Debunking Conventional Wisdom— Why Diet's Don't Work

A diet is any nutrition or lifestyle program that involves counting calories, blocks or points; packaged meals; quick fix pills, unreasonable reduction of caloric intake; starving or depriving yourself in any way—any nutrition program that is not clean, balanced, health enhancing, AND sustainable for the rest of your life. Examples include: Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, Phen-Fen, Atkins, Ornish, 12-week programs (e.g. Body for Life), and diet pills.

There are various reasons why diets do not work, the main reason being that they are not balanced. Our bodies need balance. Our bodies thrive on balance, and if we become out of balance, then our energy and health begins to suffer. Let's analyze some of the most popular diet programs today and why they are not sustainable for life.

High protein, high fat, very low carbohydrate diets (such the first phase of Atkins) put your body in a toxic state called ketosis . Ketone bodies, which your body uses as a secondary source of fuel when it is depleted of glucose, are a diuretic, causing your body to lose water and become dehydrated. Dehydration depletes you of energy and slows your metabolism. Because your body is lacking its preferred source of fuel—glucose—it turns to protein as an alternate source, which results in the break down of your lean muscle mass.

The result of a ketotic diet is dehydration and loss of lean muscle, but little fat to no fat loss. Your body composition does not improve—you do not become leaner. Rather, you become a smaller version of your former self. The high levels of saturated fat in typical high protein diets eventually raise your cholesterol and significantly increase your risk of degenerative disease. This type of diet is sustainable for only a short period of time, and if it is sustained long term, it can be detrimental to your health.

High carbohydrate, low fat diets such as Pritikin and Ornish, can cause blood sugar rushes and high insulin levels, resulting in fat storage, hunger and cravings, fatigue, inflammation, and can increase risk of heart disease. Recent research shows that these apparently “heart healthy” diets, which are largely recommended to lower cholesterol, do not reduce risk of heart disease and are not effective in reducing body fat.

Unbalanced calorie restricting diets (including Weight Watchers, cleansing fasts, and Jenny Craig), result in hungry and a sense of deprivation. Your body responds as if it is in a famine and powerful survival responses begin, causing your body to store fat to survive its self-induced famine. Your metabolism slows to a crawl; and because your body is constantly low on fuel, it over-produces cortisol , a powerful survival hormone, which causes muscle break down and encourages fat storage. The result: your body is geared to store fat rather than burn fat, and body becomes twice as resistant to losing fat the next time you diet.

Over 40 years of research has shown that 98% of those who diet regain all the weight lost plus more after they go off the diet—making the $40-billon-a-year dieting business a very expensive industry that is failing miserably.

EnergyFirst encourages a shift away from dieting to a balanced, sustainable approach to ultimate energy and health—for life!