Friday, March 21, 2008

M@rla you may think your comment didn't add anything but it surely did and I wish I had the time to really think it out and respond but I will say something simple and rather controversial to some: I do think diets are disordered and the wrong way to go. Becoming a dietitian gives me a slightly different perspective on everything, notice I said different and not better. I kind of think it gives me even more to think about because I have to decide what I'll do with patients and clients and I can't with good conscious put them on a diet plan, even the most healthy wonderful plan tends to fail eventually because we are not made to live that way. I don't think nutrition should go totally out the window but artificial rules to govern such a naturally process can only work short term from what I have seen myself and what I have read. There is so much to say about this and you can trust I'll be saying it over the next...however long it takes to think it out.
I ordered a few books from Amazon, one of them being Intuitive Eating by two RD's (what I will be) that I had seen mentioned here and there on the web. I've only read a little bit but I like what I am seeing so far and have to say I agree. It is also great for me to read how they figured things out from a professional standpoint and I can say I am leaning more and more towards the same direction. I even asked my sister-in-law if she would be interested in setting up shop with me (she's a psychologist) to treat eating disorders and educate the public on nutritional and mental health, maybe teach cooking classes for low income folks, provide groceries etc. That would have to be way down the road, it usually takes a big org to do things like that, I don't know right now I am dreaming.
I felt trapped before, now the future is wide open.

3 comments:

M@rla said...

Yes, write more when you have time. I have been wondering whether your Nutritionist education is influencing your perspective.

I think that "diet" in the sense of "prolonged calorie restriction" is definitely a dead end. There is some success at first, but it can't keep going indefinitely. I think at some point the body says "enough is enough," and either it refuses to lose any more weight and/or it forces you to eat. I have several theories about that :-)

However I do think it's valuable to scrutinize one's food, regardless of whether one is trying to lose weight. These days it's possible to eat nothing but zero-nutrition crap, and I think that's dangerous. Occasional crap--fine. But the day-in-day-out poor diet has to cause a lot of problems. So that's something I still do, whether I ever lose weight again or not, is try to eat the best quality fuel I can.

Glad to see you so excited about future possibilities. You're going to rule the world!

Shauna said...

oh man that last sentence is beautiful :)

LMI said...

I think you're right on that diets can be damaging, at least dieting the way so many of us were taught to do it. I did need a rigid sort of plan at the beginning to help me reboot my system, though. My perspective regarding food had just become too corrupted to be fixed by something less drastic than a plan with hard rules (and part of that is my personality type, too). I think I'm getting to the point where I can function without the training wheels, though. What works for some people makes others disordered, maybe.

It's great you're making nutrition your profession. I hope you'll be able to help people before they get to the point I was at!