What Is the "Duh" Diet?

The basic idea of the Duh Diet is simple.

It is, in fact, simplicity.

Losing weight and eating right should be connected. There should not be one 'magical' way of eating to lose weight and another, prosaic way of eating in real life. There should be only one way of eating--the best, healthiest way--leaving latitude for losing weight, maintaining weight, needing more energy when we exercise, less when we don't, occasional indulgences, etc.

The Duh Diet takes from any and every diet what they accept and have in common and leaves the rest--the fads, the fancies, the fantasies--behind.

For example, the Atkins Diet has a lot of good ideas in it. Eat lots of vegetables. Eat the healthiest, most nutrient-rich fruits. Avoid heavily-processed food. Limit saturated fat from dairy.

Or take Food Combining. Behind the magical theory that food 'rots in your stomach' in the wrong combinations--yes, dears, it's called digestion--is the very simple notion of eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, spacing your meals, controlling your portions.

Or take the Ornish Diet. Less than 10% calories from fat? Don't eat, e.g., more than 25 g. of fat a day (for a guy my size--5'7" with a medium build)? Are you nuts?! But the rest of the diet makes sense. Eat lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. Favor whole grains over refined foods. Avoid dietary fat, especially saturated fat.

Do you see a common picture emerging here?

Sure. These are the General Precepts of the Duh Diet.

1. Drink six to eight glasses of water a day.

Everyone agrees on this. No diet says "don't drink lots of water." Some say it's to stay hydrated. Some say it 'flushes fats and toxins.' Who the heck knows. But it seems to be good for you. Could it possible be bad? It seems unlikely. It's just common sense.

Water fills you up. It helps you avoid eating other things that are worse.

2. Eat lots of fresh fruits and vegetables.

This is not complicated. Every diet says to do so, to some degree.

Fresh fruits and vegetables, raw or lightly cooked with little or no added fats or sugar, are rich in nutrients, full of fiber, and they're mostly water. They're filling and low in calories. Plus they're insanely good for you.

If you eat a lot of these, you won't eat so much of the less healthy stuff.

3. Eat protein that's lower in saturated fat: chicken, fish, lean beef, soy, non-fat dairy.

Fat has more calories than carbohydrates or protein. It's yummie and filling and carries flavor well. But it probably makes you fatter. And the saturated kind--which is prevalent in beef--seems to be artery-clogging.

So, given the choice, choose the protein with less saturated fat.

4. Avoid, limit or eliminate food that's higher in calories: heavily-refined foods like sugar and white flour and those foods laden with them.

As a result of processing, sugar and white flour have plenty of calories, very densely packed. But most of the fiber and other nutrients have been refined away. Yes, white flour has protein, but it's left with very little else after the refining.

"Refining" is such a funny thing. It suggests getting rid of something gross, base and low. No nasty fiber or vitamins! As if that somehow 'purifies' the foods.

Compare equal weights of an apple or a green pepper with a muffin or piece of candy. The 'refining' has made the latter foods much more dense with calories and much more sparse on nutrients (unless they get added back in).

So eat these foods in much smaller quantities. Eat them last.

It's called "dessert" for a reason. It's the little special treat at the end, not the whole reason for eating.


Is that it? Four Simple Precepts.

Not entirely. But that's a good beginning.

And one of the key underlying principles of the Duh Diet is widely known as the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Sweetheart.

Remember: eating healthfully is not mysterious. It is a lifelong practice and habit. It involves discipline, self-control, social support, motivation and common sense. It shouldn't require you to become a research chemist or join the equivalent of a religion--the Cult of No Fat, the Cult of No Carbs, the Cult of North Beach, etc.

Somehow in the U.S. we want losing weight to be mysterious, an endless spiritual quest. It can't be as simple as making better eating choices. There must be some trick, otherwise we would have reached our ideal weight a L-O-N-G time ago, right?

No. Just because you are confronted by an endless parade of books and magazine headlines telling you How To Lose Weight and Keep It Off or How To Lose 5 Pounds This Weekend, doesn't mean there is anything new or mysterious in all these proposals.

We all know that in a capitalist economy like ours "new" products are seldom so different from the old ones. It's just an attempt to get you to throw out your old LP's and buy them all over again on CD.

So don't believe the hype.

Don't pay anything for a diet.

Do what you know is right.

--E. R. O'Neill