A Blog: by William Mabee

Feb. 18, 2008: What is the Key West Diet

Why stop at South Beach?
Think of the South Beach Diet, Atkins Diet, Zone Diet, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Alli, etcetera as a succulent smorgasbord, instead of as fads. Appreciate them for what they are --truthful information. Learn to pick your favorite ideas and how to blend them together, and you've got a personalized, one-of-a-kind, long-term, evolving recipe for life, instead of a recipe for humiliation. That's why one of the chapters in The Key West Diet is titled...

A Virgin Diet
You do it for the first time, but for the rest of your life, and you're constantly evolving it by learning from the popular diets-of-the-day, instead of being humiliated by failure. When you learn to do this, the only thing left to do is fortify your values and clarify your goals, all of which will empower you to live on your own terms. This is going all the way. Therefore, it's not just about what you eat or drink...

It's a diet of motivation AND knowledge
This is the key to success, because what works today may not work in six months. You've got to cut the string on yo-yo dieting. The logical solution is to plan for change; and, to make it last, plan to make it fun. Memory techniques that motivate you are critical. And guess what? Your response to the things that make you feel good -- that cause the natural endorphin rush we all crave -- can be put to use instead of being wasted. And that's why you should be saying...

If it feels good, diet!
Success is not a goal; it's a way of life. Because stress eats away at your ability to remember this simple fact, a steady diet of the things that make you happy can be your link to good health.

Feb. 3, 2008: Blog On

Ok, so maybe you're saying, "Diet? What diet? How is the Key West Diet a diet if it doesn't tell me what to eat?

The answer to that question is this: You're gonna eat whatever you want anyway, so why should you be told what to eat? Diets that tell you what to eat are diets you will quit and feel guilty about. The KWD is about expanding your definition of diet. You might want to call your diet any of the following:

• The Poker Diet
• The Texas Hold 'Em Diet
• The MySpace Diet
• The NFL Diet
• The Facebook Diet
• The YouTube Diet
• The Britney Spears Diet
• The Clay Aiken Diet
• The Paris Hilton Diet
• The Apple Diet
• The Lindsay Lohan Diet

Why? Because my research shows that more people search online for those things (well, the wholesome things anyway ;-) than any thing else, so there must be an awful lot of people on information diets rich in those topics.

Popular culture tends to accept the word "diet" as meaning the control of food intake. If you align your values with your goals you'll feel good and you'll want to take care of yourself so you can live longer in order to see what's going to happen next!

Welcome to the "that's my two cents diet."

Jan. 30 , 2008: Hello World

It seems appropriate to explain how this book came about in the first posting, so here's the short story: A few years ago my wife, kids, bird, and I decided to spend Thanksgiving somewhere new. Vacations are tough to schedule at this point in our family life, so we took the entire week off and headed south.

Prior to that, I'd been becoming concerned about my own health and profile, given our family trait to bulge at the beltline at this age. I'm not an overweight person by any means so it seemed odd to many people. I justified it by saying I was trying to understand the hoopla over Atkins and the ubiquitous food labeling that competed for attention by claiming to be "low carb" and "no carb" or "zero carb". It was everywhere and like everyone else I was curious.

Later I found South Beach Diet, the Atkins Diet, and The Zone Diet, and later Pritikin and a few others. They all seemed to make good, scientific sense, but they seemed to keep coming and coming. The modern ones all seemed to say the same things: eat right, loose weight in stages, plan for the rest of your life, break the yoyo pattern, follow the glycemic index, yada yada yada. But none of them seemed to be able to break through to long-lasting sustainability.

To go back even further in time, at some point I became addicted to listening to motivational tapes. The libraries seemed to always be well stocked with them and I highly recommend going there regularly because they make a great listening alternative while driving. Wayne Dyer and Depak Chopra stand out in my mind right now.

I'm also a big fan of biographies and historical stories. Prior to our vacation I found out about a book called Last Train to Paradise that chronicled Henry Flagler's building of the Florida Railroad--right into Key West. Of course, his goal was to make money by offloading coal from ships and loading on to his trains to go north. I got in on CD fortunately. It's a fantastic story of determination, but it also gave some insight into the desolation of the Florida Keys.

I'd heard about the Keys for years, having grown up through the Jimmy Buffett heydays and the rise of reggae music around the campus. But I had no idea how life must have been there before the modern conveniences I took for granted -- such as screens! Let alone bridges.

So I there I was, in Key West on Thanksgiving. The word that seemed to come to mind continually was "appreciation." They appreciate every inch of land, every sunset, and every body. I suppose the idea for the Key West Diet came from the combination of all of these factors; and having my family together, on vacation, in such an exotic place, with so many ideas floating around in my head about health, motivation, and appreciation -- something up there did the proverbial "click."

So there it is. It wasn't so short, but thanks for reading.

Come back soon!