or,
Competition Dieting Makes You Fat – Some More Relevant
Research
Let’s start with
something “catchy” but true shall we? Here goes, and bear with me: “For 90%
of ladies out there, dieting for competition in the physique industry will lead
to unhealthy weight gain for YEARS to come!” There I
said it! And now instead of attacking it, in denial, let’s examine it a bit
more.
When
I say I have been studying metabolism for years, I mean studying in “real
terms.” I don’t mean industry nonsense, websites and magazines. I mean real
science, real journals and real text books. I have been well ahead of the
research now for at least a decade. I even get contacted by researchers every
so often to ask me “how I knew” things, which research is just now starting to
uncover. And guess what? What they are starting to uncover now are the
real-life risks of ill-health and weight gain due to unwise, absolute
calories-restricted dieting – the kind it takes to get your body fat to lowest
levels to get on a physique stage.
Not Eating carbs will give you problems
in the long term.
This is something I
started discussing way back in my Science Behind The
Cycle Diet video lecture project back in 05.
Since then my research has taken me to writing Metabolic Damage and
theDangers of Dieting, a 200+ page book, I am quite proud of,
and which more than a few academics are now using as reference material.
Moreover, I just also finished not one, not two, but three related books, as
one project – Food Issues and You:
Finally Facing YourPhantom Menace – Food and
Eating issues that are often the result of, you guessed it, unwise and
ill-advised diets that end up rewiring the brain, and not just affecting
metabolism. And I talk about the wiring of the brain in my other book, Beyond Metabolism
–Understanding Your Modern Diet Dilemma. So that's six books by
me, if you include my book on Body Image Disorder in the fitness industry (The Other Side of the
Mirror) and all the research that went it to
each of them. I challenge any other “expert” out there, who likes to digitally
disagree with me, to show me their own accumulated contribution of anything
even close to this! Then we have something to talk about if you “disagree.”
Until then, I remain an academic – and as such in search of the truth, not some
fashionable position to defend.
I am about to tell you
of two current studies that reflect well on everything I’ve been saying the
last decade or so. My sincere wish is that people stop living in
denial and defending what they want to be true and instead start facing the
facts of what is actually true. And the truth is “contest dieting
for 90% of people who undertake it, will predispose them to exaggerated weight
gain for years to come.”
And it can also lead to
food and eating issues. The main frustrating aspect of this truth is that not
only are wannabe competitors in denial of these facts – but they just consider
themselves to be in the 10% that, “this will never happen to me” group. – kind
of like all those people who smoke anyway, and then want a “Mulligan” when they
finally get some sort of smoking related disease or cancer! I’m quite sick of
it actually- but I’m more sick of the industry people who know the truth but
won’t act on it on behalf of their clients – because there is just so much
money to be made in being a competition-prep Guru.
“For all you models out there! Be careful
with your competition diets”
I want you to pay close
attention to these two separate studies that vindicate my research both in food
and eating issues - and in metabolic damage and accelerated weight gain after
dieting.
Now I am not going to
deluge you with research here, but pay attention to these two recent studies
(for hundreds of other references I refer you to my projects above):
- Long-Term Persistence of Hormonal Adaptations to Weight Loss
- Evidence That 'Food Addiction' Is a Valid Phenotype of Obesity
Notice the first study
is from the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine and check
out the names of true scientists who worked on it! Notice the second abstract
is from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto – also world
renowned – as I have used their materials in other projects. Note also the
recent dates of this research – and note this is independent true academic work
in the search for “truth.”
In other words, no
Figure competitors, coaches, or diet-Guru’s participate in this – and this is
real science – without bias. Pay special attention to the title of the first
study. Notice the word “LONG TERM” here. And this is what absolute
caloric deprivation or exhausting diets induce – long term hormonal changes
that lead to ongoing long term and substantial weight gain! Pay particular
attention to this sentence in the “conclusion” – “One year after initial
weight reduction, levels of the circulating mediators of appetite that
encourage weight regain after diet-induced weight loss do not revert to the
levels recorded BEFORE weight loss.” This shows that even ONE YEAR LATER
post-diet, the body is still being programmed to gain weight – and it is being
programmed for this “because of the previous diet!” This is why the
conclusion finishes with how these levels do NOT return to what was normal for
individuals “before” dieting. Hence, dieting causes and generates
substantial weight gain in the post diet period. So, what are you going to do,
another contest diet to take the weight off again???? Isn’t that logic kind of
like taking up heroin to break a cocaine habit???? It’s nonsense.
