Parents on Retarded 'Fad' Diets

Off Topic
1

for my whole life my mother has been heavily influenced by every type of diets that her retarded friends watch on shows like Oprah. from as far back as high school i can remember seeing “the zone” book right next to our family cookbook. I’ve heard from my mother (and as recently as 3yrs ago my father) these new things they have tried.

Shit like the ‘southbeach diet’ and ‘the fat flush diet’. I came home from school one summer and saw my mother with a big jug of red juice and asked what it was. She said “kickapoo juice”. Yeah, basically some sort of cranberry juice/fiber cocktail that they were drinking about a gallon a day of.

I finally sent the two of them a massive email telling them how dumb it was to follow things of that nature.

I mean, since WHEN has ‘being healthy’ been a fad? Since WHEN has ‘being healthy’ been something “you’re going to start next week”??

I really had to hold back some explenatives and frustration because 1.) they are my parents and 2.) they don’t know much (obviously).

Does anyone elses’ parents do shit like this? Any of them able to ‘see the light’ beyond fad diets? If so, teach me how they did so…I gotta get the kickapoo juice away from them…

2

[quote]B rocK wrote:
for my whole life my mother has been heavily influenced by every type of diets that her retarded friends watch on shows like Oprah. from as far back as high school i can remember seeing “the zone” book right next to our family cookbook. I’ve heard from my mother (and as recently as 3yrs ago my father) these new things they have tried.

Shit like the ‘southbeach diet’ and ‘the fat flush diet’. I came home from school one summer and saw my mother with a big jug of red juice and asked what it was. She said “kickapoo juice”. Yeah, basically some sort of cranberry juice/fiber cocktail that they were drinking about a gallon a day of.

I finally sent the two of them a massive email telling them how dumb it was to follow things of that nature.

I mean, since WHEN has ‘being healthy’ been a fad? Since WHEN has ‘being healthy’ been something “you’re going to start next week”??

I really had to hold back some explenatives and frustration because 1.) they are my parents and 2.) they don’t know much (obviously).

Does anyone elses’ parents do shit like this? Any of them able to ‘see the light’ beyond fad diets? If so, teach me how they did so…I gotta get the kickapoo juice away from them…[/quote]

I’m constantly banging my head against the wall when it comes to my parents and siblings.

My father, who is in his sixties, actually dropped a lot of fat. He went about it all wrong though, eating next to nothing for months on end, and dropping most all of his muscle mass in the process. Now he is thin as hell, and still hardly eats real food. He’ll sit there and eat ice cream and candy all day, then go for long ass walks to keep the fat at bay, lol.

My brother smokes like a chimney, has all sort of pains in his joints and muscles, and never works out. I cannot for the life of me convince him to try fish oil, although he agrees that it sure sounds like it could help with the achy joints.

Most everyone I know is like that. They’ll listen and seemingly agree, but for some reason they can’t or won’t just try something out for themselves. They see me changing my body and health, but still they just smile and nod and go on eating their ice cream. But ofcourse they “try” to keep the bingeing confined to the weekends.

My advice would be to just let it go. You’ve said your piece, and that is all you can really do. I can’t seem to follow my own advice though, lol.

3

Well at least your parents are getting variety - by trying lots of different fad diets - not just sticking to a single stupid diet.

90% of people are idiots when it comes to eating/health. Don’t be surprised when 90% of the people around you display that stupidity.

especially in USA, Oz, UK in my opinion, not so in other parts of europe where traditional diets and fresh ingredients are still popular.

most people don’t live a labour intensive lifestyle and can get away with garbage diets without realising it

stuff them all

4

Actually, the “Zone” diet, which was formulated by Dr. Barry Sears is a healthy diet for most people. It’s a 30% P/ 40% C/ and 30% F caloric breakdown. Although the carbs may be too high and the protein too low for a serious athlete or lifter, it’s certainly no fad.

