The New (yet not so new) ONO DIET

Have you tried the ONO diet? It's devoid of any food restriction. Yup, you won't believe it. It's a diet that allows you anything. You eat all you want and in any amount. No-Diet Slim Plus espouses right, healthy and balanced amount of all foods but ONO says sky's the limit in everything, even desserts. It's what would-be dieters profess to avoid but often resort to eventually.

Photo above by Markus Winkler on Unsplash.

It's like this. You try a strict diet and do well with it for a week or two. And then somehow you find yourself in a trying situation where you're tempted with your favorite foods, offered you right and left, leaving you no other options but to indulge in due course. You tried to fight it off, to no avail. Can they blame you? So you plunge right into the trap and later come to your senses, realizing the serious breach to your avowed creed. Then you cry, "ONO!" 

That's the ONO diet.

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We all hate it, including a lot of so-called weight watchers and the health-conscious, but we love running to it for relief in the end as a last resort. In fact, we hug it tight like a long lost friend or plunge right into it like a tempting azure beach or swimming pool in a hot, dry summer. Then we repent and go right back to our strict diet, only to later get tempted again (and often the tempter is none other than ourselves) and end up worse than we did before. 

Well, there are a few who manage to stay on course. Faithful ones. They really seriously keep up with their strict diets until the diets become part of them forever (perhaps even in the hereafter). But they're a chosen few. The majority of us are unfaithful and sometimes even wicked breachers. We break the covenant and indulge in endless buffets. 

I tried to be vegan once. At least I lasted two years. The result? I developed a small bulging tummy which I never had when I ate balanced--veggies and meats, among other things. Now I find it hard to get rid of the slight bulge though I'm improving once step at a time. The secret? Protein and carbs balance and everything nice (plus workouts, of course). No diet slim. Yeah, I eat more plant proteins, but you do not have that option all the time, especially when you eat out. 

Most times, your only option in karenderias and small-time eateries is a no-diet slim option, which is eating everything in healthy proportions, and then make sure you workout just enough after.

Vegetable dishes in street-corner eateries (karenderias) or even fast food stores in malls often serve the worst kind. You won't get a single nutrition. If not overcooked or overheated, they're stale from being kept too long in the menu display because no one buys them except you. I don't enjoy eating chop suey except at Savory and Hap Chan. They serve fresh and delicious. I strongly recommend them.

This is why often, I just close my eyes and go all out for ONO. And I try to enjoy everything while at it, fresh or not, delicious or otherwise. Or, fatty or oily. Why be guilty? If anyone ought to feel guilty it should be the sellers of bad veggie meals and over-porked meals. They're obviously the culprit. All they care about is get their ROI, not the welfare and satisfaction of their customers. So, left with no better alternative, we hesitantly take the ONO diet. That's the real story behind most imbalanced diets.

Moreover, healthy diets, especially, vegan, are often too costly. And you seldom see them in local eateries. For middle wage earners like us, we cannot go steadily vegan or even vegetarian. Well, pescatarian, probably. I do it occasionally when real good veggies and fish dishes are available. But this too is almost one in a million. It's hard to find local eateries serving good food.

Actually, the ONO diet is a rescue diet. Once we find ourselves with no other option but to break strict diets, ONO saves the day for us. We can easily seek refuge in it and find it very reliable. It's available everywhere and enables us to finish the day still strong and very contented. Guilty? Perhaps, but guilt is often just our imagination. A lot of guilt feelings are unreal. We think we did wrong but actually we did right. Something like that.

Like eating ONO food. It's better than starving yourself to death. What gives you guilt--eating ONO or dying of starvation? The answer is easily the latter. And yet, we feel guilty opting for the former when it's the natural thing in self preservation. I mean, you got to eat. I put emphasis on this because I see folks skipping two to three meals when they see no healthy food around.

Whenever I can, I go all out for healthy meals, even vegan. If I have a plethora of healthy vegan choices and mouthwatering meat selections are also offered, I can still go all-out vegan. I've done it a lot of times. I have the rigid discipline, being a martial arts enthusiast for decades. Sometimes, I go pescatarian. But I can also decide to go ONO anytime even if good vegan selections are available. I don't submit to any one strict diet. It's a free country. And I realized a long time ago that God designed the body to need all kinds of food, not just fruits and veggies.

But, remember this. I make sure I have a balanced schedule for all the diets--vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, balanced, no-diet, and ONO. Like say, I had ONO 4 times during the week, I make sure I counter that with 2 vegetarian and one balanced. Or 3 vegetarian. Or one vegan and two vegetarian. Something like that. 

And I workout.