 By David Otto
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The Diet Center Approach: Why It Seems To "Work"
She's heard the ads on the radio, seen them in the newspaper and even on T.V. "Lose Weight Fast." "Lose Weight Like Magic." "Lose Up To Twenty Pounds In One Month." For about two weeks she repeatedly sees the ads for this one particular diet center…so much so that she believes God is sending her a sign. "Donna, you need to lose weight…about 50 pounds of weight." She knows she needs to but hasn't had much success in the past so she's hesitant to start another diet. But this time this one is different; she can have chocolate cake.
Donna finally makes the trip to the diet center and speaks with one of their "highly knowledgeable diet counselors" and after a brief analysis the diet counselor determines that she's taking in about 2800 Calories a day and determines that they are going to drop her down to 1200 Calories a day. Donna leaves the diet center with her 1200 Calorie meal plan, a few shakes she had to purchase that are part of the plan and is fired up about losing weight. This time her hopes are really high that this will be the solution.
After the first week Donna makes her way to that almighty progress tool in her bathroom which happens to tell her she's lost 5 pounds. She's elated and says "the diet's working!" Even her friends at work notice something different about her. As the next few weeks go by Donna continues to lose weight leaving her excited that this diet is the solution. However, after about six weeks she goes through her morning ritual of allowing the almighty progress tool to tell her how she looks and feels but this time it doesn't have anything nice to say. She hasn't lost any weight this week and feels a bit frustrated.
Donna decides to head back to the diet center to break the news to the diet counselor but immediately she is put at ease. "Don't worry Donna you've just hit a plateau that's all." As if it's scientifically meaningful. Then the counselor tells Donna they are going to cut her back to 1000 Calories per day and she hands her a 1000 Calorie meal plan and reduced calorie shakes as opposed the ones she was drinking before.
Sure enough, "it worked." She lost another 2 pounds but this time it wasn't that easy. Donna had cut out a lot of her favorite foods from her diet (except the chocolate cake) and those voices inside her head are really starting to get loud now. "Pizza, cookies, pop tarts, hot dogs." She's having cravings for all of these foods but because she thinks the cravings are "bad" she summons up a little more willpower and fights them off.
Then it finally happens. She cracks. The cravings are just too much so she decides that she's been good for 8 weeks now and she deserves at least a little treat. She buy's a tub of Ben and Jerry's and tells her self out loud that she'll only have two bites. Once that first bite hits her tongue there's this sudden rush of euphoria that goes straight to her brain. "YES! FOOD IS HERE!" She takes the second bite and gets the same feeling. "This is SOOOOOOO good she says." Then what ends up happening is what all too many dieters are familiar with: THE BINGE. Donna eats the whole tub of ice cream, then orders a pizza and eats a few cookies. She "blew it." She "blew the diet" and now she feels awful for doing so. She tries to convince herself that she'll get back on the diet the next day but that doesn't happen. She's right back to her old habits and before she knows it she's gained all the weight back. She wasn't perfect; she couldn't stick to it and she firmly knows (she does not think) that she just didn't have the willpower. She BLAMES HERSELF! She thought she was doing the right things to lose weight but couldn't stick with it…but you know what "it did work."
The Pitfalls Of Calorie Deprivation (Even if you can have chocolate cake)
Donna believed the cravings she was having were mainly due to a lack of willpower and I'm here to tell you that willpower have very little to do with it. Everything that was happening to Donna that caused her to cave in and "blow it" were a result of Calorie Deprivation and it was her body's physiological response to a dramatic reduction in Caloric intake below what was needed to sustain basic metabolic function.
When Donna first got on the scale and it told her she lost five pounds she didn't just lose fat, she lost two other things. The first was mostly water which is meaningless in the pursuit of long term weight loss but a great psychological trick to help you believe "it's working." The second and most detrimental was muscle tissue. I'll explain why in a minute.
Donna's body was ignorant to what she was trying to do to it. She knew she was trying to lose weight but her body saw it as something else: STARVATION. When Donna's body sensed a dramatic reduction in Calories the primary thing it wanted to do was slow down metabolic activity so she could conserve fuel. Why? So she can live! It's a protective mechanism that's been around since the dawn of time. The first thing her body did to "slow things down" was back off on thyroid hormone production which happen to be metabolic regulators.
