Recycled Guru?! Marilyn Diamond

I'm kinda surprised the community didn't go a bit a buzz when Anthony Colpo included this in a recent reader mail roundup:  

Reader Glen sent along a link to comments made on FaceBook by Marilyn Diamond.  Who you ask?  Well as AC reminds us:

... she co-authored a runaway best-selling diet book in 1985 with her then husband Harvey titled Fit For Life. It was enthusiastically endorsed by folks like Merv Griffin and Tony Robbins so, hey, it had to be scientifically sound. The diet was reportedly “based on Harvey Diamond’s exploration of Herbert M. Shelton theories of food combining. Both authors claimed to be able to bring about weight loss without the need to count calories or undertake anything more than a reasonable exercise program. In the first version of the program, Diamond claimed that if one eats the foods in the wrong combination they “cause fermentation” in the stomach. This in turns gives rise to the destruction of valuable enzymes & nutrients. Diamond categorized foods into two groups : “dead foods” that “clog” the body, and “living foods” that “cleanse” it.”

I remember this book but can't say I read or ever followed its advice.  Good thing I suppose?  In comments at that FB page Diamond writes:

I lived for the better part of 20 years on a plant protein and fat diet, and I almost died. Somebody has to speak out and I'm nominating myself. See below...for the beginning...

She sounds like she's gone low carb lacto paleo!

I had lunch in an outdoor cafe today. A delicious raspberry iced tea with a salad topped with sliced roast chicken, bacon, blue cheese and slices of hard boiled egg. I didn't eat the homemade bread on the plate. Tonight I had a grilled grass fed beef burger platter with a beet, basil, Persian cucumber and Campari tomato salad dressed in a creamy olive oil, lime and yogurt sauce.

 More:

Fitonics was a difficult book for me to write. I was shrinking from the backlash I sensed, and it was so strong from the vegan community, I retired from public life with Rock and taught the Power of Love Seminars for nearly ten years.  [1998 book pictured at right] 

I needed this time because I was in the throes of going up and back and mostly back to raw and vegan. And, unbeknownst to me, I was in serious muscle wasting. In one year, in 2004 to 2005, I became unable to pick up my toddler grandson. I had a heart condition that caused anxiety attacks, because my heart muscle too was wasting. There is a lot of condemnation energy out there, and I think we ought to allow those who don't fare well and were pioneers and longer on these diets than most people, to speak out and warn others that it may not be sustainable on the biochemical level of the bodies requirements to ignore essential food groups interminably. I learned, and I'm strong enough now to speak my truth. But, I think sometimes my tone is too pushy, so I'll take the reactions to heart and try to be more empathetic with those who are not ready or may never be ready to do what I have had to do to survive. Luckily, I'm now stronger than ever. And I have the ability to enjoy my life free of the depression caused by nearly 25 years in a nutrient deficient diet. It wasn't even okay when I was young, but I just believed that what I was feeling was "life." ....

Of course most will read that bolded comment and presume it's only those adhering to diets like vegan diets that are possibly doing harm in the long term....

... Acute, accelerated muscle wasting, thinned out my heart muscle, which caused debilitating anxiety, often thought I was having a heart attack...overall weakness, loss of the muscle covering my voice box, depression, low thyroid, loss of sex drive, the inability to cope. I didn't see that I had much future, and I'm just scratching the surface here.

Sounds like a woman on a mission!  And then you click on her name and get to the main FB page.  I must say she's looking pretty fab.  Her blurb says:

The co-author of the famous FIT FOR LIFE is back after 27 years of research to find out what can make us sexier, healthier & younger! The secrets lie in a breakthrough art of nutrition & exercise. Coming up: a new and a much-needed revolution!

Sigh.  So, let's see, in 1985 she co-authored a pseudoscientific meme that she followed for like 20 years and claims it caused muscle wasting including her heart.  I presume those 20 years are part of the 27 years of research she draws on in her new book?  It will be called, Young for Life.  Now, one would think that if one almost died from the pseudoscientific mumbojumbo in Fit for Life, they might not want to play off that fame, right?  Regrets?  Seems those are left at the publisher's door because she's got another "for life" book in the works with her new husband, Rock.   I suppose we should be amazed at her remarkable 7 year comeback that has rejuvenated her, right?   Let's get real here folks!  But at least she looks the part to sell a book like Young for Life which is more than I can say for many advocates of eating a particular way.  

Gotta love it though!  Easy, check!  Effortless, check!   Yes, you too can look like this when pushing 70 ......

I'll spare you the exhibitionist pics, you can go look for those yourselves if you want to see Rockie and Marilyn in their undies. 

Anyway, I guess there are many outside this community peddling BS too.  Is that comforting?