Why ‘Diets’ Do Not Work

For this article I will start by asking a question. How many of you have tried a diet and were less than impressed with the results? Have you or anyone you know lost weight on a diet only to put it back on when you stopped? This is an extremely common scenario and when it comes to achieving your physique goals it is completely backwards.

Most diets will involve you creating a deficit in the energy you consume through food. While this will make perfect sense to a lot of you when it comes to fat loss, it just doesn’t pan out in the long run. When you cut calories below maintenance levels your body goes into a ‘survival mode’ as it recognises starvation. This will create a decrease in thyroid function and leptin (a hormone that has a central role in fat metabolism). What does this mean for your diet? It means that after an initial period of potentially sudden fat loss your weight levels out and you struggle to lose more. This often results in further deprivation which acts as a catalyst for your diet to appear successful again only to find that after a period of time your fat loss stalls. As your metabolism drops due to the sudden lack of energy you are consuming in comparison you will be very sensitive to any increase in this. Now when you eat more than you were on your diet it is very probable that you will put all of the weight back on. (This is what happens in the term ‘yo‐yo dieting’).

To combat this it is important that when you are looking to achieve your goal of a lean physique you must take into consideration how long it will take for you to get there and if you want to stay there. If you are dieting down for a particular event like a holiday or bodybuilding contest you may accept that the fat will come back on and not worry about it. However in most cases where you are unhappy with your body and want to create lasting changes then healthy modifications to your diet without depriving yourself of vital nutrients will always be more sustainable.

 The Calorie Truth

It seems to me that the importance of the calorie is being emphasised more and more when it comes to the subject of fat loss. This encourages people to monitor their diet and therefore take their health more seriously which is certainly good news. The simple fact is that the common view of “calories in versus calories out” dictating whether you are going to lose or gain fat is overly simplistic and not completely accurate. I appreciate this may challenge deeply engrained beliefs that a lot of people (including nutritionists) have, so I fully intend to explain why.

Different macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates and fats) have different effects on the body ‐ obviously. The ‘thermic effect of food’ (TEF) is the increase in your metabolic rate when digesting and utilising food. The thermic effect of protein is a lot higher than it is for both carbohydrates and fats. This means that eating foods rich in proteins is going to raise your metabolism to a higher degree than it would if you ate either of the other two macronutrients. So it is evident that 3000k/cal from protein consumption is going to raise your metabolism more than 3000k/cal from carbohydrates (or fats) and the consequential increase means you will expend more calories digesting the protein.

Another massively overlooked factor when it comes to calories is the specific hormonal response that happens with certain foods. For example, numerous studies have proven that insulin (a hormone secreted by the pancreas) inhibits fat loss. Failure to monitor your blood sugar levels can results in fat storage around the suprailiac (the hips or so‐called ‘love‐handles’) and insulin is a hormone primarily dictated by carbohydrate consumption (amongst a lot of other factors such as irregular eating patterns).

If a calorie is simply a calorie and that is all there is to it then 2500k/cal in the consumption of chips would result in the same rate of fat loss/storage as 2500k/cal in the form of chicken.

There are several ways of monitoring your blood sugar levels including inexpensive blood glucometers. All people react to foods differently and therefore you will need different food intakes to the person next to you. When it comes to dietary starting points I like to use the concept of metabolic typing. It’s main focus is choosing foods which will react well with your body and regulate your insulin levels which will result in a faster rate of fat loss and a healthier you in general.