The real story - Fad Diets!

According to Family Doctor.org, "A fad diet is a weight loss plan or aid that promises dramatic results. These diets don't offer long-term success, and they are usually not very healthy. Some of them can actually be dangerous to your health."

The American Heart Association says "Quick-weight-loss diets usually overemphasize one particular food or type of food. They violate the first principle of good nutrition: Eat a balanced diet that includes a variety of foods." and "These diets also violate a second important principle of good nutrition: Eating should be enjoyable. These diets are so monotonous and boring that it's almost impossible to stay on them for long periods."

The University of Colorado webpage has his to say ""crash" diets often send dieters into a cycle of quick weight loss followed by a "rebound" weight gain once normal eating resumes. Only 5 percent of dieters actually keep weight off in the long run. "

The best way to lose weight and keep it off is sensible portion and calorie control and exercise.  These changes have to be made for life, not just for a short period of time.  We need to fuel our bodies to lose fat and not muscle tissue.

This article, The Skinny on Fat , states "Let's say you really want to lose fat, and decide to jog first thing in the morning, on an empty stomach. "The easiest way to get energy is to break down muscle mass," Benardot says. Your body can convert specific amino acids the building blocks of muscle to glucose, the sugar that powers human activity. "Someone running before eating may actually be breaking down the very tissue he's trying to improve. Sounds counterproductive to me."

Call it the "muscle loss" diet."

This flies in the face of the old advice to eat less and lose weight.  It explains why restricted calorie diets seldom work for long.  The article is long, but well worth reading!

The Heart & Stroke Foundation, in Canada, says this

"Physiologically. Severe calorie-reduced diets turn on the body?s starvation mechanism. When in starvation mode, the body uses whatever fuel it can to make up for the shortfall of calories and doesn?t discriminate between muscle and fat. The trouble is, it?s the amount of muscle we have that determines our calorie-burning potential, also known as our metabolism. So when we lose muscle we make it extremely difficult to maintain our healthy weight after the diet is over."

This advice is repeated by one after another of the most respected organizations, medical centers and educational institutions.   

Another interesting article

Obesity at 700 Calories a Day, is an interesting study of a typical scenario - an overweight person who eats very little most of the time and can't seem to lose weight.  The author describes how a woman eating 700 to 800 calories a day, interspersed with days when she eats more (bold type is mine)

"Not only has her metabolism matched her intake, her body has maximized production of enzymes that are designed to help store any additional calories as fat. Anytime additional, immediately-unnecessary calories are consumed the enzymes are there and waiting to store the additional calories as fat. Her body is starved"

The University of Wisconsin Health Services repeats most of this advice

It has this to say about the nutritional value of fad diets in general

"Very low calorie diets that do not include exercise cause the body to become less efficient at burning fat, making it easier to store fat. This means most people on very low calorie diets regain all the weight they lost and possibly more. By following these diets your body will undergo deficiencies, and will not have enough calcium, fiber, and vitamins or minerals essential for good health. You may also lose muscle mass."
 

The University of Pittsburgh, published this information for patients at the medical center. http://patienteducation.upmc.com/Pdf/FadDiets .pdf

How to determine fact from fad

To determine if a diet is a fad diet, ask yourself

these questions:

? Does the diet promise quick weight loss?

? Does the diet sound too good to be true?

? Does the diet help sell a company?s product?

? Does the diet lack valid scienti.c research

to support its claims?

? Does the diet give lists of "good" and "bad"

foods?

If you can answer "yes" to any or all of these

questions, the diet is probably a fad diet.

Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine

This webpage has an excellent chart showing the nutritional deficiences of popular diets.

For instance, high protein & fat, low carb diets such as Atkins, The Zone, Sugar Busters & Protein Power were shown to be "Low in several nutrients:Vitamins A, B6, D, E, thiamin, folate, calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, potassium and dietary fiber. This type of diet also contains excess amounts of total fat, saturated fat and dietary cholesterol. Nutritional supplementation is highly recommended."

Low fat diets such as Volumetrics, Dean Ornish, Pritikin, etc, are "Deficient in zinc and vitamin B12 due to infrequent meat consumption. Additionally, this type of diet can be inadequate in vitamin E, a nutrient found in oils, nuts and other foods rich in fat."

*bump*

Healing Well.com - this webpage breaks down nutritional needs.  Written for doctors to pass on to their patients, it has this to say...

