The Ornish Diet

How realistic is its claim to eat more and weigh less?

There is not a one of us who can deny liking the idea of eating more and still losing weight. The question is whether claims of the Ornish Diet are valid ones or are advertising hype to encourage people to buy Dr. Ornish’s book and follow the weight loss program. One has to look at all angles before even beginning to determine if this is the right diet for individual weight los goals.

The major issue I found with the Ornish Diet program is that it limits calories from fat to 10%, an amount that is 20% lower that what is recommended by the American Heart Association and 40% lower than the average American diet.

Another thing I found unappealing with the Ornish Diet was that it forbids all meats including fish and seafood. You are only allowed fat-free dairy products, and quite honestly, I find skim milk nothing more than water with some milk thrown in. I customarily do two per cent milk for cereal although I can do skim milk for cooking.

The Ornish Diet is vegetarian in nature with the protein source coming from beans and legumes. It emphasizes eating whenever you are hungry, and most people will attest that if we ate only when we were hungry, we would need to diet. This idea is based upon the premise that if you eat small, frequent meals your metabolism will work at peak efficiency since you will never be hungry and forced to live off of stored fat in your body.

Fortunately I only had about twenty pounds to lose because I don’t think I could have stayed on the diet much longer than the ten weeks it took me to lose the weight. Not being much of a vegetarian, I found the diet to be boring and flavourless. In addition, it took longer to prepare and cook foods since I had to learn to be more creative in order to satisfy my needs for protein.

I had a few friends who joined me on the Ornish Diet, and we managed to find ways to develop new recipes based on the limited foods we were allowed to eat. One of my friends is diabetic, and the reduction in fats and cholesterol helped her control her blood sugar levels, which is one advantage. In fact, she is still remaining on the diet because it is healthier for her.

There is no denying that the Ornish Diet helped me lose the weight I wanted to lose, but it did not teach me how to eat differently since I am not interested in becoming a vegetarian. I still had to learn portion control to prevent gaining back the weight I lost.

I do occasionally eat some of the foods that I learned to prepare when I was on the diet in order to keep my weight within normal range, but I don’t follow it on a regular basis. I keep a close watch on my weight now and would utilize the diet again on a short-term basis.

Review by Elizabeth Patterson