Not only are diets nearly impossible to stick to, they can do drastic physiological damage.
HOW TO SPOT A MAGIC BULLET DIET A ‘magic bullet’ diet is an approach to eating with huge herds of followers declaring that, ‘Everyone should eat this way to be the healthiest they can be’. Here’s how to spot them:
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the number of people sticking with the diet dropped by 35% to 50% for all four diets.1 So did the remaining subjects’ self-
rated adherence level (how strictly they were adhering to the diet). Subjects from all four diets reported that, on a retention scale of 1 (none) to10 (perfect), the average was 3 or 4 out of 10. And I would argue that adhering to a diet 30% to 40% of the time is not really adhering to a diet. The retention rate in the Jenny Craig
program was found to be just 6.6% after one year.2
That means that less than 7
in 100 people who begin Jenny Craig actually stick with it for a whole year! I would be very interested to see
the results of similar retention studies done for the newer prototypes of these granddaddies of the dieting arena, namely paleo and the high carbohydrate raw food variants, including 80/10/10. Going by their predecessors and the heartbreaking stories I hear from many of my clients, I would guess they are similar. Not only are diets nearly impossible
to stick to, they can do drastic physiological damage.
THE DARK SIDE OF THE SPOON What does it look like when a paleo/raw/ vegan diet fails? • Think paleo-crossfit chicks who take the most extreme approach to paleo, cutting out all sugar, fruit, starchy vegetables and carbohydrates, who then burn out and distort their hormones. They can’t fuel their two high intensity workouts per day, and their periods stop.
• Think raw foodist yogis who shiver their way through a winter of blended raw vegetables and juices, and experience low energy, fatigue and a coldness that just won’t shift.
• Long term die-hard vegans who, although may have been living quite happily as vegans for some years, find themselves craving an egg or some fish when they fall pregnant or get ill –and fail to listen to their bodies. Please be clear – I’m not saying
these diets don’t work at all. I’m saying that they don’t work for 100% of the population, 100% of the time, contrary to what proponents of each of these approaches to eating may imply on the websites and in the books they sell.
“IT CURES EVERYTHING” Enthusiasts of the diet / superfood
/ ingredient claim it cures everything – from chronic diseases, to skin conditions, and even psychological or stress-related disorders.
According to one top paleo diet website, “Eating like this is ideal for maintaining a healthy metabolism and reducing inflammation within the body. It’s good for body composition, energy levels, sleep quality, mental attitude and quality of life. It helps eliminate sugar cravings and re-establishes a healthy relationship with food. It also works to minimise your risk for a whole host of lifestyle diseases and conditions, like diabetes, heart attack, stroke and autoimmune.” That’s quite an extensive list! While it might do some of these for some people, is it fair to say it has these effects on every single person who goes on the diet? My patients say otherwise.
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“THERE’S SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE”
There is often scientific evidence to back up these diets. Some of it is super solid, and some of it is anything but. Many paleo studies are extremely short term,
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