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The Calorie Restriction Diet – Is It All Just Hype?

June 23, 2009 By 4 Comments

Calorie restriction diet

The idea of eating low calorie diets to lose weight is nothing new. Millions of people are convinced that all they need to do is starve themselves and the pounds will melt off. As if this wasn’t bad enough, a few pieces of new research that have come out in the last few years have made things even worse.

The Most Hyped Diet Study Ever?

You see, a recent laboratory study indicated that rats who were fed a very low calorie diet lived longer than rats who ate normal diets. Interesting findings, for sure, but not quite worthy of the huge generalizations that were made as a result, with scientists proclaiming the idea that the same principle would apply to humans.

Suddenly, all kinds of magazines and mainstream media have been telling people that the secret fountain of youth is to live on a calorie restricted diet, causing even MORE people to start eating less food, hoping to lose weight and turn back the clock in the process.

The problem here is that people are getting caught up in the hype and missing the big picture. Sure, the rats who ate less lived longer. But that doesn’t mean that eating low calorie diets is a good option.

Where’s The Proof?

Firstly, there’s no proof to say that the same phenomenon occurs in humans.
I’ve recently seen some popular talk shows that brought on a couple of people who claimed to have achieved amazing results with this diet – but what no one mentioned was the fact that these were just two guys (not exactly a huge sample size) and they both had terrible diet and exercise habits before switching over to their low calorie diets.

stuffing his face

So there’s no proof that these positive changes they’ve been experiencing have anything to do with low calorie diets – it could just as easily be the transition from living a lazy lifestyle to living a healthy lifestyle!

Just How Low Are We Talking?

Another point that nobody notices is that most of these people are eating diets that are only moderately low in calories, not severely low. For example, on one recent major TV show, both of the guys who were featured as low-calorie adherents casually mentioned during their interview that they take in 1950 calories a day.
Now 1950 calories is not a lot for a man, but it’s also not ridiculously low either. The problem is that many people won’t realize this point and will think that low calorie diets require them to essentially become anorexic and barely eat all day long.

Living Longer = Living Inactive?

Lastly, even if calorie restriction does help you live longer, you’ll likely be spending those extra years inactive and nursing some disease or disability.

Restricting your calories without proper design and modified exercise can lead to lower bone density, nutrient deficiencies and a lack of the essential fats that are crucial for cognitive and physiological function.

calorie restriction diet

You could very well be more at risk of developing osteoporosis and other debilitating diseases usually correlated with aging – and the research has not yet been done long term to show that this won’t happen when severe calorie restrictions are placed on the human diet.

The Honest Truth About How Long You’ll Live

We all know those people who smoke, drank and ate terribly their whole life and lived to their late 90s, and we also all know someone who was the consummate health nut and died young.

old-guy-smoking-cigar

Life span is a product of genetics, lifestyle, medical treatment, preventive healthcare, mental state and a whole host of other factors. To say that prolonging life is all about restricting calories is misguided and frankly unproven.

The Bottom Line

I could go on and on about all the negative aspects of low calorie diets but instead of doing that I’m just going to tell you this – you do NOT need to severely restrict your calories to lose weight.
If your calories are too low you will miss out on essential nutrients, vitamins and antioxidants that your body needs, and you also run the risk of losing bone density and running low on mental and physical energy which is unsustainable and will come back to bite you big time in the long run.

berries-and-anitoxidants1

If you want to lose fat, keep your diet clean and get in more exercise! When possible, you should always increase your physical activity before lowering your caloric intake when you’re trying to lose fat. I’d much rather have you get all the nutrients you need and have to work out a little more to keep your fat in check as opposed to having you run short on valuable nutrients for your body while losing weight. The former approach is a MUCH better one for long term health, wellbeing, and body composition.

Final Thought

In this blog post I’ve laid out all the reasons why I don’t buy into the calorie restricted diet hype.

But having said that, I understand that you might still want to try it and hey, it might suit you well. So go ahead and try it out for a while if you want and see if it’s for you. But do it intelligently and don’t just run after what you see on TV, blindly believing it to be the truth.

Think, discover, explore and test it for yourself. That’s always the process you should follow when it comes to health, fitness and wellbeing.

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