Fad's In The Fire

"Anatomy is destiny," said Sigmund Freud. And the dieter wants to shape her own fate. But the path to a thinner future is often lined with fad diets. And danger.

Sick of listening to sniggers—real and imagined—while shopping at XL aisles, housewife Nisha Shah tried the seven-day General Motors diet. "One of my friends suggested it saying it detoxified your body, helped you lose weight. But by the fifth day, I had dizzy spells and felt so weak I had to quit." Others like her who succeeded in completing the programme, complained of instantaneous weight gain as soon as they reverted to their everyday dietary habits.

"People who're obese are already extreme by nature," says nutritionist Dr Shikha Sharma. "They tend to either binge or starve themselves, which is why extreme diets like Atkins or General Motors appeal to them." Sharma, who runs Clinic de Rejuvenation centres in Delhi, terms these programmes as "hospital diets" which need clinical supervision.

The Atkins diet, for example, is a high-protein, high-fat, low-carb diet. According to Sharma, this abnormal diet triggers ketoacidosis in the long run. It is a condition where the body starts cannibalising organ and lean muscle tissue to provide the brain with enough glucose.

She compares most fad diets to driving too fast. "You have to be careful and skillful to avoid a disaster." By disasters, she means diseases like anaemia and osteoporosis. Most fad diets also contribute to lower immunity levels. Completely bypassing the nutritional aspect of each meal, most weight loss programmes overrate certain food groups over others, leaving you malnourished and weak.

"Most of these, you will realise, are semi-starvation diets," says Shilpa S. Wadhwa, scientific officer at the Nutrition Foundation of India. "If you eat less calories than you burn, you will lose weight." Typical of such diets are the seven-day Cabbage Soup diet and the Grapefruit diet. "Both provide approximately 800 calories a day when the bare minimum intake a day should be 1,000 calories," says Wadhwa. If put through such a diet, the body promptly goes into 'starvation mode', using calories instead of storing them. Once off the diet, the body voraciously restocks its reserves. Thus the weight gain.

Most low-calorie, low-carb diets ask you to eschew carbs and fats in any form, and this includes vegetables, which also contain iron, calcium and minerals. Whole milk, another food item that most diet gurus hate, is one of the richest natural sources of calcium.

Even high-fibre, low-fat diets, contrary to popular opinion, can cause problems. Or constipation, cramps, diarrhoea and bloating, according to Wadhwa. A high-fibre diet also interferes with mineral and vitamin absorption in the body. Most vegetarians unwittingly suffer by ignoring rich protein and fat sources that they can tap easily—like paneer, pulses, soya, nuts or oils. "Being vegetarian is not automatically healthy," says Sharma. She feels vegans and vegetarians constantly need to keep a tab on their protein intake and cut down on refined carbohydrates.

But for many dieters, nutrition is secondary. They want the fat tag removed, health be damned. These are the ideal targets for weight-loss quacks. Clinics that "massage away your cellulite" or use "deep heat" therapies abound. Charging exorbitant fees, many offer treatments involving artificial exercise machines that claim to "do the work for you" or ask you to ingest pills, powders or shakes to rev up your metabolism. They might sound scientific, but can be dangerous. You might lose 2-3 kg in a "sitting" as the first thing the body experiences under such attack is water loss. "Problem is, anybody with a basic knowledge of nutrition designs a new fad diet or programme," says Wadhwa.She emphasises the need to exercise and eat moderate portions instead of depriving yourself of any nutritive element, even fat. "Our body needs fats too. A no-fat diet can cause dry skin, damage kidneys and ovaries, cause male infertility. It also leads to malabsorption of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K."

Sharma believes there is no "blanket diet" to cure obesity. "Something like the Zone diet which says 40 per cent of our calories should come from carbs, 30 per cent from fat and 30 per cent from protein is a straitjacket diet. It could work for some people but it won't for many."

So what's the best diet to lose weight? For Wadhwa, it's a modified Weight Watchers diet or a South Beach diet, which, besides counting calories also factors in the nutritional aspect of a meal. "Nothing should be forbidden because then there's a tendency to cheat and binge. Reducing 1,000 calories in your diet a day combined with modest exercise guarantees a loss of at least 1 kg a month in most people. Ideally, a person should visit a qualified dietician who can plan out nutritionally sound meals."

Sharma agrees. "Every person, according to their hereditary traits, lifestyle, eating habits, blood type needs to follow their own customised diet. Every body type reacts differently to food inputs. Also, being prone to fat is different from being fat. Like children of diabetic parents could escape the disease completely by eating and living right." She recommends modest physical activity like yoga classes to keep the body "fit and flexible" along with prescribed diet plans.

Some thumb-rule tips to controlled weight loss. "Try eating a heavy breakfast and lunch, keep your dinner light," suggests Sharma. "Don't miss breakfast at any cost. If you aren't a breakfast person, eat fruits and nuts in the morning, follow it up with a decent lunch." A proponent of the "do not mix your protein and carbohydrates" theory, she says traditional Indian diets concentrate on synergy meals like dal-chawal or sambar-idli. "They release maximum energy from minimum food intake. In the past, this was what people needed because of their physically active lives. Now we need to change these combinations to suit our needs."

While Wadhwa rubbishes such strictures, there are some tenets all nutritionist swear by. Primary among them is the glycemic index or GI. Foods with high GI, like sugar, break down quickly during digestion and release a lot of glucose into the blood system almost immediately. Unable to use all of it at one go, the body stores most of it away as fat. You also start feeling hungry a lot faster if you have high GI foods. Low GI foods break down slowly. They release glucose gradually into the bloodstream, and are completely used up by the body. Low GI foods are those with index values from 1 to 55, intermediate at 56-70 and high at 71-100 (see box).

Ishi Khosla, director of the Centre for Dietary Counselling and owner of the health food chain Whole Foods, stresses the need to cut back on starchy and refined carbohydrates like potatoes, sugar, white bread and refined flour. "Go for coarse or whole grains, brown breads and fresh vegetables. Choose snacks like bran biscuits instead of fried savories or maida products." She draws attention to micronutrients, missing from most urban diets. "People on a weight loss programme should take dietary supplements to avoid deficiencies," she adds. She advises a combination of diet control, aerobics and weight training for sustained weight loss.

Wadhwa also says that too much salt in a diet could result in water retention or bloating. "You should also not drink water during or immediately after a meal, because then the gastro-transit time is shortened." She repeats the same cautionary advice when it comes to taking a bath right after a meal or eating right before or after exercising.Another tip, according to Wadhwa, is eating items rich in iron and Vitamin C together. "It helps the body absorb them better."

Another field that is rapidly gaining currency is the field of nutrigenetics/ nutrigenomics or "dna dieting". Being pioneered in places such as Tufts University in the US, it explores how foods and diet interact with genes to affect health. According to researchers in the field, every person, depending on their genes, needs a customised diet to prevent obesity and other diseases. While some may not suffer the consequences of a bad diet because of their genes, the opposite also holds true. Many may not suffer the consequences of their bad genes with the right diet.

But till commercially viable uses of this research hit the markets in 8-10 years, it is best to keep the treadmill oiled and a sensible diet in place.