Why Diets Fail - The Salt/Water/Waste Issue

Whatever method one chooses
as a “Diet”…

including Diets that are called:

• “Way-of-Eating”,
  
• “Lifestyle-change”, or 
  
• “Non-Diet”

… this Truth always remains.



 When a body with excess fat consistently takes in LESS food
(meaning: calories within one or more of the three macronutrients)
THAN IT USES as energy, that body will access stored fat for energy.

The process of losing excess fat takes a long time.

Weight-loss diets ultimately fail approximately 95% of the time.  This means that most people fail to lose very much weight on any type of diet, and very few manage to maintain any long-term weight loss.

Losing weight and losing fat isn’t exactly the same thing. However most doctors, nutritionists, dietitians ... and the people who follow their advice ... don’t clearly distinguish the process of reducing body fat from the process of reducing body weight.

Most people sort of KNOW that body weight and body fat are different, and vaguely understand that the scale can register body weight higher due to “water gain”.

 To understand the difference between these two things, it is important to understand that there are two principal components of body weight. We can label these two: constant weight and variable weight.

• The variable weight is a sum of all the digestive fluids inside the GI tract, the undigested foods already in the stomach and the small intestine, the stools inside the large intestine, and water, which can be safely lost with sweat, urine, and perspiration. These variable components of body weight normally represent between 7 and 30 pounds, depending on one’s original diet, one’s current weight, and one’s digestive health.
  
  
• The constant weight is everything else — the remaining fluids, such as the blood plasma and lymph, the weight of one’s skin, bones, internal organs, muscles, and adipose tissue, or body fat. Of course, body fat is actually the only substance in the body one actually wants to get rid of.
  
  
• Variable weight swings from day to day depending on the amount of foods and fluids one consumes and expels, workload, and environment. A day on the beach, an hour in the hot tub, or an intense workout in a sweat suit, for example, can reduce one’s body weight by several pounds simply from sweating.
  
  
• Constant weight remains stable for longer stretches of time because loss of body fat is quite slow on any diet, and requires a considerable time to produce measurable and permanent results.
  
  
• In practical terms, when anyone starts a weight loss program, the first 7 to 20 pounds of weight reduction are almost exclusively made up from the following components:
  
  (a) A reduction in the total weight of foods that have been consumed over the past few days.
  
  (b) A reduction in digestive fluids. As soon as one starts eating less, the body reduces the amount of saliva, gastric, and pancreatic juices involved in digestion. This amount can range from 5 to 7 quarts per day, and may be halved by the reduced calorie diet.
  
  (c) A loss of water throughout the body, particularly with urine. This happens because reduced calorie diets have a pronounced diuretic and dehydration effect.
  
  (d) Loss of stools from the bowels. As one reduces food intake, particularly fiber, the total volume of stools inside the large intestine may drop three to five times.

  The total of all of the above can be termed a phantom weight loss.

While the covers of diet books, magazines, and diet plans tend to ignore this fact of human physiology, it is actually the BASIS of their promises of quick weight-loss from to seven to twenty pounds.

The loss of phantom weight during the first two weeks or so of any dietary change, also explains why so many people yo-yo back to their original weight as soon as they stop dieting … the cumulative weight of foods, digestive juices, water, and stools start coming back the moment one returns to one’s regular diet.

Even a quick reduction of the waistline is a popular diet hoax: because as one’s stomach, intestines, and bowels clear out their respective contents, the waistline around them can then shrink down a few sizes, even though practically all the body fat remains exactly where it was before commencing the diet.

That claim of a weight loss plateau is another gimmick intended to absolve weight loss counselors from any responsibility for their advice, and to blame us and our metabolisms for an inability to lose weight. The simple truth is … if or when … after months of dieting effort … a person simply cannot overcome a weight loss plateau that seems to have started after the first few weeks of losing weight, … it means that person has lost the initial phantom weight, but not body fat. This is happening because their food intake (whatever it may be) is providing them with the exact amount of energy that their body requires to be that body size.

 In Summary:

• Anyone commencing a reduced calorie diet will demonstrate an appreciable loss of weight, but this is not a loss of actual body fat, but a loss of phantom weight related to the much smaller intake of foods and fluids.
  
  
• Weight loss diets that have a pronounced diuretic and dehydrating effect may demonstrate an even larger phantom weight loss at the expense of body fluids. One can accomplish pretty much the exact same effect by restricting fluid intake or sweating out in a sauna.
  
  
• Reaching a weight loss plateau normally means simply that one has lost only phantom weight, but has not lost and won’t lose any body fat…without additional restrictions on their food intake.
  
  
• A rapid weight rebound shortly after resuming a regular diet simply means that one has simply restored the weight of fluids, undigested foods, and stools in one’s body back to their original volume.

 So, why don’t all those diet books talk about this?

Probably two reasons. First, their authors simply may not know or may not want to know about this unwanted phenomenon. Second, telling readers the truth — that it actually takes a LOT of time and a LOT of effort to lose body fat — gets in the way of selling no-sacrifice diet books, cookbooks, classes, tests, diet-branded foods and snacks.

However, here’s the hard truth: If one is thinking of losing weight, the lost weight needs to be the fat under the skin, not undigested foods, fluids, and stools inside the gut. Losing actual body fat takes time, because even on a very low calorie diet the best almost anyone can count on is losing just a very few fat ounces (under 60 to 90 grams) daily.

 The next natural questions are:

1. How long does it take to lose real body fat?
2. How much Effort is required to do that?
   

 The Simple answers to these questions are:

1. A long time.
2. A whole lot.
   

 AND, In order to KEEP that fat from returning,
it will take a similar amount of Effort, … FOREVER.
 

Note: Originally posted on April 3, 2013.  Bumped up for new viewers.