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A spirit that is not afraid

COLUMN: Leave behind 'Whole 30'

<p>The Wellness Kitchen on South Donahue on Friday, June 30, 2017.</p>

The Wellness Kitchen on South Donahue on Friday, June 30, 2017.

Every day it seems like there is a new diet that claims to be the magical cure to weight loss and promises to give you the body of every fitness model in a matter of 10 days.

Right now, one of the most popular of these is the “Whole 30” diet. It can seem like everyone and their mother has tried it and has only good things to say about it.

“Whole 30” basically follows the “Paleo” diet for 30 days, and then gradually reintroduces the previously restricted foods back into your daily food intake.

This means no gluten, dairy, alcohol, added sugar, legumes and a few other things you probably didn’t even realize you were eating. Sounds really healthy, right?

Wrong. In a recent study done by U.S. News & World Report, a ranking of 38 diets was released in an order of most to least healthy. Featured at the bottom of the list; “Whole 30.”

These diets are ranked in seven categories and composed by a panel of registered dietitians, academics and medical doctors who were not impressed by this diet.

The Whole 30 diet is based on pseudoscience, claiming that cutting out these foods will leave you with more energy, clear skin and somehow help discover potential problems like fertility issues.

However, there is no science to back up these miracle cures.

Another issue that was expressed by a panelist is the promotion of eating more meat and the discouragement of other food groups.

Another main concern of the panelists was that the “Whole 30” diet was high in sodium and deficient in things like calcium.

The diet is seen as unsustainable and prone to nutritional deficiencies.

A main goal of “Whole 30” is to eliminate inflammation and find which foods are potentially causing it for you.

In attempting to achieve this, the diet eliminates dairy. However, dairy is actually found to likely be associated with reduced inflammation, thus going back to the pseudoscience discussed before.

It is easy to let ourselves believe all these theories involving food and what will be the magical cure to the perfect body we all have in our heads.

And while eating more whole foods and cutting out processed food is always a good idea for improving health, it is not necessary to be completely cutting all these food groups out.

Restrictive diets can be hard to follow, and a single cheat can lead you to give up on the diet entirely and might leave you beating yourself up for it.

The key to a healthy lifestyle is a balanced diet with moderation and variety, which means the occasional cookie is OK and should not be the reason for anyone to feel like a failure.


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