Health News

Diets make you fat and sick

Diet trends 2012: Old failures in a new guise

10/24/2011

Scientifically, one thing is certain: Diets make you fat and sick - and they can lead to eating disorders. Nevertheless, it is teeming with weight loss every year „new dietary revolutions“. But all slimming treatments always have one thing in common: great promises, k (l) an effect. Because every artificial hunger cure, no matter how glamorous or scientifically it is advertised, works on the same principle: The dieter must eat less than they need, so that the body uses up its reserves. And at this stage the „negative energy balance“ you lose weight. But then usually follows the heavy inheritance: „Diets are harmful to people's stupidity. Those willing to lose weight are kept on the short calorie leash, forcing weight loss through an artificial starvation diet. If you release them after the diet again „normal eating life“, then the body gets its natural weight back“, explains the nutritionist Uwe Knop, „and then often the disappointed dieters come back again or try a new slimming cure - usually with higher initial weight.“

The reasons are now known - the lack of food is an endogenous to the body „Energy Saving Program“ in progress, which leads to the JoJo effect: After the time-limited diet, a normal eating behavior quickly ensures fresh fat again. Knop basically advises against dieting after critically analyzing more than 300 recent study results from 2007-2011 for the book Hunger und Lust (1). Instead, he recommends unsparingly to question the degreasing plan before looking at the „Life's task losing weight“ provides:

Why do you advise against dieting??
Knop: Diets promise slimming - but in the long term make you fat and sick and can lead to eating disorders. Meanwhile it is clear: Diets lead in the short term to the reduction of fat and muscle mass. But after completion of the slimming diets cause exactly the opposite: One is promptly heavier again - due to the rapid fat storage. This is the well-known JoJo effect. This protects the body from the next famine. Besides, it can already be used during the diet „Withdrawal symptom food cravings“ come, which leads to uncontrolled feeding orgies.

Why are new diets sprouting up like mushrooms? ?
Diets are a billion-dollar (year) market that plays with the wishes and hopes of many women. If any of the previous slimming treatments would make you permanently slim, there would not be new diets every few months. This shows: Diets are useless. Except for the vendors, who can always advertise new degreasing cures because the previous ones have made the dieters even fatter. It's that easy to get your audience. Actually everyone would have to because of the constantly new „revolutionary diets“ be clear in the meantime: Something is not right here. Therefore, do not let your health lure you with untenable slender promise - not even from the upcoming trend diets 2012, because these are just the old losers in a new guise.

What should those people do now who want to lose weight??
The most important question every healthy weight-loss patient should answer before starting a diet is: „Why am I so heavy?“ Often, it is not the biologically necessary food for the maintenance of life that causes the extra pounds, but everyday problems that lead to hunger-free eating. There is a diet just the wrong way.

What do you mean by hunger-free food?
For example, if you have breakfast from a retired routine, because it should be so healthy. Or stuff treats out of boredom, frustration or loneliness. Also stress with gluttony too „fight“ - All this is hunger-free food. Here is the first question about the „Why am I eating, although I'm not really hungry?“ Therefore, be careful when eating and uncover the triggers of this „compensatory“, of „Soul-be fed“ Food. First, eliminate these triggers before you even think about dieting.

So first find out the reasons why you eat?
Exactly. Go inside and examine your life without shame and shyness: Where is the stress, where is the boredom, where are the routines that will let me eat without hunger? Why did I eat an emotional protective tank of fat? When and why do I comfort my soul with food? There you should start, because that begins with you - and unnatural pounds. Eliminate the causes of hunger-free eating and some kilos will surely disappear by itself.

And what about those who really only eat when they are really hungry, but still want to lose weight?
Especially these people should question your project critically! Because every body has a so-called setpoint, that is its personal feel-good weight, which is largely determined by the genes. This individual ideal weight defends your body. So why do you want to lose weight? For example, if you want to starve down from your natural setpoint for visual reasons, such as getting close to the artificial body ideal of our society, you are preparing for a lifelong battle against your own body. He will defend himself by all means against the forced reduction of his well-being weight.

