The amazing chewing gum diet for weight loss and detoxing

Food, drink, and the act of chewing brings us a certain degree of comfort, pleasure, and satisfaction.

For millennia, people have utilized chewing (bark and/or tree sap) as a way to relieve hunger, freshen breath, and increase stamina.  The pleasure and satisfaction achieved by chewing without eating food (also known as non-caloric chewing) is not unique to humans as it is also common across other species as noted by the famed primatologist, Jane Goodall.

In today’s obesogenic environment, our urge to chew has largely backfired.  The comfort, pleasure, and satisfaction we once gained from non-caloric chewing has been replaced with snacking on high-calorie foods, which, over the course of time leads to weight gain.

There are numerous diets out there that cause people to lose weight, but eventually the majority of diets fail because people cannot maintain/adhere to them (Figure 1).   

Figure 1. Self Rated Dietary Adherence. Self rated dietary adherence over the course of 12 months while on 4 common diets.  10 = the best; 0 = the worst.  Dietary adherence decreases as time goes on (dieting is not sustainable).

What people really need is a small change in behavior that burns calories and can be sustainable over the course of time....

 

Chewing Gum is Exactly That!

Chewing gum can help drop excess body weight by unlocking the natural processes of the body.  For example, the act of chewing gum increases metabolic rate, uses energy to build enzymes, tricks our brains into thinking we are full, distracts us from eating real food, lowers stress, detoxifies waste buildup, and promotes weight loss.  How does it do this?  Read below to find out!

Figure 2. The Effects of Chewing Gum on Metabolic Rate.  Chewing gum has been shown to increase metabolic rate by a whopping 19%.

In addition to boosting your metabolic rate, chewing gum may offset some of the diminished weight loss that occurs when you eat fewer calories during dieting.  The process of digesting and absorbing the energy in the food you eat ((which is known as the thermic effect of food (TEF)) is an energetically expensive process.  When people diet to lose weight, they eat less food.  Eating less food results in a decrease in the TEF and acts to blunt additional weight loss.  Chewing gum offsets the loss in the TEF.  Proof of this comes from leading experts in the field of metabolism, which have suggested that humans can lose as much as 10 pounds per year, just by chewing gum.

Figure 3. Theoretical Weight Loss in One Year from Chewing Gum.

Chewing gum may also help to offset the loss of the calories you would otherwise burn through the TEF without consuming unnecessary calories by increasing the production and secretion of enzymes (the proteins the body makes to break down nutrients in food you eat).  To build enzymes, cells in the body must utilize energy (burn calories).  Chewing gum also stimulates saliva production and secretion, which is also an energetically expensive process.  Building enzymes and producing and secreting saliva reduces the loss of the TEF you would otherwise experience when you eat less food during dieting.

Chewing Gum Increases Enzyme Production and Starves “Bad”, Inflammation Producing Gut Bacteria: Over the past 30 years carbohydrate consumption has substantially increased in the United States (Figure 4).  The enzyme in our saliva responsible for breaking down carbohydrates (salivary amylase) has not kept pace with the amount of carbohydrates we consume.  The “bad” bacteria in our large intestines responsible for increasing inflammation feed on this excess in carbohydrate, leaving us metabolically and physically sick.  Chewing gum increases the production of salivary amylase, reduces the amount of carbohydrate available to the “bad” bacteria of the gut, and therefore makes us metabolically and physically healthier (and reduces inflammation at the same time).

Figure 4. Macronutrient Intake in the United States from 1970 to 2006

Chewing Gum Detoxifies Waste Build-Up: In addition to increasing the digestion of carbohydrates and starving the “bad” bacteria of the gut, chewing gum in the absence of food ingestion cleans out the digestive tract by allowing the enzymes produced during chewing to act on food particles that haven’t been fully absorbed or passed through your digestive tract as fecal matter.  In other words, the digestive enzymes can now clean out the leftover food in your colon that was causing nutrient malabsorption and inflammation because the enzymes produced during chewing gum cleans out your digestive tract.

Chewing Gum Tricks Your Brain into Thinking You’re Full: Chewing stimulates the neurons that act on the satiety (fullness) center of our brain, the hypothalamus, through the gut-brain axis.  Chewing gum tricks the brain into thinking there is food in our digestive tract and causes peristalsis (wave like muscle contractions that propel food through our intestines).  In the clinical setting, when post-operative ileus patients were instructed to chew gum after surgery, the muscles in their intestines were contracting faster than the patients who were not chewing gum and this leads to greater levels of fullness.

