Americans spend thousands of dollars every year trying to get fit. Many join gyms in efforts to start exercising, while some buy books in the effort of eating healthy. Many people have been known to try such diets as the cabbage soup diet, the grapefruit diet, or even a number called “God’s diet” which requires the intake of only what God created. Two popular diets that are en vogue right now are the Jack Sprat diet, and the South Beach Diet.
The Jack Sprat Diet gets its name from a poem called The Legacy of Jack Sprat.
The poem reads:
Jack Sprat could eat no fat
His wife could eat no lean
And so between them both, you see
They licked the platter clean
In John Clark, Paroemiologia Anglo-Latina, 1639
Basically, Jack had a great diet while his wife ate mostly fats. The poem then goes on to say that Jack had to keep getting new wives because the old ones would die at an early age. The Inventors of the diet (Dr. Bryant A. Stamford and Becca Coffin, R.N.), then pointed out that Jack’s wives died because they only ate fat.
“Dietary fat is a cold-blooded mass murderer, and it must be stop” (Stamford 1). The Jack Sprat diet stresses the fact that the effects of dietary fat closely resemble the effects of smoking: they look good at first, but end up taking a number of years to see the fatal effects. “The Jack Sprat diet plan is practical and based in reality. It is effective, and it will feel comfortably familiar right from the beginning” (Stamford 2). The diet was created to make one feel as though he or she is simply changing eating habits, rather than being on a diet.
“The plan uses a guided ‘spoon-fed’ approach that has been individualized as much as possible with regard to gender, size and physical activity level. A special feature of the plan is that it is both a weight-loss and a weight-maintenance program. This approach provides you the comfort of knowing that once you adapt to a 28-day plan, no further changes are necessary” (Stamford 3). The 28-day plan was created to “introduce you to low-fat ‘smart’ eating” (Stamford 4). Once the 28 days are over, your taste buds won’t allow you to go back to the unhealthy things you use to eat.
“The goal of the Jack Sprat diet plan is to reduce your fat intake to not more than 20 percent of total calories, with as little saturated fat as possible” (Stamford 4). The authors, Dr. Bryant A. Stamford and Becca Coffin, R.N., claim that with their experience, they have seen a significant loss of body fat by people only taking in 10 to 20 percent fat. The authors created a plan that would go beyond the focus of weight loss. They wanted to instill a “different mind-set, one that was not driven by unrealistic expectations and obsessed with lower numbers on the scale” (Stamford 9). They created a plan that they hoped would better enable people to make smarter choices when eating food.
The Jack Sprat diet works by focusing on losing fat by making smart choices. “Body fat is extremely compact, squeezing a whopping 9 calories of energy into every gram. That adds up to 3,500 calories per pound of stored fat” (Stamford 14).
Losing fat presents a great level of difficulty because body fat must be converted to some form of usable energy before it can go away. The book goes on to say that even if you do extreme amounts of exercise and continue to eat unhealthy foods packed with dietary fat, you won’t lose the fat. You probably won’t even be healthy because your arteries are clogged.
Making smart choices is the key to losing excess fat. “A smart choice is one that pays dividends without demanding sacrifices (of health, well-being, or comfort). “The dividends may be small, but taken collectively over time they add up and make a substantial difference” (Stamford 43). An example of this is choosing to eat a McDonald’s low-fat hot fudge sundae over eating a small vending-machine size Snickers bar. The Snickers contains 280 calories and 14 grams of fat while the sundae has 290 calories and only has 5 grams of fat.
The benefits of going on the Jack Sprat diet are numerous. The diet is very straight forward and promises no “high-tech breakthroughs to speed up the process of losing weight. It only promises to serve you for the rest of your life” (Stamford 3). The authors offer the option of many different types of food because they know that not everyone has the same tastes. The authors claim that if you expect to lose weight gradually they can offer you a 'pocket full of miracles’.
For one, you will be able to eat plenty of food. Secondly, your weight lose will be attain comfortably and painlessly. Thirdly, you will have tons of energy and finally, you will look and feel great. The problem with this diet is that it’s not a quick fix. (Stamford 4-5). Many Americans go on diets because they want to get rid of their problem areas fast. Also, the authors know that many people probably won’t be able to stick to the 28 day plan the diet calls for because of work and/or family members.
Switching gears, The South Beach diet was established by cardiologist, Arthur Agatston. He created the diet for his severely overweight heart patients after referring them to many other types of diets that simply did not work. He wanted to create a diet that was not too rigid or complicated. He wanted this new diet to be flexible and easy to handle. He also wanted the diet to work whether or not the dieter was regularly exercising. The diet teaches you how to “rely on the right carbs and the right fats -the good ones- and enables you to live quite happily without the bad carbs and bad fats” (Agatson 3).
The South Beach diet has 3 different phases. Phase 1 starts lasts for two weeks and is the strictest part of the diet. The two weeks will allow the “insulin resistance that was brought about by eating too many bad (mostly processed) carbs which have been stripped of fiber” (Agatson 111). This phase allows various portions of protein, good fats. “By the time this phase ends, your unhealthy cravings, especially for sweets, baked goods, and starches, will have essentially vanished” (Agatson 111).
Phase II of the diet allows the dieter to eat more freely. Healthy carbs will be introduced. These may include fruit, whole grain bread, whole grain rice, whole wheat pasta, and sweet potatoes. Phase II lasts for however long it takes you to hit your target weight. Phase III is even more liberal than Phase II. This phase is supposed to last for the rest of your life. “At this point, you should be knowledgeable enough about how the South Beach Diet works and how it interacts with your own body to enjoy all the flexibility of the plan” (Agatson 243).
The main benefit of the South Beach Diet is that you’ll have a healthy heart and your arteries won’t be clogged. The diet allows carbohydrates such as whole grain breads and cereals, and whole wheat pasta. You can even enjoy fruits and vegetables after you get out of the first phase.
Also, you will be able to eat regular sized meals. You can have your fill of meat, chicken, turkey, fish, eggs, cheese, and nuts. Another big plus is that you can lose up to 12 pounds in the first two weeks. The con of this diet is that a lot of people can’t handle phase I. It is the strictest phrase and you aren’t allowed to eat carbs or anything with the slightest amount of sugar in it.
All in all, despite the confusing number of choices to be made, it's obvious that any choice is better than no choice at all! Good luck and happy eating in 2009.
Works Cited
Agatston, Arthur. The South Beach Diet: The Delicious, Doctor-Designed, Foolproof Plan for Fast and Healthy Weight Loss. New York: Random House, 2003.
Ross, Shirlley. The Complex Carbohydrate Handbook. New York: William, 1981.
Stamford, Bryant A and Becca Coffin. The Jack Sprat Low-Fat Diet: A 28-Day Heart-Healthy Plan You Can Follow the Rest of Your Life. Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 1995.
