Yo-yo diets rarely succeed. Recently released findings from The Scripps Research Institute illustrate why that's the case.

I can’t stand it when people say, “I’m on a diet.”  I typically hear this refrain when friends of mine say they want to lose a few; for a short while, they abandon the glut to lose that gut and avoid the yummy to tighten their tummy.

It drives me crazy, though, because once they lose their weight, nine times out of 10, they go right back to their same old eating patterns, and nine times out of 10, they wind up putting on as much, if not more weight, than before.

Sound familiar?  It’s called yo-yo dieting, and it’s something that just about everyone experiences who goes on a “diet.”  But this is precisely why “dieting” is a wrong approach to take for weight loss; it’s destined for doom.  If you want to lose weight, you have to commit to a lifestyle change.  That’s the only real way to ensure success.  But don’t take my word for it.  A study from The Scripps Research Institute says the same thing.

To examine the effects of “yo-yo dieting,” researchers from the Boston University School of Medicine fed two groups of lab rats varying diets.  One group was fed a balanced diet, while the other group was fed a diet where sweet treats were a constant feature.  The rats were able to eat as much or as little of the food as they wanted, but with the yo-yo dieting rats, the researchers swapped their food options in five-day intervals (e.g., five days of a balanced diet, five days of a sweet diet, five days of a balanced diet…).

At the end of the study, the researchers observed some commonalities in the rats’ behavior and brain chemistry.  In their behavior, they found that both groups ate less when given a balanced diet compared to when they ate a sweetened diet.  This was particularly noticeable after the yo-yo dieting rats cycled off the sweetened diet.  But what was even more interesting was that once the yo-yo dieting rats went back on the sweet diet, they returned to their habit of eating more.  For the rats fed a balanced diet consistently, they ate pretty much the same amount throughout.

The changes in food consumption for the yo-yo dieting rats became more understandable when the researchers examined the rats’ brains, specifically the amygdala.  Among many other functions, the amygdala is the section of the brain that’s involved in the body’s reactions to stress.

In the amygdala, the researchers looked at how much of a neuropeptide called corticotrophin-releasing factor, or CRF, was released.  When the body is under stress—or even when the body thinks it’s under stress, but may in fact not be—there is a greater release of this neuropeptide.  So when the researchers found that the yo-yo dieting rats had a CRF neuropeptide level that was five times higher than the control rats on the same diet, they understood why:  They were experiencing withdrawal symptoms from being on the sweet stuff.  It was only when they cycled back on to the sweet diet that the CRF levels returned to normal.

Speaking about the study’s results, lead author Dr. Eric Zorrill, said, “Our findings suggest that intermittently eating sweet food changes the brain’s stress system so that you might feel stressed, even though nothing that terrible has happened.”

Zorrill’s co-author elaborated on the potential pitfalls of this kind of dieting, saying that yo-yo dieting “leads to a vicious cycle.  The more you cycle this way, the more likely it is you cycle again.”

The full details of the study are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

I hearken back to my original point.  If you’re really serious about losing weight, you don’t diet, you commit to a lifestyle change.  This study illustrates why that’s necessary.

Sources:
sciencedaily.com

So where’s the truth lie?

As I’ve reported in the past, eggs are a GREAT, complete protein food source – one little egg contains the nine essential amino acids the body cannot make therefore needs in order for the body to repair old muscle and build new muscle (not all protein sources are complete; beans, for instance, are an incomplete protein).  But as I’ve also reported in the past, too many eggs in the diet are a great way to increase your mortality risk (see “‘Egg’regious Health Hazard”).  But if you have one egg a day, it can keep you looking just as healthy and trim as those that shy away from eggs for fear of excess cholesterol.

As recently published in the International Journal of Obesity, people that included eggs in their diet were better able to follow a strict meal plan that enabled them to lose pounds of weight.  The study involved participants between the ages of 25 and 60, all obese, and all following a dietary plan with a restricted number of calories.  The researchers from Louisiana State University found that when the participants were grouped according to what they ate for breakfast – both following reduced-calorie diets – those that had two eggs for breakfast lost 65 percent more weight overall than the group that had a bagel for breakfast.  The researchers believe the combination of fat, carbohydrates and protein found in eggs brings a greater sense of satiety, or fullness, thus preventing them from splurging on other foods to alleviate hunger pangs.

While I am indeed an advocate of eating eggs, I advise that you eat no more than one a day.  This is largely because of the amount of cholesterol found in a solitary egg yolk – about 270 mg of cholesterol (nearly 90 percent of your daily recommended value)!