Chewing Gum Distracts You from Eating Real Food: Not only does chewing gum increase energy expenditure, it reduces your intake of extra calories you might be tempted to eat in between meals.  Have you tried eating food while chewing gum?  It doesn’t work.  It is not only difficult to chew gum and food simultaneously, but it is also highly unsatisfying to get crumbs mixed into the gum.  Chewing gum acts as a distraction from eating real food similar to the way smoking deters people from eating (which is not recommended as a weight loss method).

Chewing Gum Lowers Your Stress and You Eat Less: Stress hormones, like cortisol, can influence your appetite and cause you to eat more and crave higher-fat and higher-sugar foods.  To make matters worse, too much stress can cause the body to go into a catabolic state and actually break down calorie-burning muscles.  Luckily for gum chewers, a recently published study showed that chewing gum alleviates stress.  Scientists at the Collaborative Centre for the Study of Natural Medicines and Neurocognition in Australia found cortisol levels were reduced in subjects who chewed gum while under stressful situations compared to subjects who did not chew gum.

So far, thousands of people have used this system (started chewing gum throughout the day) and have seen amazing results!  This is the next big trend in health and wellness because it’s easy, inexpensive, and it actually really works!  If you’re tired of being let down by 30-day crash diets that eliminate your favorite food, then join the Gum Detox Movement.  Don’t wait! You have calories to burn.

By the way, this is all a hoax.

This is exactly what millions of “pseudo-nutritionists” and even licensed health professionals disseminate into the worldwide web in order to start a following and profit from a phony claim (or multiple phony claims).

How do they do it?  Just like this article, evidence is attributed to credible sources and is strung together to come up with a seemingly plausible argument.  In writing this article, we turned legitimate nutrition science into quackery.  We took advantage of our knowledge and status as trusted experts and abused it to entice those with vulnerabilities about weight, frustrations from low-self confidence, and a general lack of knowledge regarding the human body to buy into our utter nonsense.

Think this doesn’t really happen?  It does.  The take away message is and always has been: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  Don’t fall victim to nutrition miscommunication: follow us on social media for trusted health & wellness advice. 

Our best,

Monica Salafia, dietetic intern

Todd M. Weber PhD, MS, RD

With So Many Claims, What Eggs Should I Buy at the Grocery Store?

This post was written by MacKenzie Spears and Todd M. Weber.

With so many options, claims, and prices what eggs should I buy?  Picture courtesy Sweet Potato Chronicles.

Have you ever stood in the egg section of your grocery store and been paralyzed by the enormous number of egg options, marketing claims, and prices?  If so, you’re not alone.  Deciding what eggs to buy at the grocery store has become a very difficult and overwhelming decision.  With so many options available to us, we are forced to answer the following questions before making a purchasing decision:

• is it worth paying the extra $1.50 for cage free eggs?
• what does cage free even mean?
• is it better to pay extra for organic eggs?
• should I buy eggs from chickens fed omega-3 enriched feed?
• what makes eggs from chickens fed a vegetarian diet special?
• is pasture raised better than cage free?

The bottom line is, we don’t want to feel like we are being “ripped off” by purchasing a more expensive egg that really isn’t any better than a less expensive egg.  But with so many egg options and so many egg claims how do we know what egg offers the most “bang for our buck”.  To answer this question, MacKenzie Spears and I purchased 8 dozen different types of eggs from two local grocery stores (Safeway and King Soopers) in Denver, CO.  The types of eggs we purchased are shown in Figure 1 and their characteristics are shown in Table I.

Figure 1. Egg Brands. Reading left to right, top to bottom. NestFresh, Lucerne, Open Nature Cage Free, the Happy Egg Co., Eggland's Best, O Organics, Organic Valley Omega-3, and Alfresco Pasture Raised Eggs by Vital Farms.

To assess the quality of each type of egg, we performed a simple eye test.  The quantity of pigments associated with the vitamin A content of an egg can be inferred by the deepness and the richness of the orange in the egg yolk.  The deeper and darker orange the yolk is, the more vitamin A (retinol or precursors) that egg contains.  Although we did not scientifically quantify other properties of the egg such as viscosity or vitamin/mineral content, we think our results are pretty compelling.  See for yourself.

