The Weight Loss Debacle

People have talked to me about all sorts of weight loss plans; a cookie diet, the lemon juice/cayenne pepper/maple syrup concoction, the infamous low carb diet, and of course the general ‘don’t eat’ diet just to name a few. If people want to try these weight loss methods, it’s their choice. What angers me is when people ask me for my help and refuse to listen because they insist they’re way better than mine.

The public likes to complicate things. Eating should be easy, NOT complicated. Michael Pollen said it best, “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” See. It’s SIMPLE.

An adult male recently asked me how he could lose weight. I love counseling people so I asked him what he ate for breakfast. Here is a short dialogue of our conversation:

“I ate a strawberry scone.”

“Well, that is probably the beginning of your problems.”

“Why? What’s wrong with a strawberry scone?”

“Maybe because those are empty calories. MAYBE because a strawberry scone is made up of fat and sugar.”

“But isn’t that good?”

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!? “How would that be good?”

“You don’t understand, that’s all I ate, and then I worked out.”

“But it does NOT benefit your body in anyway.”

“No you don’t understand; that’s all I’m going to eat ALL day.”

“No, YOU do not understand. Are you going to continually starve yourself everyday for the rest of your life? Could you live on one strawberry scone every day? NO. And once you start eating again, you are going to put on all the weight you lost.”

“No I won’t, because I’m exercising.”

“We need to stop talking about this. Enjoy starving yourself for the next couple of days.”

This conversation was going nowhere. People should not ask me for help when they already have their heart set on their own genius ideas. When wanting to get your weight under control, you need to be willing to look at the bigger picture.

There are two basic problems with starving yourself. The one people seem to be the most concerned with is the fact that it decreases your resting (or basal) metabolic rate (RMR). Your RMR represents the energy required to carry out normal functions such as breathing, blood flow, ion transport, and other automatic bodily functions (this does not include calories burnt from any physical activity). An adult male’s RMR is about 1800 calories and an adult female is about 1300 calories. RMR accounts for about 60% of your calories burned each day (Thanks Lippencott).

How does starving yourself lower your RMR? When you starve yourself, your body immediately begins to break down fat, protein, and glycogen (fuel stores). During the first few days of starving yourself, your muscle starts to break down so that it can use amino acids/proteins as a fuel source. Obviously, this break down of muscle leads to a decrease in muscle mass which consequently decreases your RMR. So you’re starving yourself for a week, muscle has broken down, you’re also burning some fat, but your cells are craving energy. This is when your body tells you that you are FAMISHED and you end up gaining all that weight back in straight up FAT. How attractive.

Moral of the story: Increase in lean body mass will lead to an increase in RMR which means you will burn more calories throughout the day just by living. When you starve yourself sporadically, you do break down some fat, but you are also losing muscle at the same time, decreasing the amount of calories you burn just from living.

NOT the moral of the story: Starve yourself and exercise to keep your lean body mass. LOL. It's sad how people think this way. But hopefully you do not.

The other reason starving yourself may hurt you is because you are not taking in an appropriate amount of vitamins, minerals, and macronutrients. Is this not the most OBVIOUS reason to eat? Starving yourself does not provide you with all the nutrients essential to live an optimal life, and I’m all about living an optimal life. Unfortunately, a lot of the time weight loss has nothing to do with health and a lot to do with social pressure. People don’t care how they lose weight as long as it’s fast and easy.

I am not an advocate of diets. People should have a healthy lifestyle, which will result in weight loss. Yes, this weight loss may be slow, but you will not gain it back. Not to mention it will also prevent diseases later on in life.

So here’s a quick fix for that young man that asked me for help. The scone was approximately 400 calories. If you wanted to eat a 400 calorie breakfast, you could eat an apple, 2 egg omelet (without cheese, I put veggies in my omelets), and a whole wheat English muffin (watch the calorie content of your bread as well as what you put on it). A high protein high fiber breakfast will keep you the most full throughout the day.

The Vegetarian Paradox

Numerous studies have shown that a plant based vegetarian diet will provide you with optimal health. People are vegetarians for various reasons. Some people want to save the planet, some people want to save the animals, some people think meat is gross and some people want to live a healthy lifestyle.

