Popular Diets

"The American woman cure-all. The Diet. Being thin means being happy. Diets don't work. If they did, binges wouldn't exist. Diets can't work they create in you a desire  of what you can't have. If you weren't obsessed with food before you dieted, you are by the time you finish."
                                                           -Geneen Roth



Here is a list of things I learned about some of the most popular diets.



Low Calorie Diets:

• If you don't eat enough food we set off a biological reaction that turns on our eating drive both physically and psychologically.
• Because eating enough food is essential for the survival of the species, it does not matter how much will power your have, you are most likely to give in to hunger.
• Restricting or fasting is exceptionally damaging to control appetite. This causes the neurochemicals switches in our brains to induce us to eat.
• Food restriction is counter productive. Not just because of your brain chemistry which will induce you to eat, but it slows down your metabolism, your physical energy is low, affects your moods and your state of mind.
• Even if you use all your will power to restrict your eating, your body still needs energy to function. Therefore it will start to cannabalize on itself. Taking nutrients from muscles and vital organs. This is why people think they have lost fat weight. But actually they lost muscle or water weight.
• These diets are correlated with causing eating disorders. Please see my article Dieting Facts for more information.

No Carb or Low Carb Diets:

• Carbohydrates is the preffered source of energy of our body. Just ask athletes what their primary source of energy is.
• Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is a chemical produced by our brain which triggers our desire to eat carbohydrates. If you are undernourished, which low calorie diets cause, NPY is driven into action. This is why people go into carbohydrate binges.It is not lack of willpower it is your biology.
• In times of stress or when using more fuel (such as intense exercising),  the brain makes more  NPY. When you eat carbohydrates NPY is turned off. Carbohydrates help produce serotonin which turns off the production of NPY. Which then turns off the desire for carbohydrates.
• Our desire for carbohydrates is triggered when we eat low calorie diets because of the importance of carbohydrates to provide food energy. Cells function best when they receive a certain level of carbohydrates in the form of glucose. Red blood cells rely exclusively on glucose for fuel. Some of it is stored in the liver for only a few hours to provide the required glucose needed for the blood when the supply is low. The only way to refill the fuel reserve in the liver is to eat.
• When you do not eat enough carbohydrates the body has to look for other ways to supply the vital energy so it takes it from the muscles. The protein in the muscles will be taken apart and converted into energy, primarily in the form of glucose.
• High protein diets do not prevent the occurance of muscle dismantling. Protein is needed to maintain and build muscles, hormones, enzynes, and cells in the body. When carbohydrates and energy are low, the protein is shifted from the primary role to provide fuel.
• It is a false belief that if the body is low on fuel then fat will be burned off.  See the following information from nutritionists Evelyn Tribole M.S.,.R.D. and Elyse Resch M.S., R.D.

            "One of the reasons people lose weight so quickly on low-carbohydrate or fasting diets is that they are devouring their own protein tissues as fuel. Since protein contains only half as many calories per pound as fat, it disappears twice as fast. With each pound of body protein, three or four pounds of water weight are lost. If your body were to continue to consume itself at this rate, death would occur within ten days. After all, the liver, heart muscle and lung tissue-all vital tissues-are being burned as fuel. Even when the heart muscle is deteriotating, it still has to keep up the same amount of work, with less power and slower heart rate.  In essence, the cannabalizing heart muscle has to work harder with a smaller faulty engine; pumping performance is not reduced in proportion to the amount of heart tissue lost.

           Eventually, the body can convert stored fat to a form of usable energy for the brain and nervous system called ketones.The process is known as ketosis. Ketosis is an adaptation to a prolonged fasting or carbohydrate deprivation. But only half  of the brain's cells can use these compunds of energy. Therefore, when fat is being used under these deprivation conditions, the body's lean tissue (protein) continues to be lost at a rapid rate in order to supply glucose to nervous system cells that cannot use ketones as fuel. The bottom line? Adequate carbohydrates and energy are important!"    