If now man or woman anyway „good intention“ has met „I want to lose weight!“ What should they do??
If the decision has been made for the kilo fight, then it does not matter with which diet you lose weight. Large study analyzes have shown that only the negative energy balance is important. So you just have to eat less than your body consumes. This also means: A free eating behavior is no longer possible, you must control your food intake. What you eat when a day does not matter. It just has to be too little - here also helps more exercise, especially in everyday life. But be seriously aware: either you are going to do a heavy life job or you will start to eat at your usual eating habits after the end of the diet - and probably weigh more than you did before. Therefore, the decision to claim the natural kilos fight should be well considered.

But 60 percent of Germans are too fat. Is not it better to lose weight when you are „overweight“ has - even if it is the physical well-being weight?
The question before is: what does that mean anyway „too thick“? The cited 60 percent and all known weight figures are based on the BMI, the body mass index. But this human dimension has so many vulnerabilities that it provides neither health or disease knowledge, nor body shapes. The world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, for example, has a BMI on the border with „obesity“ - there you already see a weakness: The BMI does not differentiate according to fat and muscle mass. Miss Dr. Olias from the German Institute of Human Nutrition DIfE already recognized in 2010: The BMI „has served its time“. So forget about the numbers for propagated „Obesity Epidemic“ - that is nothing more than a statistical scare tactic.

But being fat is unhealthy, or not?
Here, too, the statistics have interesting things to offer: Recent analyzes of numerous scientific studies show, among other things, that the „overweight“ The BMI range between 25 and 30 guarantees the longest life - and obesity grade I, ie BMI 30 to 35, does not result in increased mortality (2,3). As always in nutritional science, these are only number games with no cause-and-effect proof. But for the statistically loyal overweight propagandists, that means conversely: Who uses these figures as the „too thick“ stamped and forced to lose weight, they probably brings them earlier to the grave. A perverse paradox that benefits the billion dollar diet industry in particular. Minister of Health Bahr should abolish the BMI and the propaganda based on it - for the benefit of the Germans!

What do you advise instead of BMI?
More important than unspecific BMI values are the subjective values satisfaction and well-being factor. If you are happy with yourself, enjoying your life and feeling healthy and comfortable, then you should not be impelled by impersonal measures to turn your natural weight - it could not only make your life enjoyable, but even shorten it! Therefore, trust the food better to your feelings of hunger and desire and not to dietary rules or even diets.

How can a real feeling of hunger and thus a natural eating behavior be trained again??
There are two tips. First, forget everything you have learned about healthy eating. This pseudo-scientific half-knowledge often only disturbs the instinct, that is, the hunger, in the selection of foods that are personally healthy for you. Second, stimulate your organic hunger until you feel it right again. So do not eat time or habits, but wait. For example, if you are not hungry in the morning, skip it, even if breakfast is often promoted as the most important meal of the day. No one needs a breakfast without hunger. If you know your real hunger then you feel the difference between real hunger and the compensatory, that is „mental hunger“, which, for example, leads to eating out of boredom, stress or routine routine. That should be avoided, because that can make unnaturally thick.

Last question: How do you eat in your opinion fundamentally healthy and correct?
Trust your feelings of hunger and lust instead of listening to dietary rules or popes. The benefits of rules such as eating fruits and vegetables five times a day, drinking two liters of water a day or eating less meat is not proven - it is nothing more than a guess. My critical analysis of more than 300 recent study results in 2007-11 has shown: Such „folk recommendations“ are only statistical games without probative force. No healthy person needs this nutrition science and the resulting rules. It is generally less important what you eat when you are hungry, but that you feel good and enjoy it until you are full. Only your body knows best what good food is for you, no one else.

(1) Reading excerpt „HUNGER & LUST“ -> Diets make you fat and ill

(2,3) Deutsches Ärzteblatt International -> Morbidity and mortality in overweight and obesity in adulthood: A systematic review / Deutsches Ärzteblatt International -> Study: Overweight prolongs life