things that make ya go hmmmm....

one of my co-workers is dieting and she is following one of the fad diets. the interesting thing about fad diets, is that they tell you what to do, but they don't really teach you why your doing it. the why, is very key. when you don't understand the why it is likely that you will make mistakes. the problem with making mistakes when dieting is that it generally means the diet doesn't work.

the other day i walked into the kitchen and my co-worker was muttering to herself as she perused the packaging of her protein powder. it seems she wasn't able to figure out the carbohydrate content of the product, as it wasn't listed among the nutritional information. she knew enough to know, that there likely was some carb in the protein powder. but she also needed to be able to calculate how many points the shake would be worth.

i took a look at the label and i did the math for her. if you know me at all, you know that math and i don't get along. also there was the added insult of attempting to do math at 8:30 a.m. it turns out that there was approximately 3 grams of carbs per serving.

she then upended a bag of frozen fruit into her shaker cup. i knew i shouldn't ask but frankly i couldn't help myself. i asked her how she measured her fruit. she told me that she, "just sort of poured about this much into the cup". i bit my tongue, the inside of my cheek and i pressed my lips firmly together and left the kitchen.

her 'diet' program has her freaking out about the 3 grams of carbs in her protein powder. but it doesn't teach her to measure, or include the 30 grams of carbs from the 1.5 cups of frozen fruit that she added. since she also made a milk based shake, you can best believe she doesn't calculate the carb content of that either. so where she may be thinking she is only having 3 grams of carb. she was probably putting in closer to 45 grams in a single meal. that doesn't sound too bad until you realize that means the carbohydrates alone count for 180 calories.

and that my friends, is why fad diets tend to fail. either they don't teach you how to do anything beyond blindly following along a set plan. or they don't teach you how to survive at your goal weight, should you even be lucky enough to achieve it.

but sometimes it is just fun to sit back and watch.