Healthy Living: Unhealthy Fad Diets
Did you know that every year the U.S. News and World Report and health and nutrition experts rank all the trending diets based on how healthy or unhealthy they are? While not all diet trends gain popularity here in Belize, there are a few of the low ranking – which means unhealthy diets – that do. Tonight in Healthy Living, we speak with a local nutritionist for her advice on Belize’s popular diets that work and don’t work.
Marleni Cuellar reporting
It’s a message you see all everywhere from the tv ads to the internet: diets and eating styles that claim to achieve rapid weight loss with of course – little effort. While the appeal of fad diets that promise the elusive quick fix to weight loss may seem harmless, some do pose serious health risks. Nutritionist, Doris Sutherland, explains that even in Belize she’s seen quite a few unhealthy diets gain popularity.
Doris Sutherland
Doris Sutherland, Nutritionist, BHPL
“We have to be very careful with fad diets. Fad diets are those that promote rapid weight loss like losing 5-10 pounds in one week; those that restrict or eliminate completely one or two food groups which is very important for our body; those that don’t recommend any exercise and also those that require quick fixes and are promoted by celebrities because even those celebrities don’t follow the diet they’re promoting and those that don’t have any scientific evidence.”
One of the more popular fads is the ketogenic diet which requires cutting out foods like bread, but increasing intake of fats like bacon.
Doris Sutherland
“The KETO diet is very common. They normally recommend restricting carbohydrate intake as low as five percent, the fat intake goes up to seventy-five percent and then there’s a moderate intake of protein between fifteen to twenty percent. The problem with KETO is that since the brains main form of energy is carbs; you start to have brain symptoms dizziness, lethargy, and loss of concentration. Those are the main symptoms of having a ketogenic diet, and the weight loss is initially body water instead of body fat. Going into ketosis is similar to having diabetic ketosis which is found primarily in person with type-one diabetes when the blood sugar goes too low. So there is a risk of going into ketosis, and the main risk has a coma. Normally the ketogenic diet is only recommended for children who have epilepsy and the treatment does not work – the medical treatment which is the medication – does not work then we would recommend them to follow the ketogenic diet, but it does require very strict vigilance.”
While it may seem obvious, Doris further warns that people with a predisposition to high cholesterol and high blood pressure will only increase their risk with this style of eating.
The second diet Sutherland commonly debunks is one that requires cutting out all food and replacing with detox drinks.
Doris Sutherland
“The lemon diet, or the grapefruit detox diet is a form of cleansing. Normally when you do take the lemon detox diet, they recommend you have only that for an entire week, with no source of proteins, no starch but only the lemon water. That is very dangerous. You’re starving your body from having important nutrients that we need for our daily activities. Normally the body can clean its own self by drinking pure water and having a high fiber intake from whole grains and beans. We don’t need to go through detoxification because the body can do it for itself. You start to get weak, you start to have a lot of cravings for food. Most of the symptoms are related to the brain. Confusion, loss of memory, you do drip a lot of weight. But when you do start to eat you gain it all back because you can’t go on a liquid diet for the rest of your life.”
Another fad that according to Sutherland is gaining popularity is eating foods based on your blood type.
Doris Sutherland
“The blood diet is the idea that food that we eat can affect the chemicals in the blood, and therefore we would have better digestion. If we look at blood type A where they recommend that you have a low intake in red meats and a lot of fruits and vegetables and a lot of whole grains, we do lose weight because that is the proper way to eat. But if you look at blood type O, they recommend high intake of red meat and low intake of grains and vegetables whereas we see that a person that has high blood pressure and high cholesterol and has blood type) and they follow that diet they’ll have a lot more complications.”
But it’s not all bad news, there are some diets or eating styles that can help you lose weight.
Doris Sutherland
“The Mediterranean diet is very common as well. It promotes healthy eating, for example, non-oily fishes, a lot of vegetables, fruits a lot of whole grains and healthy oil. And if you want to look for even further weight loss, you can go on what is called the plant-based diet, where you get most of your foods from plants from beans from whole grains and all fruits and vegetables.
Marleni Cuellar
“Is that Vegan vegetarian?”
Doris Sutherland
“ Plant-based is similar to vegetarian. The only thing is they don’t promote the consumption of non-organic food. Plant-based is a more natural more organic whole food.”