If one egg won’t fill you, add a few more but remove the egg yolks, leaving one for taste.  Other than taste, leaving the one yolk ensures you get the complete protein aspect of eggs (removing the egg yolk removes the cholesterol but it also makes for an incomplete protein).  If you’re being really strict about your diet and don’t want to have the yolk, I have no problem with that.  But you should at least supplement it with some kind of protein to make it complete.  One way to make it complete is by having your scrambled egg whites with a side of whole wheat toast spread with natural peanut butter.

My final bit of advice on eggs is to avoid eggs from the grocery store.  You never know where these eggs originate from, how old they are, or how the chickens were raised.  All these things affect the nutritional quality of the egg.  Opt for eggs fresh from a local farm, where you know how the chickens are raised and what they’re fed.  If you’re neck of the woods isn’t exactly Green Acres, head to the whole food market and grab a dozen eggs certified organic – the organic seal certifies they’re nutritionally sound, meaning the chickens were fed quality grain and raised humanely.

Rest assured, this is not uncommon. The reasons for this quick regain of weight are manifold. Perhaps you’ve underestimated the amount of exercise you’ve done and are eating more than you are burning. Or perhaps you’re not eating the right types of foods.  But a recent study suggests that the answer may lie in the amount of exercise you’re doing – which is to say not enough.

I know the thought of doing more exercise hurts, but hear me out, because the benefits of doing more will show. According to a study done by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, current guidelines calling on the obese to get two and a half hours of exercise per week  might be a lowball figure if one not only wants to take it off but keep it off.

To determine how much more exercise it takes, researchers enlisted approximately 200 obese women and assigned each woman to one of four exercise groups. Each of the groups followed their own respective exercise regimens for four years and the researchers followed the groups’ progress, extending from 1999 to 2003.

A promising finding was that all of the women involved lost weight – as much as 10 percent of their weight in most instances, in fact. What wasn’t so promising was that most of these same women gained the weight they’d lost back…except for a select few women who were assigned to exercise in a manner different from the others.

What were they asked to do differently? Simply exercise longer – an hour longer to be precise. Now, you might be thinking that these women must have picked the short end of the stick when the researchers were deciding who would have to exert more energy over the four-year period. Maybe they did pick the short end, but their extra efforts paid off, as the women who exercised 60 minutes longer were the only ones who did not gain the weight they’d lost back. 

True the women who didn’t gain the weight they’d lost back may be due to the fact that they also ate healthier, but the fact that they ate healthier is probably explained by their not wanting to abandon all their hard work by eating unhealthily. That alone is a motivating factor to exercise longer (just as we tend to be more careful with those things we spend a lot of money or time on, we tend also to be more careful with the things we eat when we spend a lot of time and energy exercising). 

Keeping the weight off is not the only reason to “kick it up a notch” when exercising. In a related study, among those with diabetes, it was found that an extra 45 minutes of exercise helped muscles better store the calories and sugar consumed from food, thus the body burned fuel more efficiently, thus blood sugar levels were kept in control for longer periods of time.

So, how much extra time should be spent exercising per week? Researchers say exercise should be nearly double the current recommendation – from 2 ½ hours per week to 4 ½ hours per week.

Now, I know this sounds like a lot, but if you’re currently walking for 30 minutes a day, five days per week, try and walk an extra 25 minutes per day. If 25 minutes per day is too much to start with, work your way up, going an extra minute per day until you reach that extra 25 minutes.

I can assure you – just as the researchers’ findings suggest – doubling your efforts will triple the amount of satisfaction you get out of yourself and out of life.

The formula makes sense.  If you want to lose weight, you have to do two things: eat less, exercise more.  It sounds simple, but putting the formula into action is anything but. 

That said, what if I told you that eating less may not be the key to losing weight after all?  What if I told you that the truly best way to lose weight is to eat more – particularly if you’re a woman.  Don’t believe me?   

Dr. Daniela Jakubowicz and her fellow researchers will be attending The Endocrine Society’s 90th annual meeting this week in San Francisco.  While there, they’ll tell their colleagues and fellow researchers that after studying 94 obese and inactive women over the course of eight months, the women who adhered to a strict diet regained an average of 18 pounds after initially losing weight, while those who ate carb-rich, high calorie breakfasts not only lost weight initially, but continued to lose weight at the eight-month mark:  an average of 16.5 pounds more, in fact!

What explains this?  It’s all about the time in which these women ate their foods and how they spaced their calorie intake over the course of the day.

It all goes back to that maxim you learned way back in grade school:  breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  Not only is it the most important meal of the day, but it also ought to be your biggest meal of the day, in terms of caloric intake.

There’s no doubt that consuming a diet low in carbohydrates leads to a drop in body weight – as the low-carb diet craze that swept the country a few years ago indicated.  But as Jakubowicz and her colleagues from the Hospital de Clinicas in Caracas, Venezuela found, women who consumed low carbohydrates craved carbohydrates over time and wound up eating more carbohydrates than they had initially.  No wonder the low-carb diet craze fizzled.