"This simple but effective advice is based on the recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005 published by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture:

• Eat at least 5 servings a day of vegetables and 4 servings of fruits
• Eat few simple carbohydrates, such as sugar, white flour, and white rice
• Focus on complex carbohydrates, such as unrefined whole-wheat bread, brown rice, and beans
• Choose whole grains over processed cereals; eat 6 oz per day, including 3 oz of whole grains and 3 oz of other grains
• Add fiber to your diet
• Strive for 3 daily servings of dairy
• Decrease saturated fats and trans fats by eating more fish (at least twice a week) and less red meat.11  "

bump

Too much good info to let this fall away.

Detox Diets and Cleansing Diets and Regimens

I'm in the process of gathering as much information about these as I can.  So far, all the reputable medical and scientific sources say that they are of no use in weight managment. Some may cause imbalances in the body's electolytes, dehydration and damage to the intestinal tract. 

Anecdotal stories from people who have tried them report feeling "better".  Some scientists say that euphoria is a symptom of the body trying to adjust to sudden changes in diet.

Stay tuned for more specific information.

Here's what the world famous Mayo Clinic says about detox diets in general

Detox Diets

Here's an article from the another source about the use of herbal laxatives

Herbal Products

And a quote from this article:

"Laxatives: Dulling Down the GI Tract First, and most importantly, laxatives do not really cause the loss of significant amounts of food or help in weight loss. They do cause dehydration and reflex fluid retention. Therefore, laxative use is an ineffective weight-control technique and can be dangerous." 

"A number of these herbs contain ingredients that act by irritating the lining of the intestines or by directly stimulating the nerves; over time and with overstimulation, the bowel becomes nonresponsive. Laxatives often contain stimulants such as bisacodyl, cascara sagrada, or senna. Bisacodyl can lead to stomach irritation, cramping, and loss of fluids and electrolytes. Cascara sagrada can cause severe vomiting, electrolyte imbalance when abused, and loss of potassium which can make certain diuretics more toxic. Finally, senna can cause abdominal cramps, nausea, increase mucus secretion, and eventually help lead to reduced bowel function."

The Dangers of Colon Cleansing

quotes from the above article:

"The bottom line? It's a waste of time and money. It won't prevent colon cancer - or any other diseases for that matter. In fact, colon cleansing may even hurt you."

"Holistic practitioners believe the colon is a sewage system and if it's not kept clean, waste products won't be cleared out and toxic substances will be absorbed into the body. They believe that the typical person may have as many as several pounds of fecal matter in their colon, which causes mucus to build up and harden on colon walls.

Science says this is not true. Your colon knows how to do its job, constantly shedding old cells, absorbing nutrients and keeping a delicate balance of bacteria and natural chemicals. Interfering with this process can hurt or destroy these relationships, meaning the colon won't work as well as it should. Colon cleansing is unnecessary, and medical doctors do not advise you to do this."

The bottom line:

Adam, Eve, Moses, Noah...NONE of them ever needed to diet.

Why? Because they ate a diet, given to them by God and not screwed up by Man! I mean the food was already perfect. So who had the bright idea to process, strip, refine, bleach and do all these other things to PERFECT FOOD? Man (and woman).

Time to get back to the basics. Eat more foods in their most natural state. STOP eating all these foods our bodies weren't designed to ingest and we'll lose weight. And wow...how much better you'll feel too!

Oh yeah...don't forget to throw in some exercise too! lol

Chubby

Very good info!  Good reminders that trying to lose weight with anything other than old fashioned diet and exercise are dangerous and harmful.  Thanks for sharing clairelane!!

Thank you!  I was beginning to think that no one was reading this.  I'll be adding to it as I find more information.

Why is it that so many reputable sources of medical information give advice not to follow fad diets, and this information is readily available (i.e. RIGHT HERE), and yet so many people in these very same forums still want to know if the Cabbage Soup Diet (or the Grapefruit Diet, et cetera) "works"?  Yes, it "works" in that your scale reading goes down, but this is only beneficial if your goal is to shed a whole bunch of fluids while not burning any fat... anyway, thanks to clairelaine for putting this all in such an accessible format!

Thanks Clairelaine!  There are some really good articles and links in this thread.

I'm glad it's a slow day at work and I'm able to browse through all this info. I've got a friend who is obese and seems to try and starve herself to deal with it. That article "Obesity at 700 Calories a Day" hit her problem bang on...and I've forwarded it to her in the hopes that she'll see that I'm not trying to sabatoge her efforts to lose weight by encouraging her to eat more.

Excellent posts...  to be honest, it is exactly what I needed to read right now.  I am doing really well with my diet currently, but am going to a reunion soon.  I was thinking of doing one of those 10 day cleansing diets to shed a few extra pounds quickly.

Seem like it will do more harm than good!

Thanks for your hard work clairelaine. I know it took time to research all these things, and we do appreciate you for it!
*hug*