What Happens When You Go on A Diet? – Why Calories Don’t Count – part II
April 3, 2009 by admin
Everywhere you look for weight loss advice you hear “eat less and exercise more” and “a calorie is a calorie is a calorie – just eat fewer of them.” The REAL question is if there is any evidence to back that up?
Let’s put 3 groups of people on 1,000 calorie per day diets:
Group 1: 90% fat
Group 2: 90% protein
Group 3: 90% carbs
Results
Group 1: dropped .9lbs/day
Group 2: dropped .6lbs/day
Group 3: GAINED .1lbs/day (1)
Kekwick, A., Pawan, G. L. S. (1957) Metabolic study in human obesity with isocaloric diets high in fat, protein or carbohydrate. Metabolism 6: 447–460.The Problem With “Sensible” Advice
“Sensible” weight loss advice goes something like this, “if you would just shave 200 calories per day from your diet, then you would drop 20 pounds in a year. You won’t even notice 200 calories per day.”
We’ve all heard it and we’ve all thought, “Hmm, that doesn’t seem so hard, I’d love to drop 20 pounds.” But, the important question is whether that advice is based on any kind of evidence or not?
The short answer is NO!
The more complete answer is this study: The Women’s Health Initiative gave 20,000 women this advice: “go on a low-fat, reduced calorie diet – cut 360 calories from your diet. [I’m paraphrasing and summarizing]”
If you just go by arithmetic, a pound of fat is 3,500 calories, so:
360 x 365days/year = 37.5 pounds lost per year.
What actually happened
After 8 years these women got FATTER. They lost 2 pounds on the scale, but gained inches on their waist! So they both gained fat and lost muscle.
Howard, B. V. et al. Low-fat dietary pattern and weight change over 7 years: the women’s health initiative dietary modification trial. JAMA. Jan 2006 4; 295(1):39-49 Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s #1 personal trainer for busy people. He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have. To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here.
