Sorting through the Madness.

There are so many diets arguing what seem like contradictory ideas that it seems impossible to sort out the mad onslaught.

But despite the surface variety, there are really not such huge differences amongst diets.

That is one of the Big Secrets that can allow you to diet successfully--to choose any diet or no specific diet and still to eat better, feel better, lose weight.

The surface variety--low fat diets, low carb diets, zone diets, etc.--covers up some pretty simple structures.

How To Analyze a Diet.

Basically, every diet has some theory, a method, strategies and tips.

A diet's theory is it's actual understanding or explanation of how weight loss occurs--hence of why people become overweight.

Here there's a small amount of variety. Atkins et al. believe people eat too many carbs, or, on the Sears/Zone theory, the wrong kinds of carbs in the wrong proportions.

The Sugar Busters similarly feel that people eat the wrong carbs--too many refined carbohydrates, sugar, white flour, potatoes, "white foods."

Most theories of weight gain and loss are pretty simple. The theory is: if you eat too much food or too much of the wrong types of food, you will gain excess weight.

Hence most theories of dieting boil down to: eat less.

Atkins is remarkable for having a very different theory of how your metabolism works, but some studies suggest that people eat fewer calories on Atkins, too, despite all the fat. So many carbs cut out lots of sugar, and the fat is very satisfying, so people end up simply reducing calories.

Does it matter which theory is true? I suppose it does--if you are a scientist. Are you? I'm not. So I don't care why I lose weight and feel and look good, I just want to!

The method is its way of implementing the theory.

For example, on Atkins the theory is that carbs make you fat, so you must reduce carbs.

On the Zone diet, the theory is that the wrong carbs and too many of them make you fat, so you carefully balance carbs with protein and vegetables, and you substitute the 'better' carbs.

If the theory is 'too many calories make you fat,' the method is: reduce calories. Etcetera. It's not very complicated.

Where Different Diets Become the Same.

Widely different theories can actually have quite similar methods.

If in most cases the theory is 'eating too much of the wrong stuff makes you fat,' the method is: eat more of the good stuff and less of the bad stuff--indeed, eat less over all.

In other words, the problem is: you eat too much. And the solution is: don't eat so much!

If this sounds like an old and not very funny joke--"Doctor, doctor! It hurts when I do this!" "Don't do this!"--I mean it to.

The Duh! Diet idea is to cut through the clutter, get down to basics, stop worrying which diet to follow and follow something approaching common sense and sanity.

Strategies are the way of implementing the method.

Yes, I can reduce carbohydrates, but counting carbs is the strategy. Indeed, the list of strategies is the actual rules: only eat 20 grams of carbs a day, eat 2 cups of salad, eat limited quantities of dairy and unlimited quantities of chicken and fish, etc.

This is what people remember.

On the Zone, it's dividing the plate into zones and putting X% vegetables and X% protein and X% starch.

Now the strategies are much less scientific.

Will a certain portion of the plate automatically give you the right number of grams of protein or carbohydrates? Not likely. But it's a way of getting them.

Duh! Strategies.

A strategy is a real-world implementation of the logically-inspired method.

Some diets ask you to count calories. I do that for myself. It's useful. But it's just one particular method of the general strategy of calorie reduction--perhaps the most common diet strategy of all.

I start each meal and snack with a glass of water. It's a method. It implements the strategy of doing no harm, of doing what everyone says is healthy--drink lots of water, eat lots of fruits and vegetables.

The Sonoma Diet asks you to eat specific 'power' foods: tomatoes, almonds, etc.

Is there anything magical about these foods? Why almonds and not walnuts? Or peanuts? Or flax meal?

The method is always a bit of a trick. It's a neat way to bring the theory and the strategy into everyday life.

Leave the Tip.

Finally, there are tips. Tips are like micro-strategies. These are things often found in magazine articles. There they are often doctored up as methods or even whole theories.

A tip is something like: start every meal with hot soup. Scientists have found that people who consume hot soup at the beginning of a meal eat fewer calories overall.

In a sense, there's a theory here: people gain weight because they eat too much. Eating too much can be avoided by filling up the stomach and convincing the body to eat less. Hot liquids do that, so the method is: start each meal with hot liquid. But then why not coffee? Or tea?

There's no reason. It's a scientific factoid turned into a tip disguised as a diet.

Lately, experts say the same thing about calcium. People who eat more tend to weigh less. So eat more calcium and you'll lose weight. This may not even work! There's a famous scientific dictum: correlation is not causality. That is: two things happening at the same time doesn't make one thing cause the other.

The Duh! Theory and Method.

Here there's a theory--eating too many calories is bad--and the method is to less. It's not really a strategy, because it's not general enough. You can't eat soup at the beginning of every meal. It's just a tip, a little everyday bit of know-how to help you do what you want to do.

The Duh! Diet is simple.

The theory is: we are fat because we eat too much.

The method is: eat less, eat better.

The strategy is: favor more harmless, better, lower-calorie foods--water, fruits and vegetables, lower-fat proteins or healthy-fat proteins; avoid, limit and reduce heavily processed, calorically-dense foods (cake, pastry, candy, etc.).

The tips are things like: eat three meals and three snacks a day; control your portion size; try counting calories; etc.

But the main thing is: do what makes the most sense, do what works for you, don't worry about which theory is correct.

In the old adage: there's more than one way to skin a cat. (But don't eat it.)

--E. R. O'Neill