1. Resistance ("That carb diet I used in the 80s worked! I lost weight that time!").
   
   
2. Excuse/Relief ("See, I knew I couldn't lose weight. It's not my fault!")
   
   
3. Depression ("I’m stuck, there’s no way out.")

One client recently told me, "I know the high protein diet will work if I can just get motivated to do it. I'm the problem, not the diet."

You don't just want to see the number on your scale go down, you want the number to stay down. To accomplish this, you want to burn fat stored in your body and not replace it -- that should be your primary goal of a weightloss or weight control program. Fat -- not muscle, not organ tissue -- is the only thing you want to burn while losing weight because it is the element causing the problem. No one has ever come to me and said they are overweight because they carry too much muscle or their bones weigh too much!

Only limited amounts of fat are necessary for the body’s perception of survival and balance.

Who can forget the days of Fen-Phen? We now know the damage caused by this chemical cocktail cooked up by the pharmaceutical industry. Did you or anyone you know lose weight on Fen-Phen? If so, you will remember that, when users lost weight on these drugs, they looked smaller but they didn't look better. Their body shapes were EXACTLY the same as when they were larger and they still carried large amounts of body fat, especially in the stomach area. This is because they were losing valuable muscle (not to mention other necessary material like heart tissue) but they were not burning much fat.

When trying to reduce weight, your goal should always be to carry only a healthy amount of fat. Fat is your only target.

The other important factor is metabolism. Metabolism is the rate at which your body consumes or burns fuel. While dieting, you may burn a very small amount of fat before your body, in its infinite wisdom, decides you are starving or there is a lack of food. Then, it will switch from burning fat to burning other things for fuel. The first to be used are water and muscle tissue. Why is it so counterproductive to burn muscle?

Muscle is the determinant of your 
resting metabolic rate!

The more muscle you lose to the latest diet fad, the lower your metabolism will be. It is not unusual to find compulsive dieters gaining weight on very few calories (800-900 per day) because their metabolic rates have been completely destroyed. This is particularly true of users of Slim-Fast and other protein shake diets (very low calorie diets). It is actually heartbreaking to see them struggle to satisfy their bodies on so little real food, only to gain weight instead of lose it.

They may also be doing aerobic exercise to exhaustion.  Again, they are burning muscle and lowering metabolism with every aerobic session.  

This is why all diets fail. As you lose non-fat weight, your metabolism lowers to the diet's standard daily intake level. It will eventually fall below the diet's standard intake level, and you can actually gain weight while following the diet to the letter. This is also why you may have some initial success the first time you try a diet, but you are less and less successful every time you return to it.

This should be your prime consideration while trying to lose weight (burn fat): what you eat on a daily basis should not make you feel lightheaded, listless, "spacey", tired, irritable, quick to anger, or depressed. And it should never (NEVER!) make your heart race, produce dizziness when you suddenly stand up or put little black dots into your vision. If you experience any of these symptoms, you must see a doctor immediately.

You should also not experience intense cravings while losing weight (burning fat). It is no wonder your body produces cravings when you attempt to stay on a diet very long.

Cravings are a natural reaction to starvation.

Mother nature created cravings as a warning that your normal existence is threatened. If you are experiencing cravings, your diet is not balanced and the chemicals in your brain, which regulate mood and proper brain function (and a lot of other body functions), are unevenly regulated and distributed. Some of my clients even claim temporary insanity after spending several months on a diet!

This can be your #1 clue that your food plan is not serving you properly.

Let’s look at some of the current, popular ways of dieting and why they don’t work. Some of the information may be shocking and disturbing. Still, it is important to understand the unintentional harm you may cause to yourself.

The high protein diet is enjoying the most popularity. Again. It was popular in the 60s; at that time I was about 13 and living in Texas. My mother, my sisters and I tried the diet one hot summer. We ate endless amounts of eggs, tuna and turkey. And we sat around staring listlessly at the TV or at each other. We didn't have an ounce of energy to do anything! High protein leeches glycogen from your system – the result is low energy, fatigue, sleeplessness, mental confusion, fainting, even convulsions. In fact, that summer was probably the first time I fainted while on a diet but it certainly wasn't the last.

