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There are 3 main problems with popular diet programs, all of which occur because they do not follow the basics of nutrition science.
- They are concerned with reducing weight rather than the correct approach of losing bodyfat.
- They strip off vital muscle which is the major body component that burns fat in the first place.
- They take off weight far too fast, thereby throwing the body into a defensive, fat preserving condition.
The true purpose of weight reduction is to dispose only of excess bodyfat while retaining your muscle and body water, yet virtually none of the current commercial programs make any attempt to differentiate between these weight components.
Some programs are even designed to partially dehydrate participants so as to show quick success. Any high school wrestler can tell you how to lose 5pounds of water in two days, by stopping drinking, sitting in the sauna, or taking diuretic drugs/foods such as melon and black coffee. But such tactics only stimulate the body to produce more anti-diuretic hormone, which causes it to grab every drop of water and more, as soon as you take a hearty drink. Any athlete will tell you, dehydration decimates health and performance.
Muscle loss is even worse. Nutritionists have known for decades that on low calorie diets of 800-1200 calories per day, up to 45% of the weight lost comes from the body cannibalising its own muscle tissue.
Since the mid 80’s we have had a lot of models coming to the Colgan Institute for programs. In vain attempts to look toned and thin without doing the necessary resistance exercise, many of these women exist on 500-800 calories a day - they lose most of their muscle. They look slim, but measure up to 30% bodyfat. Technically they are obese! Muscle is hard won and easily lost. No one can afford to lose an ounce of it.
Retaining muscle is also essential to losing bodyfat. Bodyfat itself has very low metabolic activity. It burns few calories. Muscle is the furnace in which bodyfat is burned. The less muscle you have, the lower your basal metabolic rate, and the harder it is to lose fat. Any diet program that reduces muscle is a recipe for failure.
The next big problem with commercial diets is that they stimulate the body to accumulate the fat again once you stop. It happens like this. Because of public preference and patronage for programs claiming quick results, in order to compete in the marketplace, companies set calorie levels far too low. (800-1200 calories)
Under eating to this extent causes rapid fat loss, (and muscle loss) the body recognizes the fat loss as an attack on its energy reserve and immediately takes all sorts of defensive action. Two of these defences combine to decimate your efforts to keep the fat off.
First, your body increases the quantity and activity of an enzyme called lipoprotein lipase, the main enzyme it uses to collect and store fat. Second, it slows your basal metabolic rate, further reducing your ability to burn fat.
The lipoprotein lipase activity and the reduced metabolic rate continue for weeks after you stop the diet, because the body has a memory for exactly how much fat you had and wants it back. So it grabs every molecule of fat you eat, even at the expense of bodily need for energy.
The net result is the post diet fatigue and ravenous appetite that quickly returns every ounce of flab thought to have lost, plus a little more for “insurance.”
When Oprah Winfrey wheeled that cart on stage with 60lbs of fat to show what she had lost, I bet $100 that she would regain it in a year. I won.
Even the rich and famous fall victim to the frauds of commercial weight loss.
Please don’t follow commercial diets or popular diet books. If you do, your quest for looking lean, toned, and healthy will be cut short.
Source: Colgan, M. Optimum Sports Nutrition. (1993)
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