My Ethical Issue With Reduction vs. Elimination In Dietary Recommendations.

Just about every standard diet around or that has ever been proposed have all used the same model and construct of calorie reduction and reducing fat.

There have been many clever ways to package this idea from grazing on small meals and snacks all day long, to having a point system that maxes both fat and calories in a day, to constructing blocks designed of food combinations, to straight up calorie and fat gram counting.

This massive effort was promoted by all of our government agencies, stamped with approval by all our many medical associations and institutions, and embraced by the eager food industry to all help us loose weight and get healthy.

What came next was the introduction off modern "health food," labeled as low fat and reduced calories being now called "Diet," "Light," "Lean," and used terms such as "Healthy Portion," "Heart Healthy," and were quickly promoted and partnered by the new industry of weight loss and all their new programs like Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Lean Cuisine, all they way up to Slim Fast, Nutrisystem and Medifast and all the other countless shake based meal replacement groups out there.

This new cultural model for eating essentially promoted REDUCTION. The only thing limited was fat and calories. By reducing what you ate by 25% or 500 calories a day you would lose 1 lb of body fat a week. This new fad diet concept, and yes, it is the ultimate fad diet, did not care what you ate with your daily points, blocks, and the 75% of the food you were allowed to eat.....just keep the calories lower and the fat low overall.

The 2 main concepts, the very backbone and rational off this model, low fat and daily calorie restriction are both anecdotal hypotheses, not facts, and not evidence based, AND as it turns out very limiting and actually DANGEROUS.

Calories do not determine metabolism. Fat is essential and when it gets too low it causes part of the chronic stress and malfunction that leads to disease.

Low Fat, Low Calorie dieting may induce short term moderate weight loss but it does so by injuring our metabolism. What we now know from long term EVIDENCE is that it increases your risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer and overall causes of death. AND 98% of the weight loss (usually in the form of water, some fat, and some muscle) is regained plus interest (and usually as fat giving us a net gain in fat for our efforts).

Hormones drive metabolism and paint the landscape that our health is resultantly depicted. Hormones determine hunger, satiety, fat loss and gain, muscle mass and atrophy, and even mood, mental clarity, emotions, and quality of life.

Our current Standard American Diet creates imbalances in our hormones that in time can cause our health issues. By simply reducing the frequency and severity in which we imbalance our hormones but continue to imbalance them will not stop the disease process, and doesn't seem to slow them much once started either. To recommend them knowing this is unethical and to utilize these models knowing this is denial.

Elimination is the key to today's weight and chronic disease issues. There simply are behaviors and actions that we much stop if we want to loose weight and get healthy. There are other actions and behaviors we simply have to start for the same reason.

First steps:
1. Eliminate snacking
2. Eliminate sugar

Add in first steps:
1. Eat more healthy fat
2. Mix intensity exercise/training into your physical activity

Bonus musts:
1. Improve your sleep
2. Celebrate silence: meditation and paced breathing
3. Neurological tune up: chiropractic

For more advanced concepts, scroll back on my wall and keep an eye out.

Let me know how it goes!

Dr. Don