They Said It on TV, So It Must Be True

Posted by admin - April 11th, 2008

Lose 30 pounds in 30 days! Lose the weight without the effort!
Eat anything you want, and still lose weight!

Everywhere you look - magazine covers, print ads, radio, TV
infomercials, the internet - headlines like those above,
promoting the latest weight loss sensation, abound. They are
impossible to avoid. Whether it is for the latest diet craze,
magic pill, or infomercial gadget, we are inundated with a large
daily dose of weight-loss-made-easy promises. And these ads
obviously work, as the American Obesity Association estimates
that American consumers spend over $30 billion per year trying
to lose weight. Some estimates even put the figure higher, at
over $50 billion.

Every day, in the quest to achieve the results claimed in the
ads, people question which of these diets, supplements, or
gadgets really work the best. It is a question that can best be
answered with another question: If any of these products or
diets really worked, why is it that, according to the Center for
Disease Control, currently 65% of adults in this country are
overweight? The truth is, while the ads work wonderfully, the
products do not. Let’s face it, if any of them did what the ads
claim, nobody would be fat! We would all just pop a pill, or
stop eating bagels, or use Suzanne Somers’ latest gizmo for just
7 minutes a day, then run out and buy smaller clothes. Have you
ever stopped to wonder why all of the “After” pictures in those
ads have “Results not typical” stamped on them in really small
print?

If these products do not work, why do we spend billions of
dollars on them every year? There are a number of reasons, and
some of the main reasons combine to create a very compelling
force which drives people to make emotional spending decisions,
when logic would dictate that they should know better.

* Overweight people have often tried dozens of different weight
loss programs and some become desperate for a solution. * People
want to hear that there is hope. * Very clever marketing, often
disguised as science, reaches these people with the offer of
that hope. * Given that most people do not understand the
science behind how the body works, they are willing to believe
that this deceptive marketing actually is based in science, and
the hope they desire can be theirs for just 3 easy payments of
$39.95.

We are a society that wants instant gratification, and with a
simple phone call and our credit card number, that weight loss
is just a new, exciting miracle pill or best-selling diet book
away.

Sadly, the only thing consumers are losing is money. Let’s focus
on the myriad of fad diets out there. Many of you will think I
am crazy for saying this, but for the vast majority of people
looking for long term fat loss, health, and fitness, diets
simply do not work. Regardless of which book you run out and
buy, in most cases calorie restricted diets, while showing short
term weight loss on the bathroom scale, in the long term will
lead to a slower metabolism and greater body fat than the dieter
started with.

Think about it. We all know someone on a diet. How many of those
people are dieting for the first time? Probably very few. Who
doesn’t know a dieter who can list all of the ‘great’ diets he
has been on? “Oh, in ‘89 I lost 23 pounds on the Cambridge Diet,
then in ‘92 I lost 27 pounds on the Scarsdale Diet, in ‘95 I
lost 30 pounds on that grapefruit diet, I did The Zone in 2000
and lost 16 pounds, then in ‘02 I did great and lost 24 pounds
on Atkins, but now I think I’m going to do the South Beach Diet
because I need to lose some weight.”

One more diet and this person should weigh about 34 pounds. The
unfortunate truth is that just about every time someone attempts
weight loss with a diet based on calorie deprivation, they will
end up gaining back the weight they lost, and then some. Low
carb, low fat, nothing but grapefruit…. It does not matter what
kind of diet you choose, because behind the marketing hype, they
generally all have one thing in common: The dieter is
restricting calorie intake. A quick science lesson is needed to
understand how our bodies react to a calorie restricted diet.
First, when a dieter severely cuts back on their caloric intake,
especially by cutting out carbs, they will quickly deplete their
glycogen stores. What is glycogen? Well, when carbohydrates are
ingested, they break down into sugars that are transported by
the bloodstream and stored in the muscles and liver as glycogen.
Glycogen is one of the main energy sources used by our bodies.
An important fact to know is that every gram of glycogen stored
in our muscles stores approximately 2.4 grams of water with it.
So, by restricting carbs and depleting muscle glycogen, the
dieter also releases a lot of water. This is one of the main
reasons the scale will show a large loss of weight when one
initially goes on a diet. Unfortunately, the goal should be to
lose fat, not water which the body needs.

Next, the body does not know why it is suddenly getting less
food, so a million years or so of evolution kick in and direct
it to go into famine survival mode. Fat is the body’s long term
survival energy source, so it decides that it must conserve fat
to survive. That is probably not what you were hoping to hear,
but unfortunately that is the way it works. In order to make up
the deficit in available energy sources brought on by the diet,
the body begins to break down muscle to use as an energy source.
Another important science nugget to know is that muscle is
metabolically active tissue and fat is not. In other words,
muscle burns calories throughout the day, while fat just sits
there. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn,
even if you are just sitting on the couch. Of course, as we just
discovered, the dieter is losing muscle due to the calorie
restricted diet, so he is now actually burning fewer calories
throughout the day. Again, looking to survive the perceived
famine, the body becomes more efficient at storing fat and
slowing down its metabolism to adjust to the lack of food coming
in. Haven’t we all heard someone complain that no matter how
much they diet, they cannot lose weight because they are the
victim of a slow metabolism? The reality is that, for the vast
majority of people, we are the CREATORS of our metabolism, NOT
the victims of it. Now the body has slowed down it’s metabolism
to the point where the dieter stops losing weight. The usual
reaction is to cut calories back even further. Of course, as we
now understand, this only compounds the problem as more muscle
will be broken down, further hindering the body’s ability to
burn calories throughout the day. Diets based on calorie
deprivation usually are not sustainable for the long term, and
eventually the dieter becomes discouraged and returns to their
pre-diet eating routine. Unfortunately, this person has slowed
down their metabolism significantly and is burning fewer
calories than they were pre-diet. So, when they go back to their
old eating habits, the weight comes right back on and it comes
back as fat, not as the muscle that they lost. If they started
out at 200 lbs with 25% body fat and lost 15 lbs during the
diet, when they gain the weight back and hit 200 lbs again,
their body fat percentage will now probably be closer to 30%!
This is an illustration of a term most people are familiar with,
yo-yo dieting, and it is why surveys show that over 80% of
people who lose weight by dieting alone say that they gained
back all of the weight they lost, if not more, within a year.
Does this mean that people should just give up trying to lose
weight? Not at all. It just means people need to stop looking
for the next quick fix diet that comes down the road. Nobody
wants to hear that it takes actual effort to lose weight, but I
am sorry to say that it does. It should say something that the
obesity rate in this country continues to climb while all of the
diet gurus out there rake in millions from innocent people
looking for a solution. Obviously, reasons for being overweight
vary, and every individual responds in a unique way to a weight
loss program. But, for true long term fat loss and improved
overall health and fitness, there are some common sense truths:
* A need to eat a balanced diet containing complex
carbohydrates, lean proteins, and essential fats. Avoid highly
processed carbohydrates, excess sugars, and excess saturated
fats. * Eating smaller, more frequent meals throughout the day
is better than eating 2 or 3 larger meals. You will have more
energy throughout the day, and your body will burn calories more
efficiently. * Performing moderate aerobic activity provides
many benefits including improved cardiorespiratory function,
improved endurance, lower blood pressure, and improved
cholesterol to name a few. * In addition to aerobic activity,
people should perform resistance training to maintain or
increase lean muscle mass. As we have learned, maintaining our
muscles mass is critical in driving our metabolism and the key
to losing not just body weight, but body fat. Keep these points
in mind the next time you hear about the latest ‘miracle’ or
‘breakthrough’ diet and you will be on your way to losing
pounds, and not just your money.