Diet plans

Current diet plans

This week I wanted to touch a little upon some current diet plans. By no means could I touch upon all of them since there are literally hundreds.

As a Personal Trainer it is my duty to coach my clients in proper nutrition. After all I can train them to success but if they go home and eat three pizzas a night they will never see true results.

I do need to state to you all that while I am very knowledgeable about nutrition I am NOT a certified nutritionist or dietician. We all need to protect our liability. Please take any of my advice and confer with your doctor or nutritional expert.

Weight Watchers:
All and all the best diet plan I have seen and the one that all of my clients have seen success with. It is also the one I see the longest weight loss with.
Pros:
1) Actually teach their members how to eat and match foods.
2) Great meeting support system.
3) Great website loaded with great recipes and support channels to help your success.
4) Allows one to eat normally (within a point range) thus boosting acceptance to new eating patterns.

Cons:
1) Their packaged food is very high in sodium and even Weight Watchers admits this and states to use their food in moderation.

South Beach:
Many have had success with this program but not as much success long term like the Weight Watcher approach.
Pros:
1) Attempts to teach its members about food sources and nutrition.
2) Great website with many tools to help you succeed.

Cons:
1) Expects its members to eat from their packaged food (most times). In my opinion the food is way too high in sodium and once one stops eating the pre-packaged food they are left with the possibility of eating wrong again and misjudging portions.
2) Food from them is expensive over the long haul. Take that money and use it for a gym membership and you will see more permanent weight loss.
3) A high percentage of clients regain their weight after 2 years. Some even more then when they started.

Atkins:
Based on a low-carb diet and this diet scares me very much. It forces you to eat more protein sources then most older people can handle due to liver and kidney issues. I DO NOT recommend this diet for anyone. Your body needs carbs. In fact the recommendation is 150 grams of carbs a day and optimally up to 350 grams a day. Your muscles use carbs as their primary energy source (glucose break-down) and this diet limits your energy for muscle growth.
Pros:
1) People do lose weight on this diet – especially in the first 1-2 months but then it slows and success rates start to falter.
2) It is rather easy to follow and makes eating more pleasurable. In this diet meats are good.

Cons:
1) Very risky for a big slice of the population. Could cause health issues.
2) Does a poor job at teaching “correct” eating habits.
3) In my opinion is based on pseudo-science. Yes, you will lose weight limiting carbs but the potential health risks far out weigh the diets pluses.


Lets do Lunch:
This is a new diet one of clients has started and it really has some appeal to it. Though I have not researched it enough to give an opinion on it yet. I do like what I have seen and read about it. Plus my client is loosing a phenomenal amount of weight with it in a very healthy way. I will report on it later when I feel more comfortable with its success.

Grapefruit, Pineapple, Cabbage soup, Mickey Mouse surprise:
Please if you are doing any of these crazy un-sound diets please stop. Yes you will loose weight in the first two weeks or so because of their nature but these diets are silly and over time you will only do you body harm.
P.S. No there is no Mickey Mouse surprise diet but I thought I would throw it in because the other diets are just as silly.

I am sure I will see rebuttal about how some of these diets did work for some of you. But whenever I hear that I always ask about the exercise routine, the healthier habits they started while dieting, etc. In must all cases it is these other changes that truly made the difference.

The point is if you just watch what you eat, eat a variety of foods, and keep a food log all of you (except in rare cases) will see weight loss.

The reason you always hear this same message for all of these years is because it WORKS.

As always - I am available for personal training either in person (if in NJ) or over the web. If you feel you have stalled in your pursuit of fitness and need some expert knowledge to get you on track reach out to me.

Regards,

Eddie Camaroto CPT

Perfect You LLC