Interestingly, these eggs are arranged by order of cost.  If you read left to right, top to bottom, the most expensive egg is on the top left and the least expensive egg is on the bottom right.  Price does not equal quality!

If we reorder the eggs based upon color and not by price we can make some pretty interesting observations.

Paying more for an egg doesn’t necessarily mean you are getting a better egg.  The clear winners of our visual experiment were Alfresco and the Happy Egg Company (price in green) and in our opinion, the clear losers were O Organics and Organic Valley Omega-3 Eggs (price in red).

When we look at Table I to determine what separates the good, from the bad, from the ugly, we see a clear difference!  

Table I. Egg Claims. Visually, Alfresco and the Happy Egg Company produced the best eggs, hands down.

If your egg does not come from pasture raised chickens, none of the other claims really matter when it comes to vitamin A content (and by inference the quality of the egg)!  Now, to be fair Organic Valley Omega-3 eggs and Eggland’s Best market their products as containing more omega-3 fatty acids than a “classic” egg but there are numerous other foods that you can obtain your omega-3 fatty acids from as well.  I think we can all agree that we would purchase eggs from a local farmer if we had access to them, but most of us do not have this luxury.  MacKenzie and I wanted to figure out, given our options, what the best egg would be to purchase in your local grocery store.  After performing this experiment, it makes intuitive sense to us that pasture raised chickens would produce the highest quality eggs because their living and feeding conditions most closely resemble chickens raised on your local family farm.

While working on this project we also found some nice visuals that help explain our findings.

What Egg Carton Labels Really Mean for You and the Chicken courtesy Andrea Moore.

Cage Free Hens.  Cage Free does not mean Free Range. Photo courtesy Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor via Getty Images.

Classification system for caged, cage-free, free-range, and pasture-raised courtesy Vital Farms.

In conclusion, the price you pay for eggs does not necessarily dictate the color, quality or taste of the egg yolk.  The Alfresco Egg, priced at $5.99 came in first place, being the deepest in color.  In second place for color depth and egg yolk quality was also one of the higher priced eggs, the Happy Egg Co. that costs $5.49.  Surprisingly, the third deepest colored egg yolk was Nest Fresh, priced at $3.99 (which would offer you the most "bang for your buck"). 

With these results in mind, eggs such as O Organics and Organic Valley Omega-3 that have claims stating Non-GMO and USDA organic do not have the most color in their yolk.  Even the eggs with ‘Cage Free’ claims did not result in deeper egg yolk colors.  Our experiment showed that perhaps the generic egg from the supermarket does indeed compare to the egg that is twice its price despite the various health conscious claims on the carton.  

So which eggs should you buy when you get to the store?  Use your best judgment!  It all depends on the purpose of what you are using the egg for.  Are you using the egg to make egg whites, a blueberry muffin mix, hard boiling it or to cook a quiche?  What you are using the egg for should dictate what type of egg you buy.  Hopefully after reading through the results of our experiment, you can stare at the egg section of your local supermarket with a more thorough understanding of the relationship between egg price, egg claims, and quality the egg (and not be concerned that you are getting "ripped off")! 

Todd M. Weber PhD, MS, RD

MacKenzie Spears

For more information on the differences between what constitutes a “cage free”, “free range” or “organic” egg there are several excellent resources available here, here or here. 

Dietitians Don't Eat Perfectly and You Don't Have to Either

There is a widely held belief that health & wellness professionals (and especially dietitians) eat some type of “holier than thou, pristine diet”.  Many dietitians feel like their diets are constantly under a microscope and that they must live up to the public’s perception of what it means to “eat healthy”. 

There is a pressure for dietitians to present themselves this way (the media largely shapes this) and there is a danger of being “found out”, that we don’t actually eat as well as we are supposed to eat, and that ultimately, if we are to be “found out” that we will lose the trust of the people we are trying to help eat healthier.  I’m here to tell you that I’m TIRED OF THIS TYPE OF THINKING and that the public’s perception of the dietitian eating the perfect diet does more harm than good.  

To demonstrate how a dietitian eats (and in full transparency) I want to share with you what my fiancé, Kathleen, and I eat for our meals and snacks and I’ll let you be the judge of whether I eat like a dietitian should eat (and whether you can trust my nutritional advice).

