Is It Time for You to Get Serious About Your Diet?

Food choices became possible for the poor once the peasantry moved away from the farm to live in the cities. Suddenly, making decisions about dieting and one's health was no longer preserved for the elite class. Ancient Romans ate a breakfast of wheat pancakes consumed with dates and honey and a midday meal of fish, meat, bread and vegetables. Oddly, the Romans did not drink beer and rarely drank milk opting instead for wine mixed with water and exotic spices.

When it is time to get serious about losing weight, the last thing you want is to start another failed diet cycle. To broaden your understanding of building healthy habits and behaviors, review the list below of fad diets through the ages:

• THE BANTING DIET - This diet was likely the first diet ever published. In 1864, an overweight English undertaker released the diet that called for dieters to replace excessive consumption of breads, sugars, and starches with fresh meats, fish and vegetables. It became so popular that individuals often asked others, "Are you banting?".
• ROLLO LOW-CARB DIET - Scottish military surgeon John Rollo wrote one of the first published diets, where adult patients suffering from diabetes mellitus could extend their life expectancy by following his low-carb, meat diet.
• LOW-CALORIE DIET - Lulu Hunt Peters was a late 19th century and early 20th century doctor who wrote a featured newspaper column for the Central Press Association entitled Diet and Health. Her book Diet & Health: With Key to the Calories was published in 1918, became a best seller, and is considered to be the first book on dieting that focused on calorie consumption.
• KETOGENIC DIET - Developed in the 1920s for epileptic patients, the keto diet turns the body into a fat-burning machine. By depriving the body of carbs, the liver is forced to produce ketones that burn stored fat deposits for energy instead of glucose. This high-fat low-carb approach is popular with dieters today.
• DRINKING MAN'S DIET - Bon Vivant Robert Cameron published The Drinking Man's Diet, a pamphlet that sold 2.5 million copies. Based around a high-fat, low-carb menu plan, this diet allows dieters to consume low-carb distilled spirits such as gin, vodka, rum, brandy and whiskies.
• THE BEVERLY HILLS DIET - Originally, Judy Mazel's diet required people to eat enzyme-rich fruit only for the first 10 days of a 42-day regimen. Highly criticized by experts, the New Beverly Hills Diet promotes all food groups but focuses on conscious food combinations of fruit and vegetables.
• PALEO DIET - The Paleo Diet emulates the food intake of the cave man and consists primarily of fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, seafood and nuts. Absent from the diet are dairy products (protein and calcium) as well as whole grains and legumes (fiber and micronutrients).
• HCG DIET - Hollywood celebrities Jennifer Aniston and Gwyneth Paltrow allegedly followed the HCG Diet, which combines a fertility drug with a strict diet of 500 to 800 calories a day to lose weight fast.

If you are concerned about losing weight and keeping it off, focus on all the things you can gain by following a sensible menu plan that is based on food-science rather than accepting the "yo-yo effect" associated with most fad diets. A positive mindset and a personalized diet plan are the right tools to get you closer to your goals. Contact Metabolic Research Center and schedule your free weight loss consultation.