To diet or not to diet....

Although we don't often think about it, ancient Greek and Roman cultures have played a huge role in how we live. Much of our government is based on the principles of these civilizations. Some of our architecture either is inspired by or mimics those great edifices of old. Even our language is a composite, in part, of Greek and Latin words. 

Because we don't often think of our ancient roots we forget about the true significance of many of these words that we use. To many of us the term "diet" brings to mind other words and phrases like "fad" or "short-term fix". However, the Greeks and Romans knew the true meaning of the word. In Greek the word διαιτα means “way of life”, “regimen”, or “leads one’s life”. In Latin the word diaeta means “prescribed way of life”.

There are two fundamental reasons that diets don’t work for the majority of people. One, they can be expensive or highly specialized because of the types of foods that the diet prescribes and, two, as soon as the person has “finished” dieting they go back to their old ways and lose whatever progress they have made. This is our modern thinking of diets, which is very different from what the Greeks and Romans thought.

As creatures of habit it is very difficult for us to change our “way of life” to one conducive to good health, but that is a true diet. Thus a diet isn’t just the food that we eat or don’t eat, but the way we live, which includes exercise, lifestyle choices, anger management, etc. It truly is what “leads one’s life”.

It is interesting that we find the same to be true with epigenetics. The way we live our life on a daily basis really does determine our overall health, even down to the molecular level. A diet then should be based on our daily living, something that we commit to for the rest of our lives, not merely until we reach a desired weight or body type. Even a positive outlook on life has been shown to have an epigenetic effect on our DNA.

In an effort, then, to reach my ultimate goals I need to find out what “regimen” or “way of life” is best suited to my personal epigenetics. Unfortunately I don’t have the resources to determine that, or at least I don’t have the knowledge of how to get those resources. But, I have read that a few studies have been done where individuals had a “diet” regiment that was tailored to their specific genome and that it was more efficient in both short term gains and long term effects than for people who were on a generalized “good” diet. I wonder if there is a way to volunteer for that.