The Problem with Diets

Almost everyone wants to argue with me about how much they need to eat (women expecially).  Granted, I’m not a doctor, but the science is what it is.  Let’s say you have been collecting Pez dispensers and are just now hearing about Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR).      Like me, probably the first thing you’ll do is start tracking your calories to see if you are eating at least 1.2 times your BMR (the Don’t Die Rule).  This post is all about why it sucks so much to eat less than your amount under the “Don’t Die Rule”.

Time out for an analogy:

Let suppose you and your cousin Craig want to take a hot air balloon ride to the Cabbage Festival.   You take off, and you are on your way there when you discover than you don’t have enough fuel to make it there.   So you do what MacGyver would do.  You make the basket lighter.  You happened to have packed your blacksmith kit (with anvil), so you throw that overboard.    After dumping some heavy stuff, your fuel situation is looking better, but there’s still a chance you’re not gonna make it.  You decide to drop the altitude of the balloon and take a slower pace at a lower altitude.  Luckily, your balloon makes it without crashing, but you accidentally flew to the Cribbage Festival and NOT the Cabbage Festival. Lame.

When We Don’t Eat Enough

You want to lose weight, so you cut back your calories.  Most diets ignore the Don’t Die Rule and say crazy stuff like, “Eat 1000 or 1200 calories per day to lose weight”… so that’s what you do.  Even “successful” diets like Weight Watchers may be under estimating how many calories you need.  This might be because when people eat less than the Don’t Die Rule (BMR*1.2) the results are spectacular and people are more likely to keep shelling out money.  You lose weight like crazy in the beginning.   But your body, like a hot air balloon, is getting lighter by dumping the heavy stuff first.  MUSCLE.  Even without the muscle, you’re not eating enough, so the body slows the metabolism to a crawl.  This helps to make up for the calories you’re not eating but you feel tired and maybe a bit cold.  Your body is sure you are trying to kill it because you are eating less than the Don’t Die Rule.  So it starts to store all the calories it can in case you stop eating altogether. This causes your weight loss to stall; maybe you even gain some weight EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE BARELY EATING.  Strange but true.  So ironically... the best diet is no diet!  Just eat all the calories you need, and slowly make those calories more healthy over time.

Back to under eating.  From there, it seems like there are two basic paths people take.  I fell under pattern #1, so that’s where I’ll start.  These two patterns explain why generally speaking, DIETS DO NOT WORK IN THE LONG TERM.

Pattern 1 (graphic below)

Pattern one involves starving yourself (say at 1200 calories) until you can’t take it anymore.   Your will breaks and you go order a hamburger with 2 pounds of beef, a pound and a half of fries and a popcorn bucket sized soda.  At least I did.  The crazy thing is you feel physically better after eating, but you have “failed” your diet.  So you start again.  Even if you eventually get down to your goal weight, you only know how to starve yourself.  You are basically guaranteed to gain the weight back when you start eating "normally" again.  This is why it is better to learn to eat healthy normally and let the weight loss take care of itself.

Pattern 2 (graphic below)

Pattern 2 is a scary one, I think.  It is the same process but instead of binging, maybe you decide to show your body who’s boss.  You work out more and more and eat less as you try to push through the weight loss plateau.  Aside from having a head start on an eating disorder, you might lose a little weight.  But the harder you push the harder you will rebound.  Eventually your body will win.  You will eventually either move to pattern 1, or you will die.  Seriously.  If you try to starve yourself thin by eating less than your BMR*1.2, your cravings will get stronger and more frequent until you cave and eat like a maniac.  Your body is designed to keep itself alive.   You cannot win the starvation battle.

So What’s the Fix?

If you haven’t been eating enough, start now.  If you have been under eating by a lot, it might take a week or so to get used to eating the right amount of calories again.  The good news is that your energy level will go up, and you will probably feel much better.  The downside is that you have lost a lot of muscle, and your metabolism is still used to starving.  It’s gonna take some time to fix that.  Since your body is afraid you are going to starve it again, you may gain a few pounds when you start eating properly.  Don’t panic!   Just be patient.  Healthy weight loss is slow weight loss.  In five years from now when you are at your ideal weight and feeling fantastic, will you care if you gained 5 pounds in the beginning while you fixed your metabolism?  Nope. I doubt it.

So step one is start eating enough.

Step 2 is start exercising.  All that dieting you’ve done has stripped your muscle mass down to almost nothing.  If you have been losing weight faster than 1% of your body weight per week, you are almost guaranteed to be losing muscle.  This has been shown in numerous studies.  You need to start doing exercise (specifically with weights) to start putting back some of that muscle and to maintain the muscle you have while you lose weight.

Let’s pretend you watched too much Biggest Loser and lost 60 pounds by under eating over 5 months.  Depending on what assumptions you make, let’s say that’s about 20 pounds of lean body mass (basically muscle) that you lost. 

According to a leading sports nutrition therapist, the most muscle they have ever documented someone gaining in a year was 18.25 pounds.  Think about it.  An obsessed gym rat who has made muscle their life, with perfect nutrition and aggressive scientifically designed workouts was able to gain about 18 pounds of muscle in a year.   If you are lucky, a normal person might get a third of that muscle gain… maybe.  At that rate it would take 3 and a half years to get back all the muscle you lost in 5 months!  For older people, unless you really get serious you may NEVER catch up to the amount of muscle you should have had.

So What?

Why do we care if we’ve lost muscle?  More muscle provides:

1. more strength (duh)
2. more mitochondrial energy production
3. a faster metabolism
4. fitting and filling your clothes better
5. improved body shape
6. reduced effects of aging
7. reduced likelihood of many injuries
8. making you less tasty to cannibals
9. My Favorite:  The more muscle you have, THE MORE YOU GET TO EAT!

Conclusion:  Your body is important to your life.  Quit starving it.  Feed it the calories it needs from good foods.