Why Your New Diet is Doomed to Fail

Jordan S. Rubin at 20 years old, 6′ 1” at 111 pounds

One of the nice things about getting older is that you begin to understand, and learn to appreciate, the fact that you’re not alone. Your health crisis, while a tragedy, is still only unique to you. That is comforting and extremely empowering. Especially when it comes to taking control of our health and healing. We can learn from each other’s hard-won knowledge.

When Mike’s health deteriorated, and our medical options ran out, we turned to a “radical” nutritionist. We based our decision to go the nutritional route on this simple premise: God created us and He wants us healthy and whole. He also created the food we eat, to give our bodies what it needs to heal itself. We’ve dubbed our journey back to health and its new lifestyle as “Kosher-Christian.” You can read more about our story here.

It’s Jordan Rubin’s story that has captured my interest today. Although his is quite different than ours, the essence is the same. When medical options failed, he found a nutritionist that believed the Creator has already given us the resources for healing. His health was restored, better than before and he found a new life and purpose.

But that’s where our similarities end. You could almost say our situations stand at opposite ends of the spectrum. At the young age of 19, Rubin went from a strong healthy college student, to a fragile patient with Crohn’s disease. Over the course of two years, he traveled oceans and saw seventy doctors in search for help. He tried everything that offered even a sliver of hope. Nothing helped. Not until he met a nutritionist, who told bluntly why he was sick. He was not eating “the diet of the Bible.”

Rubin dubbed his journey back to health The Maker’s Diet. The New York Times bestseller encompasses a complete lifestyle change.

After two years of suffering, his turnaround came in the first 40 days. If you need encouragement, and want to borrow someone else’s faith for your own journey back to health, I found a good place for you to start.

Take a peek at Jordan Rubin’s “after” picture.

Jordan Rubin after 4 months on his Maker’s Diet
Weighing in at 170 lbs

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not one to chase fad diets. In fact, I have a real aversion to them. There are plenty of new theories going around at any given time. Current flavors of the month are Paleo Diet, Going Raw, and Clean eating. What I am interested in is the same thread of truth that runs through each of these diets. There is a natural state of food. We are designed to eat. It’s nourishing our body that brings both our health and our weight under control.

While the vegetarian, Paleo and Raw diets all hold positive and healthy elements they restrict eating foods that God did not. Any restrictive diet is unsustainable over the course of an entire lifetime. And let’s face it: unless you want to only do this diet until the next big thing comes along you must have a lifestyle change that will become second nature, not one that depends on products to purchase or one that is restrictive.

If you can’t sustain your diet throughout your lifetime it’s doomed to fail. I don’t care how much weight you initially lose.

So let’s take a closer look at Jordan Rubin’s The Maker’s Diet.

This small paragraph in the forward by Dr. Charles F. Stanley is packed with truth. The essence of what we are seeking in a Kosher-Christian lifestyle is physical health and strength. However, we are much more than warm bodies. Being disease free means very little if your spiritual life is cancerous. When both of these elements are aligned, we have mental and emotional clarity. Then and only then, can we begin to become who we were designed to be.

We all have a purpose. Most of us have a deep desire to make a difference in the world. I believe that is our Creator’s thumbprint on our hearts. It’s hard, if not impossible to do those things if you can’t get out of bed, spend most of your time in the bathroom doubled over or can’t walk the length of a Walmart without the help of an electric scooter.

I’m not pinning all my dreams on one man’s book, any more than I would a fad diet. However, I would like to spend the next few weeks exploring the path he’s already cleared for us.