Home Delivered Diet Meals
I couldn’t help but grin when reading NY Times columnist, Fred A. Bernstein’s article “Trying Out Delivered Diet Meals.” In attempt to lose some weight, Bernstein tried several different home delivered diet meals. I can’t blame the guy. He wants weight loss without hassle and without having to think. While he does succeed in losing weight, I’m a skeptic when it comes to long-term sustainability. He intends to quit the home delivered meals once he’s “down to 200 pounds or [his] money runs out.”
Here’s a couple of the issues I identified with his approach:
1. The food doesn’t taste all that great.
2. It’s expensive.
3. He has yet to develop any practical skills of his own (ie how to feed himself healthfully and appropriately amidst a busy schedule). What happens when he quits the program?
4. The calorie plan is not sustainable for his size. This may translate into quick weight loss, but I highly doubt a permanent solution to his weight loss woes.
So Mr. Bernstein, please prove my skepticism wrong! Write an article in one year and let us know how you’re doing.
Here’s my opinion in a nutshell. If you cannot permanently sustain your behavior changes forever, you might not want to bother. Heaps of research show that dieting is one of the best predictors of future weight gain that we know of. So if you are looking to gain some weight, dieting might not be a bad approach. 🙂