What do all of the following have in common? Werewolf, Tapeworm, Paleo, Grapefruit and Arsenic?
The answer? They are all genuine examples of diets recommended in the past. Luckily, none of the aforementioned seem to have caught on. Today surely no one thinks it’s a good idea to eat a grapefruit with every meal (let alone a hugely poisonous substance like arsenic)?
However, there is still a lot of unhelpful diet advice out there. Arguably it’s harder than ever to know what to eat because so much of the current ‘advice’ sounds plausible.
Google gave me 1,830,000 weight loss diet plans to choose from.
With all of this information (and misinformation) swirling around it’s no wonder people are confused. So how do we reconnect with ‘normal’ eating?
In my role as an eating disorder therapist I’ve spoken to hundreds of people who have lost considerable amounts of weight through dieting, only to put it all back on again. They often say things like:
· “I feel like a failure.”
· “I should have more will power.”
· “I feel so guilty about what I’m doing to my body.”
· “Why do I self-sabotage like this?”
· “My GP keeps telling me I need to lose weight.”
The first thing I try to do is to help them understand why diets rarely work. The fact is that regaining lost weight is a protective, evolved human response.
We evolved ways to avoid losing weight but not ways to avoid putting it on.
Let’s imagine our ancestor. They’re living a hand to mouth existence, eating only what they can hunt or gather. Sometimes food is scarce, so they are programmed to overeat when food does become available, to make up for what they missed. This protective mechanism will stop them from starving to death.
Today we have that same drive within us. Unfortunately our genes don’t know about supermarkets and Deliveroo. Our way of life has changed faster than our genes have.
This helps to explain why between 95% and 97% of people who diet regain the lost weight.
Try this swimming analogy…
Imagine you are swimming underwater. You are holding your breath all the way from one side of the swimming pool to the other. Now imagine coming up for air. What happens?
· You don’t start breathing normally – you gasp!
· You need to binge on air.
· You will do this until your body feels it has had enough oxygen.
It’s the same with food. If your body feels it hasn’t had enough it will try to make you binge on food.
Not only will you binge on food, you will binge on something high calorie. Common binge foods include crisps, chips, biscuits, sweets and cakes. They tend not to include apples, cucumber, cabbage or melon. This makes complete sense from our evolutionary perspective. Just think how much melon and cucumber you’d have to eat to regain lost calories? Far more effective to go for something high in sugar or fat.
What about low carb diets though?
Many patients I work with believe that carbohydrates such as bread, pasta and potatoes will make them put on weight. Now, it’s true that some people have to be careful about the amount of carbs they eat – particularly people with diabetes. However, complex carbs in particular have huge health benefits.
Carbs are the body’s preferred energy source and the main fuel for your brain. Without carbohydrates our bodies cannot turn tryptophan into serotonin. Serotonin is the neurotransmitter we all need to regulate our mood and also our appetite!
I’m worried I’m not eating enough protein.
I’m kicking myself for not placing the bet I toyed with 5 years ago. At that time we weren’t hearing much about high protein diets. I remember thinking “What will the diet industry come up with next – the only thing I can think of is the protein diet because they’ve already focused on carbs and fat!”
Call me cynical but I have a feeling that the current push to bring new ‘high protein’ foods to market has more to do with manufacturers making money than it does with improving public health.
How much protein should I be eating?
I often hear from patients who are worried that they aren’t eating enough protein, so how much is enough? Here are a few protein facts to help you decide:
· The NHS recommends that the average person should aim to eat around 0.8g of protein per 1kg of body mass. One egg contains about 6g protein to give you an idea.
· Most people can meet their protein needs through eating regular foods and this is the healthiest way to meet your protein target.
· There is no evidence that consuming more than 2g per 1kg of body mass does anything.
· Older people are more likely to need more than younger people due to anabolic resistance that increases with ageing (over 45)
· Women need the same protein as men (ie the same amino acids) but may need different amounts as they tend to have a lower body mass.
· Protein enriched foods may contain added flavourings, sweeteners, thickeners and digestive enzymes to make them palatable. This makes them more highly processed.
· If you struggle to eat enough food, or if you are an elite athlete, then protein supplements might have a place in your diet.
So does all of this mean weight reduction is impossible?
Not necessarily. But it’s probably going to be slower than you had in mind. I compare it to growing your hair. For ages you think nothing is happening and then one day you can tie it back in a bobble.
Take small steps. Most diets fail because the changes they suggest are too big. Start from where you are at and make 1 small change. Let that bed in for a few weeks and then try another small change. By small I mean something along the lines of one less biscuit per day, or swapping ordinary crisps for baked crisps.
Diets rarely work, so stop blaming yourself.
You can’t override millions of years of evolution. Leave the blame behind. If you genuinely have to lose weight for health reasons then keep in mind that slow and steady wins the race.
Perhaps you have done so many diets that it’s hard to remember how you ate before all this started? If you feel you are struggling with disordered eating, please get in touch.
Help is available and you are worthy of it.
To find out more about treatment to overcome disordered eating at YourCBT, book your free 15 minute discovery call or email [email protected]