Diets “Miracle” high protein: Three reasons why they fail
The American essayist H. L. Mencken once said that “for every complex problem there is a simple solution – and is wrong.” His observation is still appropriate when applied to the current fashion of miracle diets.
Weight loss involves many factors, including caloric intake, exercise habits and beliefs about a “right” way of eating. Facing this dilemma, many people seek a simple fix. The authors of bad diets respond quickly, their ideas circulating through popular books, lectures and talks.
High protein diets share common claims
The books that promote low-calorie diets rich in protein and are currently the “hottest”. For example, The Energy of Proteins, Merge on The Zone, The Revolutionary Diet Dr. Atkins and The 5 Day Miracle Diet.
While plans differ in details, they share some statements:
Myth # 1: If we eat too much carbohydrate, we have too much insulin in our body. Excess insulin puts us in what one writer calls “the hell of carbohydrate. It is supposedly the result of increased heart disease, cancer, arthritis, and a large number of health problems.
Myth # 2: Humans originally enjoyed a high protein diet. Our genetic bodies “tuned” to this way of eating.
Myth # 3: You can quickly and permanently lose weight by consuming more protein and eating too few carbohydrates.
In sum, these diets say “hello meat, poultry, fish, and eggs and goodbye fruits, vegetables, and grains.”
Three reasons to doubt these assertions
In reality, the weight of scientific evidence contradicts the high protein exaggeration:
* Insulin is a hormone that moves glucose from the bloodstream into cells of the body. Therefore, insulin is crucial to human health, releasing the energy we need to continue our daily lives.
* Even if we accept to avoid some kind of argument, that human nutrition is focused on proteins once during a period that does not mean that diets high in protein are the most optimal for our health, especially because we live longer than our ancestors and have more time to accumulate fat. Foods high in protein are probably the most high in cholesterol and saturated fats – substances that can promote heart disease and various cancers.
* The weight loss due to high protein diets produced first a great loss of water. However, the long-term control of mean weight loss of fat, a goal that calls to change the eating habit. Even if you lose 10 to 20 pounds on these diets, the studies showed that one is extremely likely to win once you exit the program.
Quick fixes rarely lead to long-term changes
There is little evidence that people adhere to a miracle diet for long. Often diets can not provide the necessary tools to deal with common dilemmas.
“At first the diet because it stimulates interest is doing something different,” says Jennifer K. Nelson, a clinical dietitian at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. “But long term, faces the mother’s homemade ice cream, holidays, or on the street when he stopped at a fast food place. Then the diet becomes a ball and chain. The best program equips to handle these common situations, “says Nelson.
“In high-protein diets people can temporarily lose large amounts of weight, and may even lower blood cholesterol, sugar and triglycerides,” says Dr. John McDougall, “but this method is not healthy.” In a low-calorie diet, like Atkins Diet, the body burns fat, and with products like these are the ketones, which suppress appetite and cause nausea. McDougall pointed out that the same condition of ketosis occurs when people become ill and must rest and recover rather than be forced by hunger to gather and prepare meals. “For simulating a state similar to serious diseases,” says McDougall, “these diets I call them: enférmese yourself.”
Another reason why they deserve this title is that they contain significant amounts of the same foods – meat – the American Cancer Association and the Heart Association tell us that contribute to the most common causes of death and disability.
The reason why cholesterol, sugar and triglycerides can be reduced by high protein diets is because people eat much less, because of loss of appetite, and sometimes nauseated. Similar results, for similar reasons, are seen with chemotherapy. In general the benefits are temporary because it is nice to feel sick – so we return to the old way of eating.
There is a simple answer, healthier to obesity: eat food than slim people eat around the world, for example, healthy people from Asia who thrives on diets high in complex carbohydrates, rich in vegetable and rice based.
Investigations showed that a slow and steady approach to weight loss is what works best:
* Restrict calories moderately and naturally adopt a plant-based diet.
* Focus on food diet low in fat and high in carbohydrates such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains.
* Do not overdo it with protein.
* Follow an exercise regimen that may be adopted as a permanent part of your healthy lifestyle.
Such ideas can not currently be top of a bestseller. Still, this formula is probably easier to carry for long.