Peak diet season begins in January, so you're not alone if you're grabbing for the newest weight-loss plan. But how can you tell if that option is genuine or just another fad diet?
It is moving its lips.
What, then, is a crank diet? Here is my opinion: It's a tactic for eating less that's disguised as a technical justification for how the specific meal combinations being suggested work their metabolic magic. The book wouldn't sell many copies if the plan simply stated, "Eliminate high-carb foods and you'll end up eating less." Its lips begin to move as it realizes there must be a justification.
Let's be clear: A crank diet can definitely, positively help you lose weight. You are not alone if you have lost weight while following a diet that excludes fat, carbohydrates, gluten, plants, meat, or sugar. The truth is that you've only managed to lose weight if you've discovered a means to consume fewer calories than you burn off through exercise. One strategy for achieving this is to ban certain dietary groups. A beneficial method, at least temporarily, for many people.
Okay, so you might be wondering why I wrote an entire column about how cranky such diets are if they actually work.
Of course, truth, justice, and the American way. But perhaps empowerment as well. Because people should be able to recognize when they are being misled.
Let's examine a few entertaining instances of diets that adhere to the crank model:
According to the grain-free diet advocated in the movie "Wheat Belly," when wheat is digested, polypeptides have produced that bind to opioid receptors in the brain and increase desire.
Due to a "cascade of additional imbalances" of hormones linked to hunger and fat storage brought on by the insulin spikes caused by carbohydrates, the carnivore diet promises to reduce hormonal oscillations.
According to intermittent fasting, limiting your intake for a long time forces your body to use its fat reserves, which causes you to lose more weight than you would if your body had constant access to blood sugar.
According to the blood type diet, we thrive on the same foods as our ancestors since your blood type reveals your lineage. And there are other additional ancestral diets that reinforce this.
Of course, low-carb/keto also maintains that if you don't eat carbs, you don't produce insulin and you store less fat because insulin is essential for fat storage.
Fair enough, there are a few diets that outright state that all they are is a way to eat less. One of the main arguments for a low-fat diet is that because 1 gram of fat has 9 calories and 1 gram of protein or carbohydrate has 4, substituting lower-calorie macronutrients will result in fewer calories consumed overall. The Volumetrics diet also holds that eating less calorie-dense food will result in you eating fewer calories overall.
Despite the absurdity of certain diet justifications, not all of them are untrue. For instance, insulin actually promotes the storage of body fat. The only thing you truly need to know about food and health is that what we know is completely dwarfed by what we don't know. This is the one nutrition fact that stands above all the rest.
Do you recall the story about the blind men and the elephant? Six blind individuals were given the opportunity to "see" an elephant by becoming a part of it, and as a result, they all had quite different perceptions of what an elephant was. The person holding the tusk perceived it as a spear, whereas the person holding the trunk perceived it as a snake. You see what I mean. They couldn't feel everything, so they left with false impressions.
Diets are responsible for this. No one is able to view the entire elephant. It is not depicted by science (yet). Each diet expert so picks out a particular aspect of the human metabolism and declares it to be the secret to good health and weight loss when in reality it is just the toenail. Yes, the digestion of wheat results in polypeptides. However, the human body is undergoing so many other processes that it is difficult to predict how it would pan out.
Naturally, there is only one way to learn: via genuine trials. And, surprise, surprise, the ones we do have (and we have many) demonstrate that, over the long term, no diet is effective for losing weight. The pattern is the same for all subjects: they initially lose weight, sometimes for as long as two years, before gaining it back.
But let's get back to the bit about how crazy diets truly cause weight loss. How come? Because, if we cut through the science, there are usually some really good methods for implementing the fundamental weight loss strategy of eating less.
So, how about this: Ignore the technical details and get right to the point? Even while intermittent fasting does not perform better than other diets, this does not imply that it is a bad idea to lock the kitchen after dinner. It's actually a really smart idea.
Next, consider low-carb. Although insulin does not directly link to subsequent eating and weight gain, avoiding sugar and refined grains is still a good idea. It's actually a really smart idea.
You don't need to be an expert on human metabolism to lose weight because diet is not a scientific issue. Diet is an issue that you must solve; you simply need to come up with practical methods for eating less. Consider the deluge of fad diets as a smorgasbord of approaches and pick and choose the ones that will work for your way of life.
I adopted strategies from many diets to maintain my current weight loss after being overweight in the past. Although I don't practice intermittent fasting, I do lock the kitchen after dinner and wait until I am extremely hungry before eating. I don't consume a low-fat diet, but I do try to keep additional fats in my food to a minimum. I don't consume a lot of processed carbohydrates, but I'm not low-carb either. I add vegetables to recipes to make them more filling (Volumetrics). I hardly ever consume highly processed foods (every diet known to man). Common sense dictates that I don't leave foods that are convenient for me around the house, and when we have to purchase Girl Scout cookies for neighborhood peace, I have my husband hide them (well, nobody advises doing that, but it works for me because I'm thin).
Crank diets prey on individuals who want to change, often desperately. This is what I detest about them the most. All I have to do is this one thing! — the biochemical explanations offer a sliver of hope, and then the end failure feels like your failure. But anyone who has attempted it knows that losing weight is challenging. No one thing exists. And only you can determine where your eating habits veer off course, which foods are your downfall, and whether or not modifications work for you.
I salute those who are content with their weight and concentrate on other elements of their health. I'm not one of them, which is unfortunate because I hated being obese. Perhaps this is why the hype about diets that draws people in irritates me so much. But I also believe that, at least in theory, losing weight is not only feasible but also very simple.
Forget the polypeptides; it's not a known problem. It's a problem that needs to be solved, and only you know how.