This period of starvation was quite a stressful time for Donna's body so in addition, her adrenal glands began to crank out more of the hormone called cortisol. In this situation cortisol acts as a catabolic (to break down) hormone that's secreted to break down muscle tissue. Why? Because muscle is metabolically active tissue a.k.a. it burns Calories and it's the largest calorie burning furnace in the body. Since her body sensed starvation it needed to get rid of what it saw to be a Calorie burning liability and use it as fuel. Because she was losing muscle her body could now live off of fewer and fewer Calories and in conjunction with a drop in thyroid hormone production she could live off fewer still. Things were slowing down.
But that has nothing to do with the cravings right? Well, those cravings were actually a result of neurotransmitters in the brain (i.e. serotonin being one of them) sending her to quick sources of energy namely sugar and enriched carbohydrates (remember the ice cream). Why? Her body was telling her to "get to food you ignorant moron you're straving!" Sugar and enriched carbohydrates are quick sources of energy and it was her body needing energy to get out and find food. Another protective mechanism by the way. She needed to get out and find the source of food she could live off of the longest and that was fat and when that food hit her taste buds it was an almost instantaneous signal to the brain that screamed "FOOD IS HERE, PREPARE FOR STORAGE," which leads me to my next point. But first, does this make sense? If not I'll break it down really simple at the end. I tend to get a little technical at times but after reading this you should be pretty well informed as to what happens when you go on pretty much any diet that has you restrict Calories.
Okay, in preparing Donna's body for fuel storage in the form of fat her adipose cells began cranking out more of an enzyme called lipoprotein lipase (LPL) into the blood stream. When Donna began to eat all of that junk food again her body rapidly converted all of that sugar and enriched carbs into triglycerides as a result of extremely high insulin levels and LPL began to break them down so they could get sent to her fat cells for storage. Funny thing is that LPL output increases in response to elevated cortisol and insulin levels. Again, this is nothing more than a protective mechanism so you can live longer during states of reduced food intake.
Now here's the short version of why Donna "blew it" and gained all of the weight back. Neurotransmitters drove her to the quickest source of energy (sugar) and the source of energy she could live off of the longest (fat) a.k.a. junk food Her body altered endocrine function (reduction in thyroid hormone), it lost muscle tissue (further slowing thing down) and it altered her hormonal environment to the point that her body's ability to burn fat was severely compromised and it was much, much better at storing fat. She programmed her body to get really good at storing fat!
IT WASN'T HER FAULT! It was the diet that did this to her. Unfortunately Donna and millions of other Americans have themselves convinced that the diet "worked." Look folks, it didn't "work!" If it did you would have got a lasting result. This is how the diet industry succeeds monetarily because it fails people, has them believe "it worked" in the past, and when people get over the guilt of "blowing it" they'll go right back to the approach that failed them before whether it be the same diet or another one. Granted, you will get a small handful of success stories but this is far from what the majority of people will experience.
I know I should stop here but I have to tell you about a conversation I had with one of these "diet counselors" or "nutrition consultants" as they're sometimes called. She worked for the City of Angels Weight Loss (name withheld but you're smart so I'm sure you'll figure it out). Before I went into my little spiel she told me that her clients do fine at first but then almost always they gain the weight back. I explained to her in a tactful manner exactly what you've just read and it was like a wrecking ball was shattering her whole belief system. She knew I was right and it made sense but told me she didn't want to hear anymore (half joking with her hands over her ears). She even got her boss on the phone and told her that I'll end up ruining the company. I very seriously doubt that.
I never told this woman she was wrong because she herself didn't even understand why her clients were failing. She too believed it was due to a lack of willpower, not the approach that was being used. This particular center told people that they didn't even need to exercise and what a great marketing hook that is. The point is this: it's hard to win a battle or convince someone that has false beliefs. That's why when I actually spoke to the manager of the diet center (because the counselor put me on the phone with her) I didn't say anything that would have caused a conflict. It takes time to pull false beliefs out especially if they've been rooted in their head for quite some time.
The number one reason people fail to get a fitness or weight loss result is because they are MISLED. That's all. The true key to getting a lasting result is SYNERGY: The Right Nutrition, Moderate Aerobic Exercise and A Concern For Muscle. All three components have to be there in a synergistic fashion for long term, ongoing results to occur. The goal of weight loss through eating should focus on boosting metabolism, not to bring it to a screeching halt through deprivation. I hope this information has at least opened your eyes to what happens when you go on a diet…and I mean pretty much all of them. Choose To Diet, Choose To Fail…But It Won't Be Your Fault.
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