Comment on this story
Comment
January is peak dieting season, and if it’s got you reaching for the latest weight-loss regimen, you’re not alone. But how do you know if this choice is just another fad diet?
So what exactly is a crank diet? Here’s what I think: It’s a way to eat less, disguised as a scientific explanation of why the particular combination of prescribed foods works metabolic magic. If the diet just says, “Eliminate high-carb foods and you’ll end up eating less,” well, that book isn’t going to sell many copies. There should be reasonand then his lips start to move.
Let’s be clear: you absolutely, positively can lose weight on a crank diet. If you’ve lost weight on a diet eliminating fat, carbs, gluten, plants, meat or sugar, you’re not alone. But the dirty little secret is that if you’ve lost weight at all, it’s because you’ve found a way to take in fewer calories than you expend. Removing food categories is one way to do this. A good way for many people, at least for a while.
We need to eat more plants. Here are the best for the planet.
Okay, now you might be thinking that if these diets work, why write an entire column about their insidiousness?
Truth, justice and American, of course. But maybe also empowerment. Because people need to know when they are being sold a lot.
Let’s look at some fun examples of diets that fit the crank model:
- The grain-free dieta la “Wheat Belly,” claims that digesting wheat yields polypeptides that bind to opioid receptors in the brain, making wheat an appetite stimulant.
- The diet of carnivores claims to reduce hormonal fluctuations because the insulin spikes associated with carbohydrates create a “cascade of other imbalances” in hormones related to hunger and fat storage.
- Intermittent fasting argues that restricting intake for an extended period of time gives your body no choice but to use fat stores, so you lose more than if your body had continuous access to blood sugar.
- Blood type diet says your blood type tells you your ancestry and we thrive on the food our ancestors ate. And there are many other ancestral diets that double down on this idea.
- And low carb/keto of coursewhich argues that since insulin is key to fat storage, if you don’t eat carbs, you don’t release insulin and store less fat.
To be honest, there are several diets that tell you that they are essentially a strategy to eat less. The basic rationale behind the low-fat diet is that 1 gram of fat has 9 calories and 1 gram of carbohydrate or protein has 4, so if you eat more low-calorie macronutrients, you consume fewer calories overall. And the Volumetrics diet suggests that if you eat food that is lower in calories, you end up consuming fewer calories.
While some diet justifications are pretty silly, not all of them are false. Insulin, for example, really facilitates fat storage. But there’s one nutritional fact that trumps all others, and it’s really the only thing you need to know about food and health: what we know is absolutely less than what we don’t know.
The simple dietary change that helps you lose weight and reduce health risks
Remember the parable of the blind men and the elephant? Six blind men were able to “see” an elephant by feeling part of it, and each of them came away with very different ideas about what an elephant is. The man who held the tusk thought it was like a spear; the man with the trunk thought it was like a snake. You get the idea. They came up with inaccurate ideas because they couldn’t feel everything.
This is what happens with diets. No one can see the whole elephant. Science hasn’t (yet) painted it. So every diet guru latches onto some part of the human metabolism and decides it’s the key to health and weight loss—but really, it’s just the fingernail. Of course, grinding wheat yields polypeptides! But there are so many other things going on in the human body that it is very difficult to understand how this happens.
There’s one way to find out, of course: actual trials. And—surprise, surprise—the ones we have (and we have a lot) show that, in the long run, no diet works for weight loss. The trajectory—subjects lose weight for a time, even up to two years, and then regain it—is similar for all.
But let’s get back to the part where people actually lose weight on fad diets. Why so? Because once we ignore the science stuff, there are usually some pretty decent strategies for doing that thing that’s at the heart of weight loss — eating less.
How about this: ignore the science and go for the strategies. Of course, intermittent fasting isn’t superior to other diets, but that doesn’t mean closing the kitchen after dinner is a bad idea. Actually, that’s a damn good idea.
Then check out the low carb. No, insulin doesn’t exactly correlate with subsequent eating and weight gain, but that doesn’t mean cutting out sugar and refined grains is a bad idea. Actually, that’s a damn good idea.
You don’t need to understand the ins and outs of human metabolism to lose weight; the diet is not knowing issue. You just have to come up with working strategies to eat less; diet is a doing issue. So think of the fad diet invasion as a set of strategies and choose the ones that can fit your lifestyle.
I used to be overweight but I’m not now and I used ideas from different diets to keep it off. I don’t do intermittent fasting, but I do close the kitchen after dinner and put off breakfast until I’m pretty hungry. I don’t follow a low-fat diet, but I do limit added fat in the meals I make. I’m not low carb, but I don’t eat a lot of refined grains. I fill dishes with vegetables (Volumetrics). I eat almost no ultra-processed foods (every diet known to man). I don’t keep easy-to-eat foods in the house that appeal to me (common sense) and when we have to buy Girl Scout cookies for neighborhood harmony, I make my husband hide them somewhere (okay, no one recommends this, but it works for me because Thin Mints are calling my name).
What I hate most about fad diets is that they prey on people who want, often desperately, to make a change. Metabolic rationales offer a lifeline – all I have to do is one thing! – and then the ultimate failure is felt Yours a failure. But anyone who has ever tried knows that losing weight is hard. There is not one thing. And only you i know where Yours diet goes off the rails, which foods are Yours undo, how changes do or don’t fit into Yours life.
Hats off to people who feel comfortable at whatever weight they are and focus on other aspects of their health. Unfortunately, I am not one of them; being fat made me miserable. And maybe that’s why the false hope that crank diets traffic drives me crazy. But I also think that weight loss is not only possible, but completely clear – at least in principle.
This is not a knowledge problem, so forget about polypeptides. This is a problem to do and only you know what to do.
Add Comment