Ryckman: Dump the diet

Focus on the bigger picture of healthy living

Published January 16, 2007 at midnight

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Where's your head?

I've lost mine so often that I've taken to duct-taping it in place, but that's not what I mean. I'm talking about the relationship between your mind and your body - a union that can be stormy, to say the least.

When it comes to the body, the head can be of two minds, the diet head and the healthy head, says Nicki Anderson, president of Reality Fitness in Naperville, Ill., and a trainer to personal trainers.

"Diet and healthy are not synonymous," Anderson says. "I'm anti-anti- anti-diet. Diets are about weight loss. They have nothing to do with health."

Diet heads are slaves to the scale, believers in quick weight-loss programs - none of which have really worked for them - and often products of diet-obsessed mothers.

"People underestimate how much they eat," Anderson says, "and overestimate how much they exercise."

But weight loss and health have been connected in the public mind for at least 145 years, since the publication of what's believed to be the world's first diet book: Letter on Corpulence Addressed to the Public, by a pudgy British undertaker named William Banting.

At 5-foot-5 and 202 pounds, Banting's flab forced him to slowly walk backward downstairs to save his ankles and knees. He couldn't tie his own shoes, and he huffed and puffed with the slightest physical exertion.

On the advice of doctors, Banting tried rowing a boat two hours a day, which only made him hungrier and fatter. He starved himself, took steam baths and breathed in the air of various English seaside towns, to no avail.

Banting attempted to diet, but he really wasn't sure what to eat aside from his usual bread, butter, milk, sugar, potatoes and beer. Limiting food failed to help him lose weight, but he did develop a variety of skin boils requiring surgery - which only drove him to eat more.

Banting finally found an answer from one Dr. William Harvey, an ear, nose and throat specialist he consulted for a hearing problem. Harvey believed the problem with Banting's ears was connected to his girth and promptly put him on a low-carb diet.

Banting dropped 50 pounds in a year. He sold more than 63,000 copies of Letter on Corpulence, and to bant became a verb that meant "to diet."

Nowadays, the appetite for low-carb diets seems to have plateaued. Neither of the two best- known low-carb plans - Atkins and South Beach - are among the five most popular American diets, according to the NPD Group, a market-research firm.

Gone are the grocery-store displays of low-carb carbs, and people have returned to the great American pastime of stuffing entire loaves of bread in their mouths.

In fact, dieting in general has bottomed out, based on figures from NPD's 21st Annual Eating Patterns in America. People are fatter than ever, and 60 percent of adults still say they wanna drop a quick 20. But in any given week, just 45 percent of adults are actually dieting, the lowest level in 16 years, says Harry Balzer, NPD vice president and author of the latest report.

The most likely dieters are baby boomers 55 to 64, but they're a feisty group far less likely than their parents to follow a doctor's advice, Balzer found.

"The No. 1 diet in America is one called 'my own,' " he says.

That haphazard approach to dieting - which usually has nothing to do with adopting healthy behaviors - might explain why most people regain all the weight they lose and then some. Keeping the pounds off is the hardest part, and success takes a new perspective, Anderson says.

"Most women know two things: weight loss and weight gain," she says. "They don't pay attention to the gaining process, just the losing process. Oftentimes, women don't have realistic expectations. They'll take 20 years to gain it and want to lose it in six weeks."

What the diet heads of the world really need, Anderson says, is to understand why diets haven't worked for them. They need to learn the value of goal-setting and get some positive feedback and encouragement. They need things to focus on other than weight. They need accountability, education and motivation.

They need a reason to get off the scale for good.

The first step: Forget emphasis on numbers. Instead, find a trainer who can help you find a reason to develop and maintain a dedication to healthy living, Anderson says.

Even if you're a diet head raised by a diet head, there's hope.

Diet head or healthy head - which are you?

Healthy head

• Seeks out options to become healthy

• Focuses on all the good foods available

• Understands it's a process

• Believes weight loss is a byproduct of healthy living

• Doesn't use the scale; instead gauges success by feelings of well-being and energy level

Diet head

• Wants to hurry up and lose weight

• Focuses on all the foods he can't eat

• Focuses on exercising 2 4/7 to hurry up and get results