“A very low carbohydrate diet exacerbates the craving for carbohydrates and slows metabolism,” Jakubowicz said.  “After a short period of weight loss, there is a quick return to obesity.”

The researchers found that the group of women who followed a low-carb diet during breakfast lost an average of 28 pounds; the big breakfast group of women lost an average of 23 pounds.  On the surface, this looks like the low-carb diet is the way to go.  After all, five extra pounds of weight loss is nothing to sneeze at.  But in the battle of the bulge, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.  And similar to a marathon, success is highly contingent on the fuel you put in your body before competing.  A pre-race meal that’s low in carbohydrates won’t get you to mile 13.  But a high carbohydrate diet will help carry you through the 26.2 mile marker.

The same standard applies with your day:  the more fuel you provide your body in the morning, the fewer cravings you’ll have throughout the day, leading to a more successful maintenance of weight loss.

Now, does this study mean you can satisfy your ravenous appetite on sugary, high processed foods?  Certainly not.  They’re not very satiating as it is, never mind their lack of nutrients.  Fill yourself up on quality, high-fiber carbohydrates that satisfy:  fresh fruits, veggies, whole wheat breads, and whole grain cereals. 

There are many different forms of cocoa available and although you may be thinking you have some in your home right now, the form used within this study is not yet being sold within supermarkets or to the public. It is important to understand that cocoa comes in many forms:

• Raw
• Unsweetened cocoa powder
• Commercial cocoa drinks

Each of these forms of cocoa contains different levels of antioxidants. Commercial cocoa for instance is incredibly low in antioxidant levels and contains more sugar than other forms. This makes these commercial cocoa drinks bad for you although many people believe they are healthy. In order to receive the heart healthy benefits from cocoa, you will have to use the unsweetened powder form. By choosing to add sugar to this powder you are sure to be outweighing the health benefits with the insulin abuse tied to the sugar.

For anyone who is diabetic it is important to understand that treating your diabetes, choosing to control your weight as well as a heart condition all go together. Your diet is the first place you should begin. This means you need to severely cut and limit the amount of sugar you consume within a day. Speaking with a dietician is a great way to learn what you can and cannot eat so you are not further sabotaging your health without knowing it. Begin to exercise regularly and limit your trans fat intake as well. Paying attention to what you put into your body through diet can be difficult at first but this new form of consciousness is what can prevent heart disease.

This study is not to encourage diabetics to eat chocolate in order to prevent heart disease. Chocolate is a form of cocoa but as we stated above not the form of cocoa that can be beneficial for you. Take the time to learn the types of cocoa and it will begin to make sense of what you should and should not eat. Based on the increase of natural solutions for health you will find there are natural supplement retailers and naturopathic professionals everywhere today. With this in mind take the time to visit one and learn what natural supplements and herbs can do for you and other aspects of your health as well.

According to the study, when trying to lose weight, women count calories more than men do.

There are many low-calorie choices of food available on the market, which are causing people to just cut back on food intake rather than exercising.

A sports scientist who conducted the study said, “The trend of people swapping the gym for a low calorie meal is very worrying. Consuming fewer calories is no substitute for exercise. We cannot afford to become a nation of calorie-counting couch potatoes — the benefits of leading active lives are enormous.”

“I’m not surprised by the results. A lot of people find the idea of going to the gym quite daunting and so reducing calorie intake seems to be an easier option. We promote physical activity as opposed to going to the gym per se. Things like taking the stairs instead of using the lift and walking when ever possible to increase your energy expenditure throughout the day. The recommendation is 60 minutes of activity a day. That can be done in smaller slots,” said Charlene Shoneye, research dietician at Weight Concern.

Frank Mangano’s commentary:

The fact of the matter is this. Exercise can never be substituted for anything, especially reduced food intake. Reason being is this. Aside from aiding weight loss, exercise has countless other benefits including building strength in both muscles and bones as well as lowering blood pressure and reducing stress.

Cutting back on food intake and counting calories may help you temporarily lose weight but it does nothing for your heart and mind.

Eating the right type of foods is what people should be more concerned with as certain diets aimed at aiding weight loss can be extremely unhealthy.

If you’re serious about losing weight and more importantly achieving optimal health, maintain a diet low in bad fats while increasing your intake of healthy fats, avoid refined carbohydrates and by all means, start doing some type of exercise on a daily basis as a sedentary lifestyle causes more deaths than smoking.

If you’re just beginning, start with 30 minutes of continuous exercise per day, such as walking. Gradually work your way up to longer durations. Although smaller slots of exercise is better than not exercising at all, continuous exercise will yield substanically more health benefits.