Fit for Life Diet

Introduced by Harvey and Marilyn Diamond back in the 1980's, the Fit for Life diet explores the old practice of food combining to help people reduce weight. In general, the practice of food combining is simple -- there are food products which are alright when eaten together and those that are understood to be incompatible. The Fit for Life diet, though there are few researches done on the topic, takes this food combination process a notch higher and injects a "scientific" idea into the theory.

According to the principles of the diet, there are certain food groups which should not be eaten together because their combination is hard to digest. Thus, the nutrients and the calories are not absorbed fully and converted to energy; they are simply left to line the digestive tract or stored as fat. Further, incompatible food combinations can also cause digestive and gastric problems. In essence, the Fit for Life diet lies on the premise that weight loss is the direct result of proper digestion and not calorie-intake reduction.

Since the diet limit food choice, discipline is key to successfully following it. Although there are no proportions or portion measurements involved -- meaning, one can eat as much he wants -- the strict guidelines on which food to take is limiting nonetheless. At first glance, the food choices allowed by the Fit for Life diet seems healthy and sensible enough: fruits, vegetables, grains, and limited amounts of meat and dairy. However, these choices are not eaten together -- specific combinations must be set to make digestion easier. Some common food combinations promoted by the diet are as follows:

1. Fruits are breakfast fare and midday snacks. Whether it is an apple, a papaya, or a couple of oranges, one can eat as much fruit as he likes. These can be in the form of non-dairy smoothies or fresh cut-ups. Any fruit or combination will do as long as it is exclusively fruit.

2. For lunch and dinner, practitioners of the diet can choose between a carbohydrate-meal or a protein-based one. The Fit for Life diet insists that the enzymes responsible for digesting carbohydrates and protein would cancel each other out, thus, food combinations with these two nutrients are not digested completely. The undigested food would then produce toxins which can slow down metabolism or cause the body harm.

Although experimenting with food combinations has been practiced through the ages, most nutritionists only approve of one combination -- that of, a well-balanced meal containing several food groups. The restrictive nature of the diet or its outdated premise can cause severe nutritional deficiency if not properly monitored and the frequency of food intake is not checked. That said, anyone who wishes to follow the Fit for Life diet or at least try out its merits would do well to consult and talk to nutritionists or doctors first. A healthy body should be one's foremost goal -- and one that should not be taken lightly for fad diets.