You know I am always
talking about the immediate, the residual, and the cumulative elements of
adaptive stimulus and response. And this is a good example - because
competitors live in denial. Here is what I see: They have no conception of
residual or cumulative response to a diet that maybe is a year or two behind
them. So they look for “immediate” reasons for weight gain and digestive issues
– which the diet industry is only too happy to oblige. They all start looking
for “answers” like gluten intolerance, carb-resistance, yeast issues, celiac,
dairy digestion, cleanses – anything and everything except the truth.
And the truth is that
contest-diet, even if it was a year or more ago – induced hormonal fluxes and
changes that are still causing cumulative weight gain even years later. So
whether a lady gains this weight suddenly as in a 40-50 lbs post-contest
rebound, or slowly and incrementally – had it not been for the previous diet,
her weight would not be climbing. Even some of my own clients – before
they competed were maybe 130 lbs. or so. But every year since weight is slowly
increasing - and even compensating for age disparity, what was once
130-135 lbs, is now 145-150 lbs, or 165-175 lbs, as “normal” weight. So, again
I stress the title of this research and the words “LONG TERM.” You are
not carb-resistant, or have food allergies, or dairy aversions, or whatever
else you can come up with. Your weight gain and inability to lose it, are a
result of previous ill-advised dieting! And you can find out more and more
details of any of these things in any number of my own books I mention above.
Now,
let’s look at the second study “abstract” shall we? What is important here are
a few things, and first to me is that post-diet weight gain and eating and food
issues can be caused by the same diet. In other words, for too many ladies out
there, the weight issues are bad enough but then there is a rewiring of the
reward centers of the brain, which begin a long battle with food and eating
issues – which themselves enhance weight gain even more, creating a most
insidious feedback loop between physiology and psychology.
“Competition Diets will make you gain weight in the long term.
Many people who
undertake physique competition have addictive type personalities. (see my
book, The Other Side of the
Mirror for more about this) Notice that the
Yale Food Addiction Scale and this abstract address the concept of “addictive
tendencies.” If that doesn’t describe 80% of the competitors I have worked
with, I don’t know what does! Notice also the “validation” for addictive food
issues – and this general but telling conclusion – "Those who met the
diagnostic criteria for FA had a significantly greater co-morbidity with Binge
Eating Disorder, depression, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
compared to their age- and weight-equivalent counterparts. Those with FA were
also more impulsive and displayed greater emotional reactivity than obese
controls. They also displayed greater food cravings and the tendency to
'self-soothe' with food.”
So, you have a person
prone to addictive personality which leads to competing and all the appealing
control factors it entails. But the diet to get lean triggers neuro-responses
and chemical changes in the brain that lead this person to think about food and
eating the way an addict thinks about his next fix. (The brain changes and
emotional reward center changes in the brain are discussed thoroughly in my
book, Beyond Metabolism:
Understanding Your Modern Diet Dilemma.)
Look at the other
co-relations for FA as well, mentioned in the abstract: depression, ADD,
distorted eating behaviours etc. And this study was done only with
control groups, not post-dieting groups, who are pre-disposed to addictive
issues AND weight gain!
So if we put these two
studies together we get a clear indication of both physiological and psychological
ramifications of something like a competition-diet, in the normal
personality-type disposition of the typical competitor. This is what real
science shows.
Can the industry
stop burying its head in the sand for a while – and instead of attacking me –
at least entertain the realities involved here. Moreover, let’s stop
“glorifying” suffering as an inevitable part of the
contest-diet experience. No, a contest-diet experience will not be “easy.” But
if there is real “suffering” this is a warning from your body to you of
pending post-contest issues, both metabolic and psychological. So, you should
not be surprised when you end up with them, even a year later. – No more
surprised than a smoker who gets cancer 10-20 years later!
It’s just that metabolic
damage, weight gain, and eating issues, happen much faster than cancer. Let’s
get out in front of this, and start getting some voices heard,
instead of shutting them down in order to make money. Stop capitalizing on a
“wrong.” Let’s get back to the industry of “health AND fitness”
instead of what it has become.
I urge any and all of
you to send this out to places and people where it may do some good. Sure, some
will want to attack it, and live in denial. That is the norm. But there may be
others who are on the fence who could be helped by at least beginning to
entertain the information here in these studies and at least get them thinking
more long-term, and more about wellness, than just short-term ‘appearance.’
(Many thanks to former
mentoring student, Amir Sidd of Dubai, for sending me this research for
consideration)
