Low-Calorie Diet Myth Number Two: Low-Cal Diets Will Help You Lose Weight

In a perfect world, we would judge the effectiveness of any diet by several important criteria:

- Does it help you lose weight?

- Does it improve your health and help you live longer?

- Are there no side-effects or nutritional deficiencies while using the diet?

- Do people enjoy the food?

- Does the lost weight stay off?

Most reduced calorie diets accomplish only the first item on that list, and that's why most diet book authors state, right in the introduction to their books, that diets don't work.

You do lose weight, of course, if you eat less than your body needs for fuel and maintenance. This is probably why most people assume that it's just obvious that a low-calorie diet is the answer to a weight problem.

But there are known side-effects of a low-calorie diet that everyone should know about before they start cutting their calories. And everyone should also know that there is an extremely high chance that they'll eventually end up weighing more then they did when they started.

In Good Calories, Bad Calories, Mr Taubes brings our attention to a study conducted in 1917 by the director of the Carnegie Institution of Washington's Nutrition Laboratory, Francis Benedict. The study was published under the title Human Vitality and Efficiency Under Prolonged Restricted Diet. A similar study was done in 1944 at the University of Minnesota. The results were published in 1950 in the book The Biology of Human Starvation. What really happens on a 'well-balanced' low-calorie diet:

The Carnegie Study: The 1917 study was designed to find out if humans could thrive on a low calorie diet. During the study careful records were kept of the psychological and physical symptoms encountered by a group of young male volunteers who were put on reducing diets of 1400 to 2100 calories a day. They stayed at this level for a month, with the expectation of reducing their total body weights by 10%. During the following two months the men were kept on diets that would maintain their weight at this new level.

If you have ever been on a 'well balanced' reduced-calorie diet in order to lose weight, the results of this study will sound familiar to you.

Symptoms: The 10% weight loss occurred, as expected. However, the 12 men in the study constantly complained of a gnawing hunger, and they said it was almost impossible to stay warm, no matter how much clothing they wore.

Their metabolism slowed down so much that they would begin to regain weight if the daily calorie level went up over 2100 calories, even though they previously ate far more than that before the study started. Their blood pressure and pulse rate went down, they became anemic, they had difficulty concentrating, and physical activity made them weak.

One symptom must have been extremely upsetting to these young healthy men - their interest in sex was reduced, and in some cases it vanished completely.

Many of these symptoms occured only a few days after beginning the low-calorie diet.

After the diet was over: Once the three month study was over, the volunteers were cautioned against over-eating, but they seemed unable to stop themselves from doing so. They felt strong cravings for anything sweet, and indulged in every snack they could lay their hands on.

Within two weeks, these young men were back at their original starting weight, and then gained an average of eight more pounds, making them heavier than they were before their diet.

The University of Minnesota Study: The University of Minnesota study had similar results. The purpose of the study was to document the physical and psychological effects of starvation. It was clear that World War II in Europe would soon be over.

The US military knew that many communities in Europe had been cut off from normal food supplies for many months, and they expected allied troops to find many starving people when Europe was liberated. They wanted to know how best to respond to the physical and mental problems these communities were suffering from because of poor food supplies.

Conscience objectors volunteered for the study. Many of them were Quakers who later went to Europe to help rebuild the war-torn countries.

The volunteers agreed to eat a diet averaging around 1570 calories a day, consisting mostly of starchy, plant-based foods like whole-wheat bread, potatoes, and turnups, along with a bit of cabbage. Approximately 400 calories a day of protein were allowed.

In order to duplicate the conditions they expected to find in a liberated Europe, the volunteers were also required to walk five or six miles a day.

Symptoms: The physical and psychological symptoms were even more pronounced among the volunteers of this study. The men lost weight, of course, but in addition their hair started to fall out, small cuts took longer to heal, their metabolism slowed down so they rarely moved when they didn't have to, they felt cold all the time, they had slower reflexes, they felt weak, their normal interests in the world around them narrowed, they suffered from depression, irritability and food obsessions, and, like the volunteers in the 1917 study, they lost their interest in sex.

Two volunteers showed psychological signs of a state bordering on psychosis, and one volunteer was committed to the psychiatric ward at the local hospital because of threats of suicide and violence.

After the diet: When the starvation part of the study was over, the men were kept on a diet of 3000 calories a day to avoid the dangerous binge-eating that followed the Carnegie study in 1917.

Even on this higher calorie diet, the volunteers felt desperately hungry, and many found their depression actually getting worse. One volunteer became so psychologically unstable during this phase of the study that he attempted self-mutilation.

When the volunteers were released to eat as much as they wanted, they sometimes ate as much as 8000 calories a day, but still felt hungry. When they were checked one year after the beginning of the study, the men weighed an average of 5% more than they did when the study started, and had 50% more body fat.

How these studies compare to modern reducing diets:

In these two studies, the average daily calorie intake was 1400 to 1600 calories.

In a recent article titled Treatment of Obesity: An Overview, found on the American Diabetes Association's Clinical Diabetes website, a low-calorie diet (LCD) for women has 1000 to 1200 calories a day, and for men 1200 to 1600 calories a day - the same number of calories - or lower - than the starvation studies we just read about.

For those who fail to lose weight at this calorie level, (because the patient's metabolism slows down in response to starvation), a very low calorie diet is suggested, under clinical guidance. These VLCDs provide 200 to 800 calories a day, usually given as a liquid formula diet. Exercise is also recommended, along with behavioral modification.

Where are the warnings?

After reading the list of psychological and physical symptoms experienced by the volunteers in those two studies, you can see why behavioral modification and counselling, along with constant medical attention, would be needed by anyone attempting one of these low or very low calorie diets.

Yet I've never read a notice, in any diet book, that cautions readers about the possibility of depression, obsessions, and a loss of interest in sex. That warning wouldn't sell many books, would it?

And you can also see why the long-term success rates are in the 1% to 5% range. Most people, like the healthy volunteers in the Carnegie and University of Minnesota studies, end up heavier than they started.

If that's happened to you (and it's happened to almost everyone who has tried to lose weight by cutting calories), your doctor probably thinks you don't have enough will power.

Maybe you don't think you have enough will-power, either. But these two studies, and others like them, have proven that your will-power has nothing to do with it.

Gaining weight is just one of the many negative physical and psychological consequences of of a low-calorie diet.

Diets (low-calorie diets, that is), really don't work.

When you remember that these low-calorie diets were once called semi-starvation diets, you can see why the body naturally rebels. Humans (and dogs, rats, pigeons, worms, and every other animal) have highly efficient internal methods for staying alive during times of famine. When food can't be found, the reproductive activity is reduced, metabolism slows, and the body moves around much less than it normally would when the cells are not receiving the fuel they need to carry out their functions.

This is true for college students and consciencious objectors of normal weight who volunteered for those nutritional studies, and it's true of obese subjects who go on low-calorie diets to lose weight. The body will do whatever it can to hang on to as much flesh as it can during a semi-starvation diet, and will replace any weight lost (and more) as soon as the diet is over.

It's a matter of biology, and good intentions can't change it.

And that's why the next myth isn't true, either: Myth #3: Fat People Are Lazy.

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