Also, the Southbeach diet is a healthier formulation of the low carb Atkin’s diet. It was created by a cardiologist for his patients.

Both these diets aren’t fads. They’ve been studied and found to be safe and healthy, as long as you follow them exactly as they were written.

Tell you parents to re-read the Zone book (if they ever really read it in the first place) and stick to it for at least a few months. Better yet, get a copy of Precision Nutrition for them.

The bottom line is, you can give them all the information you can find, but you can never make them change their minds or their habits until they are ready.

5

I’m lucky that my moms a nurse and she actually knows how the body works.

6

Can you post the email here? Interested, might forward to my own.

7

I honestly think she bought the Zone book just to have at home incase people came over.

They said they have been on ‘the fat flush’ diet for a while so i decided to look it up.

here’s a link: http://www.everydiet.org/diet/fat-flush-diet

i read that and then had them tell me what they were eating; totally different stuff. not that they have to eat EXACTLY what is on the diet; but they weren’t even close.

and the cranberry juice they were drinking was like drinking sugar water; and tehy were drinking a gallon a day. wtf?

ugh.

i’m going down there next weekend and setting them straight and taking my father to the gym.

on a side note: my moms bday was last weekend and her co-worker got her a fucking trampoline to ‘work out’ on.

WTF?

8

[quote]DOHCrazy wrote:
I’m lucky that my moms a nurse and she actually knows how the body works.[/quote]

My mom’s a nurse too, but she doesn’t know much about dieting and lifting. Gets really annoying at times.

9

My mother is really knowledgable these days about proper diet and exercise. A healthfood store in my hometown offered a course of 10 lessons on the topic, and it must have been great because she now knows more than a lot of people who post in “Supplements and Nutrition” :slight_smile:

Before that though, my God…she bought into every single Oprah style diet. The worst though was that Susan Powter diet. Does anyone remember this one?

That bald-headed wretch advocated the theory that “fat makes you fat” and encouraged you that downing bagel after bagel was healthy because they are fat free. I can’t even imagine the cases of diabetes that can be directly attributed to that idiot

10

My mom is convinced that creatine has never underwent human testing, and inhibits height growth. Where she got this notion, i have no clue…

11

on a side note: my moms bday was last weekend and her co-worker got her a fucking trampoline to ‘work out’ on.

WTF?[/quote]

hahaha, my parents have never been much into the dieting fads. i do remember one summer my dad eating nothing but watermelon and losing a pile of weight (which he quickly regained the minute he ate normally, of course).

another time he bought himself a juicer and proceeded to eat nothing but juiced vegetables (same results as watermelon diet). my mom, on the other hand, sticks to the conventional “no eating” diet. she has amazing genes, six kids and can still wear a bikini, but being thin from not eating is not good for you!

she always gawks at the tv screen incomprehensibly when really obese people talk about their struggle to lose weight, and this is a direct quote, “the people in auschwitz were not fat, were they?”

(side note, she is not anti-semetic in any way and is only making reference the fact that the lack of food left them very thin… no, emmaciated… hope i have not offended anyone). i’m so glad i’m learning how the body really works so that i can be a better influence on my kids one day!

12

My mom was screaming at me when she saw me dig into a jar of coconut oil and eat one tablespoon of it with a meal.

“You’re going to die! Please stop!”

“Why?”

“All that solidified fat? Are you kidding? You are just killing yourself.”

I bought them 150 Healthiest Foods and they’ve been reading it on and off, so it has had an impact. However, the sections on coconut oil and cholesterol in egg yolk…they still refuse to budge from their antiquated thinking.

They were literally in tears when I was giggling with the jar of coconut oil in my hand. I felt powerful.

13

Proximity Bias. Don’t go there.

http://www.T-Nation.com/free_online_forum/diet_blog_hammer_velocity_shugart/proximity_bias_a_discussion

14

[quote]PonceDeLeon wrote:
My mom was screaming at me when she saw me dig into a jar of coconut oil and eat one tablespoon of it with a meal.