During Spring break I had an early dinner with some fellow vegetarians at a restaurant in Scottsdale called Culinary Dropout. The restaurant has American food and describes itself as publike with 2/3 of the menu being dedicated to alcohol. The remaining 1/3 of the menu had few vegetarian options. I had the choice of sides of vegetables, sides of cheese, a couple salads, a pasta dish, or a grilled cheese sandwich. When the waiter arrived, he announced that the soup of the day was a curry soup. I LOVE CURRY. The waiter informed us that there was no meat in the soup, but it did contain chicken stock. I decided that chicken stock was less violating than cheese, white bread, or white pasta and more delicious than a salad. I told the waiter I would like the soup. The reaction at the table was far from accepting. By the reaction I received, you might have thought I had ordered raw pig intestines.

Why I chose the soup: I am a firm believer in trying to preserve the environment and treat animals kindly. God provides these things for our enjoyment, and I don't think it's appropriate for people to abuse God's creations. However, I am foremost a vegetarian for health purposes. So unless the chicken's bones were extrapolated from them while they were still living, I do not have a problem with eating soup made with chicken stock once in a while; especially when the alternative 'vegetarian' choices are substandard.

One of my friends at the table ordered a salad with a side of beets. Yes. This probably was the lowest calorie meal. (I am in no way saying that the lower the calories, the healthier the meal.) My other two friends ordered a grilled cheese sandwich (with white bread) and fries.. a GREAT vegetarian meal.

Grilled Cheese:

French Fries

This is what I ordered:

Curry Soup:

Aspargus (side order) :

Hopefully you evaluated the nutrition facts and decided which of these two meals was the healthier choice. If you noticed that the curry has saturated fat, you should know that it comes from coconut. Coconut fat is composed of medium chain saturated fatty acids and gets metabolized differently than the long chain fatty acids found in french fries, other processed foods, and meats, making it less harmful to your system. However, you still should not eat coconut milk/oil as a free food because it is still a saturated fat and can be detrimental to your vascular system if abused.

Why did I receive such a negative overreaction? Knowing these friends of mine, they were not concerned about the environment or animal rights.
Many people I know are vegetarians because of their upbringing. Some people lack the ability to reason with what is healthy and what is not because of their bias against meat.The mind set of these individuals is that meat is 'disgusting' so they would rather their health suffer than ever think about eating meat. I find this reasoning slightly juvenile.

My point is this: A vegetarian diet has shown an abundance of health benefits. The reason this post is entitled 'The Vegetarian Paradox' is because there are many 'vegetarians' who believe they are healthy because they label themselves as vegetarians. WRONG. It is possible for a meat eater to be healthier than a vegetarian. Someone who eats primarily vegetables, whole grains, fruits, legumes, and white meat occasionally, is far better off than a vegetarian that eats white rice, chips, cheese, ice cream, french fries, and other processed foods.

Keep this in mind: I am not advocating meat consumption. Having a plant based diet and the ability to reason is the best way to ensure optimal health. If you choose to have strict dietary beliefs, know why. In my opinion, the most logical reason to be a vegetarian is to provide yourself with optimal health; the other benefits, such as helping the environment and being kind to animals are just an added bonus.

Nutrition Idiocracy

Hi! My name is Carolyn. I am a graduate student at Loma Linda University in the nutrition/dietetics program.







The job of a dietitian is essential to society. The job of a dietitian is to ensure optimal health by means of a healthy diet. And when I say diet, I mean healthy eating practices carried out EVERYDAY throughout your life, not some type of cockamamie plan to starve yourself for a number of days.

Let me give you a little background information: I LOVE NUTRITION. It seems as if most conversations I have reference food in some way. I like discussing health tips, nutrition facts, and and calculating nutrients. I love helping people discover new ways to be healthy. Learning new healthy recipes is always exciting too. Sometimes, I even read labels for entertainment. Most of all, I LOVE metabolic pathways. Learning how the body uses the food we eat to create energy, prevent disease, or cause disease is fascinating.
Misinformation seems to be a common trend. People don't know what to eat because everyday it's something new. Don't eat fat. Don't eat carbs. 100 calorie snacks! AWESOME! This is just the beginning of how backwards people view food.
The purpose of this blog is to expose the misguided thoughts that people have regarding nutrition. Sometimes I get incredibly frustrated because of how unreasonable people can be. If I ever seem slightly irritated, it's because I am. Everyone knows everything about nutrition. I'm guessing that this is why 2/3 of Americans are considered overweight (according to BMI). I am constantly hearing new and exciting facts people read out of magazines like Cosmo and Men's Health. Well, I lost respect for Men's Health when I read an article recommending avoiding broccoli and eating pork. As for Cosmo, who has ever respected that magazine? If you're relying on a magazine with the latest 658 sex tricks to teach you about how to be healthy, this blog is not for you.

Enjoy.