Tuesday, January 28, 2014
By: TNT Health Educator - Stacey Gretka
Part 2 of 5
Part 2 of our 5 part series takes a look at 2 additional "popular diets". As you will see, it is important to get the whole picture about what these diets involve and whether or not they are a truly healthy lifestyle change.
Elimination Diets: Paleo/Whole-30/Wheat Belly
The Bad: False advertising makes this type of eating a big no-no for those looking to lose weight, specifically. The Paleo and Whole-30 lifestyles are just that: Lifestyles. They were not created as a way for people to lose weight (although as that trend started the “creators” did not shy away from the added press). Read: Real vegetarians don’t just not eat meat, they also don’t carry leather hand bags. Anyway, a big downside here is that whenever you eliminate an entire food group from your consumption two things will happen: you will lose weight because of less calories (assuming you don’t replace those calories with something else) AND you will lose very important nutrients that can only be found in those groups. Elimination diets are healthy under the supervision of a doctor or nutritionist in attempts to determine an allergy or intolerance. Unfortunately, buying a Whole-30 book or joining a group of Paleo-ites does not qualify as supervision of a doctor.
The Ugly: Often, people try Elimination diets under the pretense of eliminating a food that “isn’t made for human consumption.” Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, depending on how you look at it) our bodies were designed to be incredibly adaptive. Many of us stop producing the enzymes needed to break down certain food molecules (and therefore use them as energy in our bodies) when we stop consuming certain foods. It’s the main reason that much of Earth’s population is lactose-intolerant. Breast milk, after all, is mainly lactose, so lactose-intolerance is nearly unheard of at birth. However, once we wean, many populations cannot afford dairy milk or lack the education regarding its benefits. That means that if you eliminate a food group, like grains for example, thinking that you might have a particular food intolerance, by the time you decide that you can’t keep up and/or you simply want to enjoy a holiday treat, your body actually cannot tolerate it! That means that following elimination diets without the proper support and timing can actually CAUSE intolerances. To worsen this problem, many people misinterpret their gassy indigestion at the reintroduction of that food as finally “discovering their problem” and “support systems” simply feed into this misconception by sharing their “success stories.”
Fad Diets: Fast Diet/Sacred Heart Diet/HCG Shots
The Bad: They can be nearly impossible to stay with long enough to lose substantial amounts of weight, if that is your goal. People cite side-effects to include the likes of irritability, shakiness, fatigue, painful hunger, lack of satiety, binge eating, and more. To be straight-forward, those are the opposite of how you should feel when you’re finally achieving true healthfulness! A real healthy lifestyle gives you MORE energy and a feeling of satisfaction that many people cite as being emotional and mental as well as physical. At least that’s what my clients tell me on one of our programs!
The Ugly: Not only are most people unable to stick with a fad diet long enough to reach their goals, and often lose major nutrient stores in the process, almost all fad dieters become yo-yo dieters, i.e. you gain it back and then some. Some of these diets also mess with your hormones, making it, AT BEST, even harder for you to lose weight the next time around… again, they tend to foster dependence rather than true success. And let’s get real: are you honestly going to eat soup for the rest of your life? Now get out of the sheep mentality and try something that’s made to support you.
Alot to take in right? Now tomorrow we are going to take a look at 2 more popular"diets" ~ The Movers and The Shakers: Shakeology/Body by Vi and Pill Promises: Green Coffee Bean/Garcinia Cambogia. So be sure to check back for the good, the bad, and the ugly!
Alot to take in right? Now tomorrow we are going to take a look at 2 more popular"diets" ~ The Movers and The Shakers: Shakeology/Body by Vi and Pill Promises: Green Coffee Bean/Garcinia Cambogia. So be sure to check back for the good, the bad, and the ugly!
Wheat photo
Syringe photo
photo credit: Thomas Weidenhaupt via photopin cc