Whoops, dietitian Todd, just got "caught" eating Doritos.

Breakfast

For breakfast Kathleen typically eats a bowl of cereal or oatmeal with skim milk, with or without a banana.  The cereals we tend to eat are:

1. Cracklin’ Oat Bran (with sugary cereal topper)
2. Honey Nut Cheerios (with banana)
3. Frosted Mini Wheats
4. Post Oh’s (with banana)

Our Sugary Cereal Toppers are

1. Cascadian Farms Oats and Honey Granola
2. Cocoa Pebbles

By sugary cereal topper I am referring to pouring a ¾ bowl of Cracklin’ Oat brain and then “topping” it off with a sugary cereal such as Cocoa Pebbles to give it a little extra kick.

I, on the other hand, tend to eat a THOMAS’ 100% whole wheat bagel with cream cheese every morning.

Obviously both of us could be criticized for our choice of breakfast foods – Kathleen for the high sugar cereal choices and myself for a saturated fat containing bagel and cream cheese but we enjoy these options and find they start our days off right.

Every weekend (Saturday or Sunday) we eat a breakfast of eggs, breakfast potatoes, and some type of breakfast meat.  This is usually made at home, so we can incorporate extra veggies we have laying around into the eggs (usually spinach or mushrooms).

We both also drink at least 2 cups of coffee every morning and use creamer and/or regular sugar.

Lunch

For lunch we tend to switch back and forth between one of the following meals

1. Salad – Spinach, Romaine, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, bell pepper (green/red/yellow), shredded cheddar cheese or feta, hard-boiled egg, sunflower seeds with lite Ranch, Greek or Raspberry Vinaigrette dressing.
2. Spinach Mushroom Quiche
3. Zesty Quinoa salad
4. Chicken Salad
5. Ham or Turkey Sandwich
6. Peanut Butter and Jelly

Commonly eaten side dishes/snacks to go along with our “main dish” are

1. Greek yogurt (sometimes with granola and/or frozen fruit in it)
2. Whole wheat tortilla with hummus
3. String Cheese
4. Almonds
5. Baby carrots
6. 1-2 fruit options (e.g., grapes, bananas, peaches, pears, apples, strawberries, oranges)
7. Cheez-Its, Wheat Thins, pretzels
8. Cottage Cheese
9. One Hard boiled egg
10. Granola bar

 

Dinner

We try to plan for 4 dinners/week.  When planning these dinners, 2-3 must provide us with left overs to either supplement our lunches or another night’s dinner.  Most weeks we also plan out at least one crock pot meal because this eliminates a lot of cooking time.

To make grocery shopping, meal planning, and cooking easier we utilize an application on our phones and computers called the Paprika Recipe Manager.  Before we started using the Paprika Recipe Manager we made 20 or so recipes over and over and over again.  These were the only recipes we knew how to make and were comfortable making but our diet was pretty monotonous.  Since that time we have "branched out" quite a bit and we currently have over 51 recipes to choose from.

One of the recent updates to the Paprika Recipe Manager that has made our "branching out" easier is Paprika’s new Google Search recipe function.  Within Paprika, you can perform a Google Search for new recipes and import them directly into your Paprika recipe manager.  This feature makes finding and importing new recipes so easy!  

We are also trying to incorporate more fish and vegetarian dishes into our diets but many of the meals we have traditionally eaten are meat based.  There’s nothing too special about the meals we eat for dinner.............they just aren’t horrible for you and we eat them in moderation.  Here’s our list of dinner meals that we eat frequently, occasionally, and rarely.

Side dishes (usually some form of vegetables, 1-2 options most nights) include:

• Roasted mixed vegetables
• Baked Acorn squash
• Raw veggies with hummus or ranch dip
• Side salad
• Steamed broccoli/mushrooms/bell peppers/asparagus
• Roasted Brussels sprouts
• Baked Sweet potatoes
• Baked white potatoes
• Boiled small red potatoes
• Fresh bread or rolls with soup or red sauce meals
• Pasta salad
• Potato salad
• Grilled ears of corn (summer favorite!)

Sweets and Desserts

I really enjoy ice cream treats, so we usually have some sort of ice cream in the freezer, although that has decreased in frequency with Kathleen’s recent reluctance to eat so many sweets.  I am also a big fan of Doritos, the occasional Sunday morning donut, cheese and crackers, and drink one diet Mountain Dew/day.

