Is Dieting the Problem?

 

  Is Dieting the Problem? 

 The seasons are changing, and about this time of year, I see many clients who desire to lose weight. In so many words, "get their bikini body back."  The concept of dieting and how the metabolism works may be why you not losing weight.

Dieting is a million-dollar industry set up to fail, not for long-term sustainability. The latest static is that 97% of people regain weight within 3 years. That has to do with many factors; Metabolism is a sum of all its parts. My professor told me this once; I admit I was not fond of it, but it was true. "The diet you are currently doing is the one you are on." Diet" is what you eat daily. Most people do YO- YO or crash low-calorie diet/ crazy exercise mode and then eat whatever they want, wreaking havoc on their Metabolism. = total sum  0 loss or even ==+ gain

Let's start with the term metabolism is the total sum of our body's chemical process of building up and breaking down  "energy". This process happens continuously in our bodies ( all the time). We all have a basil metabolic rate. This is a caloric rate we need to function (essential calories to turn the lights on- just to lay in bed). For example, my Basil metabolic rate is appr 1220. From there, I add calories for Exercise, approximately 20% of my BMR, and 10% for NEAT and the thermic effect of the food. Which depending on the person, can range.

When dieting, most lose muscle, lowering their metabolic rate and Metabolism. If you go from a larger body to a small version of your body, this will happen even if done correctly. However, when done rapidly through starvation methods, the amount of Lean body mass is lost at a much greater rate. The metabolism often does not have time to recover before resuming old eating behavior and patterns.

Weight gain is often easily regained, and often more weight is added than when you initially started.  This has to do which leptin, ghrelin, and other hormones.  The YO- YO begins.  After several years, this pervasive story can lead to an adaptive metabolism. A woman came to me in their late 40s saying they could not lose weight anymore, eating 800kcal and doing an hour of cardio a day.

Crash or yo-yo dieting can also create other behaviors. When you go from starvation mode ( binge eating), you get hungry; this activates hormones you eat everything insight. New studies show we grow new fat cells. We are born with a set number of fat cell counts, and we are seeing with crash recent dieting studies showing an increase n fat cell count. Not only that, but crash dieting affects your microbiome as well. Studies now show your bacteria have more to do with the choices of food we eat than we initially thought. But there is hope the microbiome is adaptable, and in days, we will see the microbiome start to evolve and change to new foods.

Women have struggled with image and the pressure of society to be thin. I see it more in a woman, but it does happen in men; continuously dieting, your body will react brilliantly. People often think I will double down or do what worked once. Often, this is the exact thought that gets people into trouble. The body is a see-saw. One side goes down the other goes up. There has to be a balancing act.

Let's make this simple:

You can not lose weight and gain muscle (unless you are severely obese). You can, IN FACT, lose weight and not lose muscle. This will happen to everyone ( unless you are on steroids). You can gain muscle and strength and, most like, gain some weight and fat ( this is the art of gaining lean muscle mass). The truth is you can not burn fat and gain muscle simultaneously. This is very difficult ( there is some exception to the rule for this article I will not go into). Most do not know this, but you are either in two modes and do not plan in advance. You are is typically 2 methods of fat loss which means muscle loss or building muscle.

Now if you want a strong metabolism, you will need the muscle to burn calories.  The hard truth, looking fit takes work! No Quick fixes. I often explain to my client I plan my program two years in advance, with Periods of gaining muscle and periods of losing body fat. This may not be the lifestyle you are after, but either is constantly trying to lose weight and continue being dissatisfied with your body. There is another solution. If you are always burning your muscles without truly spending time building your muscles, you will constantly dig a hole. The problem is not the first time you have made this mistake or even the second time. This mistake happens about the 5th or 6th  when your muscle mass is 50% of your body, your calories are 1000kcal, and you are starving and doing five days of intense cardio. 

There is a twin study where one twin dieted and the other did not; the one that dieted had a higher body fat and lower BMR (Metabolism) and struggled with her weight. The twin that never dieted had a lower Body fat and was stable with healthy body fat and image.

This study is very telling to me; often, when we ( me too- this was my life) do these YO- YO diets, the diet is the issue affecting our Metabolism and microbiome. The approach I work primarily with my clients is a slow approach and correcting the engine; most find it complicated and are programmed to a quick fix and want the Western dieting approach.

The problem is more significant than what I see today. It's 10-20 years from now. Studies have shown our mortality rate is not diabetes or cancer. Those are major concerns for my clients and me, but falling. Muscles protect the skeleton, increased Metabolism, and have many health benefits. I recently heard a POD cast with Dr. Attia where he was talking about he had never met a 90 year who wished they had less muscle. I could not agree more with this statement. Science has demonstrated doing resistance training three days a week will minimize significant health issues and improve life quality.

Nothing that I have healed has happened to me overnight or quickly. Recovering my Metabolism after competing or my digestion. Both when a prolonged process. However, I knew that I had exhausted the other approaches. They didn't work. They made me sick.

I hope that those suffering find help and a solution to heal.

Pietiläinen, K.H. et al. (2011) “Does dieting make you fat? A twin study," International Journal of Obesity, 36(3), pp. 456–464. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2011.160.

Hartholt KA, Lee R, Burns ER, van Beeck EF. Mortality From Falls Among US Adults Aged 75 Years or Older, 2000-2016. JAMA. 2019;321(21):2131–2133. doi:10.1001/jama.2019.4185