There’s a lot of bullshit out there on the internet, in media, and even in the newspaper. Every week, it seems like there’s a new miracle diet that will solve everyone’s problems. Then the next week, that same diet is labeled as unhealthy, will give you cancer, and will come into your house and haunt you like a monster (just kidding).

With so much opposing information, it’s no wonder that people flip-flop from diet to diet, seemingly making no progress or even going backward.

When you hear the word “diet” what do you think of? Oftentimes, “a diet” can muster up many feelings, some of which are positive, and others maybe not be as positive. Usually, you might think of:

• Beginnings and endings

• Restricted foods

• Point systems

• Low carb

• Low fat

• “Healthy” versions of food

• “Clean” versions of food

• Weight loss

• Health

• Detoxes

• The word “diet” has the word “die” in it, so there’s that, as well 🙂

And likely, more come to mind that I didn’t list. None of these things are completely right or wrong; some of these ideas are very much a part of any named diet you can find. But there might come a point where these ideas become problematic.

Case in point, a starting point, and an ending point. Or the fact there’s almost always an element of semi-elimination involved in a given diet. Right now, the ketogenic diet is pretty popular.

That particular diet eliminates carbohydrates. Others, like Whole 30 or the Paleo diet, suggest eliminating processed foods, dairy, legumes, or added sugars as well.

This becomes a problem because there’s seldom a focus on the future and long-term sustainability. Many people end up losing weight following these protocols by reducing their calorie intake, but can’t wait until the diet is “over” so that they can go back to eating “normal”. 

At the “end” of a diet, many people are left wondering, “What the hell do I do now?” This is a perfectly reasonable question. So what, then, do you do?

To the credit of diets, most of them work in terms of helping people lose weight. In fact, anything that creates a energy/calorie deficit can work (more on this later). If an individual on the diet is considered obese, the results seem to be far more magnified than if they weren’t.

Side note here before we continue: you may notice that I will use the terms “energy” and “calories” interchangeably quite a bit in this Blog. That’s because calories are LITERALLY energy. 

So, energy restriction = calorie restriction and vice versa. 

I will also use the terms body fat interchangeably with energy stores, and fat storage with energy storage. This may seem strange, your body’s fat stores (aka adipose tissue) are by far the major energy reserve in the body.

In most people, body fat contains far more energy than carbohydrate stores (glycogen), and protein stores (short term storage of protein is pretty non-existent, and typically the body doesn’t liberate nearly as much lean body mass for energy as it does body fat).

This will also be explained in much more detail in future FAT to FIT Series, but for now, just trust us that

energy = calories and body fat (adipose tissue) = energy stores.

Well, quite honestly, diets are absolute failures. Not because people can’t lose weight; people are actually great at weight loss.

Six out of every seven people who are overweight will lose a significant amount of weight in their lifetime. The problem is, these same people cannot maintain their weight loss. 

The weight regain statistics are absolutely shocking and terrifying.

Within one year of weight loss, nearly 80% of people will have relapsed to their pre-diet weight.*1

Within two years that number is 85% and within three years over 95% of people will have relapsed to their pre-diet weight.*2*3

You read that right: diets have less than a 5% success rate, which by any standard is terrible. If that wasn’t bad enough, of those people who relapse to their previous weight, ⅓ to ⅔ of them will regain even more weight than they had before they started the diet.*4

This phenomenon is called “body fat overshooting” and is something no other weight loss Guru that i know of discusses.

figure 1

 Weight regain after weight loss with body fat overshooting. As weight is lost metabolic rate decreases disproportionately to calories and fat loss. Both fat mass and lean body mass are lost. Post diet, weight is rapidly regained as calories rapidly increase due to disproportionately high hunger and low metabolic rate. Especially fat mass is regained compared to lean body mass. 

But hey, “X” diet worked because some celebrity/pro athlete/model/person you know lost weight on it, right? Damn right it did.

The question should NOT be, “Did they lose weight?” The real question should be,

“How much weight did they drop and sustain?”

As we established, many people end up worse off than when they started because they actually put back on more weight than they lost in a process called “weight cycling.”

In fact, the research shows that frequency of dieting and weight gain over time are actually closely correlated.*5 That means many people will go on another diet after they regain the weight.

Then they will lose some weight, and repeat the process over, and over, and over, and over again. Some people continue this process for many years. You may know a co-worker or family member like this, or maybe you’ve even experienced this cyclical trap yourself.

If you were extra attentive, you might have noticed that for chronic dieters, losing weight became subsequently more difficult. This phenomenon appears to actually be the biggest issue in people who aren’t obese.

In fact, research has shown that people who were initially normal weight individuals when they began trying to lose weight had two times the risk of weight gain in a 6-15 year follow up compared to non-dieters.*6

Further, in a study examining elite male athletes from age 20 to age 60, it was demonstrated that athletes who had to repeatedly diet to make weight classes gained significantly more weight over time than athletes who did not have to repeatedly diet to make a specific weight class. *7

End of Part 3

to be continued …

*1 “Biology’s response to dieting: the impetus for weight regain. – NCBI – NIH.” 15 Jun. 2011, https:// www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21677272. Accessed 28 Aug. 2018

*2 “Long-term efficacy of dietary treatment of obesity: a systematic review ….” https://www.ncbi.nlm. nih.gov/pubmed/12119984. Accessed 28 Aug. 2018.

*3 “[The mediocre results of dieting]. – NCBI.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23859104. Accessed 28 Aug. 2018.

*4 “How dieting makes some fatter: from a perspective of human … – NCBI.” 5 Apr. 2018, https://www. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22475574. Accessed 28 Aug. 2018.

*5 (2018, April 5). How dieting makes some fatter: from a perspective of human … – NCBI. Retrieved August 29, 2018, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22475574

*6 (n.d.). Weight-loss attempts and risk of major weight gain: a prospective …. Retrieved August 30, 2018, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10584040

*7 (n.d.). Weight cycling of athletes and subsequent weight gain in middleage.. Retrieved August 30, 2018, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16568134