Fat or Fiction: the truth about this year’s diet fads

Unfortunately the holiday season is now over and everyone is looking for a way to take off those pounds put on during the festivities.
ABCNews.com have called upon three experts to report on the truth about five of the big diets in search engine traffic so far in 2009.

The Atkins Diet, The Flat Belly Diet and Full Fat Diet are amongst the most popular searches promising quick, easy and tantalizing results.
Web searchers are finding an overwhelming amount of diet results to choose from, so the following is to help clarify the facts about those popular diets.

“There are some very silly,  and even dangerous ways to lose weight”

Diet experts are quick to point out that it is unlikely that any option offers a “magic bullet” for weight loss, unless it brings about a significant change in lifestyle habits.

“Any diet that significantly reduces a person’s calorie intake is likely to cause temporary weight loss,” notes Joanne Ikeda, cooperative extension nutrition education specialist and lecturer in the Nutritional Sciences Department at University of California, Berkeley. “However, permanent weight loss remains an elusive goal for most people.”

“There are some very silly, and even dangerous ways to lose weight,” said Dr. David Katz, co-founder and director of the Yale Prevention Research Center. “The problem with gauging the utility of diets is that the wrong metrics are used; short-term weight loss is not a measure of true success.”

ABCNews.com rounded up some of the most popular diets of the New Year, based on recent news and search-engine queries. These diets then went under the scrutiny of nutrition experts Ikeda, Katz, and Keith-Thomas Ayoob, director of the nutrition clinic at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Here are five of those top searched for diets, as well as whether or not you can count on them to help you achieve a healthier weight for the New Year.

The Flat Belly Diet, which was launched by “Prevention” magazine editor-in-chief Liz Vaccariello, is a programme built around a 1,600-calorie-per-day strategy that allows dieters to eat four meals per day selected from hundreds of meal possibilities.

Central to the diet is the principle that every meal must contain a source of monounsaturated fatty acids. According to the diet’s proposal, nut-based oils can target-reduce dangerous belly fat. The diet also starts off with a 4-day jumpstart to get rid of abdominal bloating, during which a drink called Sassy Water, a lemon- and ginger-containing beverage named after “Prevention” nutrition director Cynthia Sass , must be consumed.

The Yale University Prevention Research Centre carried out an MRI imagine study, proving that the diet reduced visceral belly fat on average by 33 percent in 28 days for nine overweight women. Risk factors, such as high cholesterol and blood pressure, were also reduced in the study.

Expert Verdict:

Katz: “[The diet is] generally healthful, with an emphasis on foods noted as being good for insulin resistance. My lab actually studied the effects of this short term, and they were quite good.”

Ayoob: “You may have a flatter belly in 32 days but that’s because you’re losing weight, pure and simple. Make no mistak, your body will determine where you lose weight. It tends to come from the belly first anyway,  that’s usually the body’s first preference but it’s the weight loss that’s flattening your belly, not some diet miracle.”

Ikeda: “This diet is based on the premise that a higher intake of monounsaturated fatty acids will result in a flat abdomen. There is nothing in the scientific literature that substantiates this claim. The best way to get a flat belly is to increase the strength of abdominal muscles by exercising them.”

The Full-Fat Diet came from research carried out in 2007 by Swedish experts who found that women who had at least one serving of whole milk or cheese each day experienced less weight gain over the following nine years than their counterparts who did not.

While the full-fat diet has many different versions, one of the most prominent and popular of eating foods in their full-fat form is New York-based nutritionist Esther Bloom, who delivers advice on this particular diet in her book, “Eat, Drink and Be Gorgeous.”

Expert Verdict:

Ayoob: “I like the non-diet mentality of this. It’s the idea that you can ‘have your cake and eat it too.’ But it’s clear about this: you can’t have it all the time and in all amounts. It’s the idea that nothing is forbidden, and that’s good.”