Alcohol

I can’t lie, we enjoy having a drink or two most nights of the week, either at home or out with friends.  Craft beer, wine, and cocktails all are fair game.  It usually just depends on our mood (or which friends we are meeting up with).

Eating Out

The vast majority of our meals are eaten within the home or prepared in the home and I have written on the importance of this before.  We're not Puritans and we do like to eat out or order pizza in but we don't make a habit of doing so.  It is possible to eat healthy when eating out but if you eat out infrequently like we do, I prefer to "pig out", eat what I want, and as much of it as I want.

Last word

Kathleen and I don’t have any special plan or secret sauce that allows us to remain active and healthy.   We are always tweaking our routines and “getting back on track” when we fall off the wagon.  With all the crazy programs and diet advice out there, we find that it’s best to keep it simple.  As I have said before, use a Fitbit to find out how much or how little you move throughout your days, use the Paprika recipe manager to meal plan and grocery shop, join a gym or exercise group to strength train 2x/wk, figure out what your obstacles to health are and find solutions to them, establish your own nutrition rules, and for God’s sake, be happy, be healthy, and enjoy life!!!!!!!!!!  It’s much too short to do otherwise.

Todd M. Weber PhD, MS, RD

*See how well Todd followed his own advice in 2015 

8 Common Food/Drug Interactions to Watch Out For!

The following article is a guest post written by MacKenzie Spears.

You may have never even thought about it, but there are potential risks to consuming food with certain medications and/or over the counter drugs.  Some of these food/drug interactions are mild and will result in minor irritation, while others can have severe consequences, including, but not limited to death. 

Our friends at Blink Health recently shared a really cool infographic with us explaining some common food/drug interactions that we are now sharing with you below.  In each of the infographics it should be pointed out that everyone reacts to food a little bit differently and many of the body’s responses to foods while taking these drugs can display alternative symptoms (for more information please click on the hyperlinks).

However, on some level it should also be noted that each food you consume influences your body’s absorption of the drugs you are taking and may either 1) intensify the drugs’ response or 2) decrease the drug’s ability to work within the body.  When these food/drug interactions work together to mimic a higher dose, this combination exaggerates the drug’s effect, essentially doubling down on the dose and causing unintended consequences.  When the latter occurs, the drugs will not be as effective.

There are also instances when the food you consumed with the drug serves to block how the medicine is broken down and too much of the medicine remains in the blood stream.  Instead of the drug being broken down or excreted in the urine, it circulates the body several times and with each passing has an effect on your body.  To prevent these unintended consequences we are sharing a list of eight common food and drug interactions that you might want to be aware of.  If you’d like additional information on any of these food/drug interactions just click on any one of the pictures.  I have hyperlinked each picture to more in-depth articles.  Enjoy! 

What are Your Year End Health & Wellness Stats? Here are Mine.

Everyone in the health & wellness industry has a different recipe for healthy living.  This is my recipe.

1. Grocery shop 1x/wk and meal plan for 4 dinners/wk
2. Accumulate a minimum of 10,000 steps/day.
3. Resistance Train at least 2x/wk

In the spirit of full transparency and “do as I say not as I do” I wanted to share with you how well I followed my own advice in 2015.

1) Grocery shop 1x/wk and meal plan for 4 dinners/wk

I have outlined the utmost importance of grocery shopping in the previous posts, “Grocery Shopping” and “Paprika” but in a nutshell if you are grocery shopping once/wk that likely indicates that you are also meal planning for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for that week (and saving money at the same time).

If I were to grocery shop 1x/wk, that means I should have made it to the grocery store 52 times.  I took off a few occasions from that goal because of vacations and instances when my fiancé went shopping instead of me, so my final goal was 46 times.

I made it to the grocery store 41 times for major shopping trips.  How did I come up with this number?  By looking at my credit card statements and counting the number of times I spent at least $50 at the grocery store. 

In my mind, spending less than $50 on a trip to the grocery store generally means that the trip was impromptu, unplanned or just supplementing a select few ingredients to complete a meal.  I took an additional 10 trips to the grocery store where I spent between $10 and $50.  So in reality, this brings my total number of trips to the grocery store to 51 for 2015.

So overall, not perfect, but not too bad.  Consistency in grocery shopping is definitely something I need to continue to work on.

