkie. I wasn’t overweight when I started but I sure was 15 years later! It’s a familiar story, right?

So when I found Changing Habits, Changing Lives in my favourite bookshop, as I browsed through it everything I read just felt so true! Over the next few months things at home changed, artificial sweeteners were out, rapadura was in, full fat milk was back, butter was back, olive oil was back. My family hasn’t eaten popular commercial cereals for more than ten years, enjoys good home baked foods made with butter and eggs and flour and sugar, and hearty meals that often begin with olive oil, garlic, ginger and onions. And I became an ingredient-reading label nazi, and I’m not sorry

We were back on track, back on the path of eating the way my granny had taught me, and I had the hard science from this book to back me up. The writer was “opposite nutritionist” Cyndi O’Meara. And it was Cyndi who was also speaking at the alternative health Expo this past weekend.

So when I listened in on Cyndi’s talk, and she started talking about her 21 day diet my first response was disappointment – how could someone who is such a passionate advocate of natural food to really nourish the body, be talking about calorie restriction? The Minnesota Starvation Study taught us that every cell in the body hates calorie restriction, how could she be advocating that path? My disappointment lasted for one breath, as Cyndi explained what her diet was really about – learning how to eat good, real, nutritious food again, and make it easy, and regain vitality and glowing good health. I know from my work as a counsellor that when the quality of the food you eat improves, mood disorders often improve as well. So again I was in the space I’d been in ten years before: the information I was getting felt true. So I purchased the diet book and I have to say, I love it.

This is not about weight loss, it is about listening to your body and nurturing it, so you have the energy and emotional health to live your life! Cyndi has you tracking the indicators that matter: your energy levels, your mood, the way your clothes fit, the quality of your sleep, and your tolerance towards others. There’s not a calorie count in sight, and she offers great, proven, information to get you back on track and into a new relationship with nurturing your body. What you do get is common-sense, encouragement, and practical tips to get you moving towards health – and all in 21 days. This is not a wild promise, I know it works, based on ten years of using Cyndi’s wisdom with my family.

The Changing Habits 21 Day Diet is available as an ebook so you can download it immediately and experience every cell in your body saying YES! This is what I want! Cyndi says people often do lose weight as their bodies get clean, and to me that’s about normalising and healing, and focusing on health rather than on the shifting sands of the ideal weight, size, and shape. If you’re interested in Cyndi’s book, it’s just $22 Aus and you can download it right away, click here to get it.

If you’d like to hear Cyndi on a teleconference, and ask her any questions you’d like to, please leave a comment below; when I get 1o comments we’ll get Cyndi on the line!

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