Ikeda: “Although Esther Blum is an registered dietician, which gives her a plus for credibility in my book, her enthusiasm for supplements negates the plus with a minus. None of the endorsements on her Web site come from credible nutrition experts.”

Katz: “I didn’t find enough information about this to make a judgment, but the usual promises were made.”

The Atkins Diet was first popularized with the release of the book “Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution.” Controversial from the start, the diet is built around the idea that consuming too many carbohydrates is the main factor behind overweight and obesity. Therefore, by drastically reducing the intake of carbohydrates and shifting over to a diet high in protein in fat, a person can force his or her body to burn stored fat more efficiently.

Expert Verdict:

Ikeda: “Is this old thing still around? If it worked, obesity would no longer be a problem in this country, since a good percentage of the population has tried it.”

Katz: “I think this is a silly diet at odds with health. It restricts choice very severely, which in turn restricts calories severely, so it of course produces short term weight loss. But cutting out ‘carbs’ long term makes no sense; everything from lollipops to lentils is a ‘carb,’ so this diet throws out the baby with the bathwater.”

Ayoob: “This is the original ‘Full-Fat Diet.’ For people who plan to ditch their resolutions, this diet is for them, people don’t tend to stay with it very long. Just understand that when you finally let go of this diet, you’ll have to go for something more realistic and not so limiting. Why not do that right from the start?”

The Mediterranean Diet is designed to imitate the food choices of those who live in areas on the Mediterranean Sea, such as in Italy and Southern France. A true Mediterranean diet is predominantly plant-based, with plenty of fruits and vegetables, grains, beans, nuts, seeds and olive oil. It also incorporates some cheese, yogurt, fresh fish and poultry, with very little red meat.

Most nutrition experts caution, that the Italian based meals served at many Italian restaurants, which is heavy in cheese, meat and fat, should not be confused with a Mediterranean diet.

Expert Verdict:

Ayoob: “This diet is famous for olive oil. Olive oil is great and it’s heart-healthy, but it has as many calories as any other oil, even the less healthy ones. As such, the more olive oil you eat, the smaller your other portions are going to be. It’s true that fat helps you feel satisfied, and this diet also focuses on lots of fruits and veggies, but it can be a little low in calcium, as dairy is not a huge part of the Mediterranean diet. I’d modify it to include low-fat milk.”

Ikeda: “In looking at the [figures] below, one has to conclude that eating the way the French and Italians do might be quite beneficial.”

Percentage of people classified as obese:

USA: Female = 34 percent; Male = 27.7 percent

Italy: Female = 9.9 percent; Male = 9.5 percent

France: Female = 7.0 percent; Male = 8.0 percent

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There is no single Detox diet, all are built around the idea that, by eating or avoiding certain foods, you can cleanse or “detoxify” your body. Most Detox diets are intended to be temporary, lasting a few days or a couple of weeks in order to eliminate toxins from the body. These may come in the form of chemical pollutants from the environment or harmful byproducts of the human metabolism.

Expert Verdict:

Katz: “All Detox diets are rather silly. The body detoxes itself just fine. No real ‘there’ there.”

Ikeda: “Doesn’t anyone remember the lessons in human anatomy and how the body functions that were taught in elementary, middle school, and high school? Well, if one did remember, then one would realize that the body is self-cleansing, like a self-cleansing oven. We get rid of ‘toxins’ daily in urine, faeces, and sweat. If we didn’t, we would be dead in a matter of days.”

Ayoob: “This one is temporary; it’s meant to be temporary, and that’s not going to be of much help to most people. Even temporarily, several days to a week, it’s a bad idea. It’s mostly about fruits, steamed veggies, and not much protein at all. Bad idea. Stick to this diet strictly and you’ll be losing muscle mass, and that’s your calorie engine… ‘Detox’ diets may have been around for years, but so has fasting, and I wouldn’t recommend that as a means of weight loss either. Period.”

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