The “Insert Diet Here” Diet

Why each and every diet is simply a tool to help you lose weight…

It’s 2020, the year is half gone, the world is crazy right now with coronavirus.  Amongst all of that, obesity is still at an all time high.  The dietary supplement industry is continually thriving and the media has never felt so uneducated.  We are living in a time of true information overload.  We have way too much information in regard to nutrition and how to eat “healthy” for weight loss.  Low fat, low carb, keto, IIFYM, paleo, Whole 30, atkins, intermittent fasting, south beach, etc.  There are too many diets and nutrition gurus in the world today and they’re all preaching different messages. 

So what is the best diet?

Well like most things nutrition…it depends. Everyone of us has our own unique history, that includes a diet history, our food and nutrition preferences, our cultural preferences, our own tastes. If someone tells you this is the best diet for everyone, then they don’t know what they’re talking about. Some people will respond well to a specific diet, while others will find that diet too restrictive.  It may not be that the diet in question is bad.  It may just be a poor choice for that person at this point in their hectic life.  

The important thing to understand is that most diets aren’t that different from one another.  There are diets which focus on absolute quality, while others focus on absolute quantity. What people often miss though is that each diet is simply a tool to help you reach your goals.  There’s no magic. There’s no shortcuts.

The goal of this post is to educate the world on the similarities and differences of the most popular diets of today. I would like to remove the focus of nutrition absolutes.  Thus challenging you by reading this to prioritize BOTH quantity and quality in your food choices.  One without the other greatly impacts how you look, feel, and perform your best.

Now Here is my Unbiased Review of 5 Popular Diets in 2020

1. Paleo

The paleo diet is a diet that is based on the idea that we should eat like our Paleolithic ancestors did back before we had processed foods which led us to obesity. The diet includes lean meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds and eliminates things like dairy, legumes, potatoes, refined sugar, and grains. The aim of the diet is to return to a way of eating that’s more like what early humans ate. The reasoning is that we as humans are genetically mismatched to the diet that we eat now with current farming practices.

The paleo diet on the surface looks healthy. It’s full of lean protein and vegetables and fruits. Where I think clients would fail is the elimination of entire groups of foods that are high in micronutrients and very popular foods that lots of people serve at social events. Things like rice, potatoes, beans, and dairy are all high in nutrients and there’s really no scientific evidence for why you would need to avoid them unless you’re allergic. The diet also doesn’t restrict calories and is pretty liberal with the fat intake since fat is good for you on the diet. Thats the paleo diet’s biggest downfall – the lack of emphasis on HOW MUCH to eat. Quantity is just as important as quality when it comes to nutrition.

2. Intermittent Fasting

I have a lot of people ask me about this because they’re already practicing it and want confirmation that it’s the best or even okay. Intermittent fasting is simply time-restricted feeding. While other diets focus on quality or quantity, intermittent fasting focuses only on meal timing. It can be fasting 2 days a week 5:2; it can be fasting and eating one meal per day (OMAD), but most often it is 16:8 – meaning fast for 16 hours and eat for 8 hours. There’s a small subset of intermittent fasters who believe you can eat any number of calories in your 8 hours, but that’s largely untrue. Intermittent fasting, in my opinion, isn’t a diet. It’s a tool for your nutrition toolkit. Simply a method by which you can increase adherence while decreasing appetite and calories. Nothing magical, and it definitely won’t beat out any other diet. You still need to track calories. It might work for some people, it might not work for others.

I think for this one, most clients typically fail if they get into that mindset above where they can eat as much as they want within that eating time frame. I know for me, that’s what I did and it put me right into the yo-yo cycle where I would binge, fast for a day to get back on track, and then see results for a couple days but then have to start all over when I binged again. It’s just not sustainable long-term for lots of people though. 

3. Whole 30

The best way to describe the whole 30 is a nutritional cleanse. It’s comprised of 30 days of eliminating alcohol, added sugar, grains, dairy, legumes, and alcohol. The emphasis is in eating WHOLE foods only.

The diet creator (not a dietitian) put the foods above into a category and blame them for having the most influence on affecting your cravings, gut health, and reducing inflammation.

The red flags with this diet are that these foods are simply not going to cause inflammation in the majority of the population. Most people are fine to consume whole grains, dairy, and added sugar in moderation.  The removal of these foods and demonizing nature of the diet causes confusion on the part of the dieter by not informing them what they may be allowed to eat.  This forms extremely unhealthy relationships with “restricted” foods and under eating.

4. Keto

The ketogenic diet is a high fat, very low carbohydrate diet, with little to moderate protein depending on the person’s goals. The diet was originally started in the 1920s-1930s as a therapy for those with epilepsy. It was developed to provide an alternative to non-mainstream fasting, which demonstrated effectiveness in epilepsy treatment. It was later abandoned due to the release of drugs for the treatment of epilepsy (wonder why…?). The keto diet today has largely been portrayed as eating bacon, cheese, sausages, nuts, little to no vegetables/fruits, and definitely no grains or bread. The diet claims to put you into a state of ketosis which promotes fat burning by having your body and brain run on ketone bodies vs glucose that it would normally get from carbohydrates.  The diet has been shown to help with weight loss, reducing inflammation, and in some instances fighting type 2 diabetes.

The biggest issue I have with Keto is the misapplication. Just because you’re eating keto doesn’t mean your body doesn’t need micronutrients from vegetables and high fiber fruits.  Your bacon isn’t cutting it.  For athletes especially, it’s important to realize that your sport needs glucose for exercise. Fueling your sport for keto is like trying to drive a car without gas.

5. Flexible Dieting

Ahh…flexible dieting. This is the magical belief that the quantity of food you is is more important than the quality. The main focus of the diet is calorie intake with a minor focus on the food composition of those very calories.  It does a good job of allowing people to understand what they’re eating without categorizing foods into “good” or “bad” categories.  This helps to educate people on the amount of protein, carbohydrate, and fat in each item they’re consuming.

The downfall of flexible dieting is that people end up on the extreme end of flexible dieting and ignoring food quality.  By ignoring the quality of food you miss out on micronutrients.  There’s no doubt in my mind that you could probably lose weight eating 1200 calories of Twinkies but just because you can doesn’t mean it’s healthy.  If quality is completely ignored than you risk serious health consequences later.

As you can see, in all 5 of the above diets that are popular in 2020 if you’re going to lose weight you still need to create a calorie deficit.  You also now know that a successful diet accounts for both food quality and food quantity if you’re shooting for healthy.  We’ve learned that nutrition absolutes aren’t necessary and they typically lead to unhealthy relationships with food and body image.  

Each diet is created for someone’s individual need.  That someone may or may not be you.  It’s important to try things out and see what works and what doesn’t.  If you try a diet and it makes you feel like crap, you’re probably doing something wrong or there’s an issue with the application.  If you have to cheat on the diet, then it’s probably not a sustainable diet for you and your lifestyle.

So what’s the best diet?

It depends…

If you’re having trouble finding a diet that works for your lifestyle, send me an email or we can set up a consultation call and I would be happy to help!

Live YOUR absolute best life,

Curtis Hinterberger MS RD