frustration with food misinformation

Fairfax media has been running a number of diet related articles with the new year and resolutions and all that. This one however really got to me. All about why diets don't work and what the solution is. So Nick Galvin looks at some of the stats and the evidence: that people spend a lot on weight-loss and most people can't keep the weight they do lose off.

This sentence is just chilling. "In fact, one of the authors of a study published in the American Psychologist journal in 2007 went so far as to call dieting 'a consistent predictor of future weight gain'."

The physiological factors that prevent weight-loss were interesting: that the level of hormones in dieters changes rapidly making them MORE hungry than ever and that their metabolism slowed. So your body is doing everything it can to go back to the way things were. No wonder it feels like an uphill battle.

What was SO frustrating was that the journalist then went on to look at a case study of a guy who lost 40 kilos in a year by doing A LOT of exercise and by basically eating low fat proteins and steamed vegetables. But he assures us that he's not on a diet.... but that's another issue. Then the journalist lists a couple of recommendations from the Mayo clinic about kilojoules in and kilojoules out etc. But the journalist does not show how either the case study or the Mayo recommendations answer the problems raised at the outset.

This is what I love about The Sweet Poison Quit Plan and other fructose-free approaches to life is that they deal with the issues raised by the article. Because you increase your fat intake to begin with you are LESS hungry and your metabolism doesn't slow. I know this whole thing is a radical shift in mindset but how can the journalist not see that he's not being consistent!?!?!?!