2) Accumulate a minimum of 10,000 steps/day

Public health experts recommend accumulating at least 10,000 steps/day.  Other professional organizations recommend 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise on all or most days of the week.  People will argue about whether 30 minutes of exercise is enough or whether accumulating 10,000 steps through activities of daily living and walking (i.e. without moderate to vigorous activities such as running) is sufficient.  I say, let’s simplify these recommendations and focus on 10,000 steps, regardless of the method utilized to achieve them.  Don’t use the confusing nature of these recommendations as an excuse not to move.

I came up just short of my 10,000 steps/day goal for all of 2015.  My average number of steps/day turned out to be 9,733 (with 2 weeks removed due to my Fitbit being out of commission).  If we say that you can accumulate 2000 steps in 15 minutes of power walking, this means I came up just 2 minutes of power walking short each day!  Dang, close again, but need to concentrate on making this a priority, especially in the winter months.

Figure 1. Number of steps taken per month.  Data from Fitbit Zip. Notice the large increase during the summer months.  The winter months have room for improvement.

3) Resistance Train at least 2x/wk (Goal: 52 weeks x 2 – 104 resistance training occasions)

Regardless of what your health goals happen to be (become stronger, more “toned”, lose body fat, make activities of daily living easier, increase your energy, increase your endurance) resistance training a minimum of 2x/wk is necessary to achieve these goals.  Anything less and your body will adapt very little if any.

Although I do keep a workout log for my own purposes, I recently found out that I have access to the information my gym collects about when I actually use my membership.  I accessed this information and found out that, according to their records, I went to the gym 168 times (card swipes) and according to my workout log I resistance trained on 139 occasions in 2015.  YES, I accomplished this one!

Number of weight training occasions each month.

January - 12

February -12

March - 10

April - 11

May - 8

June - 10

July - 12

August - 12

Sept - 12

Oct - 12

Nov - 10

Dec - 8

As you can see I had a few months that were better than others but overall the theme here is consistency.  There are no huge peaks or valleys.

To summarize:

1. Grocery shop 1x/wk and meal plan for 4 dinners/wk (41/46 weekly trips)
2. Accumulate a minimum of 10,000 steps/day (9,733/10,000 steps/day)
3. Resistance Train at least 2x/wk (139/104 occasions)

I wanted to share my information with you not to show you that I am perfect, rather that I am FAR FROM PERFECT.  I am an expert in health & wellness and do my very best to stay healthy, yet even I have room for improvement.  Trying to be healthy is hard but as long as we are mindful AND HAVE A WELL DEFINED PLAN, hopefully we will not sway too far off track.

All too often we see media clips on how “the dietitian eats” or how the fitness trainer “trains”.  Everyone seems to have it together except for us.  The benchmarks that the media portrays to be healthy are completely unrealistic unless you have the time to devote to such endeavors or it is part of your job (you’re a dietitian or a fitness trainer).

In 2016 don’t beat yourself up over your perceived failures.  Follow my 3 steps for healthy living and just be better than last year!  That’s all I ask of myself.  I wouldn’t ask anymore of you!

Todd M. Weber PhD, MS, RD

What is the Best Diet to Lose Weight?

Every type of diet has its supporters: are you a low-fat, high-protein, low-carb, or Ketogenic supporter?  I don’t have a problem with any of these diet types but what I do have a problem with is when people become so adamant that their diet type is “the best diet to lose weight” and vehemently oppose other diets to lose weight, viewing them (with their noses up) as completely inferior.  Why can’t both parties be right? 

The intense debate over whether a high-protein diet is superior to, for example, a low-fat diet isn’t unique to the health & wellness industry.  Even in academic circles, there are numerous experts that endorse one diet over the other and set up academic studies to prove that the diet they are backing is superior to all other diets for weight loss. 

But, do you know what diet is truly superior to ALL THE OTHER DIETS?

It’s the (INSERT YOUR NAME HERE) diet!  That’s right, it’s your diet.  And this isn’t because your body handles carbohydrates and fats differently than another person or that there is some unique dietary mixture of fats, carbohydrates, and proteins that will give you the best results.  For the most part, your body handles fats, carbohydrates, and proteins no differently than someone else of your age, gender, and body mass index. 

The diet that you can stick with long term, i.e., your diet, is the BEST WEIGHT LOSS diet, if weight loss is in fact your goal.