“You’re going to die! Please stop!”

“Why?”

“All that solidified fat? Are you kidding? You are just killing yourself.”

I bought them 150 Healthiest Foods and they’ve been reading it on and off, so it has had an impact. However, the sections on coconut oil and cholesterol in egg yolk…they still refuse to budge from their antiquated thinking.

They were literally in tears when I was giggling with the jar of coconut oil in my hand. I felt powerful.[/quote]

Now that is funny.

Luckily, my dad used to lift a lot before we moved to the US, so he actually understands what I am dong.

15

Yeah my mom believes some stupid stuff too. There are these things called “ear candles” out there you can get from new age shops where it’s a tube of wax you light on fire and put the non-lit end on your ear and it’s supposed to suck the ear wax out of your ear.

Yeah, it’s that stupid. There’s tons of info out there debunking them (the pressure created to drag earwax out of your ear would have to be so great it would damage your eardrum to work) and they’ve even been banned from sale in some places because they’ve hurt some people with hot wax from the candle dripping into your ear. But my mom STILL believes they work.

She went on the atkins diet too when that first came out.

16

My mother is overweight, she had to have a new knee, that troubled her a lot and she has dizzy spells where she has to sit down.
When I talk to her about eating healthy, she’s convinced she’s already doing that by eliminating all fats and meat.

She feeds french fries to the dog, but no meat since that’s bad for him.
My father is skinny fat.

I have lost nearly 25kg in 3 years and I feel great.

However, they lecture me on health and food regularly. Perhaps it has something to do with seeing me in diapers and whiping my ass. That was over 45 years ago though.

My brother talked to me about loosing weight a couple of months ago, so I told him what I know: lift weights, eat healthy. He was thinking about starting to run. I advised against it, warning him it would be hard on the knees. 2 weeks later I see him, he’s limping with a bad knee.

My sister wanted to strengthen her legs. My brother, still limping, advised her to start running. I told her to start riding a bike, showed her goblet squats. She bought those massai walking shoes instead.

My mother is convinced I have high blood pressure and bad cholesterol. I went for my anual check the other day, everything was fine. Doctor was very happy. Mum tells me that’s because I have her genes, and not my dads. “but ma, don’t you have high blood pressure and bad cholesterol also, and you eat healthy, avoiding all meat and fats?”

I stopped being irritated by this about a decade ago.

17

My mom has a badly balanced back and hip structure from wiping out on a bike a few years ago, everyone in a while her disc slips. so i got her a 10lb and 2 5lb weights, a band, and a foam roller for xmas and gave her a few rehab things to do on to of chiro.

it’s working, she listens, and i introduce things slowly to her. shes up to doing one legged deadlifts now which is incredible and i really feel great when she tells me excitedly how much better she feels.

my dad used to be retardedly strong, he still is but hes overweight and completely jacked up. He’s a bit tougher to get to listen but i think when his job winds down or he retires he’ll start working on it out of sheer boredom.

I try not to lecture him but when its 12pm right before bed and hes knocking back nachos and a 2l bottle of soda… or has just a peice of toast with honey on it for breakfast.

18

[quote]PonceDeLeon wrote:
My mom was screaming at me when she saw me dig into a jar of coconut oil and eat one tablespoon of it with a meal.

“You’re going to die! Please stop!”

“Why?”

“All that solidified fat? Are you kidding? You are just killing yourself.”

I bought them 150 Healthiest Foods and they’ve been reading it on and off, so it has had an impact. However, the sections on coconut oil and cholesterol in egg yolk…they still refuse to budge from their antiquated thinking.

They were literally in tears when I was giggling with the jar of coconut oil in my hand. I felt powerful.[/quote]

My mother freaks out when I talk about eating fat, and is quite convinced that my kidneys will fall out of my body if I eat one more gram of protein.