Weight Loss Math Uproar: Sorting it out!

An article recently published in the medical journal Lancet,[i] authored by Kevin Hall PhD, a biophysicist at the National Institutes of Health set off some erroneous news coverage on the effect of calorie-restriction on weight loss.

Since there is too much misinformation from the “reporting” on this research paper to try to set straight in a single blog, I’m going to devote my next few blogs to clearing up one piece of confusion at a time.

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Breakfast Boosts Metabolism – Fact or Fiction?

Have you ever wondered if breakfast really boosts your metabolism—as you so often hear?

ANSWER: False

As a health educator I can give you a lot of good reasons to eat breakfast—the notion that it boosts your metabolism, however, isn't one of them!

Digesting food does “cost” an average of 10% of a meal's calories to digest and assimilate it (see TEF, below). However, is that really a “boost” in metabolism? No, it is not. When you read these claims that "breakfast boosts your metabolism" it's implied that eating breakfast has an affect on your underlying metabolic rate. That is simply not the case. The only metabolic affect of eating breakfast is the commensurate TEF, just as for any meal.

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Book Review: The Dukan Diet [part-1]

The Dukan Diet, authored by French doctor Pierre Dukan, is one of the latest best sellers among fad-diet books in the US, and it falls into the high-protein/low-carb approach.

It is not however one of the healthier choices in its genre. Unfortunately, the Dukan Diet is not only extreme in its protein regime, but also cuts out healthy fat sources along with carbohydrates. During its first (Attack) phase you eat only lean proteins, nonfat dairy, and eggs, supplemented with 1½ Tbl. of oat bran per day (no vegetables, grains, fruit, nuts or oils). During its second (Cruise) phase you get to add a selection of (low-carb) vegetables in every other day (still no grains, fruit, nuts or oils). According to Dr. Dukan’s numbers you would spend 2½ months in the Cruise phase to lose 25-pounds, or 4-months to lose 40-pounds. That’s in addition to the week you will probably have spent in the Attack phase.

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Book Review: The 17-Day Diet

The 17 Day Diet, one of the latest best selling diet books is new wrapping paper on an old package—high-protein/low-carb diets.

Author Dr. Mike Moreno claims that “you’re not apt to plateau” on his plan because of his “carefully designed balance of food and exercise [that] adjust your body metabolically so that you burn fat, day in and day out.” Moreno says that, “by changing calorie counts with each 17-day cycle you prevent your body from adapting,” and he calls this notion “body confusion.”

When looking at fad diets you’ll find that they all consist of two key components:

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Weight Loss Plateaus: How to reignite your weight loss

A common development after a few weeks of losing weight is that your weight loss stalls, or stops. The scale isn’t budging. This situation—a weight loss plateau—has all kinds of mythology attributed to it.

When you start a diet, you reduce your intake of calories and a big part of that reduction is from carbohydrates. The reduction in carbohydrates leads to the depletion of glycogen (how your body stores sugar) from both your muscles and liver. Each gram of stored glycogen normally holds 3- to 4-grams of water with it.

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