It doesn’t matter how many detoxes, cleanses, fasts, or fixes you go on, if you can’t maintain those dietary patterns, what’s the point?  Unless you like yo-yo dieting and weight cycling you should modify your existing dietary habits to be healthy rather than continually adopting and deserting 180-degree dietary habit changes that leave you in a perpetual dietary spin cycle.

As I have repeatedly said and the data have shown (1, 2), one diet is not superior to another diet for sustained weight loss.

The longer you are on “a diet” the less strictly you adhere to that diet and the less weight you lose, partially as a result of not following the diet quite as closely.

Now, if you are trying to reach a scientific, theoretical, thermodynamically supported conclusion, one might be able to say that a high-protein diet is superior to other diet types in supporting weight loss due to protein’s increased calorie burning thermic effect of breaking down protein after a meal; however, this is also highly debatable (3).

Although I haven’t seen this approach employed in the scientific literature, I would love to see a study where people cycle on and off different diet types in succession.  Atkins for 2 months, Paleo for 2 months, low-fat for 2 months, etc.  If you only have to maintain “a diet” for 2 months at a time, would you be able to sustain your dietary adherence and your weight loss over time?  I don’t know the answer to that but I would like to see it tried.

The amount of weight lost during dieting diminishes over time and is highly correlated with dietary adherence (1).

Dietary Adherence (dietary strictness) decreases over the course of time and is directly related to the amount of weight lost on a diet (1).

Another option and one that I am in full support of is to take the foods and meals you currently eat and tweak them (recipe modification, portion control, elimination of certain “treats”) to come up with a sustainable diet that you can maintain over the long term!  In a nutshell, this is what the (INSERT YOUR NAME HERE) diet might look like:

1) Don’t eat unnecessary amounts of fat (example: lean beef versus fatty beef)

2) Don’t eat unnecessary amounts of refined carbohydrates (example: stick to one snack/week and not five)

3) Eat a mixed, balanced diet and protein will take care of itself.

Why do we have to sacrifice one macronutrient at the expense of the others?  Some of the meals we eat can be low-fat high-carbohydrate (spaghetti and marinara sauce), high-protein low-carbohydrate (steak and broccoli), or high-fat low-carbohydrate (asparagus wrapped in bacon).  Let’s just cut to the chase.  You can eat low-fat high-carbohydrate, high-protein low-carbohydrate or high-fat low-carbohydrate at alternating meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner each day of the week and still lose weight provided you maintain a negative energy balance.

What is the best diet to lose weight?  It’s the (INSERT YOUR NAME HERE) diet!  And true to the health & wellness industry and academic circles, I’m adamant about that!!!

Todd M. Weber PhD, MS, RD

References:

1. Dansinger ML, Gleason JA, Griffith JL, Selker HP, Schaefer EJ. Comparison of the Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers, and Zone diets for weight loss and heart disease risk reduction: a randomized trial. JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association. 2005;293(1):43-53.
2. Sacks FM, Bray GA, Carey VJ, et al. Comparison of weight-loss diets with different compositions of fat, protein, and carbohydrates. The New England journal of medicine. 2009;360(9):859-873.
3. Vergnaud AC, Norat T, Mouw T, et al. Macronutrient composition of the diet and prospective weight change in participants of the EPIC-PANACEA study. PloS one. 2013;8(3):e57300.

The fundamentals of health and wellness with special reference to football

Thank God.  It’s that time of year again.  Football season is upon us.  Each season brings the sense of renewed hope, optimism, and promise.  Last year your team might have stunk but with the start of a new year we all start off at 0-0.  Last year doesn’t matter (that’s even what the 2015 College Football Champion Ohio State Buckeye coaches are saying).  The start of football is kind of like New Year’s Day for the health & wellness industry, a new year and a new beginning!

During your team’s offseason coaches preach and teach the fundamentals of football, blocking and tackling.  Time and time again, when your team falters and loses, coaches go back to the fundamentals; because if you can’t tackle and you can’t block, there is no sense in trying to practice anything more complicated than the basics.

All too often, we in the health and wellness industry lose sight of the fundamentals, the things that can actually improve our health and win us some games, and instead focus on all of the more complicated matters of health & wellness.  If we don’t have a good grasp of our fundamentals, why are we trying to master the more complex aspects of health & wellness? 