At any rate, we lost weight. We gained it back. And we wasted an entire summer when we should have been having fun and enjoying our lives. What is worse, that was the beginning of the search for the Perfect Diet, a quest that would torment each of us for a very long time. You can imagine how surprised I was when the diet made a "comeback" a few years ago.

The high protein diet didn't work in the 60s, and it's not going to work now.

A high protein plan shares a common component with other diets -- it severely restricts food intake and variety. But that's not the worst part.

All over America, men and women (but especially women) are dying of massive heart attacks on a daily basis after losing weight on high protein diets. My brother-in-law, who is an emergency room physician, recently had three women under the age of 52 die in his hands after attempts at heart resuscitation during a ten-day period. All had recently lost weight on high protein diets.

How does this happen? Carbohydrates (bread, pasta, rice, grains, vegetables and fruits) are the element of our diet that gives us energy. Your body can store energy producing glycogen, which it gets from carbohydrates. And when there is no glycogen, it is true that your body will burn fat. But, because your body is a fantastic life-affirming entity, it has special methods for preserving body fat to prevent starvation, thus keeping you alive longer when you are without food. For this reason, your body will only burn a small amount of fat before it stops using fat as an energy source.

Then it turns to the other possibilities. First, your body burns off water; then it turns to muscle tissue (which is what determines your metabolism in the first place); then it proceeds to interstitial (connective tissue, cartilage) and smooth muscle tissue in the body; then on to organ tissue -- kidneys, heart and liver are the first to be used. This process is called catabolism, or tissue wasting. It is dangerous and deadly.

On high protein diets, the first sign of catabolism is ketosis, noticeable in a bitter, unnatural smell to the urine. (This smell is from the waste products of your body burning itself for fuel.) This waste also backs up into your bloodstream, threatening uremic poisoning. The gastrointestinal tract is also attacked. Irritable bowel syndrome usually occurs first, with malabsorption (inability of the body to absorb nutrients) following closely after that. Finally, colon disease can result.

In addition, various glands (thyroid, thymus, pineal) are put under great stress, and their ability to regulate the body diminishes. Eventually, melatonin and serotonin are not produced, severely diminishing the dieter's ability to function normally and maintain energy.

On top of all these factors, most of the weight lost on a high protein diet is actually WATER. Yes, water. If anyone doubts they can burn 30-40 pounds of water from their system (especially when the body is desperately trying to rid itself of poison threatening to back up into their bloodstream), think about this fact: a gallon of water weighs 8 pounds. You have approximately 12 of these in your system. Add it up. That's 96 pounds of water. And you may carry considerably more if your weight is high.

Low fat diets were hugely popular in the 90s. If they had been successful for dieters, they would still be popular. But they are not. Why? Low fat diets failed even more miserably than any diet to precede it! Where most diets may have a 5% success rate (the successes actually come with adopting a healthier lifestyle WITH exercise, not staying on the diet forever), low fat diets only worked 3% of the time. (Success is measured two years later with the dieter keeping the weight off.)

Low fat diets sparked a myriad of new items on your grocery shelves. In addition, food manufacturers made a lot of money from these new items. Many of your favorite foods may have appeared in new "lite" or low fat versions. If you actually read the labels, you might be surprised to find that many low fat foods actually had more calories in them than the regular items. This was often true with peanut butter, snacks, cookies, muffins and the like, because a lot of extra sugar was added to make up for the flavor lost when fat was cut from the product. 

An interesting thing happened when low fat diets didn't work and dieters got tired of calculating fat percentages. Sales for the low fat foods diminished. What did many manufacturers do? They either abandoned previously popular items or started adding fat back into the product to make them more flavorful and to increase sales.

Who can forget all the bagel eaters who popped up during low fat's heyday? It was not unusual in those days to see people eat 3 or 4 bagels a day, happily crunching on them throughout the day in the misconception that they were not cheating on their diets. Most bagels are about 400 calories!

