Please eat food like a normal person

The western world, and especially in America, people are obsessed with the latest diet to help shed that extra weight.

I cannot stress how fad diets are not healthy for you. You may lose a tiny bit of weight in the beginning you will probably gain it all back and then some because of how unstable an unhealthy they actually are. More importantly, because there is a lack of nutrition education in U.S. schools private companies are allowed to come in from every technological orifice to try and sell their crash diets and quick fixes to the masses.

Girls and boys are starting to worry about their weight from a very early age and these diets promote bad lifestyles to a growing generation. They should be learning about nutrition and exercise and they could kill two birds with one stone by learning where their food comes from by starting a huge garden and working that land. Yet we live in a society that eats packaged food from a processing plant and thinks a small pill can keep them thin and fit.

I have been victim to a couple of these diets and the results have been disastrous. However, after getting increasingly discouraged with how people view diet and nutrition I would like to post a couple things that I believe are important in making decisions about your health:

1) Everything in moderation (except moderation): If you crave pizza, eat pizza. If you want ice cream, have ice cream. Usually if you have a craving it is because your body wants something so don't deny yourself yummy food, just don't eat too much of it. If you crave pizza every single day then find ways of making it healthier then just grabbing a slice from your local pizza place.

2) Plenty o' colors in every meal: I really live up to this one. As a vegetarian I find that I have to be creative in meal planning and my biggest issue is not eating too many carbs. Carbs are usually beige so as long as every single meal I eat has lots of colors in it then I feel better about putting it in my body. This does not mean condiments and different colored candies count. What I try to do is make sure there is at least three different colors in my meal. So for example if I'm having pasta (beige--> carb) then I must have a red, green and maybe a yellow or orange in there. So I usually chop up some veggies to put in it and ta da! --> yummy and nutritious. Play this game with kids and eventually they will have fun with it.

3) Cook in, don't eat out: I really love food. I love talking about it, making it and of course eating it. When you make something you know exactly how much crap you are putting into it so you can limit yourself accordingly. However, restaurants are not there to look out for your health, they are there to make the food taste good. And what do they usually put in food to make it taste good? Oil, fat, sugar and lots of it so don't think that just because you are ordering a salad from a restaurant you are making a healthy choice.

Here's something for your viewing pleasure as well. It basically just debunks all the crash diets throughout the years and good on them for doing it.