Diets
The Good, The Bad, and The Dangerous
Science Weighs In
by Katherine Tallmadge
Spend some time in the book store or just plug the word “diet” into your search engine and you’ll be overwhelmed by the thousands of diet books and theories out there. How in the world can you evaluate which diets offer substance and which ones provide a large dose of snake oil? What’s the best way to lose weight while not damaging your health? More importantly, which diet will be most effective at weight loss, but will also enhance your health and provide you with a game plan you can stay with over the long haul?
I’d like to give you a primer of popular diets, such as The Atkins Diet, that will help you evaluate any diet you may come across. First, before embarking on any diet, it would be very helpful to answer these questions:
Katherine’s Diet Primer
1. Will the diet work for you and your lifestyle? Is it individualized to take into account your personal history, family background and special nutritional and exercise needs?
For a diet to work and last, it needs to complement you, your personality and lifestyle. For example, if you’re constantly traveling, you can’t be expected to cook all your meals at home. If you enjoy cooking, you should be able to continue feeding yourself and your family meals everyone enjoys.
2. Does the diet advocate a balance and variety of foods?
Variety is the spice of life. If your diet forbids entire food groups, life can become pretty grim. In addition to the nutritional imbalances you would suffer, can you imagine a life permanently devoid of breads, ice cream or all of your favorite foods?
3. Is the diet based on up-to-date and scientifically credible research that validates it will improve your health rather than damage it.
The scientific community, while flawed, works hard at performing fair and valid studies which shed light on how to prevent and cure the day’s most important problems. We’ve learned a lot over the past century of nutritional research with some recommendations fairly well-established and proven and others still elusive. If your diet isn’t supported by the majority of the scientific establishment and peer-reviewed medical journals, I would go back to the drawing board.
4. Does the diet promote a positive attitude toward food and eating?
Eating is one of the pleasures of life and that enjoyment need not be lost or compromised just because you want to lose weight. You can continue to enjoy great food while shedding unwanted pounds.
5. Does the diet promise quick results - a loss of more than 2 pounds per week - that might destabilize your metabolism?
Studies show the body can only metabolize about 1/2 to 1 pound of fat per week. If you’re losing faster than that, you’re risking valuable water and muscle loss. Also, the diet is probably too rigid to stick with for long. If the diet is too low in calories, you are risking lowering your body’s metabolism rate, which will make losing weight and maintaining it more and more impossible as time goes by.
6. Does the diet require exercise or physical activity?
If there’s one thing that scientists broadly agree on, it is that physical activity is necessary for health, healthy weight loss and life long maintenance. If you’re losing weight without exercise, chances are your diet’s calorie level is too low and studies show you won’t be able to maintain that loss.
7. Does the diet require special packaged foods, liquid or herbal supplements or megadoses of vitamins and minerals?
Studies show whatever you do to lose weight is something you’ll have to continue if you want to keep it off. Unrealistic plans which include pre-packaged foods or megadoses of supplements probably are not something that can stick with permanently. It’s more realistic to find a diet which includes real food at every meal, as opposed to meal replacements. You like to eat, don‘t you?
8. Does the diet have a scientifically established track record of success that has been demonstrated over time?
Losing weight is not rocket science. Everyone knows if you simply eat less, you‘ll lose weight. But keeping the weight off over time - even many years - requires different skills and a careful approach. Be sure the diet you’re following follows the tenets established by good science to be successful long term.
9. Does the diet have unacceptable side affects?
If you’re tired and your health is worsening, this isn’t the diet for you. Put simply, you don’t have to be miserable to lose weight.
I believe there are healthier, more positive and fun ways to lose weight!
Diet Simple makes weight loss individualized and painless. I know this may sound surprising. Most people believe that in order to achieve big results, you have to do something radical. But the truth is, study after study shows it’s the small, easy changes you make in eating that have the most dramatic and lasting results. And, I believe, the radical diets actually backfire and don’t produce results. If they produce anything, it’s eating disorders, feelings of deprivation and depression, and demoralizing yo-yo’ing weight.
During the past twenty years as a weight loss counselor, I’ve witnessed the joy, surprise and relief of my clients as they learned that losing weight my way is an easy and positive experience. My clients and I have discovered that losing weight doesn’t have to be a frustrating, angst-ridden chore, like the dozens - even hundreds - of diet plans touted on television and in magazines. But nearly every one of those "diets" results in yo-yo gains and losses, slowing your metabolism and making you heavier than ever before. They’re depressing, depriving and they leave you lifeless, denied of vital energy.
My clients also experience dramatic improvements in their health - and that's without a depressing radical diet! They achieve improvements in Diabetes (meds cut in half within one month), 50 - 100 - point drops in bad cholesterol (LDL) within two months, dramatic drops in triglycerides with a corresponding increase of good cholesterols (HDL), disappearing constipation, heartburn and other gastrointestinal complaints, profound increases in energy and well-being.
Regularly, I hear, "This is easier and more positive than I ever imagined weight loss could be!" And that's music to my ears.
Copyright by Katherine Tallmadge 2002
|