Low-fat diet followers easily could have been consuming their entire caloric allotment for the day on these "harmless" snacks. No wonder they never lost weight!

Why does a low fat diet fail more miserably than others? As I stated earlier in this article, only limited amounts of fat are necessary for the body’s perception of survival and balance. In addition, the body’s use of fat determines the satisfaction level a person receives from the food they eat. It also is vital to the production of hormones, the assimilation of fat-soluble vitamins, the functioning of the brain, and the creation and repair of cells.

A high carb diet boasts lots of starches and "energy" food -- potatoes, breads, pastas, grains and rice. Although the body definitely needs carbohydrates for energy and proper functioning, there are a few problems inherent in this approach.

Carbs tend to have more calories than other foods. Although this diet gets points for high fiber content, too many starchy carbs can have an ill effect on blood sugar levels. This affects mood and brain functioning, as well as the way the body produces and protects body fat. In fact, a high carb diet is known to actually prevent the body from burning fat for fuel. This is the reason so many people on high carb diets lose weight for a very short period of time -- and then pack on fat at alarming rates. The only weight they were losing came at the expense of valuable muscle.

You may not have heard much about the high carb diet. That's because it hasn’t made a reappearance since the 80s. But watch out! Like high protein, it may be on its way back, especially if it can make money for the diet industry.

Another large segment of the diet industry, and perhaps the most profitable segment, is weight loss supplements. These products usually claim to be "natural." The term "natural" means only that they do not contain controlled substances. However, this does not equate with being safe or effective.

I caution consumers to avoid any products advertised with certain key words used by the diet industry: "Quick", "natural", "magic", "miracle", "effortless", "fat blaster" and "fat melting." Products that promise "no exercise", "rapid weight loss" and "used for centuries" should also be avoided. The words "used for centuries" are usually followed by words describing another part of the world but, believe me, if something had been used for centuries for weight loss in any part of the world, we would know about it in today's information age. It simply could not have remained a secret.

How can "natural" products stay on the market if they don't deliver what they promise? Actually, they don't stay. They come and go like the moon at night. They undergo very little testing. They only have to show that a certain percentage of the people "tested" lost weight using the product and that is easily controllable by other means (ever notice how they add "while following a sensible diet and exercise plan" in small print?). They stay around long enough to make money and they disappear. The consumer stays overweight and remains a prime target for their next product. It's a perfect setup, except that the user is the loser. In time, the consumer loses not just money but more vital things like confidence, motivation and belief in their ability to lose weight.

Another angle used in advertising is the time promise: "Lose 10 pounds in 10 days" and "the 21-day diet" are examples. A current advertising ploy is having a spokesperson claim a certain result in a certain time period: "I lost 20 pounds in two weeks." The claim itself is completely unspecific – it can't be proven or disproved – and it certainly wasn't 20 pounds of fat that was lost.

Here is the rule on time:

Here's another ruse: the before and after bikini pictures. Have you seen those pictures of very overweight women in bikinis who are suddenly transformed into bodybuilder physiques? Think about it. Would they actually take pictures of themselves in bikinis if that was their true shape? Most of them have taken enormous amounts of salt, water and carbs (and perhaps even more restricted substances like steriods) to puff up their bodies. Then, they pose in such a way that their posture is bad and their stomachs are completely distended. Their skin is also white and pale. The miracle six-weeks-later picture may truly be six weeks later. The fluid retention is gone. They are suddenly tanned and have enormous amounts of makeup accentuating their muscles. Don't be fooled by these tactics.

Permanent weight loss must come from burning fat plus preserving and building muscle. The key to fat loss is understanding and boosting the metabolism and most diets destroy the metabolism.

The diet industry is full of promises and "natural" remedies. Their products leech money, confidence and control from the consumer.

There is no denying that weight loss is hard work. I never try to put a pretty face on that fact when I work with clients on a weight management program. But true, permanent weight loss, which is fat loss, can be achieved. The bottom line and the first lesson to learn is this: