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Today, I fell down a rabbit hole.
I've been very mindful of my diet lately and what I put in my body, which has made me reflective regarding my previous dieting experiences.
Back in the 1990s there was a woman named Susan Powter. Those of you of a certain age may remember her. She did infomercials for her low-fat diet plan called Stop the Insanity! She was a fortysomething year old woman with a platinum blonde buzzcut and apparently boundless energy reserves. Her story was relatable. She'd been in a bad marriage and gained over a hundred pounds and blah blah blah until she started eating less fatty foods and moving more and she started to transform her life.
At the time, low-fat diets were the accepted thing for weight loss. Adkins was considered fringe. If you were doing a ketogenic diet at the time people probably thought you were some kind of nut. But everybody could understand a low-fat diet. The popular thought was that 'Fat makes you fat.' After all, the government had been telling us this for years and most of the mainstream science supported it.
Of course, nowadays we like to think that we're a little wiser. That we know better. That fat isn't necessarily the enemy, that it's sugar and overprocessed foods.
Whatever we think now, I remember embracing Ms. Powter's philosophy. And it worked for me. It did. I lost weight using her program. I'm not sure when I fell off the low-fat wagon, but it happened and I never quite got back onto it.
But the other night, I saw an article about Susan Powter. Someone did one of those retro-nostalgia interview thingees. "Whatever happened to Susan Powter?"
Apparently, she dropped out of the public eye to devote herself to her family after writing three New York Times best-sellers regarding her diet philosophies. She sounded the same in the interview, as she did way back in her infomercials.
Today, while at the grocery store, I recalled the STI plan. On a whim, I pulled out my calculator and went about putting together a low-fat meal for tonight.
Salad greens? Fine. Shredded mozarella cheese? That's fine too. Finding a salad dressing took some time as most of the oily and creamy types, advocated on low-carb/high fat diets of today, are frowned on. But I found a raspberry vinigarette that fit the profile. Then added some canned chicken for protein and, on a whim, grabbed some flavored waters and a little container of green grapes.
Then I sort of wandered around the store comparing and contrasting low-carb and low-fat foods. It was interesting because there were more crossover in the two eating styles than I'd imagined. Most of the processed, junky foods were forbidden on both. Weirdly, you can eat pretzels on low-fat while not on low-carb. The lunch meats were mostly off the menu as well, although I did find a slab of ham that was acceptable to both plans. And although most canned veggies are forbidden on low-carb, they're fine on low-fat. The same with canned fruit.
Honestly, after wandering the store for a while, I can see how people could successfully loose weight on both plans. You'd wind up eating less on both, it would all come down to the kind of things that you eat.
All that said, in a couple of hours I'm going upstairs to eat a big bowl of salad. But if I'm still hungry afterwards, I have a jar of peanut butter on standby.
I've been very mindful of my diet lately and what I put in my body, which has made me reflective regarding my previous dieting experiences.
Back in the 1990s there was a woman named Susan Powter. Those of you of a certain age may remember her. She did infomercials for her low-fat diet plan called Stop the Insanity! She was a fortysomething year old woman with a platinum blonde buzzcut and apparently boundless energy reserves. Her story was relatable. She'd been in a bad marriage and gained over a hundred pounds and blah blah blah until she started eating less fatty foods and moving more and she started to transform her life.
At the time, low-fat diets were the accepted thing for weight loss. Adkins was considered fringe. If you were doing a ketogenic diet at the time people probably thought you were some kind of nut. But everybody could understand a low-fat diet. The popular thought was that 'Fat makes you fat.' After all, the government had been telling us this for years and most of the mainstream science supported it.
Of course, nowadays we like to think that we're a little wiser. That we know better. That fat isn't necessarily the enemy, that it's sugar and overprocessed foods.
Whatever we think now, I remember embracing Ms. Powter's philosophy. And it worked for me. It did. I lost weight using her program. I'm not sure when I fell off the low-fat wagon, but it happened and I never quite got back onto it.
But the other night, I saw an article about Susan Powter. Someone did one of those retro-nostalgia interview thingees. "Whatever happened to Susan Powter?"
Apparently, she dropped out of the public eye to devote herself to her family after writing three New York Times best-sellers regarding her diet philosophies. She sounded the same in the interview, as she did way back in her infomercials.
Today, while at the grocery store, I recalled the STI plan. On a whim, I pulled out my calculator and went about putting together a low-fat meal for tonight.
Salad greens? Fine. Shredded mozarella cheese? That's fine too. Finding a salad dressing took some time as most of the oily and creamy types, advocated on low-carb/high fat diets of today, are frowned on. But I found a raspberry vinigarette that fit the profile. Then added some canned chicken for protein and, on a whim, grabbed some flavored waters and a little container of green grapes.
Then I sort of wandered around the store comparing and contrasting low-carb and low-fat foods. It was interesting because there were more crossover in the two eating styles than I'd imagined. Most of the processed, junky foods were forbidden on both. Weirdly, you can eat pretzels on low-fat while not on low-carb. The lunch meats were mostly off the menu as well, although I did find a slab of ham that was acceptable to both plans. And although most canned veggies are forbidden on low-carb, they're fine on low-fat. The same with canned fruit.
Honestly, after wandering the store for a while, I can see how people could successfully loose weight on both plans. You'd wind up eating less on both, it would all come down to the kind of things that you eat.
All that said, in a couple of hours I'm going upstairs to eat a big bowl of salad. But if I'm still hungry afterwards, I have a jar of peanut butter on standby.