If we don’t have a good mastery of the fundamentals, we are going to have some success but we will ultimately fail and fail again, which leads to frustration and disappointment.  If however, we master the fundamentals, we may lose a game or two, but at least we are bringing our “A” game to the fight.

My Three Health & Wellness Fundamentals are

1. Movement outside of the gym
2. Movement inside the gym
3. Your Nutrition

and I have made a video demonstrating how these three fundamentals can be easily accomplished.

Good luck to everyone this season and Go Buffs, Rams, Broncos, Badgers, Packers, and Bills!

My love/hate/love relationship with exercise

This week's article is a guest post written by my good friend, Jody Gavin.

Like many women, my love/hate relationship with exercise started in college.

College was the first time in my life I had to work out on my own.  Up until then I had coaches pushing me along, but in college it was all on me.  I was terrified of gaining the “freshmen fifteen” so I pushed as hard as I could.  And thus began my obsession with the elliptical.

Elliptical Blues  

Everyday I would begrudgingly walk across campus to the gym and force myself to spend 60-90 minutes on the elliptical pushing myself to my breaking point.  Then I would reward myself with beer.  Lots and lots of beer.

Drinking Lots and Lots of Beer (or in this case wine).

It seems completely crazy when I think about it now – no wonder I gained weight in college.  But at the time, I couldn’t see it.  I would get so upset with my skinny friends that could eat and drink whatever they wanted and never went to they gym, when I was there busting my butt everyday.  It seemed so unfair.  Yet I knew if I stopped obsessively ellipticaling everyday I would gain double the weight (because cutting down on my booze intake was just NEVER going to happen), so I kept pushing and pushing.  For four years.  It was one of the most un-healthy periods of my life.

A Love Affair with Running

After college I moved out West and found a new obsession – long distance running.  One 10K and I was hooked.  I replaced late-night drinking with carbo-loading for long runs.  I signed up for a half marathon and then a full.  And then another full, and eventually another.  I liked having something to work for – something that forced me to workout everyday even when I wasn’t in the mood.  But as much as I liked being held to a schedule, I also hated it.  Come Thursday I would start dreading the thought of my weekend long run.  All day Friday I would obsess over it.  And then if I didn’t get up first thing Saturday morning and run, my entire weekend would be spent feeling guilty.  But once I did complete that week’s long run I would feel like a million bucks.  Runner’s high is a REAL thing I tell you.  A real, wonderful, beautiful thing. 

Experiencing the Runner's High After Running the Army 10 Miler!

I kept up with running for several years - through several jobs, diet crazes, heartaches, and cross-country moves.  Running was always there for me.  No matter where I was, I could put on my running shoes and in a matter of minutes be pounding the pavement – taking my fears and frustrations out on the road.

Downward Spiral

But then came that fateful day when running let me down.  I was training for my fourth marathon and started dealing with some terrible foot pain.  I went to a specialist that confirmed a case of tendonitis and he didn’t recommend doing the race.  I was upset, but also relieved.  My long runs were causing me so much anxiety and the post-run “highs” just weren’t outweighing the dread anymore.  When the doctor told me to take a break I did.  I took the longest exercise break of my life. Nearly an entire year.  And while I thought it would be really good for me to dial things down it turned out to be one of the lowest points of my life.

Not exercising broke me.

I became deeply depressed- some days not even wanting to get out of bed.  I had some dark, dark days, but eventually I woke up to what was happening and realized I needed to bring exercise back into my life.  I met with a personal trainer and that’s when everything started turning around.  

It feels super crappy to be injured and as a result not being able to exercise.

I traded 2-3 hour long runs and 90-minute elliptical sessions for 30-45 min circuit training sessions 4-6 days a week. I also incorporated strength training into my exercise program for the first time since high school.  And almost immediately my mood changed.  I started to feel more like myself again.  I was happy and hopeful and re-energized about exercise.

Now that I am back in balance, I FEEL GREAT AGAIN!

I looked back at my relationship with exercise over the years and realized that it really had kept me sane.  But it also made me crazy because I couldn’t find a healthy balance.

Today, I feel like I’ve finally found that healthy balance and by reframing the benefits – mental health first, physical benefits second – I can honestly say that I love exercise again.  I don’t love/hate it. I simply love it.  It’s my favorite part of the day!