Liquid  Diets (examples: Slim-Fast or Herbalife)

• These diets have the same negative affects on the body, mind and emotions as the low carbohydrate and low calorie diets.
• The added consequence is that since you are only allowed one regular meal a day, you tend to overeat because you are ravenous by the time you get to eat your one meal.  Your mind is telling you to eat as much as possible because it will be the only real meal you will get.
• Liquid diets do not provide nearly enough fuel for people who are physically active. They do not even provide enough fuel for the people who are not.
• A few months ago, I found a book written by a woman who was a liquid diet expert for celebrities who developed a heart problem and required two emergency heart operations at a very young age (under 40 yrs. old). Since low calorie, no carbs, and liquid diets do not provide long lasting weight loss and result in yo-yo dieting, they are extremely dangerous to the heart. Diets are correlated with heart diseases and high blood pressure.  The woman did not mention in her book how her liquid diet might have caused her heart disease. However, I have done extensive research on heart health and the experts and doctors agree on how dangerous dieting, especially yo-yo dieting, is to the heart. It is quite possible that her own liquid diet caused her heart illness to develop. She did mention that doctors were astonished that she had heart disease because she does not fit the picture of a person who would develop heart problems.

Diets which exclude certain foods:

• These have become very popular recently. But it turns out that our bodies require all foods for one reason or another. Even sugar and some fats.
• The minute someone tells you that you can't have something you crave it more. This is another reason why these diets do not work. It has nothing to do with willpower it has to do with how our mind works when we feel we are "not allowed' to eat certain foods.
• People tend to develop feelings of deprivation for the food that is "not allowed". So when there is an opportunity to have some of it, they can't even have just a small portion, they end up binging on the food item that is "Not allowed" which messes up their dieting efforts. This reminds me of my childhood. My siblings and I were rarely allowed to have sweets. So the minute cookies or pie entered the house my siblings would devour it. By the time I felt like having some it was all gone. I remember one time when my cousin stayed overnight she asked, "Why doesn't your Lucky Charms cereal have any marshmallows?" The cereal was the only sweet item in the house. My brothers felt so deprived of sugar they'd  pick out the marshmallows from the box. In my own experience, I deprived myself of sweets when I was a young adult. Ironic isn't? I was deprived as a child then deprived myelf as an adult. Sweets was all I could think about. I did not trust myself with just having a little. Years later I finally stopped depriving myself of sweets and it turns out I really do not like them. On occasion I'll have a cookie just to prove to myself than I can, but I truthfully do not crave them. Now salty foods is a whole other story.

As I have mentioned on several of my other articles, diets do not work and are even dangerous. Not only do they negatively affect you psychologically, emotionally and biologically, but can also cause death. I wrote this article because if it wasn't for my heart issues I would not have become aware of the dangers with dieting and I am sure many people out there are not either. The diet gurus are not going to tell you that their diet is or could be dangerous to you. Their goal is to sell you their gimmicks regardless of what happens to you.

Also some people do not take the diet risks seriously anyway even when they are informed of the risks. If you pay attention to diet pills bottles they have a warning label on them and no one seems to be concerned.  They are still being sold. Years ago when I was a teen, a neighborhood friend was taken to the hospital in an ambulance because at the age of fifteen she had a heart attack do to taking diet pills. When Ana Nicole Smith died I wondered if it was because of the diet pills she was on. Yes she also took other drugs, but I read the labels on the diet pills she promoted and even though I was pretty ignorant at the time when it came to true health, I refrained from buying them -I got so scared.

I hope that by reading this article people stop taking these unecessary, counterproductive and extremely dangerous risks by dieting.  In the future I will be sharing with you healthy tips to help with weight loss. I am currently my own guinea pig so if it works I will give you the information.


"So why can't you stay on a diet? Because diets are not meant to stay on. Because diets are humiliating. Because they are built on deprivation. Because they teach you cannot be trusted. Because they usurp your private personal power: that of deciding what you will put into your own mouth, your body." -Geneen Roth