DO I EVEN NEED A DIET?
by Johnny B
BSc Sports Science; ISSA Nutritionist
There’s a lot of really good research growing that indicates that the only reason a diet ever works is that some people have a condition that reacts favourably with a diet.
That is, there are some people whose bodies are actually unhealthy in a way that causes the body to store body fat in a way that a healthy body does not.
In other words, many people who are overweight are not overweight because they choose to eat too much. Their bodies are hormonally “programmed” to store more body fat compared to people without this yet-to-be-named condition.
One clear way to tell if you have this condition is the experience of yo-yo dieting. You went on a diet, you lost weight, it was really, really hard, you got really tired, really obsessed with food, you gave up and you put all the weight back on, plus some in one-third of the time it took you to lose the weight. Not everyone experiences this when they try to lose weight.
A diet seems to be more useful for people who experience this condition because there are reports of people having what I call “miracle” experiences. They go low carb or paleo or vegetarian and they lose all their weight and it fixes all their health problems.
They were unhealthy and this particular diet fixed their health problem.
If you think you're ready to try a diet, check out the following:
Plant-based
Paleo
Low carb
Important: if a diet is going to work, it will be obvious. It will take effect within the first 2 weeks. It should also cause obvious improvements in health like improved sleep and energy levels, less sickness (etc). These health benefits might not be obvious for the first 1-3 weeks while your poor little digestive system adjusts to all of this new food.
If you are healthy then so far the science indicates that a diet might not have the same impact. It doesn’t matter what the diet is.
In that case, a calorie restriction approach might be more suitable. Calorie-restriction approaches don't eliminate any food groups. They just limit the overall calorie consumption of a balanced nutritional lifestyle...
Tom Venuto's Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle
Some other options you might want to look into are:
Rusty Moore's High Carb Fat Loss,
These aren't exactly elimination dies, though they're not exactly a mere calorie control method... they're just awesome. It has good scientific justification and it seems to really work in a lot of people.
Whatever the state of your health, if a diet is going to work, it will be obvious. It will take effect within the first 2 weeks. It should also cause obvious improvements in health like improved sleep and energy levels, less sickness (etc). These health benefits might not be obvious for the first 1-3 weeks while your poor little digestive system adjusts to all of this new food.
Continue reading...
2 things you have